Sex or not Sex?
During the last ten or fifteen years many studies have found that the percentage of teenagers reporting they have had sex is decreasing. The Centers for Disease Control found that it had decreased by about 10% between 1990 and 2000. Likewise, the number of abortions by teens has also dropped during the same time period. Teen pregnancies are also down by about 10%. In late 2004 the CDC reported that the number of births to young adolescents had dropped greatly: Between 1994 and 2002, the number of girls between 10 and 14 had increased by 16%, but the number of births to women in this age group had decreased by 38%.
A 2002 cover of Newsweek magazine proclaimed “The New Virginity.” Articles about the return to abstinence among adolescents appeared in many magazines and newspapers. All looked good until some people pointed out that research also showed that the number of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) among adolescents were at all time highs. A 2005 article in Reader’s Digest noted that gonorrhea was more prevalent among 15-19-year-old females than any other group in the population.
How could this be? If fewer adolescents were having sex and more of them were abstinent, how could they be getting more STDs? The answer is found in the postmodern thinking of many adolescents. Remember that in a postmodern perspective each person constructs his or her own truth and reality. Thus, when asked whether or not they have had sex, postmodern adolescents answer based on their own definition of “having sex.” In the past people considered vaginal sex, oral sex, and other kinds of sex as “having sex.” However, now people all have their own definitions, and many of them define sex only as having vaginal sex. Other kinds of sex are not sex. (If the previous sentence does not make sense to you, you are not a postmodern thinker.)
Probably the most common (but certainly not universal) definition of “having sex” is “doing something a person believes can result in pregnancy.” Anything else you do is not having sex. For example, when discussing masturbation, we considered Onan who “knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother” (Genesis 38:9 KJV). Apparently Onan believed that if he did not ejaculate his semen into the widow, she could not become pregnant; therefore, in postmodern thinking Onan did not have sex with her. (Of course, she could become pregnant because sperm may get into the vagina without ejaculation—as some adolescents have found out when they became pregnant even though they never “had sex.”)
This kind of thinking has resulted in adolescents engaging in a wide variety of sexual activities that they do not define as having sex. One kind of sexual activity, often defined as not “having sex,” but more and more frequently participated in by adolescents in America, is oral sex.
Oral Sex
Although a small minority of adolescents participated in oral sex in past years, the percentage has increased dramatically during the last decade. Reporting the White House scandal of the Clinton administration, the media made “oral sex” a common phrase which quickly found its way into the vocabulary of adolescents and even into conversations of students in elementary school. Knowing that the President did it and said it was not sex, these teenagers and children increasingly tried it and view it as “no big deal.” It is seen not as a question of “having sex,” but as a question of deciding how much petting to do: Should I hold hands? Should I kiss? Should I touch a person’s breasts? Should I touch a person’s genitals? Should I have oral sex?
Data are only beginning to appear as to how many teens have oral sex and by what age. Data from an NBC/People magazine poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates on a national sample of 1000 13-16-year-old teens were released in January 2005. This poll found that in the entire sample 12% of the teens had been involved in oral sex. At age 13 about 3% of the people had oral sex, and then the percentages increased with each year. In another study data from 580 9th graders with an average age of 14.5 in two California schools published in the journal Pediatrics in April 2005 showed that about one in five (19.6%) reported having had oral sex and about one in three (31.5%) reported intending to have oral sex during the next six months.
Both of these studies showed that adolescents were more likely to have oral sex than vaginal sex. The most comprehensive study of USA sexual behavior ever done was released by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September 2005 and is available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/ad/361-370/ad362.htm. This study found that at every age level during the late teens about an additional 10% (ranged from 8%-15%) of both men and women had oral sex (but had not had vaginal sex).
Teenagers see oral sex as more acceptable and less risky. However, there is no “safe sex” outside of a faithful marriage relationship, and teenagers who participate in oral sex before they are married experience the social, emotional, and physical consequences. Although teenagers try to avoid “getting feelings,” emotional attachments occur, relationships change, and “breaking up” still is emotionally devastating. Spiritual consequences also occur as teens disobey God’s commands about sexual purity. Although teens may believe they cannot contract STDs, they still get them. Remember that the highest rate of gonorrhea for any group is found in females 15-19 years of age.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Although the use of condoms is sometimes called “safe sex,” it is not safe. It may be “safer” in the sense that you are less likely to get STDs, but you can still get them—as many teenagers have found. Although some STDs can be relatively easily cured, others last for life, and AIDS takes your life after a long process of dying. A 2002 editorial in the Lexington Herald-Leader was titled “Oral-sex education: Give middle schoolers facts to curtail activity.” Although one can catch dozens of STDs, the editorial said, “Among the STDs spread through oral sex are pharyngeal gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis B, syphilis, chlamydia, and human papillomavirus. HIV also can be transmitted orally, though transmission is more likely through intercourse.” The consequences of just these few STDs are astounding.
Further information on these STDs as well as others is available at www.cdc.gov/std. Fact sheets available there all end with the same statement: “The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is to abstain from sexual intercourse or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and is known to be uninfected.”
What can adolescent TCKs do?
What can I say? All I know to say is “Don’t.” Rather than elaborating on that myself as an older, retired person, let me quote the words of a college student. The following paragraph was written by the editor of a special issue on sexuality for the student newspaper at a Christian college.
Students are not sure where to draw the line, so they are doing other things just to avoid having vaginal sex…So many people have no idea that oral sex and even sexual touching can lead to STDs. When ______________, a nurse at the campus clinic told me that sexual touching could lead to herpes, human papillomavirus and even syphilis, I was shocked. I tried to dispel the rumor that everything BUT vaginal sex is safe. In all reality, the only thing oral or anal sex does is reduce the risk of pregnancy. I hope that the many hours of research I have done will help students to realize that any type of sexual contact is not only physically dangerous but could also be emotionally scarring.
Even if you are planning to marry, and even if you are engaged, “Don’t.” Remember that Heather Jamison (“Bitter for Sweet,” Focus on the Family, February, 1999, p. 12) wrote about how she and her husband-to-be engaged in sexual activity before they were married using the excuse that God would forgive them and they would marry. God did forgive, and they married; however, the trust necessary to build a marriage was gone. As she put it, “The divorce was mutually accepted, and then some months later, on the date it was to become final, mutually revoked. We had both tasted firsthand the consequences of sin: the lack of intimacy, trust and respect for each other” (Quote Data) She went on to say that although she could not change the past, day after day, year after year, layer after layer the Lord continued to restore trust and respect. How she wished they had waited.
Concluding Comments on Part 4
Compared to other chapters, these four chapters in Part 4 have been by far the most difficult to write. The difficult part was not in discussing sexual topics (I did that for 35 years while teaching psychology), but it was realizing that the suggestions given at the end of these four chapters are quite inadequate. There are just no good answers to the question of what to do with your sexuality during adolescence. With your new cognitive capacities as an adolescent/adult, I can encourage you to use them and go on to become great critical thinkers. With your new physical strength and stamina, I can encourage you to use those to go on to become record setting athletes. With your new capacity to make moral decisions, I can encourage you to use that capacity to make wise choices when faced with temptations. However, with your new sexual capacities, as a Christian I cannot encourage you to express that new capacity for the next ten years of your life.
As you know from living in several cultures, these cultures often place odd demands on the people living in them. At least the demands seem odd to those living outside the culture. You may think that the puberty rites practiced by “primitive” cultures are odd, but probably none are as odd as not giving newly sexually mature people a morally acceptable way to express their newfound sexuality. Do remember that even though this is odd and probably unreasonable, that does not mean that it is all right to become sexually intimate before marriage.
Finally, although this is not a book on marriage, sex is very much a part of marriage after adolescence. Your being a TCK will influence your relationship in marriage, and thus your sexual life as an adult. The book of Ruth is a treasury of information on TCKs and marriage. You may have never heard of them, but Mahlon and Kilion were TCKs who had been born in Judah but grew up in Moab. As is often the case, these TCKs married nationals, Orpah and Ruth, in the culture where they grew up (Ruth 1).
About ten years later Mahlon and Kilion died. When their mother, Naomi, decided to return to her passport country, Orpah and Ruth wanted to go with her. Naomi explained some of the differences in the cultures, especially noting that she had no more sons—remember Onan not wanting to fulfill that part of his culture when his brother died (Genesis 38). After some discussion Orpah decided to stay in Moab, her passport country, but Ruth decided to go to Judah with her mother-in-law. Ruth had really adopted her husband’s culture and religion, so she said, “Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1).
Before you marry, I recommend that you learn all you can about your “TCK-ness” and consider what it will mean to the person you marry. Will marrying you mean moving from country to country? Staying in one place?
Whatever the case I suggest reading a good book on TCKs, such as Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing up Among Worlds (2001)by David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken, and discussing it with your potential marriage partner. If at all possible also discuss these differences as a couple with a pastor or counselor who understands TCK issues as well as other issues in marriage.
Finally, I want to suggest some good books about adolescent sexuality from a Christian perspective. Some of these books deal very frankly with the issues discussed in Part 4. You can read about the books on the publisher’s website, and if you want to see the table of contents and some sample pages from the books, you can find those at www.amazon.com.
First, here are some books that are parts of sex education age-graded series published by Christian publishers:
Learning About Sex Series published by Concordia Publishing House (www.cph.org)
God’s Design for Sex Series published by NavPress (www.navpress.com) :
Second, here are some more recent (written or revised since 2000) books for adolescents about the issues discussed in Part 4 that are not parts of a series (presented alphabetically):