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.
Anything in this study about "parents"?
Word. I feel you.
...latchkey kids, most likely.
You'll be pleased when you read it.
Soloman was wise eyound his age
That be a good catch, HG.
If they're old enough to drink and have wild sex, they should be old enough to vote.
Every time I read an article like this the same question pops into my mind: Where the hell are the parents????
Given our sex-obsessed entertainment media, and the fact that Americans support it, should we be surprised by this?
No more, I'm afraid. Oh sure, its probably still a minority of girls, but I think that a critical mass may have been reached already.
I have been a housewife since before our kids were born. WHY? ... someone HAS TO WATCH THE KIDS!~
Not saying my kids are perfect. Not saying there weren't problems and ups and downs. But I was HERE. I wonder where THOSE parents are, that was a great question.
I just wanted my kids to grow up and say I was the meanest mom in the whole world. Made them go to school, study, do homework, eat at the table with manners, dress neatly, stay out of trouble, no drugs/gangs/sex/tattoos etc when they were way too young to even be thinking that way. Guess what? they are all in their 20s now and they THANK ME and they feel sorry for kids whose parents DON'T Watch them closely and MAKE them behave. Thank you GOD!~ HE gave me such WONDERFUL CHILDREN.
My children, my life, my joy.
at home watching free cable TV and longing for that next check to come in at the beginning of the month.
Self-control used to be seen as a basic virtue. Now, I guess it's a novelty.
Speak for yourself, Buster. :)
It's really not all that new - well, maybe the oral sex thing - Thanks, Bubba.
I lost my virginity in 1972. I was 12. Maybe it was just an unusual neighborhood but this was very common where I grew up, even way back then.
By the time I was 17, I had talked a dozen or more girls into having unprotected sex.
If a girl wished to remain a virgin, she was labled "uncool" and shunned.
Then as now, drugs and alchohol had a lot to do with it.
Some tings never change.
I agree with you 100%. Even now, when some of those gals I graduated from high school with, were confessing, at a party this summer, about having sex when we were so very young... I told my best friend, "If I had done that, even way back then, I would NOT be admitting it NOW! I would be keeping my mouth shut and guarding my secret. I would take a secret like that to my grave!" She agreed. She said we were too busy stealing cigars off my dad's truck (cigar/tobacco salesman) and sneaking off into the woods behind my house to smoke them! LOL We also used to shoot her BB gun. We even skipped school and drank some beer at my house our senior year. We got caught!
Clinton the Black eye, on American values?
BTTT
I cant believe this stuff, where do they get there education, I thought the third world was abroad.
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