Should I or Shouldn’t I?
Kevin and Kay had dated for three weeks and were going further and further in physically expressing their affection for each other. They had held hands, kissed, and embraced on their first date, but they had gone far beyond that since then. The first week their hands had stayed above the waist. The second week they had gone below the waist, but outside their clothes.
This week their hands were inside each other’s clothes, and they found themselves more and more frustrated. They talked about it together. The first week Kevin had said, “Everyone pets.” Kay hardly even questioned that. This week Kevin was saying, “Everyone has sex.”
Kay found herself wanting it too. She came home from every date sexually aroused, asking herself, “Should I or shouldn’t I?”
The question became more difficult when she and Kevin began having orgasms during their petting. Kevin said, “We really care for each other, and we aren’t being promiscuous.”
Kay wondered, “Since we have done ‘everything’ together, what difference does it make if we have intercourse? Should we or shouldn’t we?”
How Far Can We Go?
Kevin and Kay, along with many other adolescents, are wrestling with questions that hardly existed a hundred or more years ago. Premarital sex was still generally considered wrong, but sexual desires were present when adolescence was invented. Dating, a new courtship behavior, was developed. Petting (physical contact intended to cause sexual arousal but not followed by intercourse) became an accepted and expected part of courtship by the 1920s.
There are no standard definitions of petting. Some people try to make distinctions relating to how far the couple goes. They use terms such as necking, light petting, medium petting, and heavy petting, but there is little agreement on what the terms mean. Since petting can include anything except putting the penis into the vagina, some people call heavy petters “technical virgins.” That is, they are virgins, but only technically, because they are very experienced sexually. Others call them “promiscuous virgins.” The French call them demi-vierges (half-virgins).
Since there are no standard definitions of petting, we have little data about the various activities that actually occur. Surveys do show that at least nine out of ten adolescents are involved in some kind of petting, and over half pet to orgasm before they marry. Although more men than women used to be involved in petting, today the percentages are about the same.
Sociologists Ira Robinson and Davor Jedlicka (“Change in Sexual Attitudes and Behavior of College Students from 1965 to 1980: A Research Note, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1982, 44, pp. 237-240) at the University of Georgia did a series of surveys in 1965, 1970, 1975, and 1980. They asked college students whether or not they engaged in light, medium, or heavy petting. Light and medium petting decreased over the years among both men and women, but they did not stop petting. Heavy petting increased from 71% in 1965 to 85% in 1980 for men, and from 34% in 1965 to 73% in 1980 for women.
Petting has become generally accepted where strong affection exists. However, it is also becoming more accepted even where there is little affection. In 1959 only 18% of the women and 34% of the men approved if no strong affection existed. By 1972, 30% of the women and 68% of the men approved (Morton Hunt, Sexual Behavior in the 1970s, Dell). That is, people do not have even to really like each other to pet. It is just another activity on a date, like watching a movie or bowling.
Dr. Aaron Hass of the Department of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine, surveyed more than 600 teenagers between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Among the men 98% believed in was okay for someone their age to touch a woman’s breasts, and among the women 91 % thought it was okay to let a man touch her breasts. Furthermore, 44% of the men and 18% of the women would want to on the first or second date, and an additional 18% of the men and 24% of the women would want to do so within the first two weeks (Teenage Sexuality, Macmillan). That is, about half would begin petting within the first two weeks of their acquaintance.
What does the Bible say? As you might expect, when we turn to find what the Bible says about petting, we find nothing. In Bible times people could marry at puberty, so sexual contact of any kind before marriage was rare. In addition, petting was not a part of courtship. Caressing another person’s body was part of marital sex.
Out of fear Isaac had told King Abimelech that Rebekah was his sister instead of his wife. “When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, ‘She is really your wife! Why did you say, “She is my sister”?’” (Gen. 26:8-9) The King James Version says they were “sporting.” The Living Bible says they were “petting.”
Whatever they were doing, Abimelech’s response is most interesting. Seeing them fondling each other, he immediately came to the conclusion that they were married. Today, if you looked out the window and saw two people caressing in the bushes, would you think they were married? Probably not.
What do Christians say? Since the Bible does not say anything specific about petting, Christians hold a wide variety of opinions about what is acceptable. These range from no physical contact at all to anything short of intercourse. Some Christian high schools do not permit dating. Their official policy is no physical contact until the students have graduated at eighteen. Other people list things single people can do on dates and include everything up through petting to orgasm.
In Sexual Understanding Before Marriage (Zondervan), Herbert Miles noted that adolescents often try to distinguish between holding hands and “relatively unstimulating kissing and embracing” (p. 63). He said that not only is heavy petting unacceptable, but that there is no such thing as unstimulating kissing and embracing. These are sexually stimulating, and usually lead to more sexual activity—to petting and even to intercourse.
In Sex for Christians (Eerdmans) Fuller Theological Seminary professor Lewis Smedes has a chapter titled, “Responsible Petting.” He says, “Petting can be a delicately tuned means of mutual discovery.” It can be a “process in which two people explore each other’s feelings.” In it “communication can take place that conveys personal closeness and sharing.” Petting can be an adventure in personal understanding and intimacy” (pp. 151-152). Of course, Smedes recognizes that this seldom happens. When adolescents pet, it is not usually at such a sensitive level.
As we found in the last chapter, when the Bible says nothing about those aspects of sexual behavior increased by the invention of adolescence, Christians have widely varying views. Now we will consider actual sexual intercourse by adolescents.
Is It Really That Bad?
Our society has responded to the problem of sexual frustration created by adolescence by saying that there is no need to remain sexually frustrated. Premarital intercourse has become common among both men and women. As one teen put it, “Chastity has no more value than malnutrition.” Another said, “Chaste makes waste.” Still another said, “Use it or lose it.”
Catherine Chilman did an extensive review of studies on adolescent sexuality in the United States for the federal government (Adolescent Sexuality in a Changing American Society: Social and Psychological Perspectives, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Publication No. 80-1426). She found that between 1925 and 1965 about 25% of the men and 10% of the women had had intercourse by the time they were seniors in high school. By the end of college about 55% of the men and 25% of the women had had intercourse.
Then came the drastic changes of the late 1960s, and the sexual double standard was nearly erased. By the mid 1970s about 35% of both men and women had had intercourse before they graduated from high school. About 85% of the men and 60-70% of the women did before graduating from college. She concluded that in less than a decade there was a 50% increase among men and a 300% increase among women!
Using a carefully drawn national probability sample, Melvin Zelnik, Young Kim, and John Kantner of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health (“Probabilities of Intercourse and Conception Among U. S. Teenage Women, 1971 and 1976,” Family Planning Perspectives, 1979, 11, pp. 177-183) found that by 1976 about one unmarried teenager in five became pregnant before she turned nineteen. These adolescents are not becoming pregnant without sexual intercourse.
You may say, “Is it really that bad? Surveys are of what people say they do, not observations of what they actually do. Maybe this increase is just more talk, not more sex.” Other, more objective evidence also indicates that premarital sexual activity has increased dramatically in recent years.
In 1940 only one child in twenty-nine was born to an unmarried woman. Today one child in every six is born without a legal father. Between 1965 and 1975 alone the illegitimate birth rate increased by more than 50% for teenagers. This was in spite of the fact that contraception became more available and more reliable—and abortion was legalized.
Of course, we must add to those illegitimacy rates the fact that about a third of the births to teenage wives are conceived before marriage, so they are not reported as illegitimate. We really do not know much about the incidence of abortion before 1973. We do know that today for every 100 children born alive to unmarried women there are about 66 abortions. These fetuses are not reported as illegitimate births, so we also have to add them to the illegitimacy rates.
Finally, we must add sexually transmitted diseases. The most common “specified reportable disease” today is not chicken pox or strep throat. It is gonorrhea. With the discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics in the 1940s, many people believed that venereal diseases would be stamped out within a generation or two. That was not the case. Gonorrhea has increased dramatically and is now reported five times as often as chicken pox.
Chlamydia, another venereal disease which is often misdiagnosed and is sometimes symptom-free, may infect five times as many people as gonorrhea. By the 1980s genital herpes had taken the limelight. Since it is not a “specified reportable disease,” no one is sure how many people have it. The Center for Disease Control estimates that about 20 million Americans do, and there is no cure for it. These millions of people are not catching such diseases from toilet seats. They are having sexual intercourse.
What does the Bible say? The Bible says remarkably little about premarital sex. We must remember that it was not much of a problem in times when people could marry at puberty. The Bible discusses adultery at length and even prohibits it in the Ten Commandments. If people were having sexual intercourse outside marriage, it was much more likely to be adultery than premarital sex.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. (Gen. 39:6-10)
Joseph was “a young man of seventeen” (Gen. 37:2) when he dreamed about his brothers bowing down to him. Soon after that he was sold into slavery. Although he was about the ideal age for marriage, he was still unmarried. Notice that he told Potiphar’s wife it would be “a wicked thing” and a “sin against God” for him, an unmarried young man, to go to bed with her.
If a young woman was not a virgin when she married, she could be stoned. “She shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you” (Deut. 22:21). Thus, it was “disgraceful” or “evil” for a woman to have sexual intercourse before she married.
In the New Testament the words “fornication” or “immorality” are sometimes used to refer to premarital sex. The Greek word is porneia and refers to intercourse with prostitutes (especially temple prostitutes) and with a variety of partners. Fornication includes not only premarital sex, but any sexual relationship outside marriage. We must not assume that every time the word occurs it refers to premarital sex, because it refers to adultery as well. But in three passages (Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21; and 1 Cor. 6:9) it is used with adultery, indicating a difference between the two. Like the Old Testament, the New Testament says relatively little about premarital sex, but enough to indicate that it is wrong.
Best of Friends!
At one time people in our culture generally believed that homosexual behavior was sinful. Then we passed laws against it and made it criminal. Then mental health professionals decided that it was a mental illness. Finally in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association decided that it was not an illness, just an alternative lifestyle.
While people are engaging in premarital sex much more, they are talking about homosexual behavior more. We even have a new, generally accepted, better sounding word for it—“gay.” With all the publicity about the gay rights movement, one might think that the number of people with homosexual experiences is increasing. However, that number has remained about the same or even decreased during the last forty years.
Around 1950 Alfred Kinsey and his associates (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Saunders; and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Saunders) reported that about 37% of the men and 9% of the women had some homosexual experience by the age of twenty. However, a recent reanalysis of his data showed that he had overestimated the percentage of people involved.
More recent studies have found much lower percentages. In her study for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Catherine Chillman concluded that only about 10% of adolescent men and 5% of adolescent women have homosexual relations at least once during their teen years.
Whatever the percentages, it does occur, especially during adolescence. If people have a homosexual experience, chances are two out of three that they will have it before they are fifteen years old. Early-maturing men are twice as likely to have homosexual experiences as are late-maturing men, and their frequency remains twice as high.
We must consider the possibility that with our invention of adolescence, we have created a situation that encourages homosexual activity. We take persons at the height of their sexual desire and tell them that they cannot marry. We take two sexually frustrated individuals of the same sex who are not sure of their identity and ask them to share the same dormitory room. We ask individuals of the same sex to take showers together after physical education classes. Then we express surprise, shock, and disgust if they re sexually attracted to each other.
As with premarital sex, the Bible does not dwell at length on homosexual behavior. However, both the Old and New Testaments prohibit it. “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman, that is detestable” (Lev. 18:22). “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads” (Lev. 20:13).
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. (Rom. 1:26-27)
All in the Family!
Sometimes sexual activity is with other members of the family instead of with unrelated friends. The media have been giving incest more publicity lately, but it is still apparently relatively rare. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud at first thought it occurred frequently, then he concluded that the seductions his patients reported had not really occurred but had been imagined. Sex researcher Alfred Kinsey concluded more frequently in the thinking of counselors than in actual fact.
Listening to the media, one would think that incest is usually a matter of an adult male (father, stepfather, or uncle) seducing a female child or adolescent. The fact is that incest occurs much more often between cousins or between brothers and sisters. Sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson (“Incest: The Ultimate Sexual Taboo,” Redbook, April 1976 pp. 54-58) believe that incest between adolescents is about five times as common as incest between children and adults. Between adolescents it seems to be less damaging, so it is less likely to be reported, even though it is far more common.
Sex researcher Morton Hunt found that intercourse with fathers, mothers, stepfathers, stepmothers, aunts, uncles, and so forth was reported by only 0.5% of the people or less. That is, only one in 200 or less reported sexual experience with an adult relative. However 3.6% of the women reported sex with their brothers, and 3.8% of the men reported sex with their sisters. Among women 3.2% reported intercourse with a male cousin, and 9.2% of the men reported it with female cousins. Since our culture will not allow normal married sexual relations, some adolescents turn to family members of the same age, other sexually frustrated adolescents.
Although the Bible does not have many passages on incest, the ones in Leviticus 18 and 20 are very specific. They list all of the relatives with whom one should not have sexual relations. “No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord” (Lev. 18:6). “Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere” (Lev. 18:9). “If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They must be cut off before the eyes of their people. He has dishonored his sister and will be held responsible” (Lev. 20: 17).
A well-known case of incest (and rape) in the Bible occurred in the family of King David. Amnon tricked his sister Tamar into being alone with him, then “he grabbed her and said, ‘Come to bed with me, my sister.”
“‘Don’t, my brother!’ she said to him. ‘Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing’” (2 Sam. 13:1l-12). He would not listen to her. Later, their brother Absalom had him killed for what he had done.
What Can Parents Do?
As you read the percentage of teens involved in sexual activity before marriage, you may say, “Is there any hope? Can we do anything to see that our teenagers are in the 20% that wait until marriage?” Yes, there is hope. Furthermore, you are probably already doing what is most likely to help your teens remain virgins.
In his article “Premarital Sexual Behavior and Religious Adolescents” Timothy Woodroof (Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1985,24, pp. 343-366) pointed out that during the last forty years every study (with one exception) has found that the more religious adolescents are, the less likely they are to have premarital sex. He concluded that religion was one of the most consistent and powerful experiences on adolescent sexual behavior. Even such a simple thing as church attendance was related—the more often teenagers attended church, the less likely they were to be sexually active.
Not only should you encourage your teens to attend church, but you should also encourage them to “internalize” their religion. They need to make a personal commitment to Christ. This is no guarantee that your teen will remain chaste, but it is a giant step in the right direction. Now let us consider some specific steps you can take regarding the topics discussed in this chapter.
What about petting? You should talk about petting with your adolescents before they begin to date. When they start dating, they are likely to begin expressing their feelings physically. Wanting to express those feelings in marriage is normal. However, our culture has invented dating in place of marriage for teenagers. Earlier in the chapter we saw that about half the teens wanted to start petting within the first two weeks. If you wait until after the first date, you may have waited too long.
Jay said, “I can’t get married, and I don’t believe sex before marriage is right, so I figure petting is the best way to get rid of my frustrations.” The truth is exactly the opposite. When petting takes place by married couples, it is called “foreplay.” Caressing another person’s body is a natural prelude to sexual intercourse. In her review for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Catherine Chilman found that people who pet but do not go on to intercourse are more restless and dissatisfied with their sex lives than are those who do not pet or those who have premarital intercourse. Since petting “naturally” leads to intercourse, petting alone only increases sexual frustration.
Help your adolescents reach some conclusions for themselves about what is acceptable and what is not. These decisions must be made before they find themselves in a sexually aroused state where they cannot think clearly. We simply talked with our teens about what they considered appropriate one step at a time. “Is it all right to hold hands?” “Is it all right to put your arm around the other person’s neck or shoulders?” “How about around the other person’s waist?” “How about touching a woman’s breasts?” and so on until we reached the limit.
A friend of ours had each of her daughters actually write down the parts of their bodies they would allow their dates to touch. Of course, she followed this with a discussion of what she believed was appropriate and why she believed what she did. Remember that there is seldom any backing up. Once a couple takes a step, they are very likely to go at least that far on the next date.
One young woman said to me, “Petting can ruin a good relationship.” She was right. Help your teens learn a variety of ways of showing affection—they will need them after they marry. Such things as a small gift or an unexpected note to the other person makes them feel special. A wink or a smile across the room may convey more affection than physical contact. Help them to realize that “everybody does it” is not a good argument.
What about premarital sex? Since the Bible does speak to the issue of premarital sex, you should take a stand on it. When talking with your adolescents, be scriptural about why they should avoid premarital sex. Too often parents give cultural reasons, such as pregnancy or disease, for avoiding sex before marriage. The Bible never mentions these.
Where it mentions sex outside marriage, the Bible talks about being holy. Leviticus 18-20 has extended passages on sexual sins, and in the middle of these are the following. “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy’” (Lev. 19:2). “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep My decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy” (Lev. 20:7-8). In the New Testament, Paul says, “It is God’s will that you should be holy; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable (1 Thes. 4:3-4).
Be sure that you and your adolescents agree that premarital sex is wrong. You cannot assume that they think so. A Gallup poll on May 18, 1975 showed that fewer than one of five college students believed hat it was “wrong for people to have sexual relations before marriage.” That percentage has remained relatively constant during the last ten years. Today about 80% of teenagers still think there is nothing wrong with sexual relations before marriage.
Gallup polls show that even parents are changing their positions on this. On September 14, 1969, 68% of the general public thought it was wrong. Less than four years later on August 2, 1973, only 48% thought it was wrong. A Roper poll reported in U. S. News & World Report (December 9, 1985) showed that the figure had dropped to 36% in the population as a whole. In fact, only 25% of people between 30 and 44 years of age thought it was wrong, and they are often the parents of teens. When parents do not believe that it is wrong, teens are more likely to do it.
Encourage your teens to avoid situations leading to temptation. Ask them where they are going on their dates. An unplanned date may lead to intercourse if the couple cannot think of something else to do. Double dating, with the right other couple, can keep physical intimacy at a minimum. Insist that they leave the doors to their rooms open when they are there. Intercourse sometimes takes place while the couple is listening to records in the bedroom, and the parents are in the living room watching television.
Be careful whom your teens date. A 1984 survey of students at the University of South Dakota showed that 48% of the women had been held, kissed, or fondled against their will on dates. In fact 20.6% said they had experienced “date rape”—they had been physically forced by a dating partner to have sexual intercourse. Tell your daughters that if they find themselves in such a situation, they should reach a phone if at all possible and you will pick them up immediately—any time, anywhere.
One other thing you can do is be at home when your adolescents are there. In their national sample, Zelnik and Kantnor (“Sexual and Contraceptive Experience of Young Unmarried Women in the United States, 1976 and 1971,” Family Planning Perspectives, 1977, 9, pp. 55-71) asked teenage girls where they had sexual intercourse. Parents typically think sex is taking place in a car, but that accounted for 6.1% of the times. Motels and hotels accounted for another 6.4%.
Nearly 75% of the sexual activity occurred at home. Twenty-three percent of it was in her home, and 51.2% was in his. As our culture has changed from a home with both parents home most of the time, to a home with the father gone at work but the mother home, to a home with both parents gone at work, the home has become the best place for an adolescent couple to be alone. If no one else is at home, adolescents should not be there alone. We always told our own adolescents that if they came home with their date and no one was there, they should not go in the house alone. This did not mean that we did not trust them, just that we recognized the strength of the temptation.
Probably the most difficult situation for any parent is the need to talk with an adolescent they know is sexually involved. Parents often feel angry and feel like rejecting such a teenager. After all, that “ungrateful kid” is bringing shame on the family. Parents should make every effort to reach these adolescents. Sexual sin can be forgiven just like any other sin.
While you must love and accept that teen, make it clear that you do not accept his or her behavior. Insist on no sexual intercourse at home. If you find contraceptives, do not insist that they be destroyed. You can destroy the birth control and make teens promise to stop having sex, but they will probably not stop. Your next problem will most likely be what to do about an unplanned pregnancy.
What about homosexuality? As parents, see that your adolescents realize that homosexual behavior is wrong, but do not overreact. Some people have developed “homophobia,” fear of homosexuality. The Bible deals with homosexual behavior as it does with fornication. It is wrong and we should not do it. Unfortunately, many Christian parents do not try to help their adolescents, but reject them. These adolescents are caught in a sin less socially acceptable than pride, gossip, or even premarital sex, but they need help rather than rejection.
Very hesitantly and with much embarrassment one college man said, “Three times I had an erection in the locker room after my P.E. class. I was so ashamed that I didn’t even take a shower. I think I’m ‘queer.’” I was able to assure him that adolescent men often have spontaneous erections, and if they have them when other men are around, they may wrongly define themselves as “gay.” Becoming sexually aroused in a locker room where naked persons of the same sex are present does not mean the adolescent is a “queer.” The temptations toward premarital sex, adultery, or homosexual behavior are all temptations to misuse one’s sexuality.
Help your teens avoid situations where temptation may arise. For example, when friends stay overnight, rather than have them sleep in a bed together, put separate sleeping bags on the floor. Talk with them about what to do if they are propositioned at school or in a public rest room.
With all this, do not make them fear same-sex friendships. There is nothing wrong with having friends. What is wrong is becoming sexually involved with them. Finally, talk with them about what to do if they find out that one of their friends is homosexual. When doing this, emphasize that homosexual behavior, like other sinful behavior, can be forgiven.
What about incest? As parents, make it clear to your adolescents that incest is wrong. Again, do not assume that they believe it is wrong. In Adolescent Sexuality in Contemporary America, Robert Sorenson (World) reported that 18% of teenagers between thirteen to nineteen years of age did not think it was unnatural for a brother and sister to have sexual relations if both of them wanted to. In addition, 25% of the men and 13% of the women thought sex between parent and child was acceptable.
One specific thing you can do to help prevent it is to have separate rooms for brothers and sisters. Although children of the opposite sex may share a room, adolescents should not. Sexual temptations arise and incest may result. On vacations and trips, teenage brothers and sisters should not share beds, even if parents are in the same motel room.
You need to avoid family nakedness. Sexual temptation can arise when members of the family are unclothed or partially clothed. Teenagers are adults and should be aware that they can become sexually aroused by members of their own family. Modesty at home should be the rule.
Finally, talk with your teens about expressing affection appropriately with relatives. This is not to say that they should be distant from relatives, but that if a relative makes improper advances, teens should respond with a firm no to further contact.
Although the percentage of people involved in sexual sin is alarmingly high and seems to be increasing, your teens can be among the minority who are not involved. They need your support as they live through an adolescence where even more of their friends are sexually active than was the case when you were growing up.
2005 Update
When talking about sexual behavior among teens, I often wonder what I can discuss that will not offend readers. The article in the monthly “That’s Outrageous!” section of the February 2005 Reader’s Digest was titled “No-Strings Sex: Teen girls are buying into the sleaze we’re selling.” Following, in the authors words, are some of the things mentioned in the brief article: “Kids talk about “hooking up” with friends for no-strings sex….One craze is said to involve “sex bracelets”….Schools are busy cracking down on “freak dancing”….Girls are now initiating casual sex, big time….You hear oral sex is happening an awful lot in middle schools….Gonorrhea is more prevalent among 15-19-year-old females than any other segment of the population.” These appeared in the most widely read periodical in the world and provide list of discussion topics.
Good research on the topic of teen sexual behavior has been virtually nonexistent until now. The January 31, 2005, issue of People magazine included a special report (People/NBC News poll) titled “Young Teens & Sex.” This report was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, an independent research agency. Data was gathered between September 4 and November 7, 2004 from a national sample of 1000 parents and 1000 teens 13 to 16 years old. The complete 33-page report is currently available at www.people.com/magazine and found by searching the site for “teen sex poll.” Of course, that report may not be available by the time you look for it. I will cite data from a number of sources, but primarily from this poll because it is the best available at this time.
“Hooking up”
When I was an adolescent, it was considered immoral to have sex with a person before you were married, before you were committed for life. By the time my own offspring were adolescents, the “new morality” said that it was immoral to have sex with a person unless you “in love,” before you were emotionally involved. Today neither commitment nor emotional involvement is considered necessary for sexual intercourse—in fact, many teens try to avoid both. As one put it, “We don’t even date any more. We hang out as a group and then peel off to hook up.”
In the People/NBC News poll about half of those 13-16-year-olds who were sexually active had been involved in such a casual relationship. In fact, teenagers have coined the term “friends with benefits” to describe a relationship that involves sex but no commitment or emotional involvement. The poll found that 14% of the 13- to14-year-olds and 41% of the 15- to16-year-olds had engaged in sexual activity (from intimate physical contact to intercourse and oral sex). There were no male-female differences. One 16-year-old woman said that she had quit having casual sex because she did not want to deal with getting emotionally attached to any guy.
By the time they are in college, the majority of adolescents have “hooked up.” The “Education” article in the October 2004 issue of Newsweek magazine describes several studies. Elizabeth Paul at the College of New Jersey surveyed 555 undergraduates and found that 78% had hooked up. Researchers at James Madison University in Virginia found that 78% of the women and 84% of the men had hooked up. A study at the University of Michigan found 60% reported hooking up. Such students reported that they wanted to avoid “catching feelings” (becoming emotionally involved).
Of course, not all teenagers have this attitude toward sex, but all teenagers will probably hear it expressed when with their peers at school or in many other gatherings, even among youth in the church. In Right from Wrong McDowell and Hostetler found that 55% of those attending the evangelical Christian youth groups had engaged in sexual activity by age 18. Parents must intentionally teach and live a Christian perspective on sexuality.
“Sex bracelets”
The idea here is that the young women indicate their desire to participate in various kinds of sexual activities by wearing different colored jelly bracelets available everywhere. There is little agreement what each color means as one moves from one part of the country to another, except that black seems to always indicate willingness to have sexual intercourse. The idea is that the young man will snap the bracelet of the girls’ wrists, and then engage in that type of sexual behavior with her (they are also called “snap bracelets”). Stories about this being popular in middle schools abound, but it is hard to tell if this actually occurs or if it is an “urban legend.” Parents can read about this on various web sites by going to Google and doing a search for “jelly bracelets.”
“Freak dancing”
Parents who chaperone high schools tend to freak out when they see the students freak dancing. When someone plays George Clinton’s 1982 hit Atomic Dog (or other freaking tunes usually about dogs or buttocks), it is common for girls to drop down on all fours, boys moving against them from behind. Lines of students may pack tightly in close conga lines called “freak trains.” In an effort to curb such sexually explicit dancing, many schools have made their dance policies more specific, such as the following one from a Lexington, KY, high school.
“Dances which are prohibited are dances in which the male stands behind the female, with his groin pressed against her buttocks, simulating intercourse. It also includes dancing in which partners face one another, press their bodies against each other and simulate rhythmic sexual intercourse. It also includes lines of dancers pressed against each other simulating multiple partner sexual intercourse…Students may not put the partner on all fours or simulate any sexual act. Students may touch as long as it is not in a vulgar manner.” What more is there to say? Parents must use good judgment about teenagers attending dances.
Girls initiating casual sex
I do not know of any survey that has gathered this data. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that it is happening. For example a 37-year-old Pennsylvania mother told about her 7th- grade son coming home from school and said, “Mom, there is a girl that keeps asking to give me oral sex.” He turned her down, but the next day that girl and a girlfriend of hers asked him again. The Reader’s Digest article said this kind of thing is happening “big time.” It certainly seems like it is, but apparently no one has actually studied this.
Oral sex
An editorial in the June 11, 2002, Lexington Herald -Leader (our local newspaper) was titled “Oral-sex education: Give middle schoolers facts to curtail activity.” The editorial noted, “One unexpected outcome of the abstinence-only movement in sex education: Some kids aren’t clear on exactly what they should abstain from. Some mistakenly conclude that any sexual behavior that won’t result in pregnancy is safe….And adults who work with middle school kids here are sounding an alarm about the increasing incidence of oral sex in this age group….Schools have alerted parents that oral sex is sometimes a part of off-campus parties….” The People/NBC News survey in 2004 found that about 10% of the teens 13-16 years old had oral sex. Ten percent may not sound like many, but that is millions of adolescents, and only the very youngest ones at that. Of those, 8% first had oral sex at age 12, 19% at age 13, 22% at age 14, 29% at age 15, and 16% at age 16.
In his monthly newsletter, “Family News from Dr. James Dobson,” Dr Dobson says:
Social and medical scientists are confirming that a dramatic increase in oral sex is occurring beyond anything seen before….Dr. Robert Blum, director of the division of general pediatrics and adolescent health at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, said, “There is very much a sense that these behaviors transcend race and income and family structure and are much more widespread than we might think.” He also said, “Most younger teens, even 10- to 12-year-olds, and maybe most teens (in general) don’t define this as sex.” (Available on-line at www.family.org Search the site for “Dr Dobson’s Newsletter February 2001”)
Postmodern thinking has clearly affected views of sexuality. Since each person creates his or her own world and defines his or her own terms, many teenagers still define themselves as virgins even though they have had oral or anal sex, “the new virginity” as was on the cover of Newsweek December 9, 2002. Though there is no uniformly agreed upon definition, the most common definition of having sex is the one mentioned in the editorial above, something that one believes will result in pregnancy. When teens ask if oral sex is OK, that is the same kind of question as whether or not holding hands, kissing, hugging, petting is OK. Since oral sex is not sex, it is just one other kind of activity that people do—not even meaning one is attracted to the other person.
Dr. Dobson concluded the material about oral sex by saying, “In reporting the White House scandal, the media established the words ‘oral sex’ as a household phrase, which quickly found its way into the language of elementary school children who had never heard of it before. Parents were then forced to explain adult sexuality long before their children had a need for the information or were ready to receive it.” If children and adolescents do not hear it from parents, they will hear it from their peers, so my advice is to talk about it with them.
Gonorrhea
Although teen pregnancies are down (10% 1990-2000), teen abortions are down, and the percentage of teens reporting having sex is down (10% in last decade), sexually transmitted diseases among teens are at all time highs. How can this be? Of course, the answer is found in the editorial mentioned above, “ Oral-sex education: Give middle schoolers facts to curtail activity.” As it points out, “One problem with such thinking is that oral sex does spread sexually transmitted diseases, as some Lexington middle-school-age youngsters were no doubt surprised to learn….Among the STDs spread through oral sex are pharyngeal gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis B, syphilis, chlamydia, and human papillomavirus. HIV also can be transmitted orally, though transmission is more likely through intercourse….” (Lexington Herald-Leader, June 11, 2002.
Although the Statistical Abstract of the United States (www.census.gov/statab/www/) shows that there has been no overall increase or decrease of gonorrhea during the last decade, there is a definite change in who is getting it. As the February 2005 Reader’s Digest article noted, 15- to 19-year old females are the ones most likely to contract gonorrhea now. This is because the most common type of oral sex is the adolescent female performing it on the male. Most STDs can be transmitted this way because there is an “exchange of bodily fluids.” Some of these STDs can be cured; some can be suppressed with periodic outbreaks throughout life; and some are fatal.
Even if the adolescents do not contract an STD, the emotional consequences of oral sex are basically the same as that of sexual intercourse. Although many adolescents try to avoid emotional attachments and deny that they have had sexual relations, that denial does not change the facts.