New Study Finds Girls Gone ... Wilder Than They Were

A study that came out this week seems to document a sort of second wave of the sexual revolution, one that is growing in the darkness of hypocritical abstinence-only sex-education programs. Even as the federal government spends billions teaching kids ... nothing ... about safe sex, teens are experimenting with one another, trying things, and some traditional reluctances are dissolving. Interestingly, it is the girls who are leading the way. This, from a San Diego State University press release:

A landmark new report on teenage sex in America shows teenagers are not only having more sex at much younger ages, but becoming dramatically less prudish about it. And young women are leading the way in dismantling old taboos.

The report from researchers at San Diego State University analyzed 530 studies spanning five decades and involving more than a quarter of a million young people. The report appears in the most recent issue of the Review of General Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association.

"To my knowledge, it's the most comprehensive study of changes in sexual behaviors that's ever been done," said co-author Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State.

Between 1943 and 1999, the report shows the age of first intercourse dropped from 19 to 15 for females (18 to 15 for males), and that the percentage of sexually active young women rose from 13 percent to 47 percent.

Feelings of sexual guilt plummeted, especially among young women. Attitudes toward premarital sex became dramatically more liberal over the same period. Approval of premarital sex increased from 40 percent to 79 percent among young men, according to the report, and from 12 percent to 73 percent among young women. Landmark New Report on Teenage Sex in America
Tracks Dramatic Changes over Last Five Decades

Now, I have teenagers, and I hear the stories. If you have kids in high school none of this should surprise you. But I am not sure how to interpret it.

In the Old World when I was growing up, the game was very complicated, and in the long run I think everybody got what they wanted, but the basic paradigm was boys-chase-the-girls.

Now, if these results are to be believed (and why not?), the girls are doing their share of the chasing, too.

"The change in young women's beliefs about premarital sex was enormous," said Twenge, who co-authored the report with Brooke Wells, a former graduate student at San Diego State now at City University of New York.

"Cultural influence was so much stronger for women than men, and that was true across behaviors. The attitudes that parents have is also an influence," Twenge said about the report that tracked Baby Boomers, Generation X and the current generation of young people, whom Twenge calls Generation Me.

"Baby Boomers were having sex for the first time in college, but Generation Me started having sex in high school; there's been a major shift there," she said. On the flip side, in this age of AIDS, young people also are reporting fewer sexual partners. As the AIDS epidemic escalated, young people reported fewer numbers of sexual partners, according to the report.

This change in girls' attitudes about sex is probably the latest repercussion of a long train of events that have re-shaped our nation's economy and mores. Remember, a hundred years ago women couldn't vote. Fifty years ago women tended to stay home. Today Mom goes to work just like Dad. It seems reasonable to interpret these data as showing that the economic empowerment of women may be resulting in a sense of sexual empowerment as well. Not that we've figured out how to deal with that.

Certain sexual behaviors are becoming more acceptable, too. "Oral sex has become so popular. In previous generations, oral sex was considered disgusting. Now young people see it as another way of being sexual," Twenge said. "It's also part of the general trend of sexual behavior moving away from marriage and reproduction and toward pleasure."

The percentage of teenagers and young adults having oral sex increased from 48 percent in 1969 to 72 percent in 1993 among young men, and from 42 percent in 1969 to 71 percent in 1993 among young women.

A shift in emphasis from sex for "marriage and reproduction" to sex for pleasure... Modern technology has made it possible to split the pleasurable part from the reproduction part. And, it appears, the softening of some traditional constraints is resulting in exploration of the pleasurability of sex.

This survey raises some important questions. Where are these changes headed? How do we as a society manage this tidal transition? Is there something morally wrong in engaging in sex for pleasure? Is it possible, once the cat's out of the bag, to re-bag it? Is that even desirable? How do these findings affect the determination of the best way to talk to students about sex?

This is a time for serious consideration of some important issues. Norms are changing very fast, and American teens are finding sex on their own, either not receiving any guidance from adults or simply ignoring it as boring and old-fashioned. The pleasure is alluring, the social exchange is rewarding, and the risks are real.