When puberty first discovered Byllye Avery, it treated her kindly. Despite her ignorance about sex, Avery avoided becoming a statistic on teenage pregnancy.

"I first got my period at 12. My momma looked at me and said 'Ummhmmm, it's here.' The birth control method my mother used was, 'If you get pregnant, I'll kill you.' It worked for me," Avery said.

Avery, now a leader in the black women's health movement, fits into a steadily shrinking percentage of girls who leave adolescence without getting pregnant.

As more and more girls explore intercourse at younger ages, teenage pregnancy rates steadily escalate, Avery said. Such rates reflect a lack of communication between parents and their children and society's reluctance to educate its youth about sex issues, she said.

Avery talked about early sex and teenage pregnancy at last weekend's feminist conference, drawing about 200 people to the HUB Fishbowl Saturday morning. Avery founded the National Black Women's Health Project in Atlanta, in 1981 to address the health concerns unique to black women.

Avery blamed the lack of information about intercourse on society's "conspiracy of silence." More parents need to overcome their reluctance to talk to their children about sex to turn the trend of teenage motherhood, Avery said.

"We're not talking about real complex issues, about how to send a rocket to the moon or how to walk in space, or even how to make a dishwasher run," Avery said. "Seven thousand teens are getting pregnant everyday. Can you imagine how many are having intercourse? It must be four million. 'Just Say No' programs are very ineffective."

After the speech, Mary Stenger, a State College resident and mother, said she agreed.

"One of the most important aspects of parenting both daughters and sons is honest communication. Keep that door open," Stenger said.

Surviving childhood and puberty with few battle scars, Avery went on to mother two children of her own, Sonja and Wesley, and strives to communicate about sex.

Parents must share their own experiences and talk honestly and openly with their children to prepare them for their own sexual lives, she said.

Avery uses her interaction with her daughter to illustrate her point.

"How do you want to walk the road of life? Pregnant? Barefoot? In a pair of flip-flops?" she asked her daughter when Sonja asked about becoming sexually active. "When we become mothers too early, then we are mothers for too long. Motherhood is wonderful, but there are other things out there."

Audience members praised Avery for her work for black women.

"Her goals for us as individuals were very realistic," said Michelle Wileczek (senior-general arts and sciences).