Teens in ABC Documentary: Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss

May 29, 2009 2:41 AM

ABC NewsAfter four years researching for the documentary, Azam told "Good Morning America" that oral sex is as common as kissing for teens and that casual prostitution -- being paid at parties to strip, give sexual favors or have sex -- is far more commonplace than once believed.
posted by eiro0701 (127 comments total)

What's next, hugging?
i just sexted my comment from my phone.
posted by hypersloth at 2:50 AM on May 29 [26 favorites has favorites]

"Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit DAMMIT!!!" is what I'd say if kissing had been a common activity for me back in high school.
posted by Item at 2:53 AM on May 29 [6 favorites has favorites]

I am dubious that half of teenagers having had oral sex by 19 is *in any way* similar to the percentage who have been kissed. This makes me suspect that the documentary maker is full of shit. The widespread prostitution and sex party claims also smell like moral panic bait. At least Reefer Madness didn't claim to be more than entertainment...
posted by jaduncan at 2:55 AM on May 29 [7 favorites has favorites]

I remember going to high school and somehow, I don't remember all these crazy sex parties we keep hearing about.
It's probably a result of them blowing my mind.
posted by dunkadunc at 2:56 AM on May 29 [7 favorites has favorites]

Good. We need a libertine generation to blow out some of the puritan cobwebs in this dump.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:56 AM on May 29 [29 favorites has favorites]

Blow me. Good night!
posted by hypersloth at 2:59 AM on May 29

I guess the only thing that really bothers me about this is the implication that these girls handing out oral favors aren't getting any reciprocal action when they ask for it. For some reason that seems slightly worse than trading your virginity for handbag; who the fuck cares about virginity anyway?
posted by Ritchie at 3:01 AM on May 29

How did she get these kids to talk about sex? Did she just walk up to a group of teenagers with a camera and say, "So, hi there, kids, I hear you guys are havin' lots of the sex and I was just wonderin' if ya'll could tell me aboot it, ya'know? You betcha!". Can't you just see the stunned incredulity in the teenager's faces and the baffled glances they give each other right before they launch into a world record bullshitting session to see what this old crazy bitch will buy. Like sex parties, casual prostitution, rainbow parties, color coded sex themed braclets, etc.
posted by stavrogin at 3:04 AM on May 29 [47 favorites has favorites]

I really don't like how this article seems to be connecting the percentage of teenagers 15-19 claiming to have had oral sex (50%) with the 'loose morals' at these famous teen sex parties.
Yes, oral sex is sex. So what? You don't get pregnant from oral sex. We already knew teenagers have sex.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:09 AM on May 29

We have to stop this! It could lead to dancing!
posted by DreamerFi at 3:14 AM on May 29 [18 favorites has favorites]

Oral panic?
posted by themadjuggler at 3:16 AM on May 29 [8 favorites has favorites]

Well at least they aren't huffing Jenkem.
posted by PenDevil at 3:20 AM on May 29 [11 favorites has favorites]

When I was 15 I claimed to get all kinds of sex. Turns out, I didn't get any until college. But, man, could I talk a good game. Especially to interested adults that I was trying to impress.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:28 AM on May 29 [18 favorites has favorites]

I remember a quiz that went through my school about drugs and sex.
One kid said he was a thirteen-year-old girl who did Steroids in her Car and did Heroin at Home, and that he had sex many times a day, always when alcohol was present.
One potential drug on the list was "Derbisol" which turns out to have been the 'lie-detecting' question since Derbisol is an Australian table polish.
Regardless, I think the only people who don't lie on these tests are the kids who aren't getting any sex because they don't want any because they're such boring dicks.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:35 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Are their teenage mandingos?
posted by maxwelton at 3:37 AM on May 29

uh, I meant "there"...I blame a back of teenage sex for my idiocy.
posted by maxwelton at 3:39 AM on May 29

uh, "lack"...I really, really didn't get any as a teen.
posted by maxwelton at 3:40 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Yes! I am! I like sex!
You like sex! In fact, you are a person who likes sex as much as a prostitute likes sex!
YES I LIKE SEXY SEX AS IF IT WERE MY PROFESSION!! TELL ME MORE ABOUT IT
YOU ENJOY THIS ACT YOU SEXY SEX PERSON etc.
posted by hypersloth at 3:46 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

This is probably as good a place as any to ask: what the fuck is up with that teenage sex party scene in Teen Wolf? I must have been 7 or 8 when I saw it, and to this day I have a very vivid recollection of two teenagers in underwear, strung up together on the floor and covered in whipped cream, just writhing around while a whole party laughs at them. It totally imprinted itself on my mind as a thing that older people do, and to this day I still don't know what to make of it.
posted by creasy boy at 3:46 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

And this age group distribution disturbs me as well.

So, they say half of 'teenagers' between 15 and 19 have had oral sex. (scandal!)
This disregards that when you're 18 and 19, there's a good chance you're in college, living on your own. When I was that age, fuck yeah, I was having sex. But how many college freshmen and sophomores are heavily weighting a group that includes 15-year-olds?

It almost seems like these studies and documentaries start off from the beginning with the intent of coming up with something to scandalize parents. And making parents paranoid sure doesn't help teenagers.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:47 AM on May 29 [8 favorites has favorites]

Err, maybe this is just BC but we've recently recieved a survey that said just the opposite.

Synopsis of survey:
Sex: down (participents are older and engage less frequently)
Drugs: down (for both pot and harder drugs)
Alcohol: down (both casual and binge drinking)
Pregnancy: Stable (but still really *really* low)
Suicide: down (attempts, thoughts and masochistic behavior)
Reckless Behavior: Down (the survey defined snowboarding as reckless so this could be total BS)
Physical abuse (bullying): up
posted by Pseudology at 3:49 AM on May 29

err forgot to add that the previous figures were taken 8-10 years ago.
posted by Pseudology at 3:51 AM on May 29

what the fuck is up with that teenage sex party scene in Teen Wolf? I must have been 7 or 8 when I saw it, and to this day I have a very vivid recollection of two teenagers in underwear, strung up together on the floor and covered in whipped cream, just writhing around while a whole party laughs at them. It totally imprinted itself on my mind as a thing that older people do, and to this day I still don't know what to make of it.

It sounds to me like you're missing out on a big part of adulthood. I pity you and your Puritan lifestyle.
posted by Item at 3:56 AM on May 29 [9 favorites has favorites]

Teen Wolf is a mystery which nobody apologizes for, much like ALF.
posted by hypersloth at 3:58 AM on May 29 [5 favorites has favorites]

Damn, I guess I grew up too early. However, I agree with dunkadunc that by extending this to 19 it potentially throws off the data. At least when I was growing up sex was rather casual in college but definitely much less so in high school, although my high school was so small there were no anonymous hook-ups. Anyway, where is the panic?
posted by caddis at 3:59 AM on May 29

I don't believe that teenage boys are any good at cunnilingus. It's not something that comes naturally to them.
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:00 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

"'I think they're very much trading relationship stability for favors,' on girl said."

Yeah, because boys never used to pressure girls to have sex in exchange for a relationship. When I was a girl, boys stayed with girls for their beautiful minds.
posted by nax at 4:09 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

C'mon people... we're all rational adults here.

Sure, the kids today are indulging in frequent acts of oral sex... but that doesn't mean that we can't look at this situation calmly and rationally, and, rather than judging them too harshly, take a little time instead to get down on our knees and help each other out a bit more often for a change!
posted by markkraft at 4:23 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Blackjack Davey came ridin' on back
whistlin' loud and merry.
Made the woods around him ring,
And he charmed the heart of a lady,
Charmed the heart of a lady.

"How old are you, my pretty little miss,
How old are you, my honey"
She answered to him with a lovin' smile
"I'll be sixteen come Sunday,
Be sixteen come Sunday."
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:51 AM on May 29 [6 favorites has favorites]

I read through the articles and found myself thinking, "this is new?" I attended small college preparatory high school (sounds redundant, but it was a magnet school with nothing but A.P. classes...I'm mentioning this only to indicate we were kind of an isolated group, but I assumed it was the same at all the high schools in the City...) during the early 80's, and there was an awful lot of oral sex going on between study sessions. In fact, it sometimes seemed like it was the best way to deal with being burned out from studying.

And we knew all about how pregnancy could effect our GPA's.

I also don't think it was such one-sided oral (guys receiving/girls giving) as the story indicated; yes, I remember guy friends talking about which girls had memorable technique, but I also remember the girls offering opinions on which guys were "good at tongue twisters" and warning friends away from impatient mouth-breathers. No, this wasn't happening at "rainbow parties" and it was usually with a person you were dating, but it wasn't like most relationships lasted too long back then and, as I said, the school was small...it all felt kind of incestuous by the time graduation rolled around.

Now that I've written this out I am left wondering if SF really was a *different* place to grow up. I'm sure someone will say they had a totally different experience in the same small town, but this was most definitely my own.
posted by squasha at 5:01 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

No one is talking about the real victims here. Countless middle schoolers who hear this stuff in the media and imagine that the high school years they are heading into will an endless bacchanalia of endless hedonism full of wild parties and crazy sex. Getting kids hopes up this way is just cruel.
posted by delmoi at 5:02 AM on May 29 [44 favorites has favorites]

Well, from my perspective, I see two possibilities:

A) It's happening, and doesn't really matter, or;
B) It's not happening, and doesn't really matter.

Noting the part in common, I find myself quite unperturbed.

Maybe a little jealous, mind you, but unperturbed.
posted by Malor at 5:04 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Now that I've written this out I am left wondering if SF really was a *different* place to grow up. I'm sure someone will say they had a totally different experience in the same small town, but this was most definitely my own.

I think there's a huge variation between different places. Which makes the whole obsession with "teenagers" as if there was a uniform variation of sexual norms through the entire country absurd.

This kind of culture gets passed down from older teens to younger teens, and it can probably change fairly quickly, there's only a four year window in high school for example. But the culture of a town or even school will have a huge impact.
posted by delmoi at 5:06 AM on May 29

When I was 15 I claimed to get all kinds of sex. Turns out, I didn't get any until college. But, man, could I talk a good game. Especially to interested adults that I was trying to impress.

Or scare, or come across as bad-ass. Who knows? Maybe some of them are telling the truth. Some of these things weren't completely unheard of when I was in high school in the 80s. What bothers me - apart from the alarmist language of the title - is that we don't know enough about the methodology of Azam's four years interviewing Canadian teens. Googling around, I found this interview, which states the following:

Azam, 38, a former columnist for the Toronto Star, interviewed Canadian girls (and their parents) who had been discovered by school officials to be involved in sexual activity with groups of boys, as well as girls charged by police. This includes a prostitution ring at an Edmonton high school.

So in other words, we're not exactly talking about the most typical cross-section of teens you could talk to. Also, maybe many of them talked about how "commonplace" the practice was as a form of displacement.

A book, newly published, with a scary tone, combined with an author who pretty much implies that kids all over Canada are blowing each other with impunity while the little factoid that she interviewed teens who were already in trouble with school official and the police strikes me as kind of dishonest.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:11 AM on May 29 [10 favorites has favorites]

A dingo ate my baby.
posted by Hovercraft Eel at 5:16 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

Teens in ABC Documentary: Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss

/Eagerly rents The Long Kiss Goodnight
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:28 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Maybe kids are just kissing less. Ever think of that? Swine flu or some shit?
posted by I Foody at 5:41 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

This is as old as the hills. Remember snap bracelets? People believed in them because teenagers believed other teenagers believed in them. Or people just loved forwarded vaguely plausible e-mail crap. If anyone was actually playing "snap," it was a minuscule number.

40-year-olds love, for various reasons, to believe that the generation coming up behind them is just depraved. There's a vicarious thrill in imagining school as a bacchanalia. There's also the chance to moralize.

Adults also think that information travels efficiently through schools; i.e., if teenagers believe it's going on in school, it must be. Thus we get the worst of gossip and confusion and elevate it to data.
posted by argybarg at 5:46 AM on May 29

Casual fellatio began
Sometime after two thousand three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the working man
And the Wars of the WTC.
posted by pracowity at 5:56 AM on May 29 [15 favorites has favorites]

color coded sex themed braclets

Thus explaining "live Strong!"
posted by rough ashlar at 5:57 AM on May 29

I trust Bob Altemeyer's 24-year survey of undergraduates more.
posted by anthill at 6:00 AM on May 29

Argybarg, I just saw snap bracelets at Hot Topic, so I assume we will see a resurrection of that story soon. (Damn kids appropriating my childhood ironically!)
posted by JoanArkham at 6:02 AM on May 29

In 1982, there was a group in my hometown that claimed that young girls were prostituting themselves for quarters to play video games. End result: moral panic, coin-op video games banned (I think even to this day). Telling credulous parents that their children are up to immoral acts behind their backs has always been a tool for control of public opinion.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 6:09 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Oral sex is the new goodnight kiss.

No wonder my jaw aches!
posted by futureisunwritten at 6:14 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

I love these studies where they find the proportion of society that supports their claims. Answer this IF all girls were doing this wouldn't a free market sex economy lower the price from 100s of bucks down to a few dollars. Why get a BJ from Jamie for 20 bucks when Sally is 10? Or maybe I just went to the wrong parties....
posted by Mastercheddaar at 6:16 AM on May 29

Any figures on the 40-and-up bracket that is just entirely too interested in the sex lives of teenagers?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:19 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

"Oral sex is the new goodnight kiss. "

Hopefully, tomorrow's mothers and fathers won't take this lesson to heart, or things could get pretty confusing for their kids.
posted by markkraft at 6:21 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

"Any figures on the 40-and-up bracket that is just entirely too interested in the sex lives of teenagers?"

Clearly, the thought of the 40-and-up bracket receiving oral sex from their own peers is too scary to contemplate.

It's not that they've become more discerning and discriminate. It's that the people around them have become a lot less endearing and cute than when they were younger.
posted by markkraft at 6:26 AM on May 29

LOLABSTINENCEONLYPROGRAMS
posted by Ron Thanagar at 6:27 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yeah, i'm calling BS on this one. They really went with a small sample size, and one that was already in trouble for sexual activity. Thing is, if you are in a crowd where sex is easy to come by, everyone in that crowd does the same kinds of things usually. So, maybe 100-200 kids out of a 2000 kid high school are the hardcore partiers, and they all sleep around with each other at parties getting drunk, giving oral sex and strip shows for fun. The other 1800 kids play video games and do homework. I doubt even that, though. Probably out of the 200 partiers, 100 get around, and maybe 20-30 are complete sex fiends that do all the things listed in this article.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 6:28 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

What really bothers me is the "prettiest girls from the most successful families are the most at risk" claim.

Why can't these perverts/exploiters/fellow teens pick on some ugly, poor girls for their throbbing lust instead? The beautiful, suburban people need our help.
posted by Paid In Full at 6:31 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

A teenage granddaughter comes downstairs for her date with a very shear blouse on and no bra. Her grandmother just pitched a fit, telling her not to go out like that!

The teenager tells her "Loosen up Grams. These are modern times. You gotta let your rose buds show!" and out she goes.

The next day the teenager comes downstairs and the grandmother is sitting there with no top on. The teenager wants to die. She explains to her grandmother that she has friends coming over and that it is just not appropriate...

The grandmother says. "Loosen up, Sweetie. If you can show off your rosebuds, then I can display my hanging baskets."

Happy Gardening.
posted by netbros at 6:35 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

"I just saw snap bracelets at Hot Topic, so I assume we will see a resurrection of that story soon. (Damn kids appropriating my childhood ironically!)"

The real question is, why were YOU in Hot Topic? (everyone knows that real punks who go in there burst into flames.)
posted by dunkadunc at 6:35 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

This results from a common human cognitive error in thinking of all "teenagers" as a homogeneous class of functionally identical entities. Individuals, including teenagers, vary substantially in their sexuality just as they vary in any other trait we might ponder. People respond differently to the collectivistic urge to conform rampant in the teenage years. If it is true that the proportion of teenagers that are sluts is increasing, all this tells me is that society is becoming more collectivistic; individuals are becoming less capable of resisting the pressure to conform by engaging in ritualistic initiation ceremonies (i.e. sucking dick for acceptance, but also any of the other thousands of myriad cultural expectations the individual feels social pressure to fulfill). Why are individuals becoming less able to resist the conformist pressure? I would venture the mass penetration of constant electronic stimulation rendering the human mind a purely skinnerian stimulus-response implementing organ; in contrast to an organ capable of for example writing a complete sentence. That is one hypothesis for the increasing proportion, but we shouldn't forget that some girls have always just liked dick irrespective of the cultural milieu. These girls are plain sluts and we should salute them and the valuable niche they fulfill in the teenage social ecosystem.
posted by norabarnacl3 at 6:37 AM on May 29

Christ, we do this about every eight months, don't we? OH NOES TEH KIDZ IZ HAVING TEH SEKS! It's always some shrill sensationalist bullshit backed with zero credible evidence. Shit, I can remember being in sixth grade and hearing about all the orgies that fans of "heavy metal music" were having. Hell, it was just a couple years ago that Oprah was all flustered about non-existent Rainbow Parties.

Guess what, middle America: Teens like sex. There's just not any way they're gonna fail to notice their reproductive systems coming online. CALM THE FUCK DOWN. If you want your kids to keep their rutting to a minimum, the single most counter productive thing you can do is take network news' word on anything regarding teenage sexuality and freaking the hell out about it.

Get'em some condoms, give'em The Talk, then Grow the Fuck Up, would you please?
posted by EatTheWeak at 6:43 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

Every generation, there's this panic that the next generation is having more fun than you had.
posted by yeloson at 6:47 AM on May 29 [19 favorites has favorites]

Two things people always lie about: sex and money. Keep that in mind.
posted by MarshallPoe at 6:52 AM on May 29

It was 50% off clearance, dunkadunc. I...couldn't resist. (Neat webcomic!)
posted by JoanArkham at 6:52 AM on May 29

I'm going to bet that most of the kids in this video had probably been sexually exploited by an adult at a young age, acted out by being promiscuous with peers, and then this woman came along and exploited them again to make this prurient, piece of shit movie.
posted by empath at 6:57 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Every generation, there's this panic that the next generation is having more fun than you had.

Or - yeloson - you panic about the free sex you're not getting from your own generation.

(The late British novelist Kingsley Amis is fairly unfashionable now, but he was bloody funny about the desperate confusion of assuming everyone else was doing it in the sixties - except you and your embarrassingly old-fashioned girlfriend.)
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:59 AM on May 29

Nearly 1 in 4 teenage girls have STD's.
posted by Brian B. at 7:06 AM on May 29

Metafilter: a common human cognitive error in thinking of all "teenagers" as a homogeneous class of functionally identical entities.
posted by zaelic at 7:06 AM on May 29

FOUR YEARS?

Hey ABC, listen up. You fund me for four years, I'll find people to say whatever you want. For my 'documentary'. You want to talk about how more rural kids than ever are fucking farm animals? Have you heard about the combination of sex and drugs big city kids use just for kicks? What about the naked key parties kids have after they get their licenses? The pokemon sex rings?

Call me.
posted by graventy at 7:17 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

How did she get these kids to talk about sex?

Simple: an undercover investigative reporter pretends to be "the new girl," though she is a 25 year old who graduated from a decent Journalism undergrad program. Seeing limited potential for advancing from newsroom assistant and general gopher in the current job market, this reporter volunteered to go undercover.

The problem was, most kids got the awkward vibe from her. Something was wrong. Sure, she had the "retro" clothing (she raided her own closet), but her sayings weren't quite right. "Eat my shorts" wasn't retro, just dumb. Anyway, this spirited reporter trudged on, doing well in classes, but realizing she wasn't fitting in with anyone but the geeks, and the geeks sure weren't getting any sex. Or were they?

The geeks hadn't had any casual discussions about casual sex, so she decided she'd just ask. "How often do you guys have sex?"
"Oh, all the time."
"Heh, yeah. Constantly."

The moral of the story: don't trust high school geeks to be honest about their sexcapades. Clearly, this reporter forgot Sixteen Candles.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:20 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

Why is the focus entirely on girls? Surely they're not all lesbians. Why don't we hear anything about the boys?
posted by desjardins at 7:21 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

How did she get these kids to talk about sex?

"Hi, I'm from TV. I record things that get shown on TV. Would you like to be on TV?"
posted by brain_drain at 7:25 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

I don't believe that teenage boys are any good at cunnilingus. It's not something that comes naturally to them.

I'll agree with this. It's a goddamn art form! You need discipline and practice!

But for guys, just the fact that something, ANYTHING is happening is enough.

The pokemon sex rings?

Wow, so that's what it means when they say "My pokemons. Let me show you them." My mind has been blown!
posted by Talanvor at 7:26 AM on May 29

The networks love these journotainment type hysteria stories because they're easy to churn out, make for eye catching headlines and drum up a lot of controversy. A few years ago a producer from 60 Minutes contacted me about some stuff I wrote about the black market for pharmaceutical narcotics in Philly and was pushing me really hard to help them do a story on "bowling parties" where kids were supposedly emptying the contents of their parents' medicine cabinets into bowls and inviting their friends over to take whatever pills were in there. It was the most far fetched horseshit I had ever heard, totally the drug version of rainbow parties, and I told them that. This was long before I was on Metafilter or knew Maias from here, and I remember telling this producer, "You know there are writers like Maia Szalavitz who live to destroy drug hysteria pieces like this, and you're opening your show up to that kind of criticism if you do this piece." They eventually dropped it, but that's what I thought when I saw this link, like oh, another one of these.
posted by The Straightener at 7:30 AM on May 29 [16 favorites has favorites]

Rumors of bowling parties go back to the sixties and seventies. I doubt one ever happened anywhere except in some scared parent minds.
posted by caddis at 7:46 AM on May 29

I only clicked cuz it said there were 69 comments...
posted by HuronBob at 7:48 AM on May 29

Well, The Straightener has gone and said pretty much what I was going to say. This piece of journalism is equal parts titillation and manufactured moral outrage. This piece is a microcosm of what is wrong with the American media's approach to sexuality.
posted by Mister_A at 7:50 AM on May 29

what these teens are saying is shocking parents.

Good job, teens! Mission accomplished! Better hope that your parent isn't the one that will come home with a GPS-enabled chastity belt or whatever dumb fucking thing some entrepreneur comes up with to exploit the panic you helped cause, though. Wouldn't that be a learning experience, eh?
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:51 AM on May 29

Is it still sweeps?

Also, where the hell were these trends when I was in high school and college? I didn't kiss a girl until after I graduated college. Though thats more to do with being socially broken (functionally).
posted by SirOmega at 7:53 AM on May 29

The pokemon sex rings?

My Pokemon brings all the boys to the yard
And they're like, you wanna trade cards?
Yeah, I wanna trade cards
But not my Charizard
Okay, bring it on

Oh noes, won't somebuddy think of teh children? My personal observation is that the gay boys are a lot more likely to be having sex in high school than they were when I was in high school in the 80s, but that otherwise, little has changed except frequency of condom use (from almost nil to most of the kids, most of the time).
posted by notashroom at 7:55 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

Man, when I was in high school, some of the other guys bet that I'd have sex before one of my friends (who is now, coincidentally, also a MeFite), but I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Now you see the tears of a nerd.
posted by klangklangston at 8:01 AM on May 29

Now you done went and got Smokey Robinson stuck in my head, Klang, for which I thank ye.
posted by Mister_A at 8:08 AM on May 29

If we grant that oral sex is as common as kissing, either that means that there's a cohort who has had oral sex and never been kissed to balance out the normative kissed-but-not-blown cohort, or we assume that the language barrier led Canadian teens to conclude that kissing is oral sex.

Maybe that's what they call "frenching."
posted by klangklangston at 8:08 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

In other words,

Descendre ma pelouse, enfants!
posted by Mister_A at 8:15 AM on May 29

filthy light thief seems to have seen Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed at least twice...

Oh, and color-coded sex themed signals which are meant to be unnoticed by the "outside world" is not a new thing. The hanky code comes immediately to mind.
posted by hippybear at 8:18 AM on May 29

One potential drug on the list was "Derbisol" which turns out to have been the 'lie-detecting' question since Derbisol is an Australian table polish.

I always liked the lie-detecting drug on those questionnaire, because you could see the stoners afterwards scratching their heads and wondering, "Where do I get my hands on that shit?"
posted by jonp72 at 8:20 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

If I think of my circle of friends, male and female, virtually all of them had oral sex by 19, even those that didn't have actual intercourse until in their 20's. And this was in the late 80's and early 90's. It was usually within the confines of a teenage "relationship", which had all the stability of an overloaded rubber raft in a typhoon. Sometimes those relationships only lasted the night.

It was exceedingly common to meet girls who were willing to perform or receive oral sex but not have penetrative intercourse. Perhaps this is regional to the Southeast, but it seemed to be an almost uniform experience for me and my peers during that time period. This persisted through college. That's why I've had less than 10 penetrative sex partners, but probably 3 or 4 dozen oral sex partners. I've always assumed this was similar for everyone.

"Bowling parties" is just stupid. Didn't happen. What, you wanna go take someone's parents' arthritis and incontinence medicine? Wow, edgy. Oh, look, a Plavix!

Also, this is my 2,500th comment on MeFi, which I think is enough for anybody. Retirement, here I come.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:21 AM on May 29

These statistics seem overblown.
posted by pantsonfire at 8:26 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

oral sex is as common as kissing for teens

This was definitely the case for me as a teen, as I got none of either.

That's not true anymore, of course. Because I'm all totally cool and stuff now.

No, really.
posted by brundlefly at 8:28 AM on May 29

Also, this is my 2,500th comment on MeFi, which I think is enough for anybody.

pshaw, you are just getting started (7308)
posted by caddis at 8:33 AM on May 29

These statistics seem overblown.
posted by pantsonfire at 11:26 AM on May 29 [+] [!]

eponysterical and punny too?
posted by Hovercraft Eel at 8:33 AM on May 29

As a parent**, the scary thing is that the statistics for the 11-19 age demographic are JUST AS BAD!!

** Not really, but I've read about them.
posted by LordSludge at 8:40 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

How did she get these kids to talk about sex?

If you read the interview with the author about her book and documentary, she says she was asked to talk to kids who had been in trouble with school officials and/or the police, in something called the Flex Program. Some of the kids could only talk to her with parental consent, because they're underage. So it's pretty much like going to a teen drug rehab, interviewing the kids there, and announcing, "Yeah, it's pretty common for 15-year-olds all across the country to steal or whore themselves for meth."

I mean the interview talks about the "rainbow parties" for crying out loud. Not exactly the pinnacle of accuracy, clunky, Geraldo-esque book title or not.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:53 AM on May 29 [6 favorites has favorites]

Ha! That ices it, Marisa. This is bullshit titillation.
posted by Mister_A at 8:56 AM on May 29

so does this mean that lap dancing 7th graders are behind or ahead of the trend? Lap dancing seems to be the party trick of choice around here. Or atleast the trick adults have witnessed. Knowing some adults around here, probably approved of.
posted by domino at 8:57 AM on May 29

What an odd thing to say.
posted by Mister_A at 9:02 AM on May 29

These teens were from Edmonton? well, that explains it all. Nothing to worry about, America!

There is absolutely nothing to do in Edmonton, other than cram your mouth full of cocks.
posted by BobFrapples at 9:06 AM on May 29 [10 favorites has favorites]

*Moves to Edmonton*
posted by Mister_A at 9:07 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

I'd want to see the demographic makeup of the teens who were featured here. If he's only talking to rich kids, then there is an unacceptable generalization being made here.

I have younger nieces and nephews who are pretty open with me about sex and affairs of the heart, and I've never heard of teen girls hooking themselves out for money or nice things.
posted by reenum at 9:13 AM on May 29

40-year-olds love, for various reasons, to believe that the generation coming up behind them is just depraved. There's a vicarious thrill in imagining school as a bacchanalia. There's also the chance to moralize.

There's also the chance that on her way from Catholic school goth cheerleader practice to the oral sex party she'll get a little out of breath walking up my street and decide to take a short breather in front of my house. She's a little sweaty, flushed, breathless. I'll walk out my front door to offer her a cold drink (and to shoo her off my lawn) and she'll realize suddenly that those silly young teenage boys at the party she's going to are nothing compared to a real man and...


...uh, I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?
posted by dersins at 9:16 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Buttsecks is the new "high five", by the way.
posted by Mister_A at 9:20 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

You were great in that movie, dersins.
posted by Mister_A at 9:22 AM on May 29

"Nearly 1 in 4 teenage girls have STD's."

It's like that song...

"Genital herpes... makes my life so wonderful!
Genital herpes... helps me sleep at night.
Genital herpes... soothes my childhood problems.
Genital herpes... helps me feel alright."
posted by markkraft at 9:27 AM on May 29

Also, the Catholic school down the street from my high school? They had to close the elevator because kids were getting blow jobs in it. I knew someone whose sister went there and she heard all about it.
posted by klangklangston at 9:31 AM on May 29

I don't believe that teenage boys are any good at cunnilingus. It's not something that comes naturally to them. chuckdarwin
Chuck, do you think fellatio comes naturally to teenage girls? I suspect fellatio is more difficult to master.
posted by theora55 at 9:31 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

This pandemic of teen fellatio and lap-dancing is obviously a consequence of previous Satanic ritual abuse.
posted by benzenedream at 9:34 AM on May 29

I apologize for the hetero-centricity of my comment above. Perfectly happy to hear from anyone who has empirical evidence to share. Tiresias?
posted by theora55 at 9:34 AM on May 29

True story: several kids in my Catholic high school were expelled because a girl had given them blowjobs in a remote hallway. This was 1991.
posted by desjardins at 9:49 AM on May 29

Also, the Catholic school down the street from my high school?

Did any of the girls have tiny little moustaches?
posted by Pollomacho at 9:49 AM on May 29

I think they were mostly Irish Catholic, not Italian.
posted by klangklangston at 9:53 AM on May 29

Why you thinka that's-a OK, Klanga? Maybe you-a the racist?
posted by Mister_A at 10:12 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

Where are they now?
Did they all take the vow?
posted by Pollomacho at 10:12 AM on May 29

I attended small college preparatory high school... during the early 80's, and there was an awful lot of oral sex going on between study sessions... Now that I've written this out I am left wondering if SF really was a *different* place to grow up.

I'm gonna have to go with yes.
posted by diogenes at 10:23 AM on May 29

I can't be racist, I'm German!

Wait…
posted by klangklangston at 10:27 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

It occurs to me that if teenagers are better educated and feel like they can do something besides screw, there will be less screwing (i.e. less chances for idiotic pregnant teens to occur) AND more responsible screwing. I don't care about whether teenagers explore their sexuality as long as they do it responsibly, which includes using protection.
posted by kldickson at 10:36 AM on May 29

The only thing I have to say about this is: Damn I wish my mother was alive, so I could show her this and say: "And you thought I was a slut."

I'm not knocking sluts, either. I like what Edna St. Vincent Millet's mother said about her daughters: "I was a slut and I see no reason why they shouldn't be if they want to."

Edna was famous anong her poet peers for her mercy-fucks.

Not a big fan of her poetry, but I've always liked that about her.
posted by Tena at 10:43 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

Hey, guys.

It's in Canada. I know most people here are Americans, so maybe that doesn't mean anything to you. And I guess ABC is framing it as just “teens” who because they looking vaguely Americanish also is supposed to mean “American teens.” But as anyone who's spent time in both countries knows, there's actually a pretty huge difference in cultures. Probably biggest difference: Canada isn't crazy-religious. I grew up in Canada, and even New York seems crazy-religious to me. I can't imagine how crazy religious the actual religious part of your country must be.

Not that I'm saying Canadian irreligiosity has led to teen sex explosion, but maybe it has! In any case Canadian sex data != American sex data.

Also, it's only in Edmonton! I've never been to Edmonton, but when I was about this age, ie about 13, a new kid rolled into town. He was from Edmonton. He was 13. He was all “guys what is your fav way to steal a car. My fav way to fuck a girl in the butt is like this. What's your fav kind of knife? Have you ever lived in a garage? What's your fav kind of gasoline?” This is purely anecdotal but that is my experience with 13-year-old Edmontonians.
posted by skwt at 10:43 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

I don't believe that teenage boys are any good at cunnilingus. It's not something that comes naturally to them.

It's an acquired taste.
posted by EarBucket at 10:45 AM on May 29

Azam, 38, a former columnist for the Toronto Star, interviewed Canadian girls (and their parents) who had been discovered by school officials to be involved in sexual activity with groups of boys, as well as girls charged by police. This includes a prostitution ring at an Edmonton high school.

So basically, sexual activity and/or prostitution are on the rise among girls who are sexually active and/or prostitutes.
posted by turaho at 10:47 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

A dingo ate out my baby.

Fixed that for ya, Hovercraft Eel.
posted by barrett caulk at 11:36 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sad. Ynoxas pushed the button after all, it would seem...
posted by Navelgazer at 11:45 AM on May 29

I knew someone whose sister went there and she heard all about it

awesome research methodology ftw
posted by ook at 12:49 PM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sad. Ynoxas pushed the button after all, it would seem...

Whoa. Weirdest flameout ever, huh?
posted by Rock Steady at 1:00 PM on May 29

maybe matt's started capping comments at 2500.
posted by desjardins at 1:12 PM on May 29

Wow, did I go to the wrong parties.
posted by ciderwoman at 1:45 PM on May 29

I suspect fellatio is more difficult to master.

Oh, surely not. And besides, even if that's the case, I'm sure there are a hell of a lot more teenage boys who would be happy to get even mediocre fellatio than there are teenage girls who would be happy to get even mediocre cunnilingus.
posted by webmutant at 1:52 PM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Nothing new under the sun.
Catholic girls, do you know how they go? (1979)
SPOILER: All the way, that's the way they go.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:27 PM on May 29

as a teen girl, i found fellatio to be an excellent way to control the situation and make a boy into my puppy-dog. and to stay non-preggers. it worked like a charm, and they were always happy to reciprocate. (This report brought to you by the suburban 80s.)

as an adult, i spend a great deal of time with teenagers discussing sexuality and general health for my job, and during all this very frank discussion, we also talk a great deal about adults' hypersexualization of their age-group and moral panic rumors. this is classic moral panic with a big side of adult titillation. they aren't doing it any more than we did. with the possible exception of more access to porn equaling a fucked up sense of what sex is really like or ought to look like.
posted by RedEmma at 4:06 PM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

RedEmma, similar story here. It just seemed like the logical way to be satisfied and avoid all kinds of problems.

And in the 80's we also had a percentage of our classmates who were troubled, often-sexually abused teen girls who were very promiscuous.

None of the research shows that such teens are more common now than they were then-- indeed, the CDC research shows that the number of sexual partners teens report having is *down* (and they make sure to define in survey that oral counts as sex), as are teen pregnancy rates, rates of violent crime amongst youth and drug use.

But that simply doesn't sell papers or get ratings.
posted by Maias at 4:32 PM on May 29

with a tongue like a cow she could make you go wow
posted by stinkycheese at 5:37 PM on May 29

I lived in Edmonton--that is, just outside of it, on the other side of the refineries--when I was 13. That was 1994. Between all the BJs and LSD, there was definitely some action to be had.

Or so I'm told.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:20 PM on May 29

if you've tried derbisol, just wait till you get your hands on phenoxydine
posted by real_paris at 12:47 AM on May 30

Man, the things I find out about too late.
posted by OwlBoy at 12:49 AM on May 30