Posted on 06/10/2002 4:35:38 AM PDT by Pern
Isolated incidents of oral sex on campus and talk among middle-school students of the behavior occurring at off-campus parties has alarmed some Fayette County school administrators and parents who plan meetings on the topic.
Physicians, including one who has seen an increase in sexually transmitted diseases among middle school students, and other professionals are promoting frank discussions about oral sex to discourage students from engaging in it. Still, all agree the practice is limited to a small number of students, some of whom do not equate oral sex to intercourse.
Since Beaumont Middle School principal Tom Mowery wrote to parents in December asking them "to be aware of the prevalence of oral sex at off-campus parties at the middle-school level," administrators at one school referred an incident to law enforcement, and administrators at another school, Jessie Clark Middle, called in parents to discuss a situation.
Diane Woods, the district's middle school director, put the topic on the agenda for a future principals meeting. She said she was notified of a report of oral sex occurring between two students on campus at Tates Creek Middle School several weeks ago.
Without releasing specifics, Tates Creek Middle School assistant principal Earl Stivers said the incident was investigated "both by law enforcement and administratively."
Students' remarks have made doctors and parents fear the activity is more widespread.
Dr. Hatim Omar, a University of Kentucky specialist in adolescent medicine, said that just since January, he has treated at least 10 middle school-age students for sexually transmitted diseases they said they had contracted through oral sex. That's up from six cases in 2001 and two each in 1999 and 2000.
Four students, treated for tonsillitis caused by gonorrhea, attributed their conditions to so-called "head parties," Omar said.
Also since January, he has seen students from every middle school in Fayette County who admit that they have engaged in oral sex or attended parties where students have engaged in oral sex.
Parents and administrators are responding. Besides principals addressing the topic, Beaumont PTA president Debbie Boian wants middle school PTA leaders to discuss developing programs at each school to talk to students about risky behavior.
"It's easy to say, 'Oh those kids are just bragging about having oral sex,'" Boian said. "But if there is any truth to it, you should" address the issue.
Nationally, public-health experts report that teen-agers appear to be engaging in high-risk sexual practices without caution and with alarming casualness. Nearly 1 in 10 reports losing his or her virginity before the age of 13, a 15 percent increase since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to several surveys, as many as half of teens ages 13 to 19 say they have had oral sex. Other communities across the country are grappling with the problem and are instituting policies that require more supervision and education.
Lexington pediatrician Tom Pauly said his patients are asking him about oral sex and telling him they think it's safer than vaginal intercourse.
"It's a new issue," said Bryan Station Middle Counselor Lynette Schmiedeknecht. "It's more part of the culture, more talked about. It seems that in talking with the kids, they don't consider oral sex (to be) sex. They just think it's something they do as an adolescent."
Dealing with incidents directly and speaking bluntly with middle school students is key to helping them understand the ramifications of their decisions, parents and doctors said. Damage to reputations and illnesses are two of the dangers.
"We advise them to abstain," Pauly said. "We talk about medical complications and the psychosocial complications of engaging in oral sex at such a young age."
After Jessie Clark Middle students talked about the popularity of oral sex with an assistant principal this spring, principal Steve Carmichael said: "We invited two moms to come in and shared our concerns. It wasn't a conversation as awkward as you might think. We would rather overreact than underreact."
The issue isn't a routine part of sex education classes, officials said.
Mike Kennedy, acting health education coordinator, said that until 1990, the district had a sex education curriculum. But now, site-based councils at each school are responsible for deciding what kind of sex education is dispensed, he said.
Seven middle schools offer programs that teach abstinence only, Kennedy said. Other schools cover sex education in health classes. But Kennedy said he doesn't think oral sex is discussed anywhere as part of the middle school curriculum.
At Beaumont, principal Mowery said the quick intervention -- writing to parents -- was successful. Parents responded to meetings about how to discuss sexual issues with their children. And as the year progressed, counselors and administrators had fewer kids talking about the parties.
Only a small minority of students have actually had oral sex, Mowery thinks.
"Ninety percent of our kids," he said, "make good decisions in every aspect of their lives."
Wrong! Middle school children have no business being at a "party" escecially if it is unsupervised by adults. These children should "understand" what the word "NO" means.
Serious men should be very wary about these women. I watched Cheaters last night. A guy was suspicious about his girlfriend of two years, and yes she was cheating on him. They supposedly had a serious relationship. She was caught in a motel room with her other lover. At first, she said that her boyfriend was never with her. Then, she said that she doesn't know why she cheated on him.
I think she was right. She doesn't know. These girls are being brought up now to believe that sex with someone is perfectly normal. If you like someone, you are expected to go to bed with him. They do not think that sex means anything besides making you feel good. They carry this attitude toward sex with them throughout life. They cheat because they don't think that cheating is wrong.
Many parents teach their kids this sort of attitude. The kids are going to have sex anyway, so teach them to use condoms is the cry of these parents. They are supposed to teach their kids right and wrong, but they don't know what they are teaching.
Many parents of today are the same people who rebelled against the sexual mores of thirty years ago. Now, they are teaching their kids the same things.
There needs to be an age limit ; at least on some threads.
I don't know. I suspect it's a very small number.
Your fatuous suggestion that girls should practice oral sex as much as possible so they can make themselves more marriagable sounds like a article proposal-reject for Cosmopolitan Magazine.
If you don't understand the difference between a 17 or 18 year old having sex and 11 year old and are trying to insinuate that I don't, that I equivocate pre-teens having sex to young adults doing so, then you are an idiot.
It is. That's why I'm a libertarian Republican....
I didn't start this topic. But yes, this isn't the topic so we'll get back to the subject at hand.
That's really sad and an even worse comment on our society. I happen to be married to a wonderful woman who never rebelled against her parents in any way. That's not to say she always agreed with them or understood their reasons (she does now that she's a mother), but she had (and still has) the best relationship with her parents that I have ever seen with anybody.
Also, you may think she is just not telling me everything, but I have verified it with her parents and with her closest friends. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no sex, no running around town causing mischief. Nothing. Period.
I thank God daily that he blessed me with a woman of such character (who is the product of parents with impecable character themselves).
Now that your pathetic arguments aren't working, are you resorting to ad hominem attacks? Nice try, but it will get you nowhere.
I can play with adults all day long. It helps when you have reinforcements from your like-minded buddies, as I do not on this forum that lacks diverse opinions (it is, after all, clearly stated that it is a conservative forum and many threads consist of everybody agreeing with eachother until somebody comes in and disagrees and is promptly jumped on; yes, there is a discernable pattern here).
This isn't what you meant to say at all. Please don't use words that you don't know the meaning if, in order to impress or look mre inelligent than you are. You only make yourself look far worse, than you already have managed to do.
Since the topic of this thread, is talking about children, who are 12 and a little more; your anecdotal example of an 11 ear old ( and in some places, 11 year olds ARE in middle school ! ) , that does fall into the ballpark.
Is it your contention, then, that 17 year olds are " mature " enough to engage in all manner of sexual acts ?
You ought to stop by the infidels.org webpage on logical fallacies, because you just committed a couple of them. Specifically, special pleading and ad hominem. The "you are an idiot" is an obvious ad hominem.
But I'd like to concentrate on the special pleading. Why is it okay for a 17-year-old to sleep with someone she "really cares about" and knows "well enough," but not okay for an 11-year-old to do the same thing?
Today you say "teenagers are going to have sex and need to be taught how to do so 'safely'". But other people already say the same thing about 11-year-olds. Why are they wrong, but you are right?
Also, in case you missed the topic of this thread, it's about oral sex in middle schools. You know, 11, 12, 13, 14-year-old kids. That's who we're talking about. That's who the educrats think need to be taught how to put on a condom. Why does an 11-year-old need to know how to put on a condom, other than to have sexual activity?
True. However I don't know how many other people have noticed that the sixties generation, at least the most irresponsible ones, appear to be dying sooner than say, members of the World War II generation. As such, the problem may be "self correcting" through the process of natural selection.
Here is the problem: what needs to occur is a sea change in moral attitudes. The government is terrible at doing this. However there are some things that can be done -
Take the lid off religion - even the Dutch sex education programme combines it with religious education to snap the restraint of moral censure on sexual activity.
Empower parents - parents are blithely swimming along thinking the schools are going to substitute for genuine parenting, particularly on issues like this. It won't work.
Remove incentives for licentiousness - that means no more government benefits for welfare mothers, for example.
However what has to change for this problem to really be dealt with cannot be dealt with by legislation. We need to start looking at shame as being shameful, hedonism as being abnormal and dangerous, and sex a private preserve that best exists within the confines of marriage. It requires turning back the moral clock to before the 1960's. It's hard to see how that can be done without society realising on its own that it must. Perhaps the fact that sleeping around has turned singles bars into Petrie dishes for diseases that Saddam Hussein would envy, people will finally get the message. Maybe.
Regards, Ivan
Perhaps you should compare your definition of slut with that of those you claim aren't interested. You may find some find those you think slutty quite acceptable to many marriage minded men.
I have a nine year-old who likely has far better self-control and more common sense than the lot of adult pro-dope libertarians who post here.
Snivelling freeloaders.
Before making such accusations, I would suggest you back them up? Snivelling freeloaders? How so? I will call you on your idiotic assertions, so be prepared to back them up, won't you? The question here is: Who is and isn't allowed to rule your life? How do you define common sense? Someone who adheres to your narrow and "moral" views of what is right? The libertarian philosophy is live and let live. Conservative philosophy as it is today, is 'live as i say live'. Whiney butt dopers are the cause of today's problems? Someone lighting up a joint in their livingroom and hanging around will be the end of the American civilization. I beg to differ. Take your idiocy elsewhere. Your post is irrelevant to the topic and I'm only replying to it because you are full of it and your statements need to be shown for what they are: stupid.
Why 3 months? What's the difference between 3 and 4 months? or just 2 months, for that matter? I knew more than one girl in HS that was pretty hurt the day she finally put out for that guy she thought really cared about her.
I realize you are very young, JediGirl, so I feel like I can tell you that there is truly no such thing as "safe sex". It's a myth. Oh, you may start out with hand-jobs and condoms, but pretty soon, a girl will get talked into the real deal. Once you start, it's hard to stop and you can rationalize and justify all sorts of behaviors.
Also, there isn't 100 % agreement here at all ; not even amongst all adults, on most subjects.
You may think that , at 17, you are more grownup than an 11 or 12 year old. You haven't proved that on this thread.
Is it your contention, then, that 17 year olds are " mature " enough to engage in all manner of sexual acts ?
Why does it matter to you?
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