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.

[hoosierskypilot]

You hit the nail on the head. That said, I'm not reading any more posts on this thread. As much a waste of time as reading the article.

[captnemo1]

Good call on the classic "Brave New World". Yes this and other trends are on the rise. Odd that a book written so long ago could spell out the future so clearly.

[canuck_conservative]

"I hooked up ..."

Freudian slip?

[Axenolith]

15 years later she'll be in the crowd of women bemoaning not being able to find a "decent" man because said men don't feel like marrying chicks that have been ridden hard and put away wet...

[Karsus]

http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Early-Onset-Puberty.htm#1
http://www.mugu.com/pipermail/upstream-list/2000-November/000851.html
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/puberty.html
http://www.ems.org/endocrine_disruptors/early_puberty.html

Some links may contain a few duplicate studies.

Looks to me like it is happening earlier and earlier.

[Cacique]

bump

[bradactor]

That is really true. A television movie of that book just happened to be on the Sci Fi Channel last night at the same time I was reading this article on FR. The parallel is there.

[KantianBurke]

"There's none of this 'Ooh, I'm wearing your jacket' stuff," says Julie Nemirovsky, a freshman at Emory University in Atlanta who has a boyfriend on campus. Over winter break at home, she went out for coffee with a guy she has known for years and it didn't occur to her to tell her boyfriend. Why should she? "He's not my keeper," she says. The Bowling Green researchers were surprised by how secure girls were about their relationships. Girls expressed significantly more confidence than guys that they could refuse a date, for example, or break up with someone they no longer wanted to go out with, or control what a couple did together. Boys were more likely to say they would change themselves for a girl than the other way around. (Teen girl magazines encourage these makeovers. "Find a look he -- and you -- will love," gushes Seventeen's current prom issue, suggesting a guy wear black Euro pants, a Ben Sherman shirt and hair gel that will match the color of the girl's dress.)

And then they wonder why guys aren't jumping at he chance to marry them or why there are no "nice" guys out there.

[Caipirabob]

I think it's disturbing from the perspective of this behavior is normal for them now. In a few years, are they suitable material for a marraige? Someone to love, trust and who will respect the sanctity of marraige long enought to raise children in a secure and loving family environment, or are we looking at a whole new generation which will become fodder for Gerry Springer(sp?).

At any rate, if one was looking for a reliable car, one would not purchase a vehicle with 300K miles on it. This girls going to have more than that at this rate.

Some people may differ on the point. Some may not have enough "life experience" to be able to accurate predict the outcome of such behavior on future personal relationships. Suffice for me to say that I would take a "pass" on any potential relationship with such a person.

I remember one girl who I dated very briefly who had divorced her previous husband. Beautiful woman. She was very obscure when I inquired about the break up. As I asked her "Really, what lead you to file for divorce with three children already?" she shrudged and said "I was bored."

Now those children will grow up in a broken home because of what I would call a selfish whim from a woman who obviously did not hold any relationship sacred.

I know my points may escape some people but to me this woman became a "pure terror" who I dumped immediately after that last date.

That we should have such callous and selfish people who behave in such a way is a threat to the American family that cannot be taken lightly.

[independentmind]

Someone to love, trust and who will respect the sanctity of marraige long enought to raise children in a secure and loving family environment, or are we looking at a whole new generation which will become fodder for Gerry Springer(sp?).

I wasn't aware that the sanctity of marriage had term limits.

[bray]

"In Arizona Republicans wanted to make oral sex between spouses illegal. And people ask why I'm not a Republican ... "

Must be great to be sooooo morally superior to everyone.

And people ask me why I would never ever consider becoming a Liberalitarian....A Proud Republican!

Pray for GW and our Troops

[cajungirl]

Sometimes you have to wonder why the mainstream media want to frame this kind of activity and normalize it. These poor girls have no idea what they are doing to themselves. Their shallowness is just breathtaking. Their reputations apparentnly don't matter to them. Their parents, if sane, must be writhing in misery now. I do hope their grandparents are dead because the shame would be unbearable. No time for falling in love? No time for having a sweetheart in high school? No time for the iincredible feeling of seeing your heartthrob come thru the door for chemistry class? No time for the first date, the first kiss, the first argument,,the entire rehearsal for love and marriage and a life time person to hold hands with?

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"These poor girls have no idea what they are doing to themselves."

What are they doing to themselves?

[Caipirabob]

I wasn't aware that the sanctity of marriage had term limits.

To our generation it's "Until death do we part", but my fear is that in the future it's going to be "Until I can find a really, really good lawyer".

The war against marraige and our culture continues. The enemy won't be happy until the foundation of all society, the family is destroyed and the rest of everything else we values crumbles right along with it.

[Search4Truth]

We have not even begun to see the disastrous effects that the destruction of traditional American culture is going to have on the future of our country.

The Liberals have successfully destroyed the American nuclear family. The country will now follow. For it was for their women, who were the heart and center of the American nuclear family, purveyors of the future of our country, that American men founded, built, and protected this nation.

Now all they have are whores. The only solution I can see for young men with traditional values is to find their wife in a more traditional culture and bring them back to the US. My 18 year-old son and I have such a trip planned for south of the border.

[Karsus]

Do you consider it a proper use of goverment power to control what adults do in their bedrooms?

[College Repub]

Fair enough. But maybe it's just a matter of "having fun" until settling down with the right person.

[Caipirabob]

Fair enough. But maybe it's just a matter of "having fun" until settling down with the right person.

In all fairness, I say all that now, but when I was in school that stuff didn't kill you. Now it's an issue. I shudder to think what the results of my actions would have today. At any rate, being a parent and all now, I'm compelled to think and believe otherwise.

At any rate my guess is that you're thoughtful enough to be here, that's you'll know what to look out for out there. Either good luck, have fun and be careful...