Situations. “Subtle links.” The “talking stage,” the flirtatious getting-to-know-you phase — usually done via text — can lead to a hookup.
High school students have a little sex. That’s what the studies say. But that doesn’t mean they have less sex.
The language of young love and lust, and the movements behind it, are evolving. And the shift hasn’t been captured enough in national studies, experts say.
Over the years, studies have shown a decline in the number of high school students in America who are having sex. That trend continued, not surprisingly, in the early years of the pandemic, according to a recent survey through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that 30% of teens in 2021 said they had sex, down from 38% in 2019 and a big drop from three decades ago, when more than half of teens -teen reported having sex.
The Associated Press brought the findings of teenagers and experts across the country to ask for their interpretation. Parents: Some of the answers may surprise you.
The meaning of sex: Depends on who you ask
To begin with, what is the definition of sex?
“Hmm. That’s a great question,” said Rose, 17, a high school junior in New England.
He thought about it for 20 seconds, then listed the various possibilities for heterosexual sex, oral sex and relationships between same-sex or LGBTQ partners. On his campus, short-term hookups – known as “situationships” – are often low-commitment and high-risk from a health and emotional perspective.
There are also “sneaky links” — when you hook up secretly and don’t tell your friends. “I have a feeling that a lot of people quote unquote having sex – not necessarily between a man and a woman.”
For today’s teenagers, the conversation about sexuality moves from a binary situation to a spectrum and so do the types of sex people have. And while the vocabulary about sex has changed, the CDC’s main survey question has been worded the same since the government agency began the two-year study in 1991: “Have you ever had sex?”
“Honestly, that question is pretty funny,” said Kay, 18, who identifies as queer and attends a public high school near Lansing, Michigan. “There are probably a lot of teenagers who say, ‘No, I haven’t had sex, but I have had other kinds of sex.'”
The AP agreed to use the teenagers’ first or middle names for this article because of a common concern they expressed about backlash at school, at home and on social media for speaking out about life. on the sex of their peers and LGBTQ+ relationships.
Sexual identity is evolving
Many experts say the CDC’s findings could signal a change in how teen sexuality is developing, with gender fluidity becoming more common with less stigma. about identifying as non-heterosexual.
They point to another finding in this year’s study that found the proportion of high school kids who identify as heterosexual has dropped to about 75%, from about 89% in 2015, when the CDC began asking questions. about sexual orientation. Meanwhile, the part identified as homosexual, gay or bisexual increased to 15%, from 8% in 2015.
“I just wonder, if the young people were in the room when the questions were created, how the wording would have been different,” said Taryn Gal, executive director of the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health.
Sex is just one of the topics covered in the CDC study, called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. One of the main sources of national data about high school students on a variety of behaviors, it is conducted every two years and asks about 100 questions on topics including smoking, drinking, drug use, bullying, carrying a gun and sex. More than 17,000 students in 152 public and private high schools across the country responded to the 2021 survey.
“It’s a fine line we have to try to walk,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, who led the study.
From a methodological standpoint, changing a question makes it difficult to compare trends over time. The goal is to get a national snapshot of adolescent behavior, with the understanding that the questions may not capture all the nuance. “It doesn’t allow us to go as deep in some areas as we would like,” Ethier said.
The national survey, for example, does not ask about oral sex, which carries the risk of spreading sexually transmitted infections. Regarding “sexual intercourse,” Ethier said, “We are trying to use a term that we know young people will understand, realizing that it may not include all the ways young people describe it.” sex.”
Is less teen sex good news?
Semantics aside, there are several theories as to why reported high school sex rates continue to decline — and what that might say about American society.
“I imagine some parents are elated and some are worried, and I think there’s good reason for both,” said Sharon Hoover, co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland. Health officials like to see trends that result in fewer teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
“But what we don’t know is what this means for the trajectory of young people,” Hoover said.
This year’s decline, the worst decline ever recorded, is clear has many links to the pandemic, which isolates children, cut off from friends and immersed in social media. Even as life begins to return to normal, many children feel uncomfortable with face-to-face interactions and find that their verbal communication skills decline, Hoover said.
The survey was conducted in the fall of 2021, as many K-12 students returned to in-person classrooms after one year of online school.
Many teenagers interviewed said that when schools reopened, they returned severe social anxiety added to the fear of catching COVID. That adds a new layer to pre-pandemic concerns about sexual relationships like getting pregnant or catching STIs.
“I remember thinking, ‘What if I get sick? What if I get sick? What if I don’t have the people skills for this?’” said Kay, the 18-year-old from Michigan. “All those ‘what ifs’ definitely affected my personal relationships, and how I interacted with strangers or personal associates.”
Another fear is the watchful eyes of parents, said college student Abby Tow, who wonders if helicopter parenting has a role in what she calls the “baby-fication of our generation.” A senior at the University of Oklahoma, Tow knows college students whose parents monitor their whereabouts using tracking apps.
“Parents get push notifications when their students leave the dorms and return to the dorms,” said Tow, 22, majoring in social work and gender studies.
Tow also noted a “general sense of disillusionment” among his generation. He cited statistics that fewer teenagers today are getting driver’s licenses. “I think,” he said, “there is a correlation between students who know how to drive and students who have sex.”
Another reason for the decline in sex rates may be easy access to online pornography, experts say. By age 17, three-quarters of teens have viewed pornography online, with the average age of first exposure at 12, according to a report earlier this year by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group. in child advocacy.
“Pornography has become sex ed for young people,” says Justine Fonte, a New York-based sex education teacher. He said that pornography shapes and distorts teenagers’ ideas about sexual acts, power and intimacy. “You can rewind, fast, play as much as you want. You don’t have to think about how the person feels. “
Is there an evolving definition of consent?
Many experts say they expect the decline to be partly attributed to a broader understanding of consent and an increase in “comprehensive” sex education being taught in many schools, which has become a target in the ongoing culture wars.
Unlike abstinence-only programs, the lessons include discussions on understanding healthy relationships, gender identity, sexual orientation and prevention of unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Contrary to what critics think, he said, young people are more likely to delay the initiation of sexual activity if they have access to sex education.
Some schools and organizations supplement sex education with peer counseling, where teens are trained to talk to each other about relationships and other topics that teens may feel uncomfortable with. to raise adults.
Annika, 14, is a peer ambassador trained by Planned Parenthood and a freshman in high school in Southern California. He offers guidance to friends in toxic relationships and worries about the ubiquity of pornography among his peers, especially male friends. It was clear to him that the pandemic had put a damper on his sex life.
The CDC’s 2023 survey, now underway, will show whether the decline is temporary. Annika suspected that it would show a spike. At his school, at least, the students seem to be making up for lost time.
“People lost those two years so they craved it,” he said. He was always in the school bathroom where the couples in the stalls next to him engaged in sexual activity.
Again, the definition of sex? “Any sexual act,” Annika said. “And fornication is a kind of work.”
In order to have a truly accurate reading of adolescent sexuality, the evolution of language must be taken into account, said Dr. John Santelli, professor at Columbia University who specializes in adolescent sexuality.
“The word fornication used to have a different meaning,” he pointed out. “Sex used to mean just talking.”
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The AP education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. AP is solely responsible for all content.