Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

This is part 3 in a 3-part series on the influence peers have on adolescent decision making. The first part presented the issue, the second part argued for an appropriate course of action to mediate peer influences, and today is about whether peer-influenced early sexual behaviors matter in the long run.

Today’s discussion is based on a comment left on Tuesday by Dorian:

You don’t talk of the outcome of these patterns of behavior for these girls. I am left wondering, not how to respond to them, but are they now adults? Do they have healthy sex lives now? Is the difference in their sexual beginnings SUCH a big deal after all? I’m beginning to think that perhaps parents and adults in general make way too much out of it all - it is a decision, one decision, and yes, it does impact our lives, but perhaps only as one factor in a broad spectrum. What do you think?

Here is my short answer: It depends.

Here is my long answer: Early sexual decisions do have an impact. However, the long-term impact is probably smaller than most parents fear and perhaps larger than most teenagers expect. The teenagers I described in my first post are indeed now young adults.

Cassie had a series of sexual partners in her adolescent years, somewhere around 5 or 6. She eventually stayed with one young man for about 6 years. During all that time she never had an orgasm, and none of the men she was with paid her much attention sexually. She was not even fully aware that she had not orgasmed. In her mid-20’s Cassie got together with a very sensual young man with whom she really discovered herself sexually. She feels she has finally come to balance sexually.

Susan had a good sexual relationship with her first lover, and has had good relationships with her two other lovers since then. She does not feel she was ever sexually off-balance.

So from very different adolescent sexual choices, these young women have essentially found themselves in similar places in their 20’s.

There were a series of sexual choices here, though, not just the one. Cassie made the decision to have sexual intercourse with a series of men who did not have her interests in mind, sexually or otherwise. It took a lot of courage and strength for her to change that pattern. Susan made basically good decisions starting from her first sexual intercourse.

So while the ways in which teenagers loose their virginity may not in and of themselves be such a big deal, they can be indicative of the type of sexual choices that individual is inclined to make over the years, and those choices over the years certainly are a big deal in terms of sexual development and health.

Yesterday I wrote about how peer pressure greatly influences adolescents’ sexual decision making. Today will be about how parents can have a place in the interaction and mutual-influence between adolescents and their peers.

So your teenage son or daughter’s friends are having sex. Or drinking, or smoking pot, or failing their classes. Whatever they’re doing, let’s assume it’s something you would prefer your son or daughter not to do. But it is now normalized in your son or daughter’s life, and therefore they are more likely to do it themselves.

The first road many parents take is trying to remove their child from the situation. “You can’t be friends with that person any more.” Now, I’ll be honest, I think this is a completely fruitless road to even try and walk down. It almost never works, and it severely reduces your ability to influence your teenager in other ways. However, I was recently very surprised by someone whose mother had found out that one of her daughter’s friends was having sex and getting drunk and stopped the friendship cold. So it can sometimes work, if two conditions are met: 1. that your son or daughter has the temperment to react well to such a dictum, which is very unusual, and 2. that the forbidden friend is really only one friend, and your son or daughter has a strong network of other friends to tap into.

The more effective path, the path less traveled by, and the one that will be the most likely to work, is to come to terms with the fact that your teenager knows how and why their peers engage in these potentially negative behaviors. The best way to influence your teenager to choose behaviors you would choose for them is to talk with them - by which I mean ask them questions. “Why do you think _____ is having sex/drinking alcohol/doing drugs? How do you think doing those things makes him/her feel? How do you think they would make you feel? Well, okay, sure, but how do you think you would feel about it a day/week/month/year later? You have to acknowledge the short-term good that these choices bring about. And you have to guide your teenager to seeing for him/herself what the long-term effects may be.

More tomorrow in part 3 on an answer to a question posted yesterday in the comments by Dorian:

You don’t talk of the outcome of these patterns of bahavior for these girls. I am left wondering, not how to respond to them, but are they now adults? Do they have healthy sex lives now? Is the difference in their sexual beginnings SUCH a big deal after all? I’m beginning to think that perhaps parents and adults in general make way too much out of it all - it is a decision, one decision, and yes, it does impact our lives, but perhaps only as one factor in a broad spectrum. What do you think?

A teenager’s peer group has a deep and profound effect on many aspects of his or her behavior. This is just one of those truisms of humanity, although it may be more potent for teenagers. We are more likely to engage in behavior we consider normative rather than unusual, and we are more likely to consider behavior normal if the people we primarily interact with are doing it.

Sex and sexuality do not stand out from this trend. If the majority of your friends, the majority of the people you spend your time with, are having sex, you will consider it normal to be a person having sex. It is much less of a leap for teenagers to begin having sex if they consider it a normal activity for teenagers. On the other hand, if none of a teenager’s close friends are having sex, it is a much bigger leap to begin. Doing something out of the norm, breaking the mold, generally requires more thought and energy than doing something perceived as normal.

Here is an example of two teenagers who had grown up together, had been best friends as children, and had been inclined towards similar behaviors as children. After 6th grade they went to different Junior High schools, where they met different groups of friends who substantially influenced their different sexualities:

All of Cassie’s female friends were all having sex. All of the boys in her group enjoyed having sex with the girls, and had come to expect vaginal intercourse in any situation where there was kissing and general making-out involved. Cassie’s female friends called her a prude and said no boy would ever be interested in going out with her because of she was frigid. The boys laughed at her and said they didn’t want to date her because she wouldn’t have sex with them. So Cassie relented and had sex with one of the boys one night, no one special, just to get it over with. Cassie was 14.

None of Susan’s female friends had had sex. About half of them had dated someone, but none of them had progressed to heavy petting or taken off any clothing. One of the girls had been raped when she was 12, and that extremely scary and painful experience was the only real sexual touchstone in the group. The boys in the group were by-and-large similarly experienced. Eventually Susan met and started to date someone from outside the group. They were quite in love, and after serious consideration decided to have vaginal intercourse. Susan’s friends, while not outright rude, told her she was making a horrible decision that she would regret. They began to avoid her and stopped including her boyfriend in any activity. Susan was 18.

These stories suggest the impact of friends on teenagers’ sexual decisions. But they don’t really begin to discuss what to do about the issue, from the perspective of a parent or a teenager. I’ll speak to that in a post tomorrow.

Zits is my favorite comic strip. Scott and Borgman seem to be able to tap into something about teenagers that appeals to both parents and teens - something very difficult to do. This one is from last Thursday, August 23rd.

On an off-topic note, tonight is the full moon. Step outside and enjoy it with the ones you love.

A friend recently asked, since she lives far away and cannot attend my next class in Austin, what reading material could I suggest for her and her friends. She has a fifth grader. Here is what I said to her:

Good reading material about boys includes the chapter on sexuality in the book The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian and the book How To Be The Best Lover: A Guide for Teenage Boys by Howard Schiffer. This second book is good for parents to read first, to get an idea of where your conversations should be heading, but it is also one that young boys should be given to read - maybe around 9th grade, depending on the individual boy. I also think it is important for parents, particularly of boys, to grapple with the issue of pornography, and to those ends I recommend Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity by Robert Jensen. I have interviews with both Schiffer and Jensen on this blog.

There are, of course, reams of information written about girls as they are growing into adolescence, and many of them are good. However, few seem to be directed at parents who are looking to actively support their girls in healthy sexuality development. So with that in mind, I recommend reading two books to get a general understanding of the state of preteen girls today: The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher. Michael Gurian, who wrote The Wonder of Boys, has also written The Wonder of Girls, which may be good, although I have not had a chance to read it yet. Particularly for parents of girls, although not specifically about sexuality, I also really like Hold Me Close, Let Me Go by Adair Lara and Whatever, Mom by Ariel Gore and Maia Swift.

In terms of the gender-nonspecific, I suggest the section on sexuality in the book The Case Against Adolescence by Robert Epstein. Also, of course, since the majority of teenagers date across gender lines, I do think it is helpful to read through the books for or about the other gender from your own children, in order to have a sense of what future dates might be thinking/going through. I am looking for books about parenting homosexual teenagers, but have yet to find a good one to recommend. If any of the readers has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

If you are looking for more comprehensive direction in how to approach teaching your children, I highly recommend the age-appropriate section of the Unitarian Universalist sexuality curriculum, Our Whole Lives.

And, of course, you, your friends, or your school are welcome to bring me there to present a weekend workshop for parents on adolescent sexuality. You can find out more about my parent workshop here.

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

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. 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. However, this curriculum is secondary to the interests of the particular group of parents in the class. Substantial time can be directed towards your specific, on-topic interests and questions.

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

If you would like to speak with parents who have taken this class with me in the past, please do not hesitate to contact me. You may e-mail me with questions or to register. Sign up soon, because class size is limited!

Here’s the info:
Sunday afternoons from 3:00 - 4:30
September 16, 23, and 30, and October 7
South Austin

Most religions have very strong opinions about sex and sexuality. Churches and other places of worship are a major contributor to sexuality education for American children and teenagers. I happen to very much like the Unitarian Universalist’s sex education program, Our Whole Lives (or OWL). The Reverend Debra Haffner writes a regular blog called Sexuality and Religion: What’s the Connection? And I wonder the same thing.

That so many religions speak so powerfully on sexuality suggests that sexuality is absolutely central to our being fully human.

But what does that mean for teenagers? What does it mean when we tell teenagers that something most religions and most adults consider to be central to being human (i.e., sexuality), is something that they should wait to begin taking part in until after high school, until after they turn 18 or 21, or until after they marry.

Robert Epstein, Ph.D., author of The Case Against Adolescence, would say (and, in fact, has said) that teenagers can make good, responsible decisions about their own sexual activities. Dr. Epstein goes to great lengths to point out that different teenagers have different decision-making abilities and different maturity levels. Almost in the same breath, he points out that adults are subject to the same levels of individual variation, and yet they still have complete responsibility for their own sexual activities.

So what do all of these (slightly jumbled) thoughts mean? Why do religions consider sexuality so critical, and why do they try to limit sexual behavior so stringently? How can adults legitimately restrict adolescents from taking part in sexuality, when it is so key to humanity? And is there legitimate support for these positions given Dr. Epstein’s assertion that
teenagers are able to make appropriate decisions about sexual behavior?

Someone (I have no idea who) recently did a google search asking the question, “Can adolescents truly be in love?” This blog is the fifth search result out of 1,710,000 websites which may or may not provide something of an answer to that question. The searcher looked at my blog for less than 2 seconds. In addition to being an awkward, ineffective search question, this is a dehumanizing, insulting, and above all very ageist (as in sexist and racist) search question.

And in the event that that searcher returns to this blog, I want to be ready with an answer.

Teenagers often love more passionately, more deeply, and with more of their being than adults. Sometimes we can be scared by that. Teenagers can also release their loves with breath-taking speed, particularly if someone else has come along to take the original love’s place. Sometimes we dismiss their love because of that.

But that’s not fair. Love is love, and the ability to be in love is not diminished just because someone is under 20.

A friend recently forwarded me this:

The Shortest Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl, “Will you marry me?”
The girl said “no” and she lived happily ever after. And
went shopping, drank martinis with friends, always had a
clean house, never ever had to cook, had a closet full of
shoes and handbags, stayed skinny.

The End.