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\nArticle 37
\nThe SexuaB Revolufion Hits Junior High
\nThe kids are doing more than baring bellies: They’re shocking
\nadults with their anything-goes behavior
\nKnr P,qtvreR
\nSpecialfor USA TADAY
\nicture the mating rites of middie-schoolers. Perhaps you
\nirnagine hand- holding and first kisses, girls trying out
\neye shadow, boys sneaking a peek at vulgar men’s
\nmagazlnes.
\nNow look again, through the eyes ofincreasingly concerned
\neducators and experts:
\n. Researchers in WasLrington, D.C., recentiy started aprogram to
\nprevent early sexual activiry. They planned to offer it to seventhgraders,
\nbut after a pilot study decided to target fifth-graders-because
\ntoo many seventh-graders already were having sex. . Jo Mecham, a nurse at a Bettendorf, Iowa, middle school,
\nsays she overhears “pretty explicit sexual talk” from boys and
\ngirls in her “conservative” community. And despite a dress
\ncode, girls come to classes looking like bare-bellied rock stars:
\n“They’I1 leave the house totaliy OK, and when they get to
\nschool, they start disrobing.”
\n. Joey Zbylut-Birky, a middle-school teacher in Omaha, recently
\nasked students to think about “where they feel most comfortable”
\nas part of an assignment to write song titles about
\nthemselves. A group of giggling boys piped up with comments
\nabout receiving oral sex.
\nThe list goes on. Middle schools that used to do without
\ndress codes now must send home exhaustive inventories of forbidden
\ngarments, from tube tops to too-low hip-huggers.
\nSchools that used to handle crude language on a case-by-case
\nbasis now must have “no-profanify” policies. And sexual-harassment
\ntraining is a normal part of middle-school curriculum.
\nThe world “is rougher, it is sexier and it has reached down to
\ntouch boys and girls at younger ages,” says Margaret Sagarese,
\nwho, rvith Charlene C. Giannetti, has written several books on
\nparenting, including the new The Patience of a Saint: How
\nFaith Can SustainYotL DLtring the ToughTimes of Parenltng.
\nBaby-boomer parents who thoughL that nothing would ever
\nshock them are shocked by the way their young teens ta1k, dress
\nand perhaps even behave, Sagarese says.
\n“Things have changed,” says Jude Swift, 52, a mother of five
\nwhose youngest is an eighrh-grade boy. “i think a greai deal of
\nit j.s due to the media and rvhat kids see on TV, in magazine ads, ;, in lideos…. -tt’s all abour beino sexv.”
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\nThe world ‘is rougher, it is sexier’and it’s
\nharder for teens to avoid it
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\nSr.vift, of Camillus, N.Y., says she picked up a Teen People
\nmagazine the other day and “I was amazed. It was page after
\npage of young teens dressed in very provocative ways and in
\nvery provocative poses.”
\nYoung girls “do not see anything wrong in looking that
\nway,” says Zbylut-Birky, the Omaha teacher. And, she says.
\n“they don’t see the difference between how they should look for
\na party and how they should look in an educatio.ol ccrrino ”
\nBoys Want to Look Sexy, Too
\nEven boys face increasing pressure to look sexy, says Sagarese:
\n“There are IZ-yeu-old boys going to GNC and taking all kinds
\nof supplements because they want abs the same way girls want
\nbreasts.”
\nOf course, many girls who dress like Britney Spears and
\nmany boys who talk like Eminem don’t go beyond nervous
\nnote-passing in their actual romantic lives.
\nZbylut-Birky, who overheard the oral-sex banter, says, “A
\nlot of times they use that kind of language to impress their peers,
\nbut there’s really nothing going on there.”
\nBut for some substantial minority of middle schoolers,
\nsomething very risky-including intercourse and oral sex-is
\ngoing on, some experts say. In 1995, government researchers
\nasked teens over age 15 rvhether. they’d had sexual intercourse
\nbyage 14;19Vo ofgirls and2TVo ofboyssaidyes.In 1988,the
\nnumbers were ll7o for giris and the same 2lVo for boys, says
\nthe Washington, D.C.-based research group Child Trends. Data
\nfor 2002 are just being collected.
\nAnother srudy, using different methods, followed 12- rc I1-
\nyear-o1ds between 7991 attd 1999 and foutd 76Vo of girls and
\n20Vo of boys reported sex at 14 or younger, says Child Trends
\nresearcher Jennifer Manlove.
\n138
\nSex by age14
\nKids ( i 5 and older) r,vho sav thev
\nhad had intercourie byage ia: ”
\nE grls @lsoys
\nffiffiffiffi 1988 1995
\nAs for oral sex, a 2000 study from the Alan Guttmacher Institute
\nin New York caused a firestorm by suggesting that more
\nyoung teens were engaging in that activity-possibly as a way
\nof remaining technical virgins in the age of abstinence education.
\nThat study was based on scattered, anecdotal reports of increased
\noral herpes and gonorrhea ofthe throat.
\nNo nationr.vide, scientific study has actually asked young
\nteens, or older teens for that matter, whether they have oral sex.
\n“A lot of alarm parents feel on this issue is based on anecdotal
\ninformation,” says Bill Albert, spokesman for the Washington,
\nD.C.-based National Campaign to Prevent Teen
\nPregnancy, a private, non-profit group working to reduce teen
\npregnancy.
\nBut some of the anecdotes are hair-raising.
\n“The other day at school, a girl got caught in a bathroom with
\na boy performing oral sex on him,” says Maurisha Stenson, a
\n14-year-old eighth-greder at a Syracuse, N.Y., middle school.
\nWhen the Lights Went On
\nDenyia Sullivan, 14, attends a different Syracuse middle school
\nbut says she’s seen and heard about similar things. One time, a
\ngirl performed oral sex on a boy in the gym bleachers during a
\nmovie. “The teacher turned on the light and there they were,”
\nSullivan says. “Everybody was lgoking and laughing.”
\nThe two girls also say there’s more than oral sex going on.
\nSuliivan can think offive pregnant girls at her school, rvhich includes
\nsixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Stenson guesses that
\n“almost 50%” of kids at her school, for seventh- and eighthgraders,
\nare en_eaging in some kind of sex.
\n“This is happeningl they are telling the truth,” says Courtney
\nRamirez. who directs the Syracuse Way to Go after-school prosram.
\ndesis-ned to heln kids succeed in school and avoid risks.
\nRoth oirls 2rp nFer edrre etnrs in thp nrnmam
\n“Youths are really getting involred in things a whole lot
\nsooner than we thought,” Ramirez says.
\nAriicle 37. The Sexual Revolution Hits Junior Hiqh
\nBut other experts say that without good, current numbers on
\nnationwide irends, they can’t eyen say with any confidence that
\nearly sex is increasing. “It could be gettiag worse, it could be
\ngetting better, we jusi don’t know,” Albert says.
\nOne problem is that the best government studies are done
\ninfrequently. Another is that researchers-and the public-are
\nsqueamish about asking detailed sex questions of young teens.
\nAnd when they do ask, they aren’t sure youngsters always understand
\nthe questions or answer trutMully. Albert’s organization
\nwill try to fili in the gap later this year with a report based
\non data from around the country.
\nBut many educators and parents have heard the alarms and
\nare acting now. Krystal McKinney directs a program that offers
\nsex education and life-skil1s training to middle-school girls in
\nthe Washiagton, D.C., area. Since the 2000 Guttmacher oral sex
\nreport, she and her staff have redoubled efforts to make sure that
\ngirls understand the risks.
\n“We have kids who think you can’t get diseases from oral
\nsex,” she says. “Kids think they know everything, but we challenge
\nthat.”
\nWith the youngest teens. clear information is crucial. says
\nXenia Becher, a mental health educator at the Syracuse afterschool
\nprogram.
\nRecentiy, she says, she asked some 13- to 15-year-olds to define
\nsex. “They had trouble coming up with an anslver,” she says.
\n“Some said it had to be between a male and female and a penis
\nand vagina had to be involved.
\n“So I asked, ‘What about if two men were involved’ ‘We11,’
\nthey said, ‘I don’t know what that is, but it’s not sex.”‘
\nBecher also trains parents to discuss sex lvith their kids. She
\ntells them that their voices matter, even in a sex-soaked culture.
\n“When you get down to what’s right or wrong, popular culture
\nis going to have an inflnence, but the stronger internal voice
\ncomes from you,” slre says.
\nBecher admits that setting limits and encouraging independence
\ncan be a real balancing act. When her own 13-year-old daughter
\ndressed for a dance in a pair of “those nasly hip-huggers” and a
\nshort top, Becher says, she asked her to think how she’d look
\nwhen “she was waving her arms around on the dance floor.” Brit
\nshe didn’t make her daughter change.
\n“You’ve got to pick your battles,” she says.
\nParents Shouldn’t Back Off
\n“Kids really do care what their parents think,” says Kristin Moore,
\npresident of Child Trends. ‘They don’t really want their parents to
\nback away. But a lot 0f parents do back away at this age.”
\nSome parents, she says, are so intimidated by a child’s hostile
\nbehavior and demands for privacy that they give far too
\nmuch ground. “Somerimes parents are home during a party but
\nhave no idea what is going on at ihe party.”
\nMark Gibbons, an Augusta, Ga., father of two girls ages 8
\nand 12, says that he and his rvife are doing everything they can
\nto stay invoived. They try to talk to their daughters about everyrL;–
\n((\/-‘.,^ r^1,1 lr—t that it mav cOmelimes be embaffaSS_
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\nANNUAL EDITIONS
\n“I talk to them a1l the tjme,” says Lauryn, a seventh-grader
\nwho takes classes for gifted and talented kids. She does say that
\nshe prefers to discuss boyfriends with her mom.
\nNevertheless, when Lauryn has friends over, Gibbons says
\nhe keeps his ears open. lVhen she’s instant messa-eing on the
\ncomputer, he says, “Every once in a whjle, I’11just wander over
\nthere and ask who she’s talkiag to. Aad I do look at her little directory
\nand make sure ali those user aames are people that I
\nknow. We try not to show that lve’re being nosy, but we are.”
\nGibbons also chaperones middle-school dances. It’s a window
\ninto his daughter’s larger world-one that, even in a community
\nof “pretty well-behaved kids,” can be shocking, he says.
\n“Some of the dancing they do is kind of risque, to say the least.”
\nLauryn says she appreciates her parents’ involvement: “I believe
\nit does makes a difference.. .. I have never gotten into trouble.”
\nAnd she says she does know kids who are getting into
\nsexual trouble. “At some of the parties I go to, people playing
\n‘Truth or Dare’ wili say that they’ve already ‘done it,”‘ shg
\nsays.
\nMeanwhile, Gibbons says he recently got a ren-rinder that it
\nis never too early to discuss sexual values. Third-grader Tayler
\n“came home and said one little girl took a boy behind a ftee and
\nthey were French kissing…. I said, ‘Weli, do you think that is
\nwrong’ She said, ‘Yes.”‘
\nBut while parents are right to watch and won-v, some may be
\nworrying too much and enjoying too liltle about their children’s
\npubescent years, says Sagarese, the parenting author. “I can’t tell
\nyou how many parents have come up to me at speeches and they
\nare apopiectic that their daughter is kissing. They feel Like the fusr
\nkiss is a runaway train that will iead to AIDS or pregnancy.”
\nHer co-author, Giannetti, says, ‘arents need to take a deep
\nbreath and a step back and remember what it was like to be a
\nyoung adolescent-”
\nSometimes, Sagarese says, a first kiss is just a first kiss-and
\nthe same lovely rite of passage it was in a more innocent time.
\nti
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\nFrom USA Toda1, Nspsp6p.r,1v{mch 17, 2002,pp.1-2. @ 2002 by Kim Painter. Reprinted by pemission of the author.
\n1dt
\n1-What is the “fall-out” or perceived consequences of more liberal sexual expression at a younger age<\/p>\n
2-Do boys have the same challenges as girls in terms of body image but express it differently<\/p>\n
3-Do you think teen sexual activity is as high as youth’s perceive or do they “know someone” who has been involved<\/p>\n
4-Should researchers be able to ask detailed sexual experience questions of youths and adolescents<\/p>\n
5-How can parents really influence sexual behaviour