Des Moines Register
08-20-06
Teens & Sex — their definitions and beliefs
DAWN SAGARIO
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
What is sex? The question seems simple—until you ask people of different
generations. Even among teenagers, you’ll hear a wide range of definitions. For
most, you can be considered a virgin today and have oral sex. That view is one
of a number of trends we discovered after talking to Iowa teens, their parents and
others. Here are eight common threads in teen thinking about sex today.
"When I was in middle school, there were a lot of people having sex," said
Canady, 18, from Des Moines. "But there were also a lot of people having oral
sex because they thought, 'Well, that's not sex. I can't get pregnant. I can't get a
disease.'"
Canady is a former member of the Des Moines teen group "R3," which stands for
Rights, Respect and Responsibility.
Many young people have oral sex before they even kiss, said Angie Lones of the
Young Women's Resource Center in Des Moines.
"They view kissing as more intimate," said Lones, who sees kids at younger ages
having both oral sex and sexual intercourse. "(It) blows my mind, but that is what
we're hearing."
Previous generations considered oral sex to be one of the most intimate sexual
acts two people in a committed relationship could share.
Not today. It is now more common than sexual intercourse among teenagers one in four claim they have had oral sex but not intercourse.
Among 15- to 19-year-olds, oral sex was practiced by more than half.
The data are based on information from the 2002 National Survey of Family
Growth, which reported on the sexual behavior of men and women ages 15 to 44
in the United States.
Brian Meland remembers hearing younger students refer to oral sex as a casual,
almost offhand event.
"To them, they were still virgins," said Meland, 19, a sophomore at Western Iowa
Tech Community College in Sioux City. "They didn't think of that as actual sex. It
was just an activity."
Yet Josh Sheridan, who graduated from Hoover High School in Des Moines in
May, holds the line.
"It's still sex no matter what," said Sheridan, 18, who started a Gay Straight
Alliance at Hoover his junior year. "It still has the same bodily fluid transmission.
It still involves an orgasm. It's still sex."
2. Teens as young as 13 engage in same-sex practices
Part of that experimentation includes bisexuality, which has achieved celebrity
status in the media. The Madonna-Britney kiss captured world attention.
It has helped young people feel that some experimentation, done safely, is OK,
said Warren Blumenfeld, co-professor of the "Introduction to Queer
Studies" class at Iowa State.
"It might just be more acknowledged now," said Blumenfeld.
Young people ages 13 to 18 tend to experiment when they're in their "identity
development stage," he said. "This is the primary time that young people are
asking themselves, 'Who am I?'"
Some teens say girls kiss girls to tantalize and get attention from potential
boyfriends.
"I cannot count how many girls will go to parties and they'll be drinking and
making out with their girlfriends because the guys think it's hot," said Tiffany
Canady.
"We are the generation of experimentation," said Canady, 18, from Des Moines.
"I think we're in that age where it's more acceptable to be gay, bi, straight,
lesbian, whatever; transgender, transsexual."
It's a trend others have noticed.
"I think the female-female is really presented in the media as this really sexy
thing. I think a lot of that is driven by the male eye," said Rhonda Chittenden, who
works with the Iowa Network for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, Parenting
and Sexual Health.
Natalie Fuller has seen girls kiss other girls as an attention-grabbing ploy, and
also admits to kissing her own girlfriends.
"I've never seen a case of girls making out because they're bisexual, not in high
school," said Fuller, 20, who at 16 co-authored a book with her mother, Doris,
titled, "Promise You Won't Freak Out."
In college, same-sex kissing begins to lose its novelty, she said.
"I think college is where girls will actually have a bisexual experience," Fuller
said.
3. Gay teens come out earlier
Gay and lesbian youths are now announcing their sexual orientation in the early
teen years.
With factors like access to more information about homosexuality and positive
gay role models in the media, teens feel more comfortable being candid. Groups
like Gay Straight Alliances, notably in rural Iowa schools, are helping to create
safer and more accepting environments for gay students and their allies.
The non-straight population includes 5 to 10 percent of students at any given
time. In Iowa, that’s about 48,000 students through 12th grade, using 2004
enrollment numbers.
Another 18,000 non-straight students would be enrolled in Iowa’s public, private
and community colleges and universities, according to Ryan Roemerman,
director of the Iowa Pride Network.
Despite greater acceptance of gay students, some still face harassment and a
hostile environment in their communities, according to a survey released in
November 2005 by the Iowa Pride Network.
As a result, Roemerman said, they may have lower GPAs, be less likely to have
college aspirations and more likely to be suicidal. The average age of students in
the survey was 16.
“In rural towns, where people place a lot on certain traditions, it can be very
isolating. (It’s) also destructive in the sense that they don’t feel like they have any
support lines to go through,” Roemerman said.
Many teachers don’t understand the gravity of the harassment these students
face at school, Roemerman said.
When a homophobic remark is made in the presence of a teacher, 75 percent of
the time, “teachers don’t react at all, which is disturbing,” he said.
Gay Straight Alliances at schools can help to bridge that gap in understanding.
There are now more than 50 alliances in the state, Roemerman said. The
network has reached out to rural communities like Independence, Orange City
and Solon.
4. Teen pregnancy drops, condom use increases, but pressure persists
Parents and adults may be happy to hear that teens are waiting longer to have
sex, a trend that crosses gender, race and ethnic lines.
Not only that, but teen pregnancies nationwide are on the decline after reaching
a peak in 1991. That trend is mirrored in Iowa.
Teenagers are also using condoms more often.
The U.S. teenage birthrate among 15- to 19-year-olds declined from 1991 to
2004.
The number dropped from 61.8 births per 1,000 girls to 41.2 births (the 2004 data
is preliminary), according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
In Iowa, the teen birthrate among the same age group decreased from 34.4
births to 31.6 births per 1,000 girls from 2000 to 2004, according to the Iowa
Department of Public Health.
As much as 75 percent of the decrease in the pregnancy rate can be attributed to
contraceptive use. The rest is the result of postponing first sexual intercourse,
said Tom Klaus, program director for teen pregnancy prevention at Advocates for
Youth in Washington, D.C.
“Teenagers ask the right questions, but they’re the ones that are hard for adults
to answer,” said Dr. Ken Cheyne, who specializes in adolescent medicine at
Blank Children’s Hospital.
Cheyne said the most important question to help teens answer is: “‘My body says
yes; how do I make my mind say no?’ We need to learn how to deal with those
strong emotions.”
He said it’s the parents’ job to be clear about their stand on sex.
“I can provide health information to teenagers, but parents can reinforce and
teach values,” Cheyne said.
In conversations with Iowa teens, attention emerged as a big reason for
submitting to sexual pressure. Sometimes, teenage sex is an act of rebellion and
revenge, one educator said.
“A lot of times they do it to get at their parents,” said Kirsten Colt, a human
reproductive health educator with Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. “That’s
the main reason I hear.”
5. STDS on the rise among teens
Here’s the good news: National research shows that teenagers are waiting
longer to have intercourse.
Here’s the bad news: Sexually transmitted diseases among teens are on the rise
nationwide and in Iowa.
Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and HIV cases are up among 15- to 19-year-olds, state
statistics show.
What’s especially scary is that in many cases, these diseases have no
symptoms. Left undetected, they can cause infertility.
Teenagers typically engage in riskier behavior than adults. That puts them at
high risk for sexually transmitted diseases. Teen girls and young women are
more susceptible because their bodies are not developed enough to protect them
from these infections.
Young people are paying the price. While 15- to 24-year-olds make up onequarter of the sexually active population, they are acquiring nearly half of all new
sexually transmitted infections, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) show.
Adolescents are the hardest hit by chlamydia.
Girls 14 to 19 have the highest proportion of chlamydia of any age group —
nearly one in 20, research from the CDC shows. Among men, the greatest
prevalence of diseases was among 20- to 29-year-olds.
In Iowa, chlamydia cases are up about 23 percent among 15- to 19-year-olds,
said Karen Thompson, STD program manager with the Iowa Department of
Public Health. Gonorrhea cases have held fairly steady the last five years.
Risky behavior is partly to blame for the rise, Thompson said. Teens who test
positive for chlamydia and gonorrhea often say they have multiple sex partners,
use condoms incorrectly or don’t use condoms at all.
Thompson said the increase is also the result of more accurate tests and more
individuals being tested.
In half of the cases, there are no symptoms, Thompson said. “That means that
without routine screening, positives may not be found until serious and
irreversible damage has been done to the infected person.”
6. Boys push more girls into oral, anal sex
Agreeing to have oral and anal sex is one way to get attention, teens say. Among
girls, the pressure to submit to sexual activity is especially high.
“For a lot of the girls I know, a boy will just say they’re pretty … and they’ll go off
and do whatever, either have sex or give them oral sex or anything,” said
Venessa McDole, 15, a sophomore at North High School in Des Moines.
McDole is also a member of the “R3” (Rights, Respect and Responsibility) team
that visits schools to talk about safe sex and pregnancy prevention, healthy
relationships and good decisions.
Girls especially are under pressure to perform oral sex, said Natalie Fuller, 20,
who while in high school co-authored a book with her mother, Doris, titled,
“Promise You Won’t Freak Out.”
“It’s because they’re trying to put off having sex,” Fuller said. “They want to keep
the boys happy, but not give it all away.
“A lot of my friends don’t even consider anal sex as real sex,” said Fuller, who
lives in Costa Mesa, Calif. Virginity is strictly defined as never having had vaginal
intercourse.
Anal sex has become frequent with teens in the last three or four years, said
Kirsten Colt.
“I have to talk about it all the time,” said Colt, an educator with Planned
Parenthood of Greater Iowa in Sioux City. “My guess is that maybe teens were
doing it and weren’t talking about it.”
Colt is director of the “Acting Out!” teen theater troupe, which writes plays that
encourage abstinence.
While anal sex is not as common as oral sex, Fuller said girls are still pressured
from boyfriends to try it.
“I think boys watch porn and watch a lot of anal sex in porn; they’re curious, they
want to try it,” she said.
7. Teens unaware of STD-oral sex link
So you think having oral sex protects you from getting sexually transmitted
diseases?
Think again.
Health officials in California are finding individuals with gonorrhea infections in
their throats, said Karen Thompson, STD program manager at the Iowa
Department of Public Health.
Also, there are more cases of a type of chlamydia usually passed through anal
sex, Thompson said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seen
an increase of the cases in the past year.
Young people don’t know oral sex can cause infections, said Rhonda Chittenden,
with FutureNet, the Iowa Network for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention,
Parenting and Sexual Health.
There have also been nationally documented cases of HIV transmission via oral
sex, though the risk is lower than sexual intercourse, said Randy Mayer, with the
Iowa Department of Public Health.
“For oral intercourse, the rate of HIV transmission is extremely low,” Mayer said.
“But very few people engage only in oral intercourse and don’t have other risk
factors.”
Giving oral sex carries a risk of 0.5 cases per 10,000 exposures; receiving oral
sex results in 1 case per 10,000 exposures. With sexual intercourse, the risk is
10 cases per 10,000 exposures.
For anal sex, HIV transmission risk jumps to 50 per 10,000 exposures.
8. More teens take vow of abstinence
Teenagers in the United States are waiting longer to have sex, a sign that
abstinence efforts have made some impact on young people’s sexual behavior.
The abstinence movement is becoming more accepted with scores of teenagers
taking virginity pledges in elaborate ceremonies in Iowa churches. Kim Wheeler
took such a pledge last year at Grace Church in Des Moines. The 16-year-old’s
silver purity ring, a gift from her father, is a symbol of her commitment to save
sex for marriage.
“It’s just a reminder that I’m not supposed to,” said Wheeler, from Des Moines.
“And it’s not just the physical sex; like don’t be tempted, don’t be lustful.”
Statistics demonstrate that a large number of teens are taking the abstinence
message to heart.
In 2003, 53 percent of U.S. high school students said they had never had sex.
The figure was 46 percent in 1991, according to Advocates for Youth in
Washington, D.C.
Fifty-eight percent of white students had never had sex in 2003, compared to 50
percent in 1991. Among African American students, it was 33 percent and 19
percent, respectively; and Latino students, 49 percent and 47 percent,
respectively.
Critics of virginity pledges and abstinence-only education say that while teens
may be waiting longer to have sex, they’re not receiving information about how to
protect themselves if they decide to have sex.
Research in 2000 found that adolescents who took virginity pledges delayed their
first sexual intercourse for 18 months, but they were one-third less likely to use
contraception their first time, compared to nonpledging peers.
Some churches, like Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, make taking a
vow of abstinence seem cool.
When youths take a pledge to abstain from premarital sex, they also gain
membership into an exclusive club. Perks include literally getting the red carpet
treatment at school, and going out for pizza in a 1934 restored hot rod.
Associate Pastor Cary Gordon said teens who meet specific requirements can
join “Club Oneighty,” which includes taking a special pledge before family and
friends.
“They stand up publicly and they vow that they are going to have zero premarital
sex, zero drugs, zero alcohol,’’ Gordon said.
He talks to kids about sex because their parents are afraid to, Gordon said.
“If you’re not teaching children to not have sex until you’re married … then you’re
basically treating sex like it’s a candy store.”