Posted on 12/02/2004 7:49:38 AM PST by esryle
Teen Says He Lost Virginity At 9
CLEVELAND -- Research shows 16 percent of girls and 20 percent of boys have engaged in sexual intercourse by the time they reach their 14th birthday. For some fourth- and fifth-graders, sex is the topic of school lunch room conversations almost daily.
In a special report, NewsChannel5's Deb Lee explored the troubling statistics.
Lee talked with a 15-year-old Cleveland-area girl who is enrolled at the Pepper Pike Alcohol Treatment Center for kids about her experiences with alcohol and sex.
The teen said kids are having sex as young as 11 and 12 years old. She added that it happens at house parties in Cleveland and surrounding suburbs, where the liquor flows so freely and girls sometimes black out.
“I know at least six or seven girls that are my good friends that got raped the first time they ever had sex,” she said. “That's how they lost their virginity by getting raped at a party while they were under the influence.”
Another teen, who will be called Jay, also knows about the parties. He's also from the Cleveland area and was a resident at the treatment center. Jay, who is 18 now, said he had sex at an early age, too.
"I lost my virginity when I was 9 years old," he said. "Most of the time, it's us boys pressuring the girls to do this, do that. But sometimes it's not all our fault. Sometimes girls be dressing all trashy... you see them out in the street with their little short skirts and tank tops and stuff."
Another teen says TV glorifies sex.
"They're all drinking and getting drunk and everything and the rappers are talking about doing drugs and having sex with people and all that," a teen said.
Dr. Slyvia Rimm, an area expert on child psychology, has interviewed hundreds of children around the country for a book on habits of middle schoolers.
Lee said she discovered that second-, third- and fourth-graders are talking about sex.
"The oral sex, even a generation ago, wasn't common in high school and now is common as early as 8th grade and even common in high school and taken lightly, I'm sorry to say, in our former president's words," Rimm said.
Lee reported that former President Bill Clinton’s statement: “I did not have sex with that woman... Miss Lewinsky," -- has had an impact.
She said teens do not think oral sex counts as sex.
"I think there can be real psychological harm when kids are that young” Rimm said.
Many teens are choosing abstinence and sobriety. In fact, the 15-year-old in the story sought help through treatment and is now beginning a new life, in a new community, at a new school.
"I'm not going to have the peer pressure, and I'm gonna be able to do what I need to do to help myself," she said.
Any comprehensive study on teenage sexual behavior has to list "what" activities they are engaging in, with members of same/opposite sex, as well as listing all of the ages at which they "begin" activity (and whether they are married or not).
Anything else leaves the study too open to manipulation and misinterpretation.
If we are told that 20% have sex by age 16 and "some" are having it as young as 11 (AND drunk/passed out at the time), then there are plenty of figures that we don't know (and have to admit that at least some of the sex they engage in is NOT consensual).
And if anyone thinks kids are too uptight to answer such questions, they obviously are unaware of the "purity test" that has floated around on the internet for 20 years or more now. They take bragging rights on their low scores.
My six-year-old daughter told me that she didn't like boys so she was going to marry a girl, like she saw on TV. Thanks Massachusetts Supreme Court!
"Okay, but are my religious beliefs sufficient for you not to make snide comments implying that Catholics don't actually follow Catholic beliefs, when there are a number of living, breathing exceptions to that alleged rule right here on FR?"
Many Catholics do not follow those restrictions, although you have misstated them a little. That you do follow them does not mean that all Catholics do. I never said that all Catholics disobey them. Many Catholics also use birth control, but that does not mean that all do so. I won't get into a discussion about whether they're really Catholics or not.
"Any comprehensive study on teenage sexual behavior has to list "what" activities they are engaging in, with members of same/opposite sex, as well as listing all of the ages at which they "begin" activity (and whether they are married or not).
"
And that's the problem, in a nutshell. Anytime a researcher wants to obtain such information, a protest emerges from parents who, rightly, do not want those questions asked of their children. It makes it difficult to get accurate figures.
And that doesn't include the kids who lie, one way or another, on any such surveys. Very difficult.
These would be good stats to have, however. Perhaps if such a survey was explained well enough, most parents would allow it, as long as it was completely anonymous...a difficult task, too.
Anyhow, what there is is based on fragmentary surveys.
Planned Parenthood doesn't like the statistics on their under 18 clients to be revealed either (as they are accomplices to covering up sexual molestation between adult partners).
It isn't just religious types who are seeking to blur the lines. Those pushing the sex positive agenda do too. Some LIKE to cite figures of 13 year olds losing virginity. It pushes the threshold that much lower. Sex positives are satisfied with 8 year olds having sex.
Is there such a thing as a "latency" period in sexual development or was that just Western society's way of keeping boys and girls apart ("hey Tommy, girls are icky") as they got older and started to enter puberty?
There are a number of sex education programs for young children that ask them to identify their friends that interest them. As the concept of (recreational) sex is explained, they are then asked if there any of their friends that they would like to have sex with (regardless of sex).
Sex education has moved beyond "reproduction" and "sexually transmitted diseases" to the variety of fetishes/couplings and children are encouraged to experiment.
Condoms in schools was just a wedge to get parents to lower their guard on kids having sex. That is a "given" now. Statutory rape laws are no longer applied (Romeo and Juliet exceptions, now Romeo and Romeo, permit adult minor sexual relations in ever broadening circumstances). Some on FR don't even think that there should be an "age of consent" ("Kids are going to have sex regardless"). So much for contracts and medical waivers too, hmmmm?
"Is there such a thing as a "latency" period in sexual development or was that just Western society's way of keeping boys and girls apart ("hey Tommy, girls are icky") as they got older and started to enter puberty?"
I don't know, really. I'm sure I thought girls were "icky" at some point, but I remember being interested in them pretty early in my life. I had my first real kiss in 6th grade with the girl who played second chair clarinet on my right in band and who sat next to me in my 6th grade classes. We were both 11, and I remember it as a pretty exciting thing.
What I remember about my early teens is that girls were a little reticent about fooling around. Familiarity, however, generally led to further explorations. I'm sure of one thing: Every couple in my high school who "went steady" for more than two or three months was sexually active to some degree. Intercourse was less common, because even condoms were unavailable to kids in the early 1960s in California. Other sexual activities, however, were commonplace.
"Going steady" was dangerous to the virtue of both boys and girls. At 15 or 16, kids are just walking hormone factories, and that's the age when people had babies through most of history. Put those two things together and you have a fire ready to burst into flame.
My high school class had just 106 students. I know personally of four pregnancies that went to term while that class was in school. I know of at least a dozen abortions, despite it being illegal at the time. There was a doctor in town who did them routinely, and everyone knew about it. The rest of us were either careful or lucky, I guess.
Few kids want to fail on their tests or homework but that doesn't support the acceptance of cheating either. Self-restraint is a good lesson to learn.
Keeps people from spending resources they don't have.
Actions have consequences.
The parents at this meeting were all given name tags to pin to their shirts. There were to be several topics to be discussed at this meeting but the first one was on teen sex. The entire discussion was based on the premise that sex between teenagers was a foregone conclusion and you'd better accept that fact and teach them how to do it safely.
After listening to the presentation one gentleman asked why abstinence was not being discussed. He was told that abstinence was simply not viable. When he persisted he was derided and shunned by the presenters and others in attendance.
After about a half hour of the teen sex presentation all of the parents were invited to partake of the coffee and donuts and get to know each other a little bit. All parents participated except the gentleman who brought up abstinence. After the treatment he received he just didn't feel like it.
After 10 minutes or so the meeting was called to order again and the next part dealt with STDs and how they can be passed on easily through casual sex. To drive the point home the parents were told to remove their name tags and look on the back. There was the name of an STD that you "passed on" to whomever you met during the little 10 minute meet and greet while having coffee and donuts. See how easy that was to "catch something" and "pass it on?"
Then the gentleman spoke. He didn't catch anything or pass anything on since he had abstained.
How many will spend their lives on Prozac or other antidepressants, trying to medicate away abortion guilt?
Great questions. Part of winning the culture war is answers to questions like these because the answers would be shocking. When we face a liberal, we need to shock them over and over with the truth that they can't dismiss. You have to do it gently and with grace, but forcefully nevertheless.
Some still won't give up their liberal religious beliefs that abortion is right etc. But some will walk away with questions. Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter do it every day and there are testimonies of former liberals who finally saw the light and have turned around.
It does happen you know.
STDs, guilt and murder are three I can think of.
Because it's TRUE!!! You just try being a chivalrous old-fashioned romantic monogamist in this day and age, and see how the women treat you! And I'm talking about alleged "Christians", too. Modern women are, in general, totally horrible to men, and the nicer the man is, the worse they treat him.
Fortunately I finally found someone who'd always dreamed of a guy like me, but it took me til I was 38 to find her.
Being single til age 38, and never going "all the way" til the wedding night, was hell for me. I want my kids to find spouses in high school, to spare them that agony.
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