What do we know about teen parents? Take a moment to make a mental list (or, if you’re motivated to get out a pen and paper, I won’t stop you) of all the facts and statistics you’ve heard.
In case you’re coming up short, I’ll give you a few:
You can read more here or here or here or watch any episode of 16 and Pregnant that features Dr. Drew. He’ll usually cover most of these points before the hour is up – while interviewing young people who are actually parenting.
Beyond these “facts”, we hear plenty of other messages on what The Candie’s Foundation calls “the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy;” their print ads tell teens they won’t move out of their parents house if they have a teen pregnancy; they’ll be spending $10,000 a year on their baby; they’ll have to breastfeed every two hours or come up with money for formula. The Candie’s Foundation isn’t the only organization putting out these types of messages – most teen pregnancy prevention, sex education, or public health organizations presume that their audience will immediately understand that teen pregnancy is harmful to young people, their children, and their communities as a whole.
Even the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy says that teen pregnancy is:
...risky for all of those involved. Compared to women who delay childbearing, teen mothers are more likely to end up on welfare. The children of teen mothers are at significantly increased risk of low birthweight and prematurity, mental retardation, poverty, growing up without a father, welfare dependency, poor school performance, insufficient health care, inadequate parenting, and abuse and neglect. (From Halfway There: A Prescription for Continued Success in Preventing Teen Pregnancy)
And if the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy says it’s a huge problem, they must be right… right?
Well… not really. You might have heard the saying that "there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." When it comes to teen parents, the statistics’ metaphorical pants are definitely on fire. First, we have to recognize that the young women who become teen mothers are different from some other young women. Not radically different, not different in a way that means we can marginalize or demonize them, but different in that: a) they chose to have sexual relationships as a teenager (most of them – some pregnancies are the result of sexual abuses or assaults; b) they probably didn’t use birth control when they were having sex (maybe they didn’t learn about it, maybe they couldn’t access it, maybe they couldn’t afford it, maybe they wanted to get pregnant, or maybe they did use it and it failed, as all methods can); c) they chose not to have an abortion (again, presuming they made this choice themselves, and had affordable access to safe abortion if they had wanted one).
Of all the teenaged women in the country, which young women are most likely to meet all of these criteria? Demographically, we know that it’s women and girls who grew up in low-income communities that have the highest likelihood of becoming young mothers.
Why is this? As I said earlier, it takes money to avoid parenthood if you’ve decided to have sex: you have to be able to afford birth control (and/or abortion), and sometimes that can be really expensive. It also helps if you went to a good school with a comprehensive sex education program, and we know that schools in low-income communities rarely have the resources needed to give students the educations they deserve. (Surprisingly, not all teens know they can get a ton of free sex education here at Scarleteen – provided they can afford or access a computer.)
But there’s also something else, and that's the extent to which young people have big plans for themselves that will conflict with parenthood. Are you planning on going to college? For some young people, the answer is an immediate "Yes!" because their parents went to college, their older siblings went to college, all their friends are going, and between their family and financial aid, they will be able to afford a post-secondary education that will help them pursue their dreams and find a decent job. However, for some young people, the answer is "I don’t know" or an ambivalent shrug, or even a straightforward "no." Maybe no one in their family has gone to college, maybe their school doesn’t have a college counselor that can talk to them about the application process and financial aid, maybe they just know they can’t afford it or what it might be able to offer them. They see their parents working jobs that don’t require a college degree. They expect to have a mid- to low-paying job, because that’s the type of job everyone around them has.
Now imagine there are two 16 year-olds, one who knows she’s going to college – she’s got a whole plan mapped out, and she didn’t even have to map it out all by herself. That’s just what she expects because that’s what everyone she knows does, and that’s what her parents expect of her. Then there’s the other one, who doesn’t expect to go to college, but she does expect to work hard at a job so she can contribute some money to her parents. That’s just what she expects because that’s what everyone she knows does, and that’s what her parents expect of her.
Both young women want to be mothers one day. Both are having sex with a boyfriend.
The first young woman has that college plan, though – and having a baby would really get in the way. It’s really hard to go to college with a new baby, and she knows that. Plus, she doesn’t know anyone who had a baby in high school. Her parents would be mortified if she got pregnant. Having a baby now would change the trajectory of her life. It’s an unacceptable risk. One night, when her boyfriend’s condom breaks, she goes to the pharmacy and buys emergency contraception. She decides if she’s pregnant, she will have an abortion. She talks to her doctor about going on the birth control pill so that she won’t have to worry should the condom break in the future.
The second young woman has a different plan. She’s going to graduate high school and get a job in the preschool where she now works part-time, and maybe eventually become a teacher there. It’s an hourly wage job, and she knows most of the women who work there already have children. Her cousin was a teen mom, and her mother had her older brother when she was 17 years old. She knows teen moms work hard and pinch pennies, but she’s going to be doing that anyway. If she has a baby now, she can count on her parents’ begrudging acceptance, and she knows that her mother would help with babysitting. She doesn’t want to live with her parents forever, but she’s not planning on moving out when she turns 18, anyway. One night, when her boyfriend’s condom breaks, she decides to wait and see. She doesn’t know much about emergency contraception, and she doesn’t have $60 to spend on it anyway. She doesn’t think much about abortion – she doesn’t think she’d be comfortable with the idea, but since she doesn’t know if she’s pregnant yet, she won’t stress about that at the moment. It’s a risk she’s willing to take: she definitely wants to be a mother someday, and if she is pregnant now, she knows she’ll find a way to deal with it.
Not-so-surprise ending: A few weeks later, the first young woman breathes a sigh of relief when her period arrives on time. The second young woman takes a test, and the plus sign appears. She’s pregnant.
Now, don’t over generalize: if you’re having vaginal intercourse, there’s a chance you’ll get pregnant, even if your dad has a vault the size of Bill Gates’. And, of course young women in low-income communities have hopes and dreams for their future. But the material privilege that a person has, the likelihood that they feel they’ll be able to achieve their goals, and the examples provided by people in their community – each of these things contributes to the decisions that they’ll make, the risks that they’ll take, and the different paths they’ll choose when faced with the same dilemma. We can conclude one thing very clearly and concretely: low-income women are more likely to become young mothers than middle and upper-income women.
What does this have to do with all those statistics we hear about teen pregnancy? It means that when we compare teen mothers to all other mothers and say, "Hey! Look how badly they’re doing!" we’re not really being fair. A woman who grew up in poverty in the United States is likely to live in poverty as an adult, too (despite what we hear about The American Dream) – and poverty itself is a huge risk factor for many adverse outcomes, including the outcomes listed in those statistics at the top of this page. When we compare teen mothers to older mothers, we’re also almost always comparing poor or poorer mothers to mothers with more resources, and that’s a problem. So, let’s look at some better comparisons:
None of this means that being a teen parent isn’t really, truly, incredibly hard. But hey – all parenting is a challenging. Newborns need to be fed in the middle night no matter how old their mothers are. Toddlers need to be constantly chased around just as much if their mom is 37 or if their mom 19. Some teenagers might not be up to the task – some adults in their thirties or forties aren't either. Let’s not ridicule, stereotype or misrepresent young parents as a justification for preventing teen pregnancy!
So now you’re probably scratching your head and asking: why, then, should we prevent teen pregnancy? For that, I invite you to stay tuned.
Gretchen Sisson is the author of Finding a Way to Offer Something More: Reframing Teen Pregnancy Prevention. You can follow her on Twitter @gesisson.
1. Furstenberg, F., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Morgan, S. P. (1987). Adolescent mothers in later life. New York: Cambridge University Press.
2. Geronimus, A. (2003). Damned if you do: culture, identity, privilege, and teenage childbearing in the United States. Social Science and Medicine, 57, 881–893.
3. Geronimus, A. (2001). Understanding and eliminating racial inequalities in women’s health in the United States: the role of the weathering conceptual framework. Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, 56(4), 1–5.
4. Geronimus, A. (1996). Black/White differences in the relationship of maternal age to birthweight: a population-based test of the weathering hypothesis. Social Science and Medicine, 42(4), 589– 597.
5. Geronimus, A., & Korenman, S. (1993). Maternal youth or family background? On the health disadvantages of infants with teenage mothers. American Journal of Epidemiology, 137(2), 213–225.
6. Hoffman, S. (2008). Updated estimates of the consequences of teen childbearing for mothers. In S. Hoffman & R. Maynard (Eds.), Kids having kids: economic costs and social consequences of teen pregnancy (2nd ed.). Washington: Urban Institute Press.
7. Hotz, V. J., Williams Elroy, S., & Sanders, S. (2005). Teenage childbearing and its life cycle consequences: exploiting a natural experiment. The Journal of Human Resources, 40(3), 683–715.
8. McCarthy, J., & Hardy, J. (1993). Age at first birth and birth outcomes. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 3, 373–392.
9. Rauh, V., Andrews, H., & Garfinkel, R. (2001). The contribution of maternal age to racial disparities in birthweight: a multilevel perspective. American Journal of Public Health, 91, 1815–1824.
10. Rich-Edwards, J., Buka, S., Brennan, S., & Earls, F. (2003). Diverging associations of maternal age with low birthweight for Black and White mothers. International Journal of Epidemiology, 32, 83–90.
I'm 20 and have been with my partner for about two and a half years. We have a great relationship and are happy together. However, two years ago, when we first started sleeping together, I contracted genital herpes, even though we used condoms. I was a virgin before I slept with him so I knew it had come from him. I was angry and upset but he kept telling me he had tested clean at his last STI check and couldn't understand that he must have it. When we went to the GUM clinic (together) they confirmed that I had herpes but told me that they don't test for herpes unless there are symptoms present. Therefore when my boyfriend had his previous check-up (symptom free) he tested clean for everything they test for and then went on to sleep with me. My boyfriend was upset that I was blaming him and was tested again for everything they test for to prove to me he wasn't lying when he told me he was clean. He was negative for everything they tested him for....except like last time, they didn't test for Herpes and told him they didn't test for it unless there were symptoms, which there wasn't. He says he doesn't remember ever having symptoms hence why he's never had a physical check for it. I KNOW I didn't do anything wrong, and neither did my boyfriend, but I feel so bad about myself. I feel like I should have done something before we slept together, but I don't know what. I asked him to make sure he was clean: he did. We had no idea that they didn't do standard tests for herpes.
How do I stop feeling dirty and like I was irresponsible?
I'm seventeen and partially paralyzed from the waist down. I injured myself and got a spinal cord injury about a year and a half ago. I can move my legs, but not all of my muscles work. I've been going out with my incredible boyfriend for a while now and we have started having vaginal sex. One of the downsides of a spinal cord injury is that everything from the waist down has a little less feeling than normal. It's really hard for me to get anywhere past feeling turned on, and I think it has something to do with my numbness. I make sure my boyfriend is really careful to not hurt me and communicate with him pretty well. Are there any lubricants or other products that I could use to make sex a little more pleasurable for me? It usually doesn't hurt, but I have a hard time feeling anything. I see commercials for stuff, but I don't really know if they work. Thanks!
This guest post from the wonderful Anne Semans at the Moms in Babeland blog is part of our month-long fundraising effort for Scarleteen. Thanks, Anne!
One day about 20 years ago I was walking down Haight Street with my 6-year-old niece. This was long before I had kids, but well after I started selling sex toys for a living. It was San Francisco in the early Nineties, and Salt n’ Pepa’s song “Let’s Talk About Sex” was blasting out onto the city streets. My niece looked up at me and asked what the song was about.
My moment had arrived! It was my big opportunity to be the “cool aunt” and to seize on a teachable moment to explain the biology without any moralizing or stereotyping.
I nervously launched into a monologue about sex being an intimate act between two adults that brings them pleasure, and how sometimes but not always it can result in a baby being conceived, and that it can be between two women, two men, or one of each.
Finally I paused and asked her if that answered her question, to which she replied, “Oh, I thought they were singing ‘Let’s Talk About Six’, which is my age, so I thought the song was about me.”
Can you just hear the sound of my sex-positive-cool-aunt’s ego deflating? I’m not sure what she actually learned, but for me it was a great lesson in taking a moment to decipher what kids really want to know when they ask a sex question.
She was too embarrassed or confused to stop me, and I was so intent on getting my message across that I didn’t pause long enough to check in with her to see if I was overwhelming her with information! The other thing it taught me is that even though we think we might be over-informing kids at any given moment, they only process what they can handle. She had no recollection of this conversation when we talked about sex again some years later. I have also had this experience often with my own kids—you can explain some fascinating aspect of sex to their satisfaction one day, and then 6 months later they’ll ask the same question. Big lesson, especially with the young ‘uns: keep it simple, be repetitive, check-in, get back to them if you don’t have the answer, and above all, applaud their curiosity!
The other important thing I remember about this time, however, was how great it was that this song, “Let’s Talk About Sex” was a pop culture phenomenon. Here were women rappers advocating safe sex to a generation of young men and women in a way that made it seem hip, fun, and expected, which was in stark contrast to the sex=death message we were all getting in the wake of the AIDS epidemic.
In the years since then, a beautiful thing blossomed–the Internet–which young people flocked to for information that they might not otherwise have had access to (what, no cool aunt?). One of the websites that evolved, is what I now consider the “virtual” successor of that Salt n’ Pepa song: Scarleteen. This site offers sex information and advice for young people in a way that acknowledges and celebrates their sexual curiosity, and affirms their right to know. It advocates sexual responsibility in a way that young people can relate to, and my guess is, has saved countless teenagers from making big mistakes.
This post is part of Scarleteen’s Blog Carnival, an event designed to raise awareness around the importance of sex education and to help raise funds for the site. Please, particularly if you have any kids in your live, take a look at what makes this Scarleteen so special, pony up some money for them, and send the link to your favorite young adult.
Beginning in September, I am going to be employed as Residence Don for an all girls floor at a university. I am pretty exited about the job and really would like to make residence life a positive experience for the students I will be living with (about 170 guys and gals in total). However, there is one MAJOR issue I have with the residence, they offered no sexual assault awareness education for the students. In the 2008-09 school year, there were 3 sexual assaults reported, which lead to criminal charges, and almost all I have talked to who have lived in this residence for multiple years have either been sexually assaulted themselves or had a friend who was while living there. So, clearly, something is needed to change this residence culture that seems to be conducive to sexual violence.
I'm a 20 year old girl, who's...well, I'm not going to say perfectly confident, because I do have some fairly major esteem issues, but I know my own mind, I'm independent & I'm not one to go with the crowd just because it's the "done" thing.
Three years ago a guy I was making out with on a regular basis, assaulted me sexually. While I escaped without being raped, it was a terrifying & traumatic experience. Needless to say it was a difficult time. I was a virgin when the assault happened, & because of this incident I was left wary of men, sex & romantic interactions in general. During the years since, a few of my good friends have expressed feelings for me, but given that I was not in the right state of mind to deal with any serious romantic situations, the fact that these guys were looking for the types of relationships that I'm not comfortable with, & also that I was afraid of ruining our friendships, I turned them down, explaining my reasons & repeatedly expressing how important their friendships were to me. All of these guys are still my close friends, & all have had relationships/flings with other girls since asking me out. I'm having a problem with them, though.
My current partner recently got a vasectomy. Because we're also monogamous, well-past six months of monogamy and barrier use, and both are current with our STI testing -- the combination of things and time period I know massively reduces our STI risks -- that means we're not using condoms right now.
This is very unusual for me: in around 25 years of sexual experiences and many partnerships, the vast majority of the times I have had male partners, including long-term partners, there have been condoms. As someone who wants to be able to enjoy her sex life as much as possible, who knows preventing infection is part of that, and also as someone who can't use most other methods of birth control, condoms have been my BFFs.
I've never found them to be the drag some people frame them as. Rather, I often find myself perplexed by folks who frame them that way, even though I know as a sex educator that more often than not, the folks who do frame them that way either a) haven't even used them or have used them only very rarely, b) are copping that attitude because it's perceived as cool or macho, c) worry the pause for a condom may give a partner time to reconsider sex, or d) are into a level of risk-taking for themselves or partners that condoms curb. We can't accurately say condoms massively dull physical sensation (and we've got studies to show that clearly), but for sure, if people get off on sex posing high personal risk to themselves or their partners, condoms are going to seriously dull that buzz.
All the same, I know there are people outside of those situations and mindsets who experience them as a drag, particularly when it comes to how they feel condoms "interrupt" sex. Even in birth control literature comparing methods, we'll often see methods like condoms framed as "interrupting" things. That given, even though I have had condom-free experiences in the past and not found them anything to write home about, I was prepared to discover that walking into a change in my sex life where condoms absolutely were not needed, and also where I had a new birth control method that was as reliable as it gets and totally foolproof might give me some new insight on why some folks feel that way. I was prepared to be wrong: to find out that suddenly what I perceived as no interruption at all had been, in fact, more of an interruption than I realized.
Bzzzzt. So far, that's not what's happened. While I really do try to leave work out of the bedroom -- something that can be challenging when your work is so often all about what happens in the bedroom -- I couldn't help but notice something.
On the whole, the difference in time when it comes to getting from want-to-do-that to game-on, between using condoms and not using condoms? It's maybe around 30 seconds. If it's even that long.
So, this got me thinking. Why, then, do so many people make it sound like those seconds are many minutes or hours? Is there something special my partners and I have been doing over the years that made it so much more quick and easy? I'm not sure, but I figured I'd share some of the basics just in case.
I keep condoms handy. Really handy. In the places where I tend to have sex more than others, there are plenty of condoms within arm's reach. I keep them in my bag or coat pocket if and when I'm going out and I suspect, even just slightly, sex may be something I may want to pursue. While keeping them around my house can be easier for me as an older adult not living with my folks, it seems to me that if you're hiding condoms from parents, you're hiding sex. It's a LOT easier to hide something as small as a few condoms than to hide something as big as having sex. So if you can figure out how to be sneaky with sex? You can figure out how to be sneaky with condoms.
If and when I think myself and a partner may be getting towards the kinds of sex where a condom is needed, I or they often pull the condom out then and put it within even closer reach. That action alone has often been the only condom negotiation, if you can even call it that, I have had to have. Almost always, when I do that and the time does come for condom use, my partners have just put it on with little more than a raised eyebrow or a few words first to be sure I wanted to have the kind of sex the condom was going on for. If I have wanted them used earlier than they reach for them, a simple, "Hey would you put that on now?" almost always suffices.
For the record, taking out or putting out a condom isn't a promise or guarantee you'll have sex of any kind: you still get to choose not to have any kind of sex at any time if you want to. If you worry your partners won't understand that or will make assumptions, talk it over. If you do talk it over and they still aren't getting the gist, you're probably better off kicking folks like that out of bed full-stop than keeping them around as a sexual or potential sexual partner.
I try and keep a variety of condoms around, especially if I don't know what a given partner likes already. That way, I can easily avoid someone seeing a condom brand they know hasn't felt good for them and being momentarily stumped. I even have the funny feeling that sometimes I may have had partners more inclined to use a condom just because they saw something new in my stash they hadn't tried yet.
How can you do that, too? Well, you can buy sample boxes with different styles at drugstores, or order samples mixes online. If you're strapped for cash, you could make a day of getting around to a few different public health department clinics and/or family planning (sexual health) clinics, and make yourself a pretty good collection from the free stash most have sitting out there for everyone to take.
I don't leave having condoms up to my partners. I've always kept condoms myself, both at home and when I'm out where sex seems at all possible. Because of that, I have a hard time thinking of a time when I've ever had that "Who's got a condom?" conversation. Instead, it's more a Quick Draw McGraw situation where it's just about who flips one out first. I usually win.
I know that practice makes perfect. If not perfect, way better. My current partner and I are old hands at this: we've both been using condoms regularly for longer than many of our Scarleteen readers have been alive. We both may well be quicker at opening them, getting them on, and lubing them up than some of you might be just because we've used them for longer. But that's not because we have special skills (in my case, quite the opposite, since I have a hand disability), it's just because we've had practice.
That's practice you can get for yourself, too. Male-bodied people don't have to start balding or have lots of sex partners or lots of partnered sex to get good at putting condoms on: that's something you can do all by yourself, at home, with or around your own masturbation. Since that's also a much lower-pressure environment than with a partner, I'd say spending some time learning that way could be awfully helpful.
For those of you sans-penis, while I know as someone who does condom demonstrations in-person that some of you might find those silly, one part people do unilaterally tend to value is having the chance to use a demonstration model yourself and get some of your own practice. If a sex educator is doing condom demonstrations and doesn't offer you the chance to have a few tries yourself, pipe up and ask! Feel free to use your humor if you feel uncomfortable about being the one to ask. Chances are good you won't be the only person in the room who wants to try, and a group giggle-fest around learning to put on a condom doesn't mean no one learns anything.
(Of course, there are also always those bananas in the kitchen, too.)
I don't have emotional or intellectual baggage about condoms. I ride in a car, I put on a seatbelt. I have sex, I use condoms and/or other latex barriers. One is no bigger a deal than the other for me, and neither makes me question my values, ideas, the way I feel about someone or who I am. Just like I don't have the idea that wearing a seatbelt means my experience of being in a car is somehow ruined or substandard, I don't think using condoms has any negative impact or even the potential for negative impact on my sex life. Quite the opposite.
I was talking to my friend Cory the other day about this, and we agreed that both having come of age using condoms pretty much right from the start of our sex lives, without any sense or idea that there was something weird about doing so, we both feel like we have a leg-up on those who didn't start out with safer sex at the gate; like using condoms has perhaps been easier for us for that reason, and not something we ever thought was somehow not how it should be. I don't have to work through my feelings about condoms when the time comes to use one, nor do I pause or hesitate to yank one out and toss it over out of fear, nervousness, or worry about what the other person will think. Using condoms is so normal for me that it's the times they DON'T get used where everything kind of stops for me and can interrupt what's going on with me sexually. (To my credit, I have yet to shriek "What the hell are you doing!?!" at my partner since we've entered the condom-free zone, something I was worried would happen out of habit. It still might, don't count me out just yet.)
If you have any kind of baggage around condoms, or get the impression your partners do, this is something else I'd suggest talking out and unpack together, ideally before you actually need to use condoms. Sometimes something as simple as each person saying to the other, "You know, I don't think condoms are any big deal and I'm always happy to use them without a fuss," can go a mighty long way.
Dumping any emotional or intellectual baggage around condoms can also mean that the amount of time it takes to put on a condom does not feel like a ticking clock where everyone is tense or awkward or worried.
On that note? I only have sex with people I really want to have sex with, when I really want to have sex with them and am comfortable having sex with them and when I get the strong impression the same is true for them about me. If we didn't really want to be having sex with each other, had reservations, or just weren't fully feeling it, it would certainly be a lot easier for those 30 seconds to feel like 3 hours. If we weren't really into each other and comfortable being together, it would be harder to fill that time with either other sexual activity, like masturbation, for instance, or like turning putting condoms on into something just as sexual as any other part of sex, or with comical or comfortable conversation.
If you have ever sat through a 40-minute class with a teacher you can't stand, or on a subject that bores you to tears, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You can feel whole LIFETIMES pass during those kinds of 40 minutes.
I have always had every expectation condoms would be used. It's never been a question mark for me; a "Will we? Will he?" It's always been a given: if he wants to have sex with me, he will use a condom. If I want to have sex with him or her, I will use a latex barrier. I've said it before here elsewhere, and anyone who has had this conversation with me in person has had the not-so-dubious distinction of having me demonstrate Condom Face in the flesh: a look on one's face one can have that a partner sees and just knows you have every confidence they'll put a condom on. In my experience, when someone perceives it's not a question for you, but a given, and they can see that right on your face, they treat it like a given. That not only better assures condoms will be used, it cuts down on the time it takes to just get the condom on. (The actress in this video makes said face a few times, for the record. She also demonstrates clear expectations her partner would put on a condom, and the requisite shock and awe when he will not.)
The way I see it, sex is no place to be shy. If I'm un-shy enough to be having sex with someone, I'd better be un-shy enough to have, present and use condoms. If I ever feel too shy to do that? I figure I feel too shy with that person or in that situation for sex, and that's that.
I don't see condom use as any kind of interruption at all: I see it as one of many common parts of sex. I used bunny ears around "interrupt" today for a reason, and that's because I think that language and framing is...well, kind of big stupid.
Why? Because sex gets "interrupted" for a millions reasons. Someone has to pee. We're changing positions, shifting to or negotiating another activity. The dog barks. The phone or doorbell rings. Someone wants to stop the action to smell (or really look at) the roses, as it were. Something funny happens and everyone can't stop laughing for a few minutes. Someone gets a leg cramp. We want to stop and talk something out. We want to pause to verbally express that something feels amazing or that something hurts. We need to add more lube, or drop the lube bottle and have to hunt for it under the bed. We need to grab and put on a condom. We need to check or change the condom. We forgot we left the oven on. Someone knows it seems like the worst timing ever, but they just totally have to tell you this thing RIGHT NOW they heard the other day that was so fascinating (though it may only be me who does that). We need to jump up and do a silly dance in the middle of everything just because we feel that freaking good and absolutely cannot help ourselves. We just need a few minutes to catch our breath. As you get older, you will probably find you need to catch your breath even more often. Same goes with the peeing. And the goofy dancing.
For sure, you could view some or all of those things as interruptions, but since they're all also often part of so many of our sexual experiences so much of the time, you could also just view them, including condom use, as part of sex and not as interruptions at all. I suggest the former.
This morning, I picked up my mother's copy of “Brigitte”, a German woman's magazine geared at women between 30 an 50. I often borrow the magazine from her, because it tends to have pretty interesting articles. More recently, I've declared myself an out-and-out fan after Brigitte became the first magazine to stop using professional models for their photo spreads. Instead, they now use women they simply approach on the street, and supplement the pictures with information about the woman's life (this particular issue -06/2010- features a 41-year-old woman covered in piercings and tattoos, who has been working as a wrestler and a programmer of computer games).
However, what caught my eye today was one of the titles on the cover: “The sex I didn't want – Confessions from a Gray Area”. In my mind, I immediately flashed to the infamous Cosmopolitan article by Laura Sessions Stepp ( A New Kind of Date Rape ). With a funny feeling in my stomach, I flipped to the article. And lo! - the concept was exactly the same. Citing five example stories and an opinion from a psychologist, the article purported to examine a phenomenon called “gray rape”. With exception of the last story (of a man who accommodated his wife's interest in BDSM despite the fact that he did not share it), the theme of all the other confessions was similar: a woman meets a man, spends some time with him, has a good conversation over a drink or two, agrees to go home with him/take him home. Then things heat up and start to go further than the woman is comfortable with. She grows passive, pulls back, voices doubt. In two cases, she explicitly says no. In all cases, the men either apparently don't notice or actively ignore the protest and keep going.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there is nothing “gray” about these stories. The legal dictionary at Thefreedictionary.com defines rape as “[a] criminal offense defined in most states as forcible sexual relations with a person against that person's will”. If someone says no, and the other person does not stop, then it fulfills the definition of rape. It doesn't matter if you had a pleasant evening with that person, invited them to your room and fixed them a drink, first. You still have the right to say No, and have that No be heard and respected. You still didn't say yes. Consenting is saying yes.
Part of the reason why this is so hard to understand, and why stories like these are so rarely recognized for what they are, is because of the pervasive myth of what rape looks like. Despite the fact that statistics continually tell us differently - 4 out of 5 rapes are committed by someone the victims knows, often someone as close as a partner/boyfriend/friend (statistics taken from The National Center for Victims of Crimes) - rape is still often presented in the media as something that either happens to sexually “promiscuous” women who are “asking for it”, or something that is perpetrated by a stranger with a knife who jumps out at women in dark alleys in the night.
Not only is this image just plain inaccurate, it is also damaging. If women believe that only something done to them by a violent deranged stranger can be called rape, or that if they are raped they must have somehow done something to deserve it, then they are not going to report their abuser, they are not going to seek the help they deserve in working through the experience, and they are going to feel shame and guilt over something that was not their fault or their doing.
So, Brigitte (and Cosmopolitan, too!) please do your homework before you publish articles. You are ostensibly geared towards women, so do yourselves and your readers a favour and publish correct information to help dispel this pervasive and damaging myth.
Further reading:
© 1998 - 2011 Scarleteen/Heather Corinna. All Rights Reserved.
Best viewed with Firefox • Privacy Policy & User Guidelines
Subscribe to our RSS feed.