The Buddy System: Sex in High School and College: What's Love Got To Do With It?

The Washington Post ^ | Jan. 19, 2003 | Laura Sessions Stepp

[tellw]

EXCERPT:

By today's standards, the high school girl from Montgomery County was a slow starter when it came to sex, having reached ninth grade before she kissed a guy. She just couldn't see how to fit a boy into heavy loads of honors homework, soccer matches and baby-sitting....

By 11th grade, she had found the answer: "buddysex," or sexual encounters with friends, in this case a half-dozen private-school boys, no strings attached...

"September through December is a blur," she recalls as winter sunlight glints off her shoulder-length blond hair and warms her Cafe Mocha. "Let's see, I hooked up with . . . hmmm, I'll call him Rob. Then Rob introduced me to Paul. Then there was Colin, and B.T., and Brad, and Steve. I was having so much fun I didn't even think of having a serious relationship. There was no romance. None."

... In earlier decades this girl and others like her might have been shunned, but no longer. For one thing, adolescents no longer see oral sex as sex.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I don't think so. If it were triggered by puberty, you'd have the same behaviors across generations but at different points in the life cycle. The claim here is that there's a change in behaviors across generations.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

In Arizona Republicans wanted to make oral sex between spouses illegal.

And people ask why I'm not a Republican ...

[Karsus]

I have been told directly (by multiple posters) that because my wife and I have oral sex in our private bedroom that we should be execuited by the state. These people scare me! What they need is a good... Nevermind :->

[ConsistentLibertarian]

You bad man.

Go and sin no more.

[College Repub]

bingo!

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I've always been puzzled why the rate of divorce is highest in the Bible Belt.

You've just given me an idea ...

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Is that what you yell when you get really excited?

Usually you can't print what I say. Except for her name. If you cut out the rest, I suppose you could print that.

[rwfromkansas]

This article does not really relate to what goes on at my college.

There are "hook ups," but they do not refer to sex like they do in this article from what I can tell; it almost seem sto be a term for a less formal date around here, but this is a Christian college.

Also, the idea that guys are afraid to ask girls out does not apply here as well. Largely, what the guys do here is simply hang out a lot with girls and then the girl has to ask if he wants to be a couple or not....or he asks her without going through any real "dates." Luckily, there are some that still go through the dating process. If I like a girl, I don't pussyfoot around with all this hooking up crap. I just ask her on a date. In fact, I went on my first date just this year, my freshman year in college. We ended up just being friends, but unlike movies, it wasn't just a a blow-off line when she said she just wanted to be friends right now. I know a guy on campus that has dated a girl several years older than him. He had to get permission from her father to even date her; his date drove up from Texas. Now, he is going to eventually drive to Texas and ask his permission to marry her. This is old-fashioned stuff. Just because these articles focus on the bad in the culture, doesn't mean the good of the past has not just fallen away completely...it is still there, if you look to find it.

My friend who is going to ask the girl's father permission to marry has such an incredible story of meeting her. It was so awesome when he told me it, all I can say is he is richly blessed. I only hope I will eventually find someone like he has. Oh man, I hope I do.

[weegee]

A homosexual Arizona Republican decriminalized adultery homosexual sodomy in 1999 and said it was a day to celebrate.

[rwfromkansas]

well, in that situation........and it would be many guys in these depraved times...obviously it is a great thing on the fleshly end. But that doesn't mean it is truly good.

[weegee]

should read "adultery and homosexual sodomy".

[rwfromkansas]

Your hedonism is quite disturbing.

[rwfromkansas]

oops......his dad drove up from Texas. She goes to school at a nearby college.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

And a mormon Arizona Republican wanted to attach a rider to take teaching licenses from anyone who had ever had oral sex, even with a spouse.

She was buds with another Arizona Republican from Mesa who wanted the State to buy everyone half a Cadillac, no matter if they lived and drove it in another State, provided only that they install a small propane tank they need never use.

He was the party's star. Several of his Republican colleagues were first in line.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I think if a guy's been honest with a girl and a girl's been honest with a guy, and they're not putting their health at risk, it's hard to have a great orgasm while she makes eye contact and be thinking "This is NOT good."

YMMV.

[rmlew]

It is also a great vector for STDs.

We live in a time where 11-year-old girls and 13-year-old boys go to the doctor for treatment of strep, only to find out that they have drug resistant clap.
Syphilis, Hepatitis B and C, and AIDS are all transmitted through oral sex. (some scenarios are better transmitters than others)

[Alylonee]

Has anyone noticed how many teen mothers there are these days? Or is it just California?

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"some scenarios are better transmitters than others".

Yup.

The trick is to know which are worse and yet more fun.

It's all part of a good sex education.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I'm curious. This is serious research? No point giving me references. I trust you. Can you distill this for me in 25 words? Thanks.