 Lesson: Kids Gone Wild From Rainbow Parties to Sexting, Understanding the Hype over Teen Sex Social Problems Robert Wonser 1

Young People and Fears Over Sex; Nothing New  A 1920s New York Times story in which mothers complained about “petting parties”  A 1950s book that warned girls against the “heavy necking” involved in going steady. 2

Moral Panics, Claimsmaking, Legends and Social Problems 3  A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.

Claimsmakers  How do claimsmakers fit in to this picture? Who are they? Why do they feel strongly about this issue?  Kids/teens  May help rationalize their own behavior  Parents  Tales of other troubled teens reassures parents their teens are good  School officials  Wanting to be ‘on top of things’  Media  Sex sells, but so does fearmongering  Advocates  It’s what they do 4

Rainbow Parties, Sex Bracelets and Sexting  Little evidence to support rainbow parties or sex bracelets, other than hearsay.  Why?  Sexting on the other hand is well-documented, even if wildly overblown. 5

 Oprah, Diane Sawyer, Joe Scarborough, and Matt Lauer give credence and airtime to segments based on thirdhand accounts of what someone else’s kid or friend was doing. “We’re going to turn now to a disturbing new trend in the news among young girls. Very young girls,” Sawyer said on Good Morning America, in a 2004 segment on the sex bracelets. 6

 “Children out of control, experimenting with sex before they reach their teens,” Scarborough said on his show the previous year. (He also claimed, “We hear stories every week.”) Best an Bogle point out that one fifth- grade girl named Megan appeared on three different shows after being expelled from Catholic school for selling jelly bracelets. On air, she said banal things like, “I just collect the colors.” 7

 In fact, Best and Bogle couldn’t find a single instance, reading through TV transcripts, of an interview with a student or parent or school official who identified a real rainbow party or sex conspiracy linked to the bracelets. To make the leap, the shows traded in insinuation. During her GMA appearance, Megan mentioned sixth graders French kissing, and Sawyer jumped in with “So they were starting with the French kiss in her school.” 8

% of males and females ages 15-19who report having had sexual intercourse,

The Reality?  From 1988 to 2010, they report, the percentage of sexually active girls, ages 15 to 19, dropped from 51 percent to 43 percent; the rate for boys fell from 60 percent to 42 percent.  In 2011, only 6.2 percent of kids reported having sex for the first time before age 13, down from 10.2 percent 20 years earlier.  Kids today don’t have more sexual partners than their parents did, on average—they have slightly fewer. 10