Redefining virginity

By Lynn Taylor Rick, Journal Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 11, 2006

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When Sarah Johnson hears kids talk about having oral sex, she’s surprised when they claim to be virgins.

In her mind, they lose that distinction once they engage in such intimate behavior.

But Johnson, 15, admits her views aren’t the norm.

A lot of kids don’t consider oral sex as sex and believe they’re abstinent even if they’re doing it, she said. “They actually think they’re still virgins after that,” she said. “I think you’re not a virgin anymore. Anytime, when you’re touching in that area … I think that’s a form of sex.”

Johnson’s peers in the Black Hills seem to reflect the views of kids nationwide.

A recent study showed that teens are having oral sex in high numbers and view it very casually. More than half of the kids surveyed, age 15 to 19, had already had oral sex, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

The teens surveyed also don’t view oral sex as sex. They see few consequences to it and view it as much less risky and more acceptable than intercourse.

Educators in the Black Hills are not particularly surprised by the study, nor do they believe South Dakota escapes the trend.

Eileen Leir of Volunteers of America said that while the majority of area teens are refraining from casual oral sex, there are plenty who are not.

That should concern parents and educators, because those children are at risk for sexually transmitted diseases or STDs, she said.

Volunteers of America provides HIV and STD education programs throughout the area; talking to hundreds of kids each year.

From the kids’ questions and their reactions to the sex education information, educators get a good sense of the issues out there, Leir said. A casual attitude toward oral sex is one of them.

John Gordon of Youth & Family Services agrees.

As a health educator, Gordon teaches the Wise Guys program, an abstinence-emphasis sex education approach. He teaches it at YFS facilities and in some area schools.

In his talks, Gordon addresses self-esteem, values, STDs, contraceptives, sexual behavior and risks, depending upon what is allowed at each particular venue.

Since students rarely ask specific questions in class, Gordon begins by asking kids to write down anonymous questions. A large number of kids ask questions about oral sex, masturbation and anal sex.

The sheer volume of questions tells Gordon that kids are hearing about those things and potentially experiencing them.

And although he gets those questions daily, in some of the school settings, Gordon isn’t allowed to answer them.

It’s a frustrating dilemma for him since Gordon says only about one third of the kids tell him they can talk to their parents about sex.

“Problems don’t go away by not talking about it,” he said. “It’s frustrating … unfortunately I’m not able to inform kids who really, really need it.”

Why is it happening?

Gordon calls oral sex behavior “epidemic.”

Many of his fellow health educators agree.

Locally, it appears that fellatio is most common. Leir said girls have told her they feel powerful doing it. And Gordon said teens have told him French kissing is much more intimate than oral sex.

It also starts much younger than many parents would suspect, Leir and Gordon say. Most children begin hearing about oral sex in middle school, usually in eighth grade.

Gordon said in the past two years, area educators have told him about several incidents of middle school age children in Rapid City engaging in oral sex. One occurred on a local middle school bus, another at a locker inside a middle school. One school discovered kids were having oral sex after school at an athletic field. And a recent sexual incident on a high school bus that was returning from an athletic event in the Black Hills led to criminal charges being filed against a Sioux Falls Roosevelt High School student.

“There definitely seems to be a trend,” Gordon said. “In my opinion, oral sex is becoming more casual than ever before.”

Youth Pastor Jeremy Falk of First Assembly of God believes that the casualness isn’t all that new. Falk, 25, remembers attitudes during his high school days as very casual when it came to oral sex.

“That mentality was around when I was in high school,” he said. “It’s just that we’re finally talking about it.”

Kathy Johnson, Sarah’s mom, also believes that attitudes about oral sex are too casual among teens. As a Sunday school teacher and Girl Scout leader, Johnson gets a chance to talk with a lot of kids. At a recent church-sponsored mother/daughter event, Johnson and the other mothers were surprised when several of the questions asked by the girls were about oral sex.

“It is pretty casual among them, and they think that it’s not sex,” Johnson said.

Local educators believe that is partially because adults have narrowly and poorly defined sex for teens.

Eighteen-year-old Tanner (last name omitted) of Rapid City is a perfect example. He doesn’t consider oral sex as sex and neither do most of his friends.

“It’s something that leads up to sex, but it’s not considered sex,” he said. “I don’t believe the girls consider it sex either.”

The “leading up to” portion of that sentence alarms Leir.

There’s a “progression of intimacy” that the majority of adults would find normal, Leir said. When oral sex becomes so casual and occurs early in a relationship, that progression has been altered, she said. The lasting effects for intimacy within marriage later in life are hard to predict.

“What does that do in the development of intimacy?” Leir said. “How do you learn to be intimate after that.”

Gordon tries to explain to students that sex and sexual behavior should not be squandered casually because it can have serious emotional and physical consequences. “You are giving a piece of yourself to them,” Gordon said. “It just shouldn’t be that casual. … Emotionally, it can cause a ton of problems.”

Alisha Vincent, who runs the Stop and Think sexual abstinence education program out of Spearfish, has personal experience on the consequences of forgoing that “progression of intimacy.” She shares it with students during her talks.

“I’m 27 and when I was in high school, that was a misconception that I even had. That oral sex isn’t sex … ,” she said.

Because no one ever talked to her about the parameters of sex and intimacy, Vincent believes she convinced herself it was no big deal. But, as she tells students in her classes, it was. “On my wedding day … I stood before my husband and I had these flashbacks,” she said. “It did have an impact on him … it’s not fair to him, not fair at all.”

Gordon believes that no information or programs that provide little specific health education have led kids to believe they can be virgins while engaging in oral and even anal sex.

Falk sees that same sort of misconception. “They sort of see oral sex as a way to maintain their virginity,” Falk said.

Many also don’t know they can get STDs from oral sex, Gordon said. (See box).

Those two concerns have changed the way Falk conducts his True Love Waits rally each year in Rapid City.

While the message of the rally is the same — remain abstinent until marriage — Falk is more careful to define sex. He includes oral sex and anal sex in his definition of sex, telling teens that to remain abstinent also includes those activities.

Falk said studies have suggested that many teens who attend True Love Waits are the same teens who engage in the behavior with the belief that they are saving their virginity. That’s why he’s so adamant they get accurate and complete information instead of a “just say no” message.

“You can’t just go to your kids and say, ‘God doesn’t want you to have sex until you get married.’ That’s not enough,” Falk said.

The STD risks

When Gordon first tells students that they can contract STDs from oral sex, he gets the “deer-in-the-headlights” look.

Vincent also finds that teens are surprised to find out just how risky it is. “There are eight STDs that I can name off the top of my head that students can get from oral sex,” she said.

Although the Stop and Think program takes an abstinent-only approach, Vincent doesn’t believe that means kids should be left without information.

“We’re not shying away from the oral sex issue, because it is a problem,” she said. “We can help students decipher what is true and real … Knowledge is power and it is important to let our kids know that there are risks.”

Dr. Ken Diamond of Rapid City agrees.

Diamond gave sex education lectures to confirmation classes at Canyon Lake Methodist Church for 10 years.

He fears that a lack of information only leaves children to find their own, usually inaccurate, information.

“I think we’re always better off with more information … I do not believe that education leads to increases in activity or promiscuity … if nothing else, it kind of safeguards against a lot of misinformation,” he said.

Still, Diamond isn’t buying the study results that kids view oral sex as casual. He believes that’s probably more media hype than reality.

Kids know it’s serious, but they probably don’t realize what it might lead to, he said.

“I don’t buy that oral sex is any kind of substitute,” he said. “If young people are at a point in their relationships where they are experimenting with oral sex, intercourse and risk of pregnancy is sure to follow.”

Gordon agrees that a casual attitude about oral sex will almost always lead to more.

“If it’s not a big deal to provide oral sex … down the road there may be multiple partners,” Gordon said. “Oral sex is risky behavior and risky behavior leads to more risky behavior.”

Is knowledge the key?

Almost without fail, when Gordon teaches within school settings, he is asked questions by students that he is not allowed to answer due to certain restrictions or specific guidelines that he must follow.

At one Black Hills school, he was asked to leave mid-sentence when a teen asked for an explanation about a sexual reference. “In many instances, I have to withhold information from teens,” he said.

To help fill in the gaps, he always gives kids his work e-mail and office phone number and encourages them to call him after school with any important questions.

They rarely do.

In the Rapid City school district, sex education is addressed in the biology and health curriculum, said curriculum director Pat Peel.

Peel said the classes address STDs and HIV. As for specifics, educators are allowed to answer questions as long as they do so in a “responsible” manner.

“The teachers certainly would be talking about the risky behaviors that would lead to the transmission to STDs and HIV,” she said.

While Gordon said he understands the nature of the community in which he works, he believes that kids need accurate information in order to make healthy decisions.

“Kids are choosing oral sex because we may not be providing information to them,” Gordon said. “Parents need to know it’s going on, and it’s not going anywhere unless we start talking about it.”

While Falk believes the True Love Waits rallies he holds each year are a good way of getting information to youths, he agrees that parents must be a part of that equation.

“I see more and more parents talking about sex with their kids, but when it comes to talking about anal sex or oral sex or homosexuality … They may be more squeamish,” he said. “Parents need to be informed, that’s the first thing … I think that parents should know as many health statistics as possible.”

Fourteen-year-old Mike (not his real name) of Rapid City said his parents have talked to him about sex, but not specifics. The only time an adult addressed the oral sex issue was during a biology class.

But Mike, who intends to wait until marriage for sex, still thinks his close relationship with his parents plays a role in his beliefs and decision to wait. He said the kids in his school who casually have oral sex are the ones whose parents look the other way.

“Most of the time, the people who do it, their parents don’t care,” he said.

Sarah believes that more education and more talk from parents would probably make a difference.

Since her own mother always answered whatever questions she had, Sarah said her decision to wait until marriage was an informed one. “If I have any questions, I can ask her,” she said.

But she thinks a lot of parents are putting on blinders, believing it can’t be their kid. Sarah believes it’s widespread among her peers. “I think it’s pretty much everyone, not just one group,” she says.

Mike’s mother agrees. It’s not just, as some parents want to believe, the “bad kids,” she said. “In fact, it seems to be the popular kids.”

Sarah maintains that parents could make the difference, and that a lot of her friends would listen if their parents addressed the issue. All they have to do is ask and answer the right questions.

“I think it would change, but their moms actually have to face the facts,” Sarah said.

Lynn Taylor Rick is a staff writer at the Journal. She can be reached at 394-8414 or lynn.taylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com.