It must be that time of year again- the salmon swim upstream, the bears get fat and hunker down in the woods, and alarmist media starts running around in circles screaming that, “your teenager might be having unprotected group sex in the back of an ally on Colfax Street in Denver with seven interveinous drug users named Jamie! Right now!”
Never mind that teenagers always have and always will have sex, and apparently at pretty consistent rates even among more idealzed times like the 1950’s, the society at large feels that it’s necessary to collectively gasp, cover their mouthes, and say, “Holy crap, did you know that somewhere, right now, two sixteen year olds could be shagging?”
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think it’s a good idea for teenagers to be having sex. A lot of studies have shown clear correlation between early intercourse and a number of mental health issues such as depression, low self-esteem, or other behavioral problems. I won’t play out the whole numbers debate right now, but it seems as if a rather shocking and unfortunate portion of the female population will end up pregnant before they turn 20 (25% at least), and of course there are STDs to be concerned about as well.
A few days ago while listening to NPR, a rundown of a recent CDC report on teenage sexual trends announced that there were further drops of sexual intercourse among teenagers compared prior years, but these intercourse abstainers seem to have transitioned to oral sex instead. The overall portion of the teenage population having oral sex or intercourse was pretty constant. My immediate reaction? “Well, that’s good to hear!” In terms of the welfare of our teenagers, we should be happy to hear that people are choosing oral sex over full sexual intercourse. Oral sex won’t lead to pregnancy, is much less likely to transfer STI’s, and is much, much less likely to lead to new infections of the most serious STI’s such as Hep. or HIV.
From: http://www.avert.org/orlsx.htm
But no, some fun little pack of Helen Lovejoys calling themselves Child Trends have taken it upon themselves to mine the recent data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics report on teenage reports on sexual behavior. They decry that the kids practicing oral sex must not be aware of its risks. Some idiot continues to yammer on and on about, “you know when you brush your teeth and you get a little bit of blood in your mouth? Now most people might interpret that as a sign that perhaps they need to brush a little softer, or perhaps that they have a little bit of infection in their gum…” until finally getting to the point that it is indeed possible to contract STI’s via oral sex.
Well, no kidding Sherlock, it’s possible, but it’s also much less likely than through oral-vaginal or oral-anal contact.
I just don’t understand why people can’t be happy to hear that teenagers have picked up on messages about sexual safety and altered their behavior in response to it. It’s like teenagers and cars. Sure, we’d all be happy to hear that they’ve just plain stopped driving, but I doubt it’ll happen anytime soon. I’d rather hear that people are wearing seatbelts instead.
But no, this isn’t driving a car. We can’t possibly have a rational response to any news about our teens getting nekkid. We can’t do our best to encourage risk reductions whereever possible to eliminate the actual bad things that happen because of teenage sexuality. Instead, we have to have creepy middle aged men with a rather inappropriate interest in teenage sexuality continue to tell people that all sex is going to lead to someone getting knocked up, AIDS, and kicked out of the house.
So I say, god damn it, let the kids have their oral sex. If they’re forgoing intercourse in favor of oral sex, we should be happy and stop predicting the downfall of society at the hands of the upcoming filfthy, filfthy little teenage hussies.
