It just kills me that people use these articles with faulty writing, logic, and arguments to form their opinions. I have made numbered footnotes with my thoughts at the bottom. By the way, the portions in blue are portions that either a) were not included in the original print version b) were removed from the online version or c) the wording was changed in a way that materially affects the meaning of the sentence and its role in proving the conclusion of the article. No mention of these changes was made in the online version or the print version. Questionable journalism at its finest.
The Oral Myth [1]
For a decade parents have fretted about an oral sex 'epidemic' among young teenagers. But a new study rebuts that notion.
Jennie Yabroff
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 6:20 PM ET May 23, 2008
The story is shocking, but perhaps not unfamiliar. At a birthday party for a seventh-grader, the boy's mother had gone down to the basement only to find all the boys lined up along one wall. The girls, the mother reported, had been going down the line performing oral sex on them.
But is the story true? Some people certainly seem to think so. In the new play "Good Boys and True" students at an elite boys' school have contests to see who can be orally serviced by the most girls. Last year's nonfiction book "Restless Virgins" detailed a sex scandal at Milton Academy, a Massachusetts prep school, involving a female sophomore performing oral sex on five male students. And by now most of us have heard of "The Rainbow Party," the 2005 young adult novel that suggested high school girls spend their afternoons fellating their male classmates. The following sentence is included in the print version of the article but has been removed from the online version without editor's note - "These works reflect a panic that arose from a spate of news accounts dating back to 1999 about teen's penchant for oral sex". [2]
But according to a newly published study of 15-to-19-year-olds by the Guttmacher Institute [3], teen sexual behavior in general hasn't changed much since 1991 [4]. Just a little more than half the teens studied had engaged in oral sex, only 5 percent more than had engaged in vaginal sex. Most teens who had had oral sex had also had intercourse, and only one in four teen virgins had had oral sex—not exactly the makings of a teen oral sex epidemic. [5]
So why is society constantly speculating about the most salacious stories about our children? [6] Possibly because they confirm our (originally "parents'") worst fears about the values of the next generation and our growing sense that we (originally parents) really have no idea what's going on with our kids. Maybe, also, because in our increasingly sexualized culture the stories seem not so implausible. Maybe it's easier to pay attention to a few shocking anecdotes than to what the data—or our children—tell us. (It's not surprising that most of the rumors focus on girls servicing boys, since our culture seems to revel in being simultaneously titillated and appalled by the precocious sexuality of teen girls, as evidenced by the recent controversy surrounding Miley Cyrus’s seminude “Vanity Fair” spread)". We were the free-love generation, and we're obsessed over the sexual lives of our children. We need to ask ourselves why," says Laura Sessions Stepp, author of "Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both."
As for the veracity of the story about the seventh-grade birthday party, Stepp is skeptical. But the hysteria of the mother who called to tell her about it (who had heard the tale from another mother) is real. Stepp should know: she helped create it, with a 1999 front-page story in the Washington Post about the alarming fad for oral sex among middle-schoolers in Washington's suburbs, one of the first stories to publicize the idea that oral sex among youngsters was on the rise. Thanks to Monica Lewinsky oral sex was already on everyone's minds, along with the idea that the younger generation didn't consider it as serious as intercourse. "It had been going on among older teens. Then Monica surfaces, and all of a sudden it's front and center," says Stepp. "It was more than a wake-up call. It was a siren." Over the next few years the idea that kids were having oral sex—in basements, on school buses, in study halls—as cavalierly as shaking hands gained traction in the popular imagination. (In 2002 Oprah devoted an episode to the "epidemic.") The logic seemed self-evident: if oral sex wasn't "really sex," it was a way kids could satisfy their sexual urges while remaining chaste.
But according to the Guttmacher study, the idea that kids use oral sex as a substitute for intercourse is a myth. According to the study's author, Laura Lindberg, "There is no good evidence that teens who have not had intercourse engage in oral sex with a series of partners … Our research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth." [7]
Even so, there can be a huge discrepancy between perception and reality when it comes to the sex lives of teenagers. "You'd think parents would be relieved by these studies, but when Oprah refers to oral sex as an epidemic, they're sold on the idea that that's what happening," says Kathleen Bogle, author of "Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus." "There seems to be a resistance to clearing up false perceptions on the parts of parents and of kids themselves." [8]
Part of the reason for the misconception is that the language of teen sexuality is intentionally vague. When an adolescent talks about "hooking up" she may be describing a range of activities from kissing to having intercourse. "Because of the ambiguity of what 'hooking up' means, people often assume that in more of the cases it includes oral sex than it actually does," Bogle says. "You can be fooled into thinking everyone else is doing it." [9] Another explanation is that these stories are, essentially, the most virulent form of gossip, salacious and nearly impossible to disprove. "We're afraid to believe it about our own kids, but we're eager to believe it about other kids," says Stepp. "That way, if our own kid does it, we can believe it's peer pressure."
The recent critical focus on abstinence-only sex education may also be contributing to the perception that kids use oral sex as a substitute for intercourse. According to a study published in the 2005 Journal of Adolescent Health, teens who had taken abstinence pledges were six times as likely to have engaged in oral sex as teen virgins who hadn't taken the pledge. [10] The study was picked up by opponents of abstinence-only education such as Bill Maher, who suggested, in a televised special, that Republicans had created a generation of "apple-cheeked" girls who said no to sex but an enthusiastic yes to all sorts of other pornographic behavior. [11] But, again, the Guttmacher study found that oral sex is much more common among teens who have already had intercourse than among virgins. [12]
Whether they're having oral sex or not, the act seems to mean something different from what it meant to their parents. "For our generation, oral sex seemed more intimate than intercourse," says Stepp, who is a parent herself. "The thought that their 11-year-old-daughters are doing it is flabbergasting." [13] The hysteria around oral sex, then, may be as much about attitude as behavior, suggesting that teens have become ever more exoticized in the eyes of the older generation, a seemingly strange and impenetrable tribe with bizarre rituals and alien belief systems. The truth, of course, is that some kids do it, some kids don't, and for every birthday party where the boys line up against the wall, there are hundreds more where the kids drink too much soda, play Grand Theft Auto, and then simply go home.
[1] The title of this story was changed in its online version. The original title was "The Myths of Teen Sex". The original title seems a bit broader, don't you think? While I am glad the author narrowed the claim somewhat to reflect the content of the article, this should have been done in the print version - the version I am sure is read by the most readers.
[2] How interesting that this sentence has magically disappeared. What is the importance of a play, a non-fiction book, and a 2005 fiction novel that involves oral sex? What exactly are these telling us? I am not sure that they reflect a "panic" (an interesting word choice) - in fact I am not sure they represent anything other than what they are: except 3 pieces of literature. But is this sentence is removed completely, the prior sentences are meaningless, rendering this article all the more incoherent.
[3] What is the Guttmacher Institute? Are they experts in this area of research? Are they backed by some sort of special interest who might distort their findings? No explanation or verification is given by the author. I am not saying their findings are distorted, but I am saying that the author can't just appeal to some authority group I have never heard of - she must explain why she believes they are in a position to make such claims.
[4] So what if it hasn't changed since 1991? - the article isn't about changing beliefs, it is about whether today's beliefs are well founded. By stating that attitudes toward sex haven't changed since 1991, the author mistakenly gives the impression that things are really as bad as people think. Opinions held in 1991 are irrelevant to this author's thesis.
[5] Up to this point we are being led to believe that although many adults are in a "panic" over teen oral sex, this is misguided and teen oral sex is not a prevalent as many might think.
The author's facts, in my opinion, contradict her conclusion. Let's examine the numbers we just read here. Of those surveyed more than half had engaged in oral sex and nearly half had engaged in intercourse. Wow. I think those are pretty big numbers, especially if you keep in mind that most (if not all) of these teenagers are likely under the age of consent, meaning they are technically breaking the law by engaging in sex. That is pretty alarming in my book. Her next sentence states that these two groups of teens (oral sex & intercourse) overlap. Her next sentence says 25% of teen virgins have had oral sex. Think about that - that means over 60% of teens are either having intercourse or engaging in oral sex. If I was a parent, that would get my attention. I would not be labeling that as a "teen sex myth".
[6] Constantly speculating? What did the author provide to establish this claim? She provided 3 examples of literature at the beginning of the article - hardly proof of society's "constant speculation" over teen behavior. Perhaps a survey of the parents of teens may have established something viable, but the author cannot just claim that society is overly engrossed in mistaken innuendo - she must provide some proof of that claim.
[7] Notice the addition of "with a series of partners". This totally changes the meaning of this quote, and significantly reduces its contribution to the author's main point. The issue is not whether teens are having oral sex with multiple partners - the issue in the minds of parents is whether teens are having oral sex at all. This totally distorts the meaning of the quote the misleads the reader.
[8] What does this new, added quote mean? That parents want to continue to believe in a false "crisis"? That kids are intentionally hyping the prevalence of oral sex? To what end? Another poorly constructed paragraph.
[9] Notice that this new quote presents the opinion that "they might not be doing it" based on the assertion that some people will assume the vague language describes more significant sexual activity than actually occurred. By the same token, doesn't it stand to reason that because the language is vague, some people who assumed "hooked up" means kissing when in fact it meant oral sex? Vague language can be misinterpreted both ways, and the author does not bring up this point.
[10] So? What is the point of bringing in the influence of abstinence only classes? It does nothing to advance her conclusion - that teens are not engaging in oral sex as often as parents and adults believe. This is an unrelated red-herring.
[11] Please tell me the author did not just use a comedian as a source for a legitimate opinion piece. Will she be quoting Stephen Colbert as well? What about Chris Rock? If the author wishes to be taken seriously, she should make sure her quotes come from serious sources.
[12] Another misleading comment. "More common" does not mean "uncommon". The author would have you believe oral sex is not a major occurrence among teens because only 25% of teen virgins have had oral sex rather than the 50% of teens who are engaging in both oral sex and intercourse.
[13] Somehow, I doubt the ranking of oral vs vaginal sex in the pecking order matters to the parent of an 11 year old. Both are unacceptable.
What a poor article. Add Newsweek the list of publications that need to tighten writing standards
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