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jadedmusings(In response to a question about what you would do if you overheard your twelve year-old talking about oral sex with a friend over the phone.)
Person One: At that age I'd assume they were lying to impress their friends. I'd probably try to have a chat with them about peer pressure and how they should be themselves and don't have to put on an act to impress anybody. Though I'm not sure that any 12 year old would be convinced by that!
Person Two: Ohhhh honey. You have so much ahead of you. Be grateful your babies are still, in fact, babies.
It is a pretty well-known fact that middle school kids are doing this and more, not just talking about it.
Person Three: rainbow parties are the cool thing. i can't wait to pick out assorted lip gloss colors for my daughter when she enters middle school. fun times ahead !
From here.
Really? You know, I remember rumors like this flying around when I was in middle school sixteen years ago. However, they were rumors from urban legends spread by fearful parents (though they weren't called rainbow parties* back then as we weren't that creative yet). Oh, yes, there was a twelve year-old girl at my school who had a baby, but that wasn't a consensual sex situation (her uncle molested her - how's that for fucked up?).
Maybe it's because I live in such a rural area, but I seriously want to see reliable sources in the form of (unbiased) academic studies stating that masses of pre-teens are having sex with wild abandon while all these concerned and involved parents are somehow unaware of it. I'm sorry, I don't buy it, I really don't. Children can be sneaky and get away with loads of stuff without their parents ever knowing, but that many children in that many schools across the country...yeah, I really can't wrap my head around it. It's like that pregnancy pact thing that turned out to be only between two or three girls and it was blown way out of proportion by the adults. I think this is more of a case of one or two couples getting caught and then people clutching their pearls thinking that the exception must be the rule.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a naive young parent who has no idea of what's going on. Nevermind I have set foot in a public school in the last five years, and it all seems to be the same as it was when I was in school, only now you have Spongebob instead of Care Bears and the non-CGI Chipmunks.
ETA: Oh thank deity, people brought some snese to that thread and linked to a New York Times article from 2009.
I'll ignore the two-parent household thing because as a single mom I don't think it's totally impossible to provide appropriate levels of parental supervision for my son, and it's offensive to insinuate that one-parent household equals only one authority figure in the child's life to help keep tabs on them. Growing up I knew plenty of kids in two-parent households who were getting into just as much if not more trouble than the children from so-called "broken homes." Some of them weren't caught because they were rich, white, and their parents knew the right sort of people to keep them out of trouble.
But anyway, my point stands. There's no oral sex epidemic and little Johnny and Suzy aren't picking out lip gloss colors for rainbow parties.
* = I know what a "rainbow party" is, but the sensible side of me can't help but think "Man, that sounds incredibly boring and not fun at all." I mean, really? Stopping after going down on a guy to put on another shade of lipstick only to do it again? Isn't that frustrating for both people? I guess I'm just too boring and conventional. I don't want to stop sex to apply makeup, it kind of defeats the purpose of getting down and dirty.
Person One: At that age I'd assume they were lying to impress their friends. I'd probably try to have a chat with them about peer pressure and how they should be themselves and don't have to put on an act to impress anybody. Though I'm not sure that any 12 year old would be convinced by that!
Person Two: Ohhhh honey. You have so much ahead of you. Be grateful your babies are still, in fact, babies.
It is a pretty well-known fact that middle school kids are doing this and more, not just talking about it.
Person Three: rainbow parties are the cool thing. i can't wait to pick out assorted lip gloss colors for my daughter when she enters middle school. fun times ahead !
From here.
Really? You know, I remember rumors like this flying around when I was in middle school sixteen years ago. However, they were rumors from urban legends spread by fearful parents (though they weren't called rainbow parties* back then as we weren't that creative yet). Oh, yes, there was a twelve year-old girl at my school who had a baby, but that wasn't a consensual sex situation (her uncle molested her - how's that for fucked up?).
Maybe it's because I live in such a rural area, but I seriously want to see reliable sources in the form of (unbiased) academic studies stating that masses of pre-teens are having sex with wild abandon while all these concerned and involved parents are somehow unaware of it. I'm sorry, I don't buy it, I really don't. Children can be sneaky and get away with loads of stuff without their parents ever knowing, but that many children in that many schools across the country...yeah, I really can't wrap my head around it. It's like that pregnancy pact thing that turned out to be only between two or three girls and it was blown way out of proportion by the adults. I think this is more of a case of one or two couples getting caught and then people clutching their pearls thinking that the exception must be the rule.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a naive young parent who has no idea of what's going on. Nevermind I have set foot in a public school in the last five years, and it all seems to be the same as it was when I was in school, only now you have Spongebob instead of Care Bears and the non-CGI Chipmunks.
ETA: Oh thank deity, people brought some snese to that thread and linked to a New York Times article from 2009.
As for that supposed epidemic of oral sex, especially among younger teenagers: national statistics on the behavior have only recently been collected, and they are not as alarming as some reports would have you believe. About 16 percent of teenagers say they have had oral sex but haven’t yet had intercourse. Researchers say children’s more relaxed attitude about oral sex probably reflects a similar change among adults since the 1950s. In addition, some teenagers may view oral sex as “safer,” since unplanned pregnancy is not an issue.
Health researchers say parents who fret about teenage sex often fail to focus on the important lessons they can learn from the kids who aren’t having sex. Teenagers with more parental supervision, who come from two-parent households and who are doing well in school are more likely to delay sex until their late teens or beyond. [Emphasis Mine]
I'll ignore the two-parent household thing because as a single mom I don't think it's totally impossible to provide appropriate levels of parental supervision for my son, and it's offensive to insinuate that one-parent household equals only one authority figure in the child's life to help keep tabs on them. Growing up I knew plenty of kids in two-parent households who were getting into just as much if not more trouble than the children from so-called "broken homes." Some of them weren't caught because they were rich, white, and their parents knew the right sort of people to keep them out of trouble.
But anyway, my point stands. There's no oral sex epidemic and little Johnny and Suzy aren't picking out lip gloss colors for rainbow parties.
* = I know what a "rainbow party" is, but the sensible side of me can't help but think "Man, that sounds incredibly boring and not fun at all." I mean, really? Stopping after going down on a guy to put on another shade of lipstick only to do it again? Isn't that frustrating for both people? I guess I'm just too boring and conventional. I don't want to stop sex to apply makeup, it kind of defeats the purpose of getting down and dirty.
