Yes, but doesn't the low availability of protection, combined with ignorance (in some areas) about STDs and how they're spread, amount to an increased risk of infection---even if by anal and oral sex, rather than intercourse?
If these kids are getting tested and being responsible about it, okay. But methinks that a backseat dry-humping session that goes a little further is generally not preceded by a visit to the MD or the Rx.
I have a Muslim friend who says that the priority placed on virginity in his home country has led to more anal sex, so I buy this.
What if my mom is actually a virgin? Whoa.
The increase may also be due to poor non-abstinence-only sex ed. I don't remember too much of my eighth grade sex class except we learned a) that you could get pregnant sooo easily and b) here were all the scary diseases you could get c) condom failure rates.
So the information you ended up taking out of it was a) if you had sex you (or your partner) could get pregnant b) and condoms didn't work very well but c) oral sex had a much lower risk of transmission!
I think 15 year olds having sex is in principle a good thing. I don't think that's an out-of-mainstream opinion here. In America, even really socially liberal people seems to think it's a bad thing that one has live with and not overreact to.
Of course, we don't have a teen pregnancy problem, or high HIvrates among the the urban poor.
But I think both teen pregnancy and unprotected sex is connected to social conservatism, so promoting abstinence may in the long term be counterproductive, or at least on balance a bad thing.
I blame Sharon Stone.
(Actually, I think the easy availability (so I hear) of porn on the 'net probably has something to do with this phenomena)
I wasn't having a whole lot of sex as a teenager, so maybe I'm wrong here, but... I would think that oral sex and intercourse are complementary activities, not substitutes, so the upswing in oral sex seems strange to me. That's to say : before abstinence education, sexually active kids would be having both vaginal intercourse AND oral sex. Abstinence education would reduce the amount of vaginal intercourse, and maybe increase the frequency of oral sex, but I wouldn't expect it to increase the numbers of kids who've had/are having oral sex.
Though I can certainly imagine that anal and vaginal intercourse are substitutes (The "Catholic Schoolgirl Effect"), so that upswing makes sense. But the oral...hm, that seems odd to me.
Maybe I just don't understand teenage sexual habits that well, and someone should explain it to me.
Nice and slowly, please.
Maybe I just don't understand teenage sexual habits that well, and someone should explain it to me.
Are you proposing field research, Carl?
Perhaps female teens are just adopting the more European approach of taking it in the ass/sucking guys off to get the guys to leave them alone, so they can cuddle of course...
15: Well, my attempts to research from secondary sources have mostly met with concerned stares from the librarians.
17: Well that's why you should use the card catalog instead of asking the librarians directly.
I dunno, there could be some advantage in going through the librarians.
See, eg, from the synopsis of Bang the Librarian Hard: "Samantha Hamilton is the librarian at Madison High School. She starts by sucking off a student (a junior) in the library workroom as part of helping him on a term paper on the mating habits of modern females. When he is shocked at her crotchless panties, she comments that "I see you have the typical high school stud's opinion of us stuffy librarians." (7)".
But most librarians have a professional degree, so they're way past their teens. I've never heard of a "Doogy Howser" type in the field of Information Science anyway.
My mom is a high school librarian.
23: Where it counts, I guess.
24: This one.
For dirty librarian enthusiasts. (SFW. It's design!)
23: Where it counts, I guess.
I don't know dude, from the pictures I've seen you look like you have a pretty big head.
re: 16
WTF makes that a more 'European' approach?
Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise...
Well they don't call it "The Albanian Vice" for nothing, McGrattan.
Who are you to declare that the Albanians aren't real Europeans??
28: I do have a very big head, and I weighed 10-1/2 pounds when I was born.
31: I'm happy to learn that my impressions of your big-headedness weren't based solely on the impressive size of your mullet. What's your hat size?
31: Also, I hope your mom has forgiven you by now.
I don't wear hats, so I've no idea what my hat size is. As to mom forgiving me, she says that back in '68 they were still drugging you up but good for delivery, so while she was vaguely aware that she was in pain, "it was way down there."
I also had crazy wide shoulders for a newborn and had to be yanked out with forceps. Three years later, my brother was 9lb12oz.
I don't wear hats, so I've no idea what my hat size is.
Damn. I was hoping to get into a "mine's bigger" match with you.
My attempts to come up with names for Librarian Erotica titles are floundering at "The Do-me Decimal System" (too cheesy) and "Library of Congress" (too subtle). And for sure, "At the card catalog" doesn't have the zip of "ATM".
Snark aside though, I still don't get it... are the kind of teens who are having oral sex under abstinence-ed. really not those who would have been having it without abstinence-ed.??
This question is really getting to me. And it's a very distracting one to be carrying around all day.
Stud Government Boxument Librarians putting their Indices into Circulation!!1!
I wear a size 8 hat. I know this because I inherited an (unworn) baseball cap from my 6'8" father-in-law, and it was the first hat in my life that actually fit me.
My attempts to come up with names for Librarian Erotica titles are floundering at "The Do-me Decimal System" (too cheesy)
Too cheesy for erotica, maybe, but just fine for porn.
This question is really getting to me. And it's a very distracting one to be carrying around all day.
I'm sure someone here at Unfogged will be able to suggest a means for you to release all that pent-up thinking-about-teens that's bothering you.
I wear a size 8 hat.
Thanks for sharing. Punyhead.
Carl, I've been thinking about your question a bit (because there's nothing more appropriate than musing about teenagers having oral sex at work) and here's what I've come up with:
1) the adoption of "everything-but" as an "abstinence" strategy (or in the case of anal, "everything-butt" heh heh)
2) an overall increase in the awareness of how awesome oral sex is
3) crappy abstinence-only programs that don't correctly lay out the health risks of oral sex (or acknowledge that it exists), see 1
Seriously, B/tch, you have a bigger head?
Are you restricted to button-up shirts? Do you have braces built onto your shoulders to keep your head upright? Or do you just look like a fetus?
Or do you just look like a fetus?
Oh! Maybe that's why your mom keeps unbuttoning her shirt for me!
But yes, I do have a head that is larger than size 8. 8 1/2, to be exact.
M/tch in 39: Yikes. I realize I'm delurking a bit here, so I hope we're all still being facetious, and you don't take me for a big perv!
mrh in 41: I think your take on it is the standard interpretation of what's going on. But again, I would think, if abstinence ed. had any effect along these lines, it would be to convince teens who would have otherwise had intercourse to stick with oral. But teens who would have otherwise had intercourse would ALSO have been having oral sex. So while there'd be less teens having intercourse, there'd be about the same number having oral, becuase essentially, teens are switching their sexual practices from "intercourse + oral" to "just oral". The only way this wouldn't happen is if there were teens out there before abstinence-ed. having only intercourse, but not oral sex. Does that make sense?
Damn. That is a big head. Are you freakishly tall, like Labs?
I have a huge head. It sucks, because I'd love to wear cute hats all the time, but none of them fit. I've never been sized though.
I hope we're all still being facetious, and you don't take me for a big perv!
If this is a worry, clearly you haven't been lurking very long.
I have a huge head. It sucks
Indiscriminately, or just people that you know well?
47:"If this is a worry, clearly you haven't been lurking very long."
Oh I have, it's just that I take you all for huge pervs.
Oh I have, it's just that I take you all for huge pervs.
That's not fair: some of us a quite normal-sized pervs.
My nephew's head, when he was an infant, was measured to be in the one hundredth percentile for his state.
It's an inherited trait from my dad (I think before that him The Head was expressed in his maternal grandfather), and it skipped me. So although I have a totally normal-sized head, I've always suffered from fathead-envy. I'm making up for it in other ways, of course.
I just worry about these high school girls who are having anal sex. I mean, let's follow the logic: (1) a lot of girls report early sexual activity as being bad or painful because high school guys don't care/know enough to make sure she's enjoying it and (2) bad anal sex can be much worse than bad intercourse. I expect much really bad sex is happening, at least as far as the girls are concerned. I can't imagine that girls who have bought into the idea that they have to maintain their technical virginity at all cost being the same girls who would be willing to tell their partners what they expect and assert their right to a pleasurable sexual experience.
Becks in 52 -- I definitely agree. Luckily, the article makes it sound like the uptick in anal sex is pretty small. I'm not entirely up to speed on all the relative risk factors of various sexual acts, but it seems like a shift from (protected) vaginal to anal sex is really something to worry about if it's happening to any significant degree. Again, I don't know precise numbers on the risk factors, but a shift from intercourse to (unprotected) oral sex doesn't seem as troublesome to me. In fact, we should probably be encouraging teenage boys to get up to speed with the foreplay. Though the stats I have seen make it seem as it's mostly the girls performing and boys receiving. This reinforces your very important point about girls not asserting their rights/wants regarding sex. Dealing with THAT, is probably one of the best approaches a sex-ed program could take.
PS: I'm not sure, but I think we may have met at a party in DC sometime last Sept.
I mean, let's follow the logic: (1) a lot of girls report early sexual activity as being bad or painful because high school guys don't care/know enough to make sure she's enjoying it and (2) bad anal sex can be much worse than bad intercourse.
All of which adds up to (3) less willingness to have anal sex later in life! This is a disaster!
Oh I have, it's just that I take you all for huge pervs.
Weightist.
PS: I'm not sure, but I think we may have met at a party in DC sometime last Sept.
Was it in October at Smasher & Saiselgy's?
57: Yes ma'am! I was drunk and had just quit my job, surrounded by young political journalists (and libertarians, ack!), so I was pretty awful and boorish to everyone. I would have been around a goofy Indian fellow with gelled-up hair.
I confess I'm a little surprised this thread hasn't yet devolved (evolved?) into something NSFW.
Huh, I don't remember any goofy Indian fellow.
Not to put a crimp in the abstinence-only sex ed bashing, because it is sucky legislation, but I read the article and I don't think the survey supports the conclusion that teenagers are turning to oral sex in lieu of vaginal intercourse.
1) The survey is from people ages 12-25. There's no further breakdown, and it just asks whether they've had anal or oral sex within the past 90 days.
2) There is a significant upswing, but it's not clear to what age group it's tied. In 2004 I was 23, and I'm pretty sure that my sexual practices weren't tied to a bad eighth grade sex-ed course, or anything being taught in the high schools in 2004. Abstinence-only wasn't the rage in 1993. But my age group is still being polled and used to show things about abstinence-only sex ed in 2004? Well, that's not what the study authors conclude; but that seems to be the way Pandagon did.
3) The survey as cited in the article, at least, didn't note *any* abstinence from vaginal intercourse. The article cites the perception that oral sex is safer, which it is.
And the more I think about this, it doesn't add up. It could be the case that teenagers get so scarred by the abstinence-only sex ed that they sublimate their desire for sex into oral sex. But one of the premises of safe-sex education is that teenage desire is going to be largely constant, and not the sort of thing that we can just easily affect by a virginity pledge.
The Columbia study found that two years later, most of the pledges have had sex. And the conclusion from that was the pledges don't work. That seems to me to be in tension with the claim that the pledge *is* working insofar as it keeps everyone from having vaginal intercourse, but making everyone have oral and anal sex.
I'm thinking maybe there's other factors. I certainly hear more about oral and anal sex on the news than when I was a kid (but it's possible I wasn't paying attention.) Internet porn could be another factor.
"Huh, I don't remember any goofy Indian fellow."
Strange, he usually tries and makes himself memorable.
I *think* I made fun of your bookshelf for displaying poorly known books written by well known authors.
Oh yes, now I remember. Yes, yes. You went on and on about how a set of Kierkegaard's books seemed to be for presentation purposes only, skipping over several (tattered and stickied) volumes in favor of Either/Or, part 2, which, sure, I admit, I never read.
Cala in 61: I think that when the article tries to infer this:
(1)"there has been a significant increase in the proportion of teenagers and young adults engaging in oral sex and, less commonly, having anal intercourse"
from this:
(2)"over the 10-year period the prevalence of self-reported oral sex in the previous 90 days doubled among males (from 16 percent to 32 percent) and more than doubled among females (from 14 percent to 38 percent)."
it's misinterpreting the results. (2) supports, at best, that teens are having oral sex more often, not what (1) says which is that more teens are having oral sex.
I think this solves my puzzle from earlier posts -- I didn't understand how abstinence-ed. would bring about (1).
And definitely, it would be nice to for the article to have reported the results for vaginal intercourse as well. Without it, it's hard to draw any conclusions about what abstinence-ed. is doing.
Smasher in 64: Yeah, uhm, like I said, I was being a bit boorish. Sorry about all that. I've never finished *any* Kierkegaard, if that makes up for it.
I finished Fear and Trembling, but I remember thinking several parts of it were incoherent, which maybe means I didn't really understand them.
Yeah, the actual article just concluded that workers at STD clinics should realize that there's been an upswing in reported oral and anal sex among teenagers and young adults, and should modify their expectations and treatment strategies accordingly.
(That was in the appendix to Fear and Trembling.)
Kids used to go about all this stuff in a really different way, according to "The Seducer's Diary" in the first part of Either/Or.
Carl, was only hoping to place you, not put you in your place. It was all done in good humor, as I recall.
Yeah, of course it was all in fun. I just felt slightly embarassed, retroactively, about harassing a stranger (and the host) about his bookshelf.
Of course it's well known that Kierkegaard turned away steady BJ's to devote himself to philosophy. Sucker.
Geez you two, get a room already!
Or maybe just a carrel in the library...
You're really getting into the spirit of things, Carl. Congratulations on your coming out (from lurking)!
I have an idea.
How about reading something by Kierkegaard for the next unfogged book club.
the uptick in anal sex is pretty small
You hardly feel it.
You hardly feel it.
I think that means you're not doing it right.
Or you've done it way, way too much.
41: ...because there's nothing more appropriate than musing about teenagers having oral sex at work
Teenagers shouldn't have oral sex at work, they'll get fired.
