Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

The Internet has made many things possible. Only some of those things are good. One example of bad is from Tuesday’s Washington Post. An 18-year-old female athlete’s picture was posted on a popular website, along with a sexual comment. Her fame has now been spread far and wide, and she is being, well, it’s not quite illegal, but her sudden fame is certainly harassing. One of the things she (or rather her coach) says in the article is that she feels like her body has been taken away from her. Many hundreds of thousands of people are writing about her and searching for her name (a Google search currently turns up about 200,000 results). Many hundreds of thousands of people are commenting on her attractiveness. Very few of those people are talking about her incredible talent as a pole vaulter (she won a 2004 California state pole vaulting title, has broken five national records, and won a pole vaulting scholarship to the University of California).

It’s annoying to all young women to have men leering at them in person. How terrifying would it be for a young woman to have men all over the world leering at her? She has stopped going out, because of the stares and comments.

I am currently reading a book called Slut! Growing Up Female With a Bad Reputation by Leora Tanenbaum, which talks about how young women who are considered different or pretty or simply end up with a lot of attention are called sluts. They often have no more, and sometimes much less, sexual experience than their peers. But they are singled out for unwanted sexual attention. Being called a slut and receiving so much attention is often a defining part of these young women’s lives. It often dictates many of their choices and movements. Leora discusses and documents many of these negative results.

I worry about this young athlete - if being the slut of a school or a town can have such a huge impact, I wonder what the impact of being plastered across the Internet might do. You’ll notice I have not included this young woman’s name or her photo in this post. There are plenty of other places to learn more about her (about 200,000 I think, all with plenty of photos).

Over on the right of this blog (if you’re reading it on the web), down at the bottom is a new list of fabulous blogs. Just FYI. Here’s the current list so you don’t have to scroll down:

Go Ask Alice - A health Q&A service provided by Columbia University with a wealth of information about sex and sexuality.
Sexuality and Religion - Exploring the connection between sexuality, religion, and spirituality, and the need for sexual justice in our faith communities and society.
SexySmart - Candid talk about intimacy, relationships, protection, and more
The Dinah Project - Thoughts on Healthy Sexuality
The Female Sex Project - A site for women about women’s sexual encounters
Voices of American Sexuality - Smart discussions on sexuality

Enjoy! And please let me know of other great sites to add to my blogroll in the comments section.

An issue I have been exploring this week through conversations with a few parents is whether or not they feel it is their place to tell parents of other teenagers what the teenagers are doing. In other words, if your teen’s best friend or romantic partner is over at your house, and you find the teenagers drinking, smoking pot, or having sex, what do you do?

A. Demand that they stop?
B. Tell the teens they can’t ever see each other again?
C. Make sure they’re doing it safely?
D. Call the other teen’s parents?

The correct answer is firstly, and most importantly, C. I’m a bit torn about D. But I think that for the most part the answer is no. Making sure that all of the activities are being done safely and making sure that the teenagers will talk with you in the future about their activities are the first two priorities. Ratting them out will decrease the likelihood of the second, and none of those specific activities are “bad” enough to require outside intervention. (Repeated, perhaps addictive usage may require a different response.) An anguished mother said to me: “What about the community?? How can we raise our kids without the community?” I agree with her on that. But at this point, we don’t have kids. We have teenagers. And the job of the adults in our community is to work with them, not with us, to keep them safe.

I am delighted to announce that according to the New York Times, schools for pregnant girls are dying off. In an article from yesterday’s paper, the NYT outlines closings of these schools all across the country, and focuses particularly sharply on the low-quality, high-cost pregnant girls’ schools in New York. These schools will close at the end of this school year. This doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, since they serve only a very small portion of the 7,000 girls who become pregnant each year in the New York schools. These schools have mostly been places to shuttle low-achieving pregnant girls out of the school system to not have to offer them special services and to keep them from dragging down test scores. The article ended with this quote from the superintendent: “The most powerful thing we can do for parenting teens is help them get their diplomas,” she said. “Your brain does not die when you become pregnant.” Hooray for mothers, especially teen mothers, with brains!

In a teenager’s decision to do things that most parents object to them doing (drinking alcohol, using drugs, failing classes, having sex, etc.), the teenager is the one with the power. Parents can often control the superficial among young teens: whether they go to school, whether there is alcohol in the house, whether the teen is given money, whether the teen dates or not. But the teenager is still, ultimately, in control about the outcomes - which, let’s face it, are more important.

I spoke with a parent yesterday who was very uncomfortable with this presentation of the parent/teen relationship. Notably, her oldest child is just on the cusp of adolescence. But the power she has to organizing or run his life is almost gone. I think this is primarily hard for her because she has organized and run his life with love and openness and with keeping his best interest in mind for many years now. It’s hard to let go of these children we love because we don’t want to see them hurt.

Here’s the thing. It is easier to let go of power over your child’s life slowly, over time, and while building a relationship of trust and mutual respect than it is to let go quickly, when your child suddenly realizes and claims the power they have over their own life. A similar analogy for younger children is this: it is better to stop spanking, and find more respectful and useful ways of behavior modification over time than it is to stop spanking the day your child decides to fight back physically.

There is a general awareness that adults should get to know and watch out for all kiddos. I wish there was a similar awareness for teenagers - they need our acknowledgement and our support just as much as the little ones. I’ve seen many neighborhoods where adults who are walking around will say hello to children and other adults, but they will ignore or turn away from teenagers. I remember when I suddenly got old enough to start being recognized by adults again. (At first it was a bad recognition - they assumed that I was a teenage mother, the apparent scourge of everything good in this world.)

So I make an effort to learn the names of the teenagers in my neighborhood and to use them and say hello every time I see them, just as I do with the neighborhood children and adults. I hope this helps the teenagers feel that they belong here, that I recognize them as interesting people I would like to get to know. Because most them probably are - I know that the few I do know well are interesting and fun to be around.

So let’s start a movement here, today. Let’s start saying hello and introducing ourselves to each and every teenager we meet. Then let’s say hello and use their names every time we see them again. What does this have to do with sex? Hopefully it will create a network of adults who can answer questions, give advice, and most importantly notice if something is going wrong. Too many teenagers get lost because the support system that was there when they were children allow the teenagers to push them away. We shouldn’t pry, but we should continue to be present, to be available, to say hello, and to ask honest, interesting questions that have nothing to do with school.

We should continue to be a village for our teenagers.

The Washington Post recently printed a discussion of research about sex. More specifically, they printed a discussion of what sort of research isn’t happening. The article begins:

This just in, from a global study on sexual well-being released last month: More than half of Americans are unhappy with their sex lives.

Or are they? Last year, another international survey reported that more than two out of three are quite satisfied.

So it goes in the relatively new world of research on sexual satisfaction. For all that we know now about the problems associated with sex — HIV/AIDS, erectile dysfunction and unwanted pregnancies, to name three — we understand very little about how sex contributes to our quality of life.

What is the connection between sex and emotions? How important is sex to happiness? Sixty years after Indiana University professor Alfred Kinsey made sexuality a topic for serious study, we are still groping in the dark when it comes to how much we enjoy it.

There are reasons for this.

The article then goes on to discuss the lack of federal funding when it comes to talking about sex in ways unrelated to pregnancy or STDs. The government apparently prefers to fund studies with titles like: “Social and Behavioral Aspects of Fertility-Related Behavior” which did not include the word sex in the first four pages of the proposal. That gap, the article says, is being filled by corporation-funded research. The results of this corporation-funded sex research depressingly often support whatever product line the particular funding corporation sells.

Here’s a good research nugget for you: “People ages 16 to 24, many of whom lead busy, even frenetic lives, were more likely than their older counterparts to say they’d like more time alone with their partners, as well as more romance and tenderness.” Well, yeah! That’s when people are learning how to be romantic and tender. Hopefully by the time they’re older they understand the importance of romance and tenderness in a relationship, and understand that the best way to get those things is to give them.

The article goes on to say:

The age of first intercourse has declined, and the age of first marriage is increasing; thus, young Americans will be having sex for more years outside marriage than in the past. Also, older Americans are living longer, and drugs are enhancing their sexual function.

I’m not sure when the article author was thinking about the age of first intercourse declining from, because I’m pretty sure it’s been going up in recent years. But it is certainly true that fewer people are waiting for marriage, and marriage is happening later. So I strongly appreciate the need for more understanding about sexual pleasure (both in terms of number of orgasms and other forms of physical and emotional connectedness).

I find this to be particularly important because I find that it is so often left out of conversations about sexuality with teenagers. Sometimes parents and other adults ask me why teenagers have sex at such young ages. My answer is one I am sure they could come up with if they thought about it for a minute: Because it feels good. If parents, adults, sex educators want to reduce teenage pregnancy and STD rates and raise the age of first oral sex and intercourse, we have to address sexual pleasure with teenagers. That line deserves to be repeated all by itself:

If we want to help teenagers delay pregnancy, oral sex, and sexual intercourse and reduce STD contraction rates, we have to talk about other ways for them to get sexual pleasure.

Ignoring this incredible driving force (i.e., sexual pleasure) when talking about sexuality with teenagers will completely miss the point for them. And so I look forward to the day when we as a society are willing to look more closely at sexual pleasure as a critical component of our sex lives and our general life satisfaction.

I am pleased to announce an up-coming class on adolescent sexuality for parents in south Austin.

This class will cover a variety of issues that are critical for parents of current or future adolescents to understand in order to support the healthy sexuality of their children. Because of the dramatic changes in the adolescent sexual landscape over the last decade, I will begin the classes by presenting an overview of adolescent sexuality as it is being enacted in middle schools and high schools all over the United States (yes, even at the Austin Waldorf School!). Discussion over the following three weeks will include topics such as assumptions about adolescent sexuality and their applicability to our children, what kind of romantic and sexual experiences we hope our children have (or don’t have), and of course, most importantly, how to talk with our children about sex.

For more information about what we will cover in class, please look at my overview of the parent class on my website.

Please e-mail me (karen.rayne@gmail.com) with questions or to register. Sign up soon, because class size is limited!

Here’s the info:
Sunday afternoons from 3:00 - 4:30
June 17th, 24th, July 1st, and 8th
Cost: $175/parent or $300/couple

This week I will be talking with a number of organizations and people about providing sex education for teenage parents through one of the non-profit agencies here in town. I am really very excited about this potential project.

While there are a few teenage mothers who planned their pregnancies (mostly married, Hispanic mothers), the vast majority of them did not. And, while there are a few teenage mothers who became pregnant even though they used birth control and used it correctly, the vast majority of them did not. These teenagers, having proven to the world their sexuality and their fertility, are by and large in serious need of information about sex and STDs and pregnancy prevention.

I have investigated a number of organizations who interact with teen parents over the past month or so. Most of these organizations are doing what they can to inform teen mothers, and some times teen fathers, about the litany of STDs and safe sex. This is fantastic! Regrettably, they are not going much beyond these two topics in their conversations. They are not incorporating a discussion of rape or date rape, homosexuality or transgenderedness, how to insist on using condoms or how to say no to sex. These are all critical topics for teenage parents, as they are for any teenager, to understand in addition to the harsh realities of STDs and condoms.

Teen parents are a particularly difficult group to find. A number of non-profit agencies in town provide excellent services to teen parents, and are considering incorporating a sex education class oriented to their population into these services. I am very excited about the potential opportunity to work directly with teenage parents in order to broaden their understanding of sexuality and sexual health.