(vii) Preface

"The Today Show’s coverage of teen sex illustrates the trend toward tabloidization of the news, with stories becoming more sensationalized and the press more focused on commercial considerations. The media choose how to frame the stories they run, so that we receive a selective viewpoint of any topic, not a “mirror of reality.” In fact, “newsworthy” stories tend to capture the exceptions, not the norm..."(x)

"When it comes to stories on kids and sex, media executives could opt to present an academic analysis, which might give a more complete picture of the subject. Instead, with ratings in mind, their stories tend to be covered in a way that surprises, excites, and is tailored to appeal to the widest audience.(...) These reported “epidemics” among white, middle-class kids have more to do with television ratings and selling newspapers than a balanced analysis of a given issue." [mijn nadruk] (x)

"When you combine the media’s propensity to sell scare stories about kids with a public ripe to hear them, narratives about sex bracelets, rainbow parties, and sexting can get a lot of traction. As it turns out, it is not only Americans who are concerned about kids today; each of these topics has received considerable media attention around the globe. This book will analyze what all the fuss is about."(xi)

(1) 1 - These Kids Today

Sex bracelets

"Then, beginning in 2003, they gained new notoriety with warnings linking them to sexual behavior, with different colored bands said to represent different sexual acts, ranging from the relatively innocent (hugging, kissing) to some that seemed shocking (fisting, analingus). There were three major stories about the bracelets’ meanings: (1) bracelets’ colors signified which sexual acts the wearer had already performed; (2) bracelets’ colors signified which sexual acts the wearer was willing to perform; or, most commonly, (3) if someone snapped a bracelet and managed to break it, the wearer had to perform the sexual act associated with that bracelet’s color."(2)

"However exaggerated, even ridiculous, the claims about sex bracelets might seem, the tale’s spread was impressively wide. The story first gained wide currency in the United States in 2003, but by 2010, it could be found throughout the world ​ — ​ in England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe and also in Brazil, Australia, South Korea, and other countries. Many people who heard and repeated the sex-bracelet story took it quite seriously and insisted that shag bands were a real, deeply troubling social problem."(2-3)

[Kenmerkend voor een morele paniek. ]

Rainbow Parties

"A similar concern, most often associated with junior high school students, involved rainbow parties. At these gatherings, each girl supposedly wore a different color of lipstick and then performed oral sex on each of the boys in succession, leaving rainbows of multicolored lipstick traces."(3)

[Het akelige is de rolverdeling: jongens die zich laten bedienen en plezier hebben, maar niets doen om meisjes plezier te geven.]

Sexting

"In contrast to the sex-bracelet and rainbow-party stories, there was plenty of evidence that sexting really occurred. And sexting attracted extensive media attention, with reports from all across the country of teens (and even preteens) who had been caught sending sexual messages and the trouble they faced as a result. Parents were forced to respond, school administrators had to draft new policies, and law enforcement officials and legislators found themselves struggling with thorny questions: Was sexting a crime? Were these images child pornography? Did these ado- lescents need to be registered as sex offenders?"(4)

"This book explores how people handled claims that children and adolescents were engaged in troubling new sexual practices. While we will occasionally refer to hooking up and other issues, our focus will be on the three high-visibility concerns about younger kids: sex bracelets, rainbow parties, and sexting."(5)

"Attitudes toward childhood and adolescent sexuality and sexual behavior fall into two broad camps. On the one hand, there are those who adopt what we might call a pragmatic stance. They argue that sexual curiosity and sexual expression are a fact of life, a normal, natural feature of childhood and adolescence, with which adults ought to make their peace.(...) The pragmatic view encourages parents to view children’s sexuality as normal, to deal with it calmly, and to avoid causing children to see sex as dirty, shameful, or disgusting. Overreacting to kids playing doctor or to masturbation threatens to do more harm than good.(...) People who accept this model advocate sex-education programs to help young people understand their own sexuality so that they can make wise decisions; they also campaign to make reproductive health services readily available to minors. The pragmatic camp’s influence probably peaked in the early 1970s, when some children’s-rights advocates called for lowering the age of consent and treating even early adolescents as capable of making responsible sexual decisions."(9)

"By the late 1970s, a more traditional, protective approach was again attracting more support. Advocates of this position describe childhood sexuality in terms of threats to children. They warn about the dangers posed by adult deviants ​ — ​ an array of abductors, pedophiles, child pornographers, sexual predators, date rapists, human traffickers, and others who might sexually exploit young people. In this view, children and even adolescents are vulnerable innocents in constant danger of corruption, not only from predatory adults but from a popular culture that exposes young people to sex. Rap music, R-rated movies, and especially the Internet made it all too easy for children to be corrupted. But the protective critique has even broader recommendations. Sex education ​ — ​ a centerpiece of pragmatic thinking ​ — ​ is seen as promoting sexual behavior; if sex education has to be taught, advocates in the protective camp insist that it should present abstinence before marriage as the only truly safe sex. Similarly, protective critiques denounce the sexualization of childhood; they claim that today’s society forces children to “grow up too fast” and that, in particular, childhood has become increasingly sexualized. In this view, today’s children become aware of sexuality and engage in sexual behavior at earlier ages than their counterparts in earlier generations did, and this preternatural sexuality can be blamed, in part, on suggestive toys, clothing styles, and other products being marketed ​ — ​ particularly to little girls ​ — ​ that have corrupting effects."(9-10)

"Although much protective rhetoric emphasizes a need to revive traditional morality and is linked to conservative political and religious positions, some feminists also adopt a protective stance."(10)

"The debate had links to the broader culture wars that pitted more liberal advocates of greater sexual freedom against conservatives who invoked traditional moral values. Both positions coexist in contemporary America."(11)

"But it is not enough to describe the ideologies that guided people. It is important to consider the broader cultural context within which these concerns emerged, the other sorts of issues that had been preoccupying people’s attention."(11)

[Dat is zeker niet genoeg. Er moet een keuze gemaakt worden tegen conservatief en voor pragmatisch. Ik wed dat de auteurs weer eens proberen neutraal te blijven.]

"Sociologists sometimes describe such episodes, in which some new social issue becomes a subject of relatively sudden, relatively intense, relatively short-lived concern, as moral panics or, when the concerns involve sexual matters, sex panics. Neither term is ideal, in that they both have misleading implications. The word panic evokes images of a crazed crowd stampeding to escape a burning building; it suggests irrational, highly emotional behavior. Describing the reactions to news of sex bracelets or sexting as panics seems excessive. Most of what we trace in this book is people talking about sex bracelets, rainbow parties, and sexting. Those discussions revealed that many people were worried about these phenomena, while others argued there was nothing to worry about and dismissed the issues. Still others, especially in the case of sexting, proposed taking action to try to stop young people from engaging in this behavior. Thus, we feel it is more accurate to describe people’s reactions to these issues as indicative of worry or concern, not panic."(17)

[Dat is een manier om het scherpe randjes er af te praten. De reacties zijn wel degelijk irrationeel en zeer emotioneel, het gaat niet alleen maar om je zorgen maken.]

"Our central task, then, is to examine concerns about young people’s sexuality in our new century. In particular, we are interested in how such concerns spread and how they are debated."(18)

(21) 2 - How Legends Spread

"What happened? Answering this question requires examining the dynamics of spreading concern and, in particular, appreciating how contemporary legends travel in the Internet age."

"When it comes to the truth of a particular legend, folklorists tend be agnostics; that is, so long as a story spreads primarily through informal means, they consider it a legend, regardless of whether it might be based on some actual event.(...) The notion that urban legends were by, by definition, false spread widely. Journalists began dismissing stories as urban legends (or urban myths ​ — ​ a term that no folklorist would use). (...) Most of these books, TV shows, and websites treated urban legends as stories to be debunked: either something was true, or it was an urban legend. That is, people lost sight of folklorists’ indifference to the truth of legends as the notion that urban legend was a synonym for false gained broad popularity.(...) Of course, folklorists realized that sometimes a story might be repeated in the media, say, in a newspaper story or on a TV show, but they tended to dismiss the media’s role as secondary, much less important than the informal, face-to-face channels by which these stories spread." [mijn nadruk] (22)

[Folklore is volkskunst, het bestuderen van overlevering. Waarom neem je die wetenschappers als leidraad (als dat het al zijn) en niet sociologen of sociaal-psychologen of mediaweteschappers? En waarom zijn ze niet bezig met de waarheid van wat ze onderzoeken? Vreemd. ]

"Whereas the classic folklorists’ conception of legend focused on stories spreading through informal, face-to-face contacts, our analyses of the dissemination of stories about rainbow parties and sex bracelets reveal a more complex pattern, in which the media play an important role in disseminating these stories. But first, we need to explain how we went about our research."(23)

"...we sought to assemble a large, diverse body of sources that discussed sex bracelets and rainbow parties. Our final sample contained more than 2,000 items related to sex bracelets and over 470 related to rainbow parties; these items ranged from newspaper and magazine articles focused on one of the topics to brief comments posted on a discussion thread linked to a website.(... We located comments in a wide range of traditional media, including books, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, television (including news, entertainment programs, and talk shows), radio, and even a scholarly journal. However, the vast majority of the comments came from the Internet via websites, blogs, comments on discussion threads, and Facebook postings. While professional commentators wrote a few online blogs, the vast majority of these comments came from ordinary people who were simply commenting about a topic of interest during a casual, online conversation, rather than participating in a formal research interview. These comments capture individuals exchanging views about sex bracelets or rainbow parties, in transmitting the tales and debating their meaning. While the anonymity of the Internet prevents us from authenticating the identities claimed in these comments, we note that people presented themselves as both youths and adults. Some dismissed the stories as having no basis in fact, while others insisted that these were real social problems." [mijn nadruk] (26)

[Dat is dus niet meer dan meningen verzamelen. ]

"In sum, new electronic sources, including full-text databases and search engines, make it possible for us to track contemporary legends across time and space in ways previously impossible."(27)

[Waarom is het zo belangrijk om te weten hoe die verhalen zich verspreidden? Ik wil weten of ze waar zijn. ]

De rainbow parties

"The first time we could find the expression rainbow party being used was in a 2002 book, Epidemic: How Teen Sex Is Killing Our Kids, written by pediatrician Meg Meeker and published by a branch of Regnery, a longtime, leading conservative press." [mijn nadruk] (27)

"Interest in rainbow parties peaked in 2004 and 2005 (the year, remember, when the novel Rainbow Party was published); this was the period when Internet postings were most common. Next to the Oprah episode, the media comment that probably drew the largest audience was the March 2006 publication of Jodi Picoult’s novel The Tenth Circle (which immediately entered the New York Times fiction bestseller list in second place)."(29)

"That is, claims about rainbow parties probably were circulating among some young people. At the same, it seems telling that we cannot find any informal ​ — ​ that is, outside traditional media ​ — ​ mentions of rainbow parties until after the media’s coverage began."(32)

[M.a.w. de media blazen het op tot gigantische proporties en doen geen moeite om de waarheid van de verhalen vast te stellen. ]

"Rainbow parties were criticized by conservatives on moral grounds and by people concerned with gender issues who viewed parties built around females pleasuring males as exploitative. It was a malleable story that could be told in lots of ways that could satisfy lots of different audiences."(32)

"So the case of rainbow parties suggests that in our heavily mediated world, legends may originate among ordinary people, but they can spread much further and faster when they capture media attention."(33)

Sex bracelets / Shag bands

"In other words, in just over two months, the sexbracelet story had appeared on various websites, in four national print or electronic venues, and in local media in nine states and the District of Columbia."(34)

"We draw several lessons from our research. First, although folklorists focus on word-of-mouth transmission as the principal means by which legends travel, our evidence suggests that today’s media play a central role. While it seems likely that the stories ​ — ​ that some kids had oral-sex parties featuring colored lipstick or that a broken gel bracelet might be a sex coupon ​ — ​ originated among the young, we located few informal comments made prior to the media repeating these tales. For both stories, media comments and informal comments tended to peak in the same years, even in the same months. Further, as chapter 4 demonstrates, media coverage inspired many of the informal comments, with people reacting in different ways, sometimes denouncing what the media said, sometimes endorsing it. It is impossible to know when or how most kids learned about sex bracelets and rainbow parties ​ — ​ did they first encounter these stories in the media, or did they hear them from a friend? But even if the latter is the case, what was the friend’s source ​ — ​ another kid or a media report?" [mijn nadruk] (40)

"As a consequence, attention ​ — ​ both from the media and in the informal communications necessary for folklorists to consider a story a legend — ​ is likely to spread quickly and then die off after a short time. Both the rainbow-party and the sex-bracelet stories display this episodic pattern."(41)

[Ook typisch voor een morele paniek.]

"While this chapter has focused on the ways legends spread, the next two chapters look more closely at how these stories are told, both in the media (as represented by the television coverage of rainbow parties and sex bracelets examined in chapter 3) and in the informal online discourse of ordinary people (the subject of chapter 4)."(44)

(45) 3 - Parents Beware - Packaging Legends as TV News

"Regardless of the network or the type of show, television tended to depict sex bracelets and rainbow parties in fairly consistent ways. TV coverage tended to be both credulous, in that it rarely cast doubt on these stories, and alarming, in that it portrayed kids’ sexual play as troubling threats to young people. This chapter explores the techniques adopted when TV tried to convince viewers that sex bracelets and rainbow parties were disturbing, newsworthy trends. These techniques reflected the formulas used to produce TV shows, so we begin by discussing television’s formulaic content." [mijn nadruk] (46)

"The first national television program to cover sex bracelets was MSNBC’s Scarborough Country (broadcast during prime time on November 13, 2003), which adopted a tone designed to sensationalize the story and generate fear among the public, especially parents."(48)

[Daar zie je aan hoe conservatief die media zijn en maar wat roepen. ]

"The language used by news programs to introduce the topics they cover on any given day is strategically chosen. It is meant to grab the viewers’ attention by using scare tactics and to keep them tuned to the show."(49)

"In order for national television programs to justify their sensationalistic, sexually suggestive coverage, they presented the sex-bracelet and rainbow-­party stories as factual, in spite of very weak evidence that either was actually happening. In contrast, newspaper articles were much more likely to suggest that the stories might be contemporary legends." [mijn nadruk] (50)

"In order for TV-show hosts to back up the claims they were making, they often turned to guests who could provide firsthand accounts or further knowledge about teens’ sexual play.(...) Students, parents, and school officials were among those giving on-camera interviews. One cannot help but notice that almost all the kids interviewed were girls. Presumably, the notion that very young girls were willing participants in illicit sex games made the coverage more frightening to parents; if girls, the ones traditionally held responsible for limiting sexual intimacy, were no longer setting limits on sexual play, anything might happen. Although television producers had no trouble finding people to talk about shag bands, including girls and their mothers, a careful reading of the transcripts showed that no student admitted actually playing the game, and no parent or school official could identify a concrete case of it happening. However, this fact did not deter these guests from joining in the chorus warning the public that the sex-bracelet game was indeed widespread." [mijn nadruk] (52-53)

[Opvallend seksisme inderdaad. Dat jongens die dingen doen is logisch... ]

"In spite of the kids’ denials, savvy television hosts made every effort to turn their child sources into eyewitnesses to grade school debauchery."(53)

[Sensatiejournalistiek. ]

"In a couple of cases, school officials were used as sources to lend credibility to the story. Although no school official could confirm a case of the sex-bracelet game actually happening, these officials still expressed their concerns as if it was a real phenomenon." [mijn nadruk] (55)

"Like parents, school representatives also claimed that kids’ sexual behavior was more out of control than in previous generations."(55)

Die verhalen komen ook terecht in fictie.

"...it is not surprising that they began showing up in the plots of fictional programs. However, like TV’s nonfiction genres, these dramas treated these stories as factual, forms of sexual play that are commonly known among today’s kids yet below the radar of adults. These story lines seem to underscore the notion that the teens’ sexual behavior is more outrageous than ever before. The possibility that these tales were best viewed as contemporary legends, that they ought to be treated with a degree of skepticism, was never raised." [mijn nadruk] (64)

"This story made headlines in the U.S. as well as in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland."(67)

[De engelstalige wereld... Ugh. ]

"For the pregnancy-pact story, like reports of sex bracelets and rainbow parties, the pattern is clear. The media picks up a salacious story: sexual topics tend to be newsworthy; in particular, stories about kids and sex are especially newsworthy because they can be approached from various angles ​ — ​ vulnerable kids in danger of victimization and needing protection, licentious kids, especially girls, gone wild and needing to be brought under control, middle-class kids acting out as much as kids from the “wrong side of the tracks,” and so on. While print media sometimes offer nuanced treatments that allow critics and skeptics to be heard, television’s attention tends to be more fleeting and less subtle." [mijn nadruk] (67)

"As a result, not only do the legends become commonly believed, but the “teens gone wild” image becomes ingrained. This, in turn, affects how we think about the overall image of today’s young people."(68)

(69) 4 - Online Conversations about Kids and Sex

"These comments can be viewed as reflecting the range of sentiments found among the general public. Online comments pose problems for analysts. Social scientists who use interviews, observation, and other methods of collecting data must always be aware that their research subjects may lie, distort, exaggerate, or dissemble. However, it can be particularly difficult to know how online comments should be interpreted. It is impossible to know for certain whether posted comments are sincere, that is, whether an individual is telling the truth or at least believes a comment to be true, whether a particular comment is intended to be taken literally or is a bit of intentional exaggeration or sarcasm, or even whether the individual making the comment is the sort of person he or she purports to be or is misrepresenting such basic facts as his or her age or gender." [mijn nadruk] (70)

"Some people accepted the truth of these stories, while others doubted the tales, and both believers and skeptics tried to make the case for their views. This chapter seeks to describe this debate, to examine the sorts of evidence and reasoning ordinary individuals use when trying to make sense of contemporary legends"(70)

[Ik zie nog steeds geen kritiek op waarom mensen die onzin geloven. Ja, de negatieve invloed van de media, vooral de televisie, wordt beschreven die die ongefundeerde verhalen — eigenlijk letterlijk — verkopen. Maar waarom zoveel mensen daar in meegaan wordt tot nu toe niet duidelijk. ]

"In any case, first-person accounts confirming the basic truth of stories about rainbow parties and sex bracelets were not common; only about 15 ​ — ​ less than 1% ​ — ​ of the comments in our sample offered this sort of testimony."(74-75)

[Maar je weet dus nooit of die verhalen waar zijn of opschepperij of erbij willen horen, dus wat heb je eraan als het gaat om de feitelijkheid van wwat er gebeurde.]

"Probably the most common way for someone telling a contemporary legend to make the story seem credible is to identify the person to whom the events happened: “This didn’t happen to me, but it happened to my brother’s barber.” Folklorists use the term FOAF (a friend of a friend) for such attributions. Not surprisingly, our sample contains numerous comments written by people providing secondhand information."(76)

[En daarmee worden de verhalen nog onbetrouwbaarder. ]

"For believers, coverage in a range of media, from journalism (news­ papers and newsmagazines), infotainment (talk shows), and even out- right entertainment (novels and TV dramas) affirmed the reality of the rainbow-party and sex-bracelet stories."(79)

[Zeer zorgelijk. Maar waarom is dat dus zo?]

"Skeptics dismissed the same media sources that believers treated as authoritative as unreliable."(79)

[En terecht... De skeptici zijn ook erg praktisch. Deze had ik zelf ook bedacht en die alleen al zegt dat het allemaal onzin is:]

"[RP19] If you imagine the motion of proper oral sex, you’ll be aware of a lot of “up and down” or “in and out” motion. If one girl with lipstick on is “finished” with a guy, you’re not left with a single round circle around the base of the penis, but probably with a “solid colour” penis. And by the time the second girl is done, she probable “washed off ” the first girl’s mark . . . The “purpose” of the Rainbow Party is supposedly to see which guy gathers the most amount of different colours on his penis . . . I simply cannot imagine a bunch of straight guys whipping out their dicks in front of each other, and examining each other’s dicks to look at the different colours . . ."(88-89)

"In the debate over rainbow parties, skeptics argued that the absence of more evidence was telling."(89)

"Skeptics sometimes argued that concerns about rainbow parties and sex bracelets were rooted in overwrought adult anxieties:"(93)

[En terecht.]

"In this debate, believers argued that sexual play posed dangers too great to be ignored. One said, “[SB72] a parent can never be over protective nowadays.”"(94)

[Helemaal fout. ]

"Chapter 5 turns to the teen sexting crisis. An examination of the media’s coverage of teen sexting reveals that unlike the sex-bracelet and rainbow-party tales, the phenomenon of teens sending and receiving sexual text messages and images via cell phones was well documented. However, the media’s portrayal of sexting was very similar in that much of the coverage was overblown. A closer look at sexting also illustrates how exaggerated claims about today’s teens has led to more than sim- ply justifying or heightening fear among parents and other adults ​ — ​ it has prompted many attempts to control behavior (in this case, to curb sexting). Ultimately, we will argue that the hype over teen sex has given people a distorted view of youthful sexual behavior, thereby unduly affecting people’s decisions on how to respond." [mijn nadruk] (99)

(101) 5 - Controlling Teen Sexting

"Of course, this is nothing new. Most societies devise ways to control the sexual behavior of youth. These efforts have a long history; for instance, in the United States in recent decades, there has been a debate about the appropriate role of the public schools in educating students about sexuality. Some people favor a comprehensive sex-education. Advocates of this position, the sexual liberals who adopt what we characterized in chapter 1 as a pragmatic position, tend to favor including information on sexually transmitted diseases, condoms, and abortion in the curriculum. Sexual liberals take teen sexual activity as a given and seek to implement a harm-reduction approach by reducing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Since they do not object to teens having sex per se, sexual liberals’ focus is on teaching teens how to have “safe sex.” On the other side of the debate are the sexual conservatives, described in chapter 1 as advocating a protective position, who in recent years have rallied around the slogan “abstinence only.” They believe that teaching about safe sex actually condones or promotes teen sex, whereas they believe that sexual intercourse should be postponed until the individual matures and enters into marriage. Furthermore, sexual conservatives argue that because no contraceptive method is 100% effective, the concept of safe sex is grossly misleading and may make teens believe they are safer than they actually are. As a result, sexual conservatives believe teens must be taught that abstinence is the only safe ​ — ​ and morally correct ​ — ​ way to behave while waiting to enter into marriage." [mijn nadruk] (101-102)

[Weer zo'n ergerlijk neutrale weergave. Ik mis zinnetjes als: dit is de juiste benadering, dit is een slechte benadering. Maak eens een keuze, zou ik zeggen. En er is maar een goede keuze en dat is een keuze voor de positie van wat hier 'seksuele liberalen' heet.]

"While previous stories had reported on isolated incidents, from this point forward the media declared that there was a widespread sexting problem among teens, so that particular cases could now be understood as instances of a larger phenomenon. In addition to claiming that sexting was widespread, the media warned that sexting could lead to serious consequences for teens."(104)

[En dat was allebei niet waar. ]

"In addition to warning that sexted images can spread “like wildfire,” ABC News correspondent Gigi Stone also cautioned teens and their parents about sexting’s potential criminal ramifications"(105)

[In de VS werd het versturen van blote foto's meteen in de criminele sfeer getrokken en dan ook nog in de sfeer van de kinderporno: tieners werden vanaf het begin veroordeeld als 'sex offenders'. ]

"Reports of child pornography charges being applied in teen sexting cases launched a debate about whether this was the best approach. As early as February 2009, numerous experts and other commentators weighed in on sexting; they called for lesser penalties or, in some cases, decriminalizing it altogether.(...) Reports soon followed that law enforcement officials themselves were questioning the criminal justice system’s handling of sexting cases:"(107-108)

[Dat valt me mee. Maar hoe effectief is dat verzet uiteindelijk gebleken? ]

"Both parental-control software and new school policies were designed to allow adults to control teens and thereby reduce sexting; however, some people called for a different approach, one that would reduce the problem by educating teens themselves about the dangers of sexting."(109)

"Although the MTV campaign was written with gender-neutral language, the underlying message seemed to be warning girls not to give in to pressure to send sexual pictures of themselves. Several other groups launched their own antisexting campaigns, which more often than not focused on warnings to girls." [mijn nadruk] (110)

[Typisch.]

"However, like most teen-sex stories, the media’s coverage of sexting capitalized on people’s fears by highlighting the most extreme cases and thereby presented their audience a distorted view of the issue."(113)

"Thus, upon further examination, the problem of teen sexting was not nearly as dire as the media’s portrayal suggested. First, the Pew study raised some doubt about whether sexting was as widespread as origi- nally suggested. Secondly, all cases of sexting are not the same. The most extreme examples of sexting, the stories that made the news, did not accurately reflect what most teens report doing when they admit to sexting. Lastly, the practice of sexting tends to increase with age; in other words, the older people get, the more they sext. Therefore, it is misleading to emphasize sexting’s prevalence among very young teens."(118)

[Belangrijke kritiekpunten op de sensatiezucht van de media.]

"Adults who confronted teen sexting found themselves in a tough spot. They had to decide how to respond to this new and troubling phenomenon. But, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems that many went too far. Their overreaction in word and deed likely stemmed from the fervor over teen sex in general. Given the media’s exaggerated coverage of teen sex stories, such as sexting, rainbow parties, and sex bracelets, it is reasonable to ask, does media hype influence and distort the national dialogue on teen sex and thereby affect people’s decisions on how to respond?" [mijn nadruk] (119)

[Dat is duidelijk geen vraag meer, gezien al het voorgaande. ]

"The media’s attention to the subject of teen sex provided a platform for a national discussion of the fears people had about kids becoming too sexual too soon. It is possible to look back and recall that adults once thought that youthful passions might be inspired and aroused by close dancing, lipstick, going steady, drive-in movies, rock and roll, short skirts, pierced ears, and the like. These fears have given way to new concerns about the cultural environment that today’s kids inhabit, a world that seems filled with Bratz dolls, cable-TV shows that celebrate teen pregnancy, explicit song lyrics, readily accessible online pornography, and on and on. Surely all this stimulation has encouraged more teens to become more sexual. Within this context of concern, stories about rainbow parties, sex bracelets, and pregnancy pacts ​ — ​ tales that might strike many people as unlikely ​ — ​ can seem plausible. If the news reports that a few kids have gotten into serious trouble sexting, surely that’s just the tip of the iceberg ​ — ​ a sign of a widespread, serious problem. In this view, teen sexuality becomes a problem so great that sexting teens need to be threatened with felony charges and the sex-offender registry to be kept in check; it is an epidemic so severe that health officials need to make Gardasil and Plan B available to younger and younger girls. Teen sex must be raging out of control ​ — ​ mustn’t it?" [mijn nadruk] (121)

(123) 6 - Too Sexual Too Soon - Why Believe the Hype?

"We’ve heard the stories, seen the headlines, and watched the pundits rant. Inevitably, they claim that problematic sexual behavior among teens is common, widespread, and increasing, but they rarely offer much evidence, beyond an anecdote or two. That is, they don’t present much in the way of data. But there are data available. Precisely because sexual behavior is risky, in that it can lead to pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, or even violence, public health officials conduct research to try and track sexual behavior. In addition, social scientists conduct their own studies. The results of this research reveal patterns in sexual activities, and when we compare the patterns in the data with claims about kids gone wild, it becomes apparent that the fears are overblown." [mijn nadruk] (124)

Are Today’s Teens Having Sex at Much Younger Ages?

"Young people today first experience sexual intercourse (on average) at age 17, which is not a drastic change from a generation ago when their parents were coming of age. In fact, the percentage of teens who are sexually active has actually been declining."(125)

"Thus, claims that today’s kids engage in sex at radically younger ages are simply untrue; to the contrary, more teens are waiting longer to have their first sexual experiences. What’s more, kids in the U.S. are behaving in very much the same way as their counterparts in other countries. In Canada, Australia, and Great Britain, the median age at first sex is between 16 and 17.(...) The widespread impression that today’s teens are more likely to become sexually active at dramatically younger ages than ever before is simply mistaken."(127)

Are Today’s Teens More Promiscuous than in Previous Generations?

"Promiscuity is a loaded topic. Young people today do acquire more sexual partners than they did in their grandparents’ day, but not necessarily because they are more promiscuous so much as because they stay single longer. In previous generations, people married much younger.(...) With most young people having their first sexual experience in their late teens but not getting married for about a decade, it is almost inevitable that today’s young people will have more sexual partners. But these partners are not necessarily acquired in one’s teen years." [mijn nadruk] (127-128)

"Claims that today’s teens have sex with a different partner every weekend do not find support in the available data. The number of partners teens have has remained relatively stable and has even declined a bit."(128)

Is There an Oral-Sex Epidemic among Teens?

"Thus, experience with oral sex resembles experience with sexual intercourse: it involves only a minority of younger teens and increases with age. The data do not support the notion that there is some sort of contemporary oral-sex epidemic among the young."(129)

[Steeds opvallend: de vrouwen geven orale sex, maar je leest niets over mannen die vrouwen orale seks geven.]

Are Today’s Teens Having Casual or Anonymous Sex?

"Teen sex occurs, on the whole, within the context of romantic relationships. This is not to say that things haven’t changed. It’s true that young people today enter into relationships ​ — ​ that is, they find sexual and romantic partners ​ — ​ in different ways than previous generations did. The hookup has replaced the traditional date among both high school and college students, but there are many misperceptions about what a hookup involves. When young people today engage in a hookup encounter, it does not necessarily mean that they have sexual intercourse. Many hookups involve “just kissing” or “making out,” and it is common for young people, particularly young women, to hope that a hookup will evolve into an ongoing relationship."(130)

"If the empirical data on youth and sex do not match what everybody thinks they know, we need to ask why contemporary legends and other exaggerated messages about kids gone wild persist. Here, it will help to consider how various sectors of society benefit from either making these claims or allowing them to continue unchecked." [mijn nadruk] (131)

Kids/Teens

"In addition to kids enjoying gossiping both in person and online about sex bracelets, rainbow parties, and sexting, there is perhaps another purpose that these legends and other exaggerated stories about teens and sex serve. That is, they help young people rationalize their own behavior. At this age, young people are still forming their sense of who they are and who they want to be. They are looking to their classmates to see what kind of behavior is “normal,” and they are listening to their friends and classmates to ascertain which behaviors are not accepted by their peers, for example, who is a “good girl” and who is a “bad girl.” This is why some teens accept the stories of other kids’ wild parties or sex games as true, although they insist that they, themselves, never engage in the rumored behavior." [mijn nadruk] (132)

Parents

"Because many parents are concerned about a wide variety of people, places, and things that could harm their children, they serve as perfect targets for much of the media hype surrounding teens and sex, especially in the context of the new intensive parenting."(133)

"Many parents are not just aware of but believe stories about teenage sexuality as a societal phenomenon, yet they manage to argue that their own children are not part of this pattern: “Other teenagers may be sexual, even hypersexual, engaging in risky and promiscuous sexual behavior, but their own children, regardless of age or actual behavior, are ‘not that kind of kid.’ ” Tales of troubling teen behavior, then, can reassure parents about their own children’s goodness or even their own daughters’ relative purity." [mijn nadruk] (134)

School Officials

"In addition to wanting to appear “on top of things,” administrators might also feel compelled to educate students when a controversial issue about kids and sex begins to receive a lot of attention. If they too believe the hype, they probably figure they ought to address the issue with students and reassure anxious parents. In doing so, however, they end up lending credence to the claims, thereby perpetuating the story."(135)

Media

"Why would journalists do this? Obviously, sex sells: such stories are believed to sell papers and win high television ratings. But in addition to the media’s attempts to gain readers and attract viewers with sensationalistic headlines and stories about kids gone wild, these stories tapped into parents’ and society’s fears. Not only does sex sell, but so does fearmongering."(135)

Advocates

"It is also important to note that media reports often used experts or other advocates as sources to affirm that kids really were going wild. In particular, social and religious conservatives used stories about sex bracelets and rainbow parties to support their positions." [mijn nadruk] (136)

"While critiques of sexualization often came from liberal feminists, some conservative commentators adopted very similar language. From the conservative point of view, teens ​ — ​ and particularly girls ​ — ​ have abandoned traditional moral standards. Conservatives see many signs that family values are not as strong as they used to be; divorce rates, out-of-wedlock births, and gay marriage are all interpreted as evidence that the family is in trouble. From this perspective, reports of sex bracelets, rainbow parties, and sexting are simply further proof that society is, indeed, in jeopardy. Conservative commentators often underscore that things are getting worse; they nostalgically recall a different world during their own youth"(139)

"Certainly parents have a right to be concerned about their own children ​ — ​ that their daughters may get pregnant or that their sons will cause a pregnancy, that they will catch a sexually transmitted disease, or that their activities may lead to physical, emotional, or spiritual harms — ​ just as it is appropriate for public health officials to be concerned about risky sex among teens. But contemporary legends and exaggerated fears don’t help. Rather, these stories give a distorted view of youth and make it more difficult for parents or others who work with young people. Perhaps one of the most misleading things about these exaggerated claims is that they promote the idea that dangerous sexual practices are widespread, that they occur throughout society, so that people are left with the impression that every kid is equally likely to engage in worrisome sexual behavior or to suffer one of the consequences associated with it." [mijn nadruk] (141)

"The younger generation deserves better than how we talk about them. It’s the adults that need to wise up."(144)

[De gegeven kritiek is er een zonder verwijt of woede, het is heel neutraal beschreven allemaal. Dat zet zeker geen zoden aan de dijk tegenover al die conservatieve tsunami's die op mensen afgestuurd worden. ]