Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

Recently I wrote about first masturbation experiences - and how little we really know about how and when people start masturbating.  This has naturally led me to thinking about first orgasms, and by extention I’ve been reading about orgasms in general.
But as with first masturbation experiences, I really have more questions about first orgasms than answers.

• Are first orgasms generally alone or with another person?  I think I know the answer here (alone) but I certainly have never read any research on the topic.
• When the first feelings of pleasure leading up to orgasm hit, how many people know what’s happening, know the language for what’s going on?  Paul Feig, notably, called it “the rope feeling” after his first orgasmic experience on a climbing rope in grade school.
• How many people are scared by their first orgasm?  I was flipping through a book last night in the bookstore, and ran across a quote by a woman who said she had her first orgasm in her thirties - and was terrified.
• Linked to these last two questions: Do first orgasms carry religious significance?

It is, of course, generally accepted knowledge that all men experience orgasm from pre-adolescence or adolescence onward while women have a much wider range of orgasmic experience (with some never orgasming, others joining the club late in the game, and still another group starting quite young).  Or at least I thought that was general knowledge.  But a dear friend was recently stunned - stunned! - when I mentioned it in an off-the-cuff sort of way.  She has since started to postulate wildly about whether or not people she knows - friends, family, acquaintances - have had the first orgasm experience.

Which leads me back to another question: Do people stress if they have never had an orgasm? Do they feel like they “should” have orgasms, feel like lower-quality lovers because they haven’t yet?

And how might the answers to all these questions influence how parents talk with their children and teenagers about sex?  What do you think?

I have three questions to answer:

1. Typical age of masturbation onset (by gender).
2. Typical age of orgasm/ejaculatory onset (by gender).
3. Typical age of highest masturbation frequency (by gender).

So what’s up with the relative lack of research on this topic? (Yes, that was a rhetorical question, for you smart-alecks in the peanut gallery.) Here’s what I’ve been able to find, although the sparseness of the research appals me to the degree where I’m hesitant to state these numbers absolutely:

1. Pediatrics (kind of a giant in this kind of research) says that masturbation generally starts around 2 months for both girls and boys (although in-utero masturbation has also been observed). They go on to say that masturbation (and general body/sexual interest) drops off around 4 or 5 and then picks up again in adolescence. Now, lots of people (although apparently not Pediatrics) have trouble acknowledging that child masturbation is in fact masturbation (they say it’s “different”), but come on, people. It’s masturbation. It might not end in an orgasm, but if orgasm is our benchmark for an activity qualifying as a sexual activity, the whole ballgame just got changed.
2. For boys, it’s maybe around 12, give or take a year. But the research that provides this information? It’s sketchy. More clear is that boys typically have this vague understanding that they will one day have something squirting from their penis, but they’re not entirely certain how they got that information. Very odd. However, information is just non-existent for girls. I have no idea at what age women tend to have their first orgasm. Certainly, for some, it is during adolescence. But others never have one. So the age spread will be much, much bigger than for boys. But I’m fascinated by this lack-of-information. Also, what about self-induced orgasms vs. partner-induced orgasms?
3. “Adolescence.” How useful is that? Oh, wait, I forgot, it’s not it all. But best guesses for boys is maybe 13 to 15 somewhere. For girls? No idea.

Okay, folks, this is just inadequate. If anyone has information in these particular areas, I’d love to hear from you either in the comments section or privately via e-mail.

So what are your masturbation stories? I’d also love to hear them, either in comments or privately via e-mail. When did you start? When did you do it the most? What did your parents tell you (or not tell you) about it?

Yesterday’s big news was the new Guttmacher Institute study that suggests teenagers are not using oral sex as a way to stay “technically still a virgin.” Rather, it says that teenagers who are engaging in oral sex are by-and-large also engaging in vaginal intercourse.

I must admit - I am rather surprised by this finding.  But I am, if nothing else, swayed and enraptured by good research.  Here’s what the Guttmacher Institute has to say about the numbers:

“Some teens may first experience oral sex immediately prior to vaginal intercourse, while others may initiate vaginal intercourse shortly before having oral sex. While only one in four teen virgins (26%) have engaged in oral sex, once teens have had vaginal intercourse, the proportion increases incrementally. By six months after first vaginal sex, more than four out of five adolescents (81%) have also engaged in oral sex, and by three years after first intercourse, nine in 10 (92%) have done so”

And here are the results that the Guttmacher Instutite draws from this data:

 “There is a widespread belief that teens engage in nonvaginal forms of sex, especially oral sex, as a way to be sexually active while still claiming that technically, they are virgins,” says study author Laura Lindberg. “However, our research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth. There is no good evidence that teens who have not had intercourse engage in oral sex with a series of partners.”

But I’m not so sure that I agree with Dr. Lindberg’s conclusions.  Please note that I have not read the actual research paper or analyzed the data myself!  But based on what I have read, here are my problems with her conclusions:

1. I was not able to find anywhere in the information on the study data-gathering about what the teenagers were claiming about their reasons behind their sexual decisions.  We can, with relative clarity given the breadth of this survey, know what the teenagers are doing, but we can’t know why.  So I think it’s jumping the gun to say that teenagers are not claiming to be virgins when they have had oral but not anal sex.  There is other research that does go into a bit more detail of teenagers’ understandings of the meanings of these various activities that suggests differently.
2. What about the 12 to 14 year olds?  I’m unclear on whether this study asked the 15-to-19 year old participants to think back on their sexual experience time-line (which is, of course, problematic in it’s own right) or asked about their current sexual activities over time (much better, in terms of creating quality research but presents it’s own problems in terms of funding).  But I’m concerned that younger teenagers were left out of the equation - it seems to me that many of these younger teens may be the ones who are claiming that one can have oral sex and still be a virgin.
3. What does it mean when you say “1 in 4 teen virgins”?  Did they ask “Are you a virgin?”  And then follow that up with questions about actual sexual activities?  The term virgin just needs to be tossed.  It confuses conversation - as it did the Guttmacher Institute’s press release.  So I hope for more linguistic clarity in Dr. Lindberg’s final paper.
4. The other point that is not fully addressed here is the sexual progression that teenagers go through.  Perhaps it’s common for a teenage couple to get comfortable with oral sex (in order to maintain virginity) and then quickly move on to vaginal intercourse.  In other words, perhaps oral sex is a “gateway sexual activity” to vaginal intercourse.  That’s not really addressed here at all.
5. Okay, one more point and then I’m (hopefully!) done.  I take great offense at Dr. Lindberg’s sentence: “There is no good evidence that teens who have not had intercourse engage in oral sex with a series of partners.”  There is, in fact, no conversation at all until this point about a series of partners.  I am worried that this sentence belies Dr. Lindberg’s unconscious assumption that a teenager who is engaging in oral sex is something of a “slut” and more likely to engage a “series of partners.”

I am fully aware that one research project cannot answer all of these questions.  Gaining a really well-rounded and informed understanding of adolescents’ sexuality will take far more time and money.   Nevertheless, I was disappointed to see that the Guttmacher Institute, as a highly respected research facility, did not temper their statement of results with a nuanced approach to what kind and scope of information this data analysis is really able to provide us.

However, one of the results of the study that I am really, really delighted to see was: Teenagers are having anal sex. (The Guttmacher Institute suggests about 1 in 10 teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 has had anal sex.) The sex-ed implications are very, very clear. Anal sex carries higher risk than either vaginal or oral sex because of increased likelihood of STD transmission and the physical problems that can be brought on by moving too quickly, not using enough lubrication, and other problems that might induce tearing and serious internal injury - all of which compound the STD transmission risk). So we have to talk with teenagers about anal sex. They or someone they know is probably trying it out, or has tried it out, and the likelihood is that they have never had any information presented to them about how to engage in anal sex safely.

I’ve been disappointed by much of what I’ve read about this study - it primarily just repeats what the Guttmacher press release said with little or no analysis.  But if you’re looking for additional commentary, here is a good place to start.

Take a deep breath, folks, because I’m about to tell you about a book that is not going to shock or amaze you with the horrors of raising children or teenagers in today’s world. Rather, I am going to tell you about a book that endeavors to calm the frenzy that the media has whipped up and counters the hype with real information.

I am impressed with Rev. Haffner’s research-based approach to talking about what’s really going on with current teenagers’ sexual involvement. Rather than being sensationalistic, Rev. Haffner does a lovely job of taking relatively obtuse statistical information and breaking it down into meaningful chunks of information that non-statistician parents can easily understand.

After taking stock of the sexual activities teenagers are currently engaging in, Rev. Haffner puts those activities into a historical perspective. She suggests that not only are teenagers not sexually engaging to the degree that the media hype implies, but they are actually just doing what generations have done: shocking their elders by doing essentially the same things those same elders were doing when they were young. In other words, “Take a deep breath! You and your kids will probably be just fine.”

Finally, Rev. Haffner provides meaningful, respectful advice on how parents can move forward to engage their teenagers in a continuing conversation and parent-child relationship.

So I highly recommend What Every 21st-Century Parent Needs to Know. It will provide context and steps to move forward for most parents who are finding their relationships with their pre-teens and teenagers faultering.

(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.)
My guest blog for this month will be about 4parents.gov. I found this website through a commercial (they are all on their site) and I must say, it kind of disturbed me. On the about us page, they said this:

“4Parents.gov is part of a national public education campaign to provide parents with the information, tools and skills they need to help their teens make healthy choices, including waiting until marriage to have sex. Nothing is more important for a child, pre-teen, or teen than a caring parent. If pre-teens and teens are going to make the choices that will help them grow up to be healthy adults, they need parents to talk with them about important topics like sex and relationships. 4parents.gov is meant to give parents the information and guidance they need for having these conversations”

To me, it makes no sense. I mean, I realize it is just a further extension of the current administrations abstinence-only sex education, but seeing it so blatantly in print makes it worse. So making the choice to have sex before marriage, according to this website, is unhealthy. And apparently you won’t grow up to become a healthy adult if you don’t wait until marriage either! Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the fact that it is important to have a caring parent, but to say it is only healthy to wait for sex seems a bit over dramatic and damaging even.

“Do you know that 53% of high school students have not had sexual intercourse?”

By their own admission, almost half of high school students have had sex. I know they meant for this to bolster their case, but in my eyes it weakens is. By saying that almost half have sex, and yet also saying that there is no need for anything but abstinence only sex ed, they seem to contradict each other. I mean, is failing to tell teens the ways to protect themselves as much as possible not the same as condoning the transmission of STDs and unwanted pregnancies? Because in my eyes failing to tell teenager about contraceptives is like saying “I hope you get chlamydia if you have sex before marriage!”

“Do you know that, according to one survey, two-thirds of teens who have had sexual intercourse wish they had waited?”

According to one survey? One? With all the government funding going into this project, they could only find one survey that supported the numbers they wanted to use, huh? I’m sure with enough funding and time I could get a similar number of respondents to say that the moon is made out of cheese!

As many parts of the site as I hate, there are some good parts to. In the “What if my son or daughter tells me he or she is gay?” page, it has this good advice:

“If you believe your teenager may be gay, or is experiencing difficulties with gender identity or sexual orientation, consider the following points:

• All children, pre-teens, and teens need to feel accepted and loved. Remember, your son or daughter is probably very scared about having this conversation with you. Accepting your son or daughter can help lead to strong, life-affirming relationships in the future.
• Some teens who question their sexual orientation are at increased risk for depression, attempted suicide, or other problems
• Some parents need help in understanding and communicating with their son or daughter. You have made a great step in this direction already by visiting this website.
• Counselors and other health professionals may be helpful for both teens and parents when addressing difficult issues.”

Please look over this site and tell me what you think in the comments section! And, as always, feel free to email me at justanotherteen@gmail.com !

Conventional wisdom suggests that teenage boys have one thing on their minds. And it’s not history class. Statistics that support this theory abound: Teenage boys have testosterone surges multiple times a day. Teenage boys think about sex an average of every 28 seconds. The theories go on.

A study was recently published in the Journal of Adolescence called “I wanted to get to know her better”: Adolescent boy’s dating motives, masculinity ideology, and sexual behavior. (The first thing this proves, of course, is academics’ inability to create a short and snappy title.) The results from this study suggested that, while teen boys are not dis-interested in the physical, they are at least as interested, if not more interested, in building a good relationship with someone they really liked.

I like this study. I like it when researchers try to get past the conventional, stereotypical assumptions that inhabit most of our world and find out what’s really going on. I like it that they tried to create a study that actually got to know teenage boys rather than pigeonhole them.

Do I put substantial weight on the results of the study? Honestly, as a researcher and a statistician, I’m not sure.

Why did this study come up with different results from so many others? Can the results be replicated? What’s the researcher biased? Were the questions slanted? Is there a peer-group effect going on here? Basically, I want the differences between this research and past research and conventional wisdom explained before I jump excitedly on-board and start singing the results from the rooftops.

However, as a parent and a sex educator, I absolutely put substantial weight on the results of this study. I choose to believe that all people have the best possible motivations for their actions, including teenage boys.

It is critical that we interact with teenage boys with the assumption that they want high quality, mutually satisfying, and emotionally supportive romantic relationships.

Teenage boys are much more likely to live up to our assumptions and expectations of them than to put their own personal expectations far higher than those we set. This is really true of most people in most situations.

As parents of teenage girls this does not mean, of course, that we let every boy who comes over stay the night in our daughter’s bedroom because he probably means well. But it does mean that we treat him and his relationship with our daughter with respect and approval.

Teach teenage boys how to engage respectfully by respecting them. Assume the best of them so that they can assume the best of you. Get to know the teenage boys in your life so that they will want to get to know you.

Forget the statistics about teenage boys when you meet an actual teenage boy. Because when you do, there will be one individual standing in front of you. Maybe he is average. Maybe he is not. Regardless, the only way to know for sure is to get to know him.

So the liberal blog-o-sphere is simply agog with the CDC announcement that the adolescent birth rate has risen for the first time in fourteen years (it had been steadily falling). Bush’s abstinence-only “sex education” policy has been taken to the cleaners with this announcement. Here’s a quote from the CDC announcement that I think sums everything up nicely:

The report shows that between 2005 and 2006, the birth rate for teenagers aged 15 - 19 rose 3 percent, from 40.5 live births per 1,000 females aged 15-19 in 2005 to 41.9 births per 1,000 in 2006. This follows a 14-year downward trend in which the teen birth rate fell by 34 percent from its all-time peak of 61.8 births per 1,000 in 1991.

However, if you read deeper into the announcement, you find (as the Reverend Debra Haffner points out), that births rose among all women - not just teenagers. In fact, the total fertility rate is at the highest point is 1971, and is above replacement rate for the first time since then. The other serious numbers that come out of this announcement is that the Cesarean delivery rate rose again - indicating a 50% increase over the last 10 years. This is coupled with a rise in preterm births and a rise in low birth-weight. These are all much more alarming statistics than a very slight increase in the adolescent birth rate.

Now, I am not one to miss an opportunity to slam abstinence-only “sex education.” In general, I am just color-me-pink when big-time statistics like this come out indicating that the 1990’s had better sex education than the 2000’s. But I don’t agree that these numbers are enough to do that. The rise actually just takes us back to the 2004 adolescent birth rate (and is still lower than the 2003 adolescent birth rate). Many more questions need to be asked here: Did the abortion rate change? How many of these pregnancies were planned? (Yes, teenagers do plan pregnancies, and the biggest increase was among 18 - 19 year olds, who are the most likely teenagers to plan a pregnancy.) Did condom or hormonal birth control usage change among teenagers between 2004 and 2005? What about access for teenagers to abortion, condoms, or hormonal birth control?

I am also suspicious of people who rail against teenage births in general. Teenage parents aren’t all bad, and I’m tired of them being portrayed that way. The real issue for me is unplanned pregnancies, and yes, most teenage pregnancies are unplanned. The real issue is lack of real information, lack of access to reproductive health care, lack of self-efficacy around sexuality, and the highly overblown image of sex that prevails in our culture. None of these failures are exclusively the result of abstinence-only “sex education” (although it certainly hasn’t helped).

All of us - even those who support comprehensive sex education - need to acknowledge the role that we play, every day, in our society’s sex education. Do we talk openly and appropriately with people of all ages about sex and sexuality? Are you comfortable bringing up the topic of birth control when a young person you know gets into a serious relationship? Are you comfortable providing that birth control?

This is an area where you are either part of the solution or part of the problem. Where do you stand?

There are many very cool resources about sex and sexuality for teenagers in the UK. I’ve spent some time this week surfing through them, and thought some of you might be interested as well. (I have a fair number of readers from England, but the Internet sides of these organizations are clearly available to everyone, regardless of local.)

Brook Advisory Centers — Putting Young People First — is the only national voluntary sector provider of free and confidential sexual health advice and services specifically for young people under 25. Brook is a registered charity, and has 40 years’ experience of providing professional advice through specially trained doctors, nurses, counselors, and outreach and information workers to over 200,000 young people each year.

bpas for young people — bpas supports reproductive choice by advocating and providing high quality, affordable services to prevent or end unwanted pregnancies with contraception or by abortion. bpas is now Britain’s largest single abortion provider and cares for almost 50,000 women with unwanted pregnancies each year, as well as providing emergency contraception, sterilisation and vasectomy.

ChildLine — Truly an amazing organization, one that will never, ever be duplicated in the US, regardless of the dire need. Here is their description: ChildLine is the UK’s free, 24-hour helpline for children in distress or danger. Trained volunteer counselors comfort, advise, and protect children and young people who may feel they have nowhere else to turn.

Education for Choice — Education For Choice is the only UK-based educational charity dedicated to enabling young people to make informed choices about pregnancy and abortion. Education For Choice’s work is focused on the word choice. Whilst we concentrate on the issue of abortion, as it is the issue that receives least attention, we believe that work with young people should value all pregnancy choices equally. Our ethos is that the best outcomes of unintended pregnancy occur when the woman involved has been able to make her own informed choice.

Family Planning Association (fpa) — FPA is the UK’s leading sexual health charity. Our purpose is to enable people in the UK to make informed choices about sex and to enjoy sexual health. (fpa provides services and information to teenagers as well as adults.)

Get Connected — Get Connected provides a free, confidential helpline that gives young people in difficult situations the support and information you need to decide what you want to happen next. It could be anything from a listening ear to somewhere safe to stay for the night.

like it is — likeitis gives young people access to information about all aspects of sex education and teenage life. Topics on the likeitis site include: teenage pregnancy, help and advice, periods, lovebugs (sexually transmitted infections), sex, peer pressure, sexuality, contraception, emergency contraception, and puberty.

London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard — We are a voluntary organization with charitable status. We have currently just two paid workers, and all volunteers identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. This enables us to more fully understand the needs and situations of our callers. We are committed to discussing safer sex and the prevention of the spread of HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Whilst we never try to influence the decisions of our callers, we aim to make them aware of the wider implications and the issues facing them.

Needtoknow — Information portal for teenagers with an online magazine and signposting to other useful websites. Sections include health, relationships, money, travel and the law.

RU thinking — Sexwise is a helpline that offers free, confidential advice on sex, relationships and contraception. Anyone under 18 can call. It’s open from 7am to midnight, seven days a week.

There-4-Me — There4me is for you if you’re between 12-16 years old and are worried about something and need some help. We can help with loads of issues like abuse, bullying, exams, drugs and self harm. If there’s something bad that’s happening and you want to know what to do, you can talk to us and no one else has to know.

The Hideout — The Hideout provides help, information and support for children and young people – whether you’re currently living with violence, you’ve experienced violence in the past or if you know someone else going through it and you’re looking for help and information. We’ve included lots of information to explain what domestic violence is, how it affects you and where you can go for more help.

The Site — TheSite.org aims to be the first place all young adults turn to when they need support and guidance through life. We believe all young people have the capacity to make their own decisions and life choices, provided they have access to high quality, impartial information and advice. We don’t tell anyone how to lead their lives - we just believe everybody should have all the information they need to make their own decisions.

Young Minds — YoungMinds is the UK’s only national charity committed to improving the mental health and emotional well-being of all children and young people.

Well! If you’ve managed to read this far, I hope you are as impressed as I am. Thanks to the sites listed here (especially Brook), who listed each other, and that made organizing this list really quite easy! And so impressive! I hope to gather a list of similar resources for the US tomorrow. I’m afraid it won’t take near as much time, because our resources are so piddly!

A new study by University of Virginia researchers suggests that early sexual activity (14 - 15 years old) may by associated with lower levels of delinquent behavior in later adolescence. The researchers are defining delinquent behavior as drug us, criminality, antisocial behavior, and emotional problems.

Now, this really goes against most of what most people think they understand about early sexual behavior. So what’s the deal with the new findings? Well, what these researchers did was really quite cleaver. They looked at twins.

The first piece of this twin study that is important is that identical twins had first sexual intercourse at more similar ages than fraternal twins, who had first sexual intercourse at more similar ages than non-twin siblings. Basically, this means that time of first sexual intercourse probably has something to do with our genetic make-up. That’s a pretty big statement.

So here’s the next big piece of information: when looking at identical twins, the ones who had sex as young adolescents (14 - 15) were less likely to be involved in the aforementioned delinquent behavior (drugs, criminality, antisocial behavior, and emotional problems) than their siblings who had first sexual intercourse later. This, too, is a huge finding.

Does this mean that we should be encouraging our younger teenagers to be having sexual intercourse? Clearly not. Having sex is a very, very personal decision that needs to be born out of a relationship.

But this does mean that we need to stop freaking out at the idea of teenagers having sex. Sometimes it keeps them busy and off the streets, doing other, potentially much more harmful activities.

I can hear the up-roar now: But what about teen pregnancy! But what about STDs! But what about morality!

This is where a little thing I like to call education comes in handy. Another lovely piece of research has recently shown that comprehensive sexuality programs dramatically increases condom and contraception use. This trend is also rather clear in the rest of the industrialized world, where sex education is comprehensive, and rates of teen pregnancy, STDs, and abortions are all far lower than in the U.S.

So to re-cap: early sexual intercourse isn’t generally such a bad thing (after genetics have been accounted for) and comprehensive sexuality education can protect teenagers against the negative effects of sexual intercourse.

Hmmm…maybe we’re really, really, really on the wrong track in this country.

Teen brain development and patterns are such that many teenagers just aren’t able to fall asleep before 11pm or midnight. This all comes down to brain chemistry and when those chemicals are released during a typical day.

So late sleep times, combined with typical high school start times as early as 7:30, means that most teenagers just aren’t getting enough sleep. That has all sorts of negative effects on memory, physical development, decision making, and other important things. But most of these things just don’t have a big impact on a teenager’s decision to try to go to bed earlier.

Finally, here is some research that might actually impact your teenagers to try to go to bed earlier.

It’s been clear for a couple of years that adults who get less sleep tend to have higher Body Mass Indexes (BMI), but now it also appears that children who get less sleep in the 3rd and 6th grades are likely to have a higher BMI in 6th grade. Since this finding has held true on both ends of adolescence, my smart money is on it being true in adolescence as well.

But either way, most teenagers legitimately have a hard time going to sleep at a decent hour because of their brain chemistry. Don’t be too hard on them because of it - they’re probably already feeling the pain of not enough sleep without anyone else pointing it out.