• The sexing of America's children

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  • Record Weekly Wednesday, July 25, 2001
    Guest Editorial
    Our kids know more about sex than we think they do. Period.
    What could we expect in a culture in which, by age 19, our children have spent nearly 19,000 hours in front of the television (compared with only 16,000 hours in school, and where nearly two-thirds of all television programming has sexual content? School kids 20 years ago consulted Dr. Ruth or the manual ''Our Bodies, Ourselves''; now even preteens regularly refer to the likes of Jerry Springer and ''Sex and the City.''
    Parents remain largely out of the loop. Of course, it's become harder to keep up with a media- and technology-savvy younger generation. But it's also true that we haven't paid enough attention to what our children see and hear about sex every day.
    It's time to take a hard look at the world through our children's eyes, at the stark ugliness of a popular culture in which sex has been essentially de-meaned -- literally stripped of meaning.
    These images and messages -- on TV and in videos, movies, advertisements and lyrics -- depict sex as recreation; sex as commerce and exploitation; sex as sport, status and even violence. Warmth and caring have given way to being ''cool'' at all costs; mutuality has been replaced by selfish pursuit; the notions of intimacy and commitment have been shelved as cumbersome relics. Just look at MTV's ''Undressed,'' featuring high schoolers (in lingerie and leather having sex while their parents are out. It makes my students' open banter about the machinations on ''Temptation Island'' seem, well, like child's play.
    Kids pick up on -- and all too often act on -- the messages around them. Remember the debate about whether oral sex counted as sexual relations that unfolded during the Monica Lewinsky sdal? Many blamed it for an apparent increase in oral sex among students. But, truthfully, kids have been reacting to more entrenched and confusing messages. While popular culture glamorizes sex, public service ads warn about its possible dire consequences. The interpretation? As long as you avoid intercourse, it's all OK.
    ''So what's wrong with an eighth-grade girl having oral sex?'' one of my 14-year-old students asked recently. ''After all, you 't get pregnant or one of those bad diseases. ... Besides, it's not really sex. So you're still a virgin. What's the big deal? Teenagers are supposed to experiment. That's just one of the things they might decide to try out.''
    ''Oh, but you get one of those diseases,'' a classmate retorted. Some students nodded; others looked surprised.
    ''Well, I guess that's different, then,'' the first girl said. ''I didn't know you could get it that way.''
    The issue seemed settled, but I wasn't relieved. Should the threat of disease or pregnancy be the only limit these students see on their sexual experimentation? Not one seemed bothered that oral sex had been described as ''no big deal,'' ''not really sex'' and as a way to hold onto virginity -- as if it were a simple rite of passage, like taking a puff of tobacco or a sip of beer.
    It's hardly surprising that they sound so confused when they're learning from a culture that speaks out of both sides of its mouth: Sex is the best thing you do! Sex is the worst thing you do! Sex is meaningless! Sex is holy! Do it now! Save it forever! The popular culture's message is ''Anything Goes''; the federal government's is ''Abstinence Only.''
    ''Why don't adults make up their minds?'' my students have asked more times than I count.
    Mixed messages are everywhere. A clear example caught my eye in a newspaper: On the same page as a sober story reporting a higher incidence of oral sex among middle schoolers was a prominent clothing ad showing a stily clad adolescent, wearing a come-hither pout and baring much of her breasts.
    Children and adolescents still look to us, the adults, for guidance, limits and values. Believe me. I know these truths directly, from the thousands of young people I've listened to, one on one and in the classroom. It's up to us to close the gap between what we want them to think about sex and what those who are after their attention and their dollars want them to think.
    Deborah M. Roffman, author of ''Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parent's Guide to Talking Sense About Sex'' (Perseus Books, is a consultant on human sexuality education for more than a dozen schools in the Baltimore-Washington area, and the mother of two grown sons.
    GRAPHICS:HAPLESS HAGAR: Since the 1940s, kids have received most of their information on sexuality from peers and the media, according to the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy. Hagar cartoon.

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