Tackling the topic of teen sex

Victoria Clayton • E-mail

Recent media reports about teen sexual activity undoubtedly have many parents concerned. Newspaper articles and TV segments have suggested that "hooking up" and having "friends with benefits" are disturbingly common behaviors among today's kids. (In case you aren't up on this terminology, "hooking up" is the new way to say "one-night stand." If the nights turn into a series but still no relationship, that's a "friend with benefits.")

Of course, sexual experimentation and sex without love aren't new. But the notion that a good many members of the barely-driving set appear to be engaging in these behaviors — and are often blasé about it — is alarming.

Experts say sexually explicit advertising and the barrage of “reality” TV shows with couples hooking up in front of millions of viewers doesn’t help, but they primarily blame the problem on the very thing you're staring at right now. Yep, the Internet.

"The Web is this generation's singles bar and discotheque, and it's open to all ages," explains Michael J. Basso, a public health advisor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and author of "The Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality."

High-school students have their own versions of the dating sites so popular with adults. The sites make hook-ups fast, easy and often too tempting to resist.

A lot of hype?
Not that we should assume every kid is doing this, says Basso, who also spent eight years as a health and sexuality teacher at an inner-city Miami school. The majority of young people, he believes, are still muddling through life the old-fashioned way — finding girlfriends and boyfriends face-to-face, perhaps eventually experimenting with sex after having a relationship, really breaking up (as opposed to simply discovering you've been blocked from instant messaging someone) — and doing a swell job at it.

In fact, he says, at the same time teens are supposedly "hooking up" and having "friends with benefits" in droves, the latest data from the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey suggest that since 1991 the number of teens engaging in sexual intercourse has actually declined ever so slightly. So, is hooking up a real youth trend or is this a case of salacious media hype on a slow news day?

It hardly matters. The reason parents should be concerned isn't because hooking up is storming the nation. They should be concerned for the same reasons parents should've been concerned 20 or even 50 years ago, says Sheree Conrad, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

'Unfortunately, the vast majority of parents still never have a conversation with their kids about sex beyond maybe giving them information about reproductive biology.' — Sheree Conrad University of Massachusetts

When it comes to sex, teens need — and have always needed — help from their parents. "Unfortunately, the vast majority of parents still never have a conversation with their kids about sex beyond maybe giving them information about reproductive biology," says Conrad.

But if you don't talk with your kids about it, you miss the opportunity to offer them useful information about sex as a healthy interaction between people. You also give them the implicit message that it's not OK to talk about sex. This creates apprehension, guilt and shame, according to Conrad. It also leaves them on their own, which means they may find themselves surfing the Net and getting involved in sex before they're ready.

Of course, the possible health consequences — an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy — are well documented. But there are other repercussions for your kids that aren't so obvious.

"The younger people are when they first have sex, the more likely they are to say 'it just happened' and the less likely it is to be a positive experience," explains Michael Milburn, also a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts.

Individuals whose first experience is negative report less-satisfying sex lives as adults and more cases of sexual dysfunction, according to Milburn, who is a co-author along with Conrad of "Sexual Intelligence."

Their research has also made this clear: Parents who discuss sex and set healthy relationship examples can spare their children much pain, confusion and fear.

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