Report Card: Sexual Behavior of High Schoolers and Overall Health of Children in the U.S.
Jul 16, 2007 Filed in: Medicine &
Science
Federal Consortium Issues Comprehensive Annual Report
on Health and Behavior of Children
In case you were paying attention to other things this weekend (like the Tour de France), a report was issued Friday that is basically a report card on several parameters of children’s health in the U.S. The report, America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well Being, issued by a consortium of federal agencies, has some good news and some bad news. Of surprise to no one who has watched Bush slash every program related to children’s health and education:
• The percentage of children covered by health insurance decreased from 2004 to 2005;
• The percentage of low birth weight infants increased;
• Sixty percent of children live in counties with air pollutants above maximum federal levels.
On the good news side of things, the birth rate among teens 15-17 went down and immunizations of children are improving. For conservatives, the biggest news of “success” was that fewer high school students are having sex. The improvement, however, is less than stellar: Forty seven percent of high school students in 2005 report having intercourse, down from fifty four percent in 1991. While that’s encouraging, that’s still about half of all high school students, and this includes 10% of high school girls and 4% of high school boys forced to have sex.
What's the Definition of Sex?
Also, it only gives the statistic for sexual intercourse, not sexual activity. Traditionally, it has been noted that children who delay sexual intercourse have fewer lifetime partners, lower rates of STDs, and do better overall. However, with the pornification of the U.S., sexual activity as opposed to just intercourse, appears to be practically ubiquitous among teenagers. It would be interesting to see a study that surveyed all sexual activity among teens, since many of these activities are at least as effective at spreading STDs as intercourse.
If the popular media is to be believed, the “girls gone wild” phenomenon has become an intractable rite of passage for young women and, optimistic national reports notwithstanding, shows no sign of abatement. The question remains, then, when will the current sexual revolution end?
The End of Girls Gone Wild?
For an answer, we need only look at the history of the last sexual revolution and its demise. The baby boomers’ sexual revolution, the “free love” phenomenon, fueled by hippie morals, widely available contraception, and the assurance that antibiotics could fix any disease, ran into a brick wall in the 1980s.
Hippies Gone Straight
The former-hippie baby boomers were by that point living in the suburbs and voting republican, and the generation reaching adolescence was caught up in a perfect storm combining the rise of the Reagan Youth and the appearance of AIDS. With lots of pompous morality posturing in the media to keep up appearances coupled with a horrific disease to ensure compliance, the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies was dead and gone. If you were carving a headstone for the absolute final demise of the FL revolution you could pinpoint November 7, 1991, the day that basketball legend Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive.
Six More Years
What replaced FL, of course, was the era of “hooking up,” with emphasis on oral sex, nontraditional sex, and complete removal of all pubic hair to facilitate the aforementioned. The result, from a disease standpoint, has been the rise of HPV, to the point that some estimates have HPV as pandemic among adolescents, teens and twentysomethings. While not nearly as deadly as HIV, it can lead to unsightly genital warts and cancer, which has at least gotten the attention of many young people.
But don’t look for an increased virulence of HPV to be the death knell of the GGW sexual revolution. Like Magic’s announcement, the end will come via the media, although this time not by a single celebrity’s press conference. And it’s still a few years away: It will occur July 1st, 2013, via the internet.
The date of the final demise is just an estimate, of course, but we will probably be seeing the beginnings of the end soon, and here’s why: The first of the GGW videos came out in 1998. Since the videos are mostly college and spring break related, assume an average age of 20. The average age of having a first child for women in this country is 25. Assuming a normal distribution of birthdays across the calendar, the “average” child born to the “average” woman displaying herself in video format for all to see would be about four years old as of now.
Mom Did What? That is so Gross
One trait of adolescence that has been absolutely invariable across generations is a complete disgust at the thought of their parents doing anything physical. Today’s children are internet savvy. Assuming the normal curiosity of preteens, it will be at about age 10 when these children of the GGW will stumble across the internet videos of mommy being taken doggie style by an entire frat house. Their disgust, coupled with the natural desire at that age to be very different from one’s parents, will be the doom of the GGW revolution.
The Next Revolution
What will replace it is anybody’s guess. Since hormones will always be there to stir young people into some kind of sexual experimentation, something will certainly come along. Given their love of computers, maybe it will be some type of virtual reality. Or maybe, if they really want to try something different, it will be the SWL (sex with love) revolution. How’s that for a far out idea?
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In case you were paying attention to other things this weekend (like the Tour de France), a report was issued Friday that is basically a report card on several parameters of children’s health in the U.S. The report, America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well Being, issued by a consortium of federal agencies, has some good news and some bad news. Of surprise to no one who has watched Bush slash every program related to children’s health and education:
• The percentage of children covered by health insurance decreased from 2004 to 2005;
• The percentage of low birth weight infants increased;
• Sixty percent of children live in counties with air pollutants above maximum federal levels.
On the good news side of things, the birth rate among teens 15-17 went down and immunizations of children are improving. For conservatives, the biggest news of “success” was that fewer high school students are having sex. The improvement, however, is less than stellar: Forty seven percent of high school students in 2005 report having intercourse, down from fifty four percent in 1991. While that’s encouraging, that’s still about half of all high school students, and this includes 10% of high school girls and 4% of high school boys forced to have sex.
What's the Definition of Sex?
Also, it only gives the statistic for sexual intercourse, not sexual activity. Traditionally, it has been noted that children who delay sexual intercourse have fewer lifetime partners, lower rates of STDs, and do better overall. However, with the pornification of the U.S., sexual activity as opposed to just intercourse, appears to be practically ubiquitous among teenagers. It would be interesting to see a study that surveyed all sexual activity among teens, since many of these activities are at least as effective at spreading STDs as intercourse.
If the popular media is to be believed, the “girls gone wild” phenomenon has become an intractable rite of passage for young women and, optimistic national reports notwithstanding, shows no sign of abatement. The question remains, then, when will the current sexual revolution end?
The End of Girls Gone Wild?
For an answer, we need only look at the history of the last sexual revolution and its demise. The baby boomers’ sexual revolution, the “free love” phenomenon, fueled by hippie morals, widely available contraception, and the assurance that antibiotics could fix any disease, ran into a brick wall in the 1980s.
Hippies Gone Straight
The former-hippie baby boomers were by that point living in the suburbs and voting republican, and the generation reaching adolescence was caught up in a perfect storm combining the rise of the Reagan Youth and the appearance of AIDS. With lots of pompous morality posturing in the media to keep up appearances coupled with a horrific disease to ensure compliance, the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies was dead and gone. If you were carving a headstone for the absolute final demise of the FL revolution you could pinpoint November 7, 1991, the day that basketball legend Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive.
Six More Years
What replaced FL, of course, was the era of “hooking up,” with emphasis on oral sex, nontraditional sex, and complete removal of all pubic hair to facilitate the aforementioned. The result, from a disease standpoint, has been the rise of HPV, to the point that some estimates have HPV as pandemic among adolescents, teens and twentysomethings. While not nearly as deadly as HIV, it can lead to unsightly genital warts and cancer, which has at least gotten the attention of many young people.
But don’t look for an increased virulence of HPV to be the death knell of the GGW sexual revolution. Like Magic’s announcement, the end will come via the media, although this time not by a single celebrity’s press conference. And it’s still a few years away: It will occur July 1st, 2013, via the internet.
The date of the final demise is just an estimate, of course, but we will probably be seeing the beginnings of the end soon, and here’s why: The first of the GGW videos came out in 1998. Since the videos are mostly college and spring break related, assume an average age of 20. The average age of having a first child for women in this country is 25. Assuming a normal distribution of birthdays across the calendar, the “average” child born to the “average” woman displaying herself in video format for all to see would be about four years old as of now.
Mom Did What? That is so Gross
One trait of adolescence that has been absolutely invariable across generations is a complete disgust at the thought of their parents doing anything physical. Today’s children are internet savvy. Assuming the normal curiosity of preteens, it will be at about age 10 when these children of the GGW will stumble across the internet videos of mommy being taken doggie style by an entire frat house. Their disgust, coupled with the natural desire at that age to be very different from one’s parents, will be the doom of the GGW revolution.
The Next Revolution
What will replace it is anybody’s guess. Since hormones will always be there to stir young people into some kind of sexual experimentation, something will certainly come along. Given their love of computers, maybe it will be some type of virtual reality. Or maybe, if they really want to try something different, it will be the SWL (sex with love) revolution. How’s that for a far out idea?
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