Yet More Reasons to Avoid Millennials

Kerry Howley | May 23, 2008

I was feeling a little sad about how few invitations I received to rainbow parties as a tween. Then the Guttmacher Institute reminded me that they don't exist.

Contrary to widespread belief, teenagers do not appear to commonly engage in oral sex as a way to preserve their virginity, according to the first study to examine the question nationally.

The analysis of a federal survey of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19, released yesterday, found that more than half reported having had oral sex. But those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried it than those who had had intercourse.

"There's a popular perception that teens are engaging in serial oral sex as a strategy to avoid vaginal intercourse," said Rachel Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, a private, nonprofit research organization based in New York, who helped do the study. "Our research suggests that's a misperception."

I'm going to blame Miley Cyrus for this, though I'm not convinced this study says anything revelatory. Twenty-three percent of virgin teens say they've had oral sex. Is that a "scourge" of technical virginity? If so, well, bring on the requisite Laura Sessions Stepp column. If not, I don't know what she and Suzanne Fields are going to write about from now on, but maybe the dire lack of oral sex among virgin teens will lead to a resurgence of cutting and robotripping.

Via feministing.

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|5.23.08 @ 2:51PM|#

lol, I for one was grateful for the head before I could get laid.

|5.23.08 @ 2:52PM|#

I talked to my redneck GOP neighbor this week - he is for MORE government abstinence programs.

His daughter is pregnant and hates him.

Kinda reminded me of our Iraq policy -- beat them to death if they don't change.

Jorgen|5.23.08 @ 2:55PM|#

This is more a nibble than an actual disagreement, but I'm not sure that the study proves what it says it proves. If oral sex is used primarily as a virginity preservation device among those who have more trouble saying no in general, you would still probably see a higher rate of oral sex among nonvirgins than among virgins, because people who maintain virginity by saying no to both probably maintain their virginity for longer than those who try using oral sex as a compromise. Furthermore, even if most teenagers engaging in oral sex are doing it for reasons other than virginity preservation, twenty three percent is enough to provide evidence that some teens are using oral sex as a compromise.

|5.23.08 @ 2:55PM|#

Kerry, you're always welcome at my rainbow parties.

Jorgen|5.23.08 @ 2:58PM|#

likewise, when they say that 6 months after vaginal sex, 82% have oral sex, they're not really showing that oral sex and vaginal sex take place around the same time for most teens so much as they're showing that few teens have vaginal sex without also having oral sex. Although even there, 6 months is a long time for someone between 15 and 19.

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 3:06PM|#

Come on, oral sex is work, and we all know that teenage girls prefer to just lie there like dead fish and get humped frantically by their equally inexperienced paramour.

|5.23.08 @ 3:12PM|#

I was feeling a little sad about how few invitations I received to rainbow parties as a tween.

I know exactly what you mean.

Dirty Frank|5.23.08 @ 3:24PM|#

I was feeling a little sad about how few invitations I received to rainbow parties

I swear she does this kinda post just to toy with us. And I for one am mildly disappointed with Warren's response. I came here expecting more from him.

the innominate one|5.23.08 @ 3:27PM|#

if vaginal sex precedes oral sex, then oral sex can't be said to be used as a substitute for vaginal intercourse.

|5.23.08 @ 3:31PM|#

Millennials
Can we ban this word and Generation Y? They have no academic value, and are used almost exclusively as buzzwords for lazy trend journalists, marketers, and people who want to justify feeling superior to younger generations.

I just burned a new CD of a bunch of old songs that I recently downloaded. My 6 year old likes to "rock out" (I never use that expression, don't know where she got it) and I can never tell which songs she'll like, which ones she won't. This one includes some Geo. Satellites and Joan Jett.

Sometimes she'll ask me what a song is talking about (Mama, what's a bad reputation? Mama, who's Cupid?) She hasn't said a word about "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." Her favorite song on the CD? Cherry Bomb - she requests it every time we get in the car. She sings the chorus in her sweet little high pitched voice (Hello Daddy, Hello Mom, I'm your ch ch ch ch ch ch Cherry Bomb!)

I don't want her thinking that blow jobs are de rigeur when she's 12. I mean, they're not de rigeur when you're an adult. And I don't want her thinking that sex is something you have to do with your boyfriend. On the other hand, I was raised by a woman who was considered a prude by her peers in 1955, and I'm not passing on the guilt and represssion meme.

No, I don't have a point, other than I get really depressed having to think about tweens and oral sex.

|5.23.08 @ 3:32PM|#

maybe the dire lack of oral sex among virgin teens will lead to a resurgence of cutting and robotripping.

Huffing! Don't forget the propane tank huffing!

No teenage blowjobs? This may be the "war on boys" that we have been warned about.

Bags|5.23.08 @ 3:37PM|#

One of the funnier Feministing threads in a long time.

http://feministing.com/archives/009224.html#comments

|5.23.08 @ 3:37PM|#

Can we ban this word and Generation Y? They have no academic value, and are used almost exclusively as buzzwords for lazy trend journalists, marketers, and people who want to justify feeling superior to younger generations.

I promise I don't feel superior to myself.

|5.23.08 @ 3:38PM|#

oh man i love robotripping, i really hope that makes a come back...

LT Nixon|5.23.08 @ 3:40PM|#

Damn kids these days, get the hell off my lawn! I had to google what a "Rainbow Party" was. Don't youngsters drive around in their mother's car listening to Phish and smoking weed anymore like we did growing up in the 90s?

|5.23.08 @ 3:41PM|#

'Lords of Acid' is my minimum standard for clean listening.

Of course, 'Starfucker' by the Stones got me going in puberty.

Joan Jett and Patti Smith are good, wholesome girls.

Puzzled in Omaha|5.23.08 @ 3:42PM|#

Kerry, I'm afraid I don't know what this term "rainbow party" means.
Could you please tell us how many of these parties you attended, who was there, what you were wearing, and the sequence of events of a party from beginning to end?
I'm afraid this thread is going nowhere without that valuable information.

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 3:43PM|#

I just actually paid enough attention to notice that Kerry got this from Feministing.

Where is NutraSweet?

Fluffy|5.23.08 @ 3:45PM|#

I mean, they're not de rigeur when you're an adult.

Maybe in Saudi Arabia. This is America, toots.

And hey, since this thread links to feministing, shouldn't J sub D show up so we can all mock the posters there? I like a nice feministing mockery session.

I wanted to get in on the last one, when someone posted that .pdf of the feministing article about "big girls", but joe had to go and be a buzzkilling scold before it could get going.

Robert Stacy McCain|5.23.08 @ 3:47PM|#

I think, basically, what Kerry is trying to say is that the Ruwart controversy is moot.

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 3:53PM|#

they're not de rigeur when you're an adult

I'm sure your husband is thrilled about that.

No, I don't have a point, other than I get really depressed having to think about tweens and oral sex.

Why? As long as teens are doing something they want to do and not something somebody is pressuring/forcing them to do, what possible harm is there?

NP|5.23.08 @ 3:54PM|#

Hey Kerry, I really hate to bitch all the time, but they have a name for that, feeling superior to oneself. It's called "learning."

|5.23.08 @ 3:54PM|#

Jess Jackson's organization is now known as "Rainbow/PUSH," Kerry.

C'mon, you journalists are supposed to know this stuff!

Oh oh oh.

Nevermind.

Bags|5.23.08 @ 3:56PM|#

*tumbleweed*

|5.23.08 @ 4:03PM|#

I had a rainbow party once. I had to pay for it though. It cost me $2100 in Reno (but it was legal), and girl number three forget to bring blue lipstick. What fun is a rainbow party without the blue? Next time I'm going to Vegas!

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 4:08PM|#

Bags, just had chance to read that Feministing thread. Good stuff.

exelizabeth:

You are highly evolved as a person. Whoever left you will be worse off for it.

Oh my.

Tildie\'s Dad|5.23.08 @ 4:24PM|#

"Sometimes she'll ask me what a song is talking about"

When my daughter was nine, she really loved "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-lot (I like big butts and I can not lie, You other brothers can't deny, That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist, And a round thing in your face, You get sprung...). When she asked me what "you get sprung" meant, I suggested she discuss that with her mother.

|5.23.08 @ 4:33PM|#

I was feeling a little sad about how few invitations I received to rainbow parties as a tween.

I notice you said "few", not "none". So that means...

|5.23.08 @ 4:37PM|#

The third post had some sense/reasoning in it (in the Feministing thread). I'll admit that I'm a little lost as to why some of the bloggers are upset in the first place.

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 4:45PM|#

I notice you said "few", not "none". So that means...

Looks like Chris just got sprung.

Jorgen|5.23.08 @ 4:46PM|#

"I promise I don't feel superior to myself."

Kerry, don't tell us that you're young enough to be generation Y. It just makes me sad about how little I've done with my life.

|5.23.08 @ 4:47PM|#

Whoops, then the person contradicts herself farther down in the thread. The weird thing about Feministing is that many of their bloggers really seem to attribute all sorts of sinister, misogynistic motives to things men do when the reality is myself, and many guys I know are actually kind of insecure.
If I were to do a comparable satire, but from a man's perspective, I'd say that "a woman who uses a vibrator is saying that a man's penis is the only part of him she finds useful at all (blah blah). Not OK."

Bingo|5.23.08 @ 4:51PM|#

Damn stubby, lighten up you prude!

Bags|5.23.08 @ 4:52PM|#

"Sera" is probably my favorite Feministing commenter. She's a real straight shooter:

Dean, I can assure you, as someone who has known many different types of heterosexual men, that most of them do think of women in this way [as nothing more than 2-D objects]. They also simultaneously know that it is bad to think of women in this way and lie to themselves and their partners about it. Then they get huffy when women point out to them that their actions indicate something entirely different from their words. Then they ask for a cookie for not raping anybody.

|5.23.08 @ 4:52PM|#

sondjata, well, I don't think that's quite right. A guy can work on personality, time, and *especially* personal hygiene. If anything, giving him an excuse not to does affect others, because it provides a disincentive for men to better themselves such that they could be in a happy, healthy relationship. In the end, this harms all of society as it creates a vacuum of emotionally mature men.

I see, so we're just a commodity to be used by women *sobs into pillow*. It really seems as though she's condescending. 'It's for your own good. No porn, no blow-up dolls.' Interesting.

Standard Disclaimer: I got almost no action when I was a teenager.

|5.23.08 @ 4:56PM|#

I swear she does this kinda post just to toy with us.

Quite possibly, and by saying that you just reinforced her behavior. Cheers!

None of the Reason authors seem to tease straight women, gay men or lesbians, so be thankful for the teasing you get.

|5.23.08 @ 5:01PM|#

I just love the way they end their rant with the fantastically juvenile "Not OK." I think I might get drunk and stencil that allover my place of work.

|5.23.08 @ 5:03PM|#

Tell 'em Dean099!

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 5:06PM|#

Then they ask for a cookie for not raping anybody.

I love the "feminist" mentality that we're all just rape machines. It sort makes me want to throw them in Bill and Ted's time machine and show them a city getting sacked or the Red Army overrunning Berlin.

Maybe then they'd start to understand when to use the word rape.

Albert Cupps|5.23.08 @ 5:06PM|#

"Dean, I can assure you, as someone who has known many different types of heterosexual men, that most of them do think of women in this way [as nothing more than 2-D objects].

36-D? yes!!! 2-D? Never!

I just love the way they end their rant with the fantastically juvenile "Not OK." I think I might get drunk and stencil that allover my place of work.

Not OK!

|5.23.08 @ 5:10PM|#

dean, I'm sorry that you feel that no women are interested in you. FWIW, it sounds like the people you are surrounded by are very different from the people I know. In my life growing up, the women I knew were very strong and very intelligent, and were completely dominated and disrespected by men

? Men would do much less complaining about women, and vice versa, if they realized they had some choice in who they associated with.

But when you're a strong, intelligent woman like me, and you're surrounded by men who want meek, sweet, quiet, not demanding ("demanding" here, btw, means asserting herself, um, pretty much ever) women

The two most likely scenarios are that she either dates obnoxious "frat-boy" types, or when she describes herself as "strong, intelligent", the words are really euphemisms for "stubborn and obnoxious". And of course, the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive.

Maybe this is my experience because I live in Los Angeles

Never mind. Scratch the whole thing.

|5.23.08 @ 5:12PM|#

db: that was the thing that struck me, too. "That's not okay" is standard modern mommy talk. That's the way a lot of the posters at feministing seem to view men; the ones who don't just hate and fear them, think of them as children. It's really pitiful. And I don't mean that in an ironic, "my, aren't they stupid" manner - I really do pity them. The lesbians are probably fine, but the straight women must be miserable.

I think pretty much everybody masturbates, and, historically, it's actually much more socially acceptable for men to do it than for women.

Historically, maybe, but most straight guys, I think, don't mind the thought of women doing it at all. Well, at least the Law Fairy admitted that women are every bit as shallow as men are.

|5.23.08 @ 5:18PM|#

Not OK!

Ah, that's why I love this place.

|5.23.08 @ 5:20PM|#

feminists : rape :: libertarian : theft, slave, force, gunpoint...

|5.23.08 @ 5:21PM|#

We have stumbled upon the den of harpies, men. Make your peace with God and prepare to die.

Bingo|5.23.08 @ 5:21PM|#

Taxation is rape. Thank you joe for allowing me to come to this conclusion!

Bingo|5.23.08 @ 5:22PM|#

Harpies? No thats too harsh. Just a bunch of uggos in need of a good dicking, Warty!

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 5:24PM|#

joe's highly limited reading skillz make their expected appearance. Not OK.

|5.23.08 @ 5:25PM|#

Episiarch

You are highly evolved as a person. Whoever left you will be worse off for it.

With any luck he'll find some less evolved woman.

Well, my dream anyway.

skillz with a Z? Not OK.

|5.23.08 @ 5:29PM|#

Obligatory: Kerry Howley will understand the furor over "rainbow parties" better after she has my children.

Thank you.

I will now spend the next few minutes hooting like a lust-crazed chimpanzee.

************ INTERMISSION **********

Okay, now that that's out of the way, a personal observation:

I've only been invited to one Rainbow party. But the guys outnumbered the girls by about three to one, and all we did was listen to hard rock songs like "Man On The Silver Mountain," "Since You Been Gone," "Stone Cold" and "Street Of Dreams." This was in the early 1980s as I recall.

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 5:29PM|#

Just a bunch of uggos in need of a good dicking, Warty!

You first, Bingo. Let us know if you've drained the swamp.

|5.23.08 @ 5:30PM|#

Among shy men, or men that have not had a lot of (positive) experience with women, there is the phenomenon of "putting the p**** on a pedestal." In a strange way, this, too is "objectifying" women, but not at all in a hateful or vicious way.
I'd be curious as to what the women on Feministing think about this, and possible solutions to this pervasive cultural problem.

In my personal experience, intergender interactions are too complex to fit appropriately into any single extant political system.

Where is NutraSweet?

I didn't want to threadjack.

I was told that was NOT OK.

(Now that I'm done pissing in joe's ear... I was out in the horrible real world, buying a keg of Shiner Bock for this weekend.)

Episiarch|5.23.08 @ 5:33PM|#

I was out in the horrible real world, buying a keg of Shiner Bock for this weekend

Good for you. I must now go and get loaded and go see Indiana Jones. It had better fucking be not not OK.

|5.23.08 @ 5:34PM|#

Invite the uggo harpies to your kegger, SugarFree. With beer goggles on they might not look not OK.

alan|5.23.08 @ 5:35PM|#

About that title: Yet More Reasons to Avoid Millennials

Like most libertarian minded folk, I've been a bit worried about the generations that are coming up after my own. The brain washing techniques that were first used on my generation seem to be more pervasive and perfected than ever. I remember as a second grader watching a cartoon series on fighting pollution with evil smog creatures abiding industrial interest in class -- and celebrating Earth Day, whew. I can only imagine what they are teaching the little trophies now.

But then last night, I chanced to catch a skit on Leno where one of his guys talked to elementary school students and he asked them if they would like to be president when they grew up and what would they do if they were president. I'm happy to report every kid was a
super villain in his or her own special way, more in the spirit of Machiavelli than Eleanor Roosevelt or Obama. I've never felt better about our future.

|5.23.08 @ 5:52PM|#

I'm happy to report every kid was a
super villain in his or her own special way, more in the spirit of Machiavelli than Eleanor Roosevelt or Obama. I've never felt better about our future.

alan, as long as kids have rich fantasy lives, I think we'll be OK. I was born in '83, so of course I grew up with Cap'n Planet and all that, but I admired the sort of superhero who faked his own death and killed the bad guys instead of arresting them.
And these emos who scare older generations so much...OK, maybe 'scare' is not the right word. Concern, there's the ticket. Anyway, there are a lot of poseurs, but I reckon a real emo just met the wrong guy/gal and got his/her heart broken. Anyway, non-violent emotional retards are a lot more interesting than sociopaths, alpha-males and queen bitches anyway.

|5.23.08 @ 5:56PM|#

And my generation, whatever we're called, are lucky, 'cause we get kick-ass movie/comic adaptations. Sure, "Daredevil" and "Batman & Robin" suck, but "Iron Man", "Speed Racer" and the upcoming "Max Payne" and "The Dark Knight"? Sweet. Hollywood's finally starting to learn to get the adaptations right, and it has a lot to do with better CG and the fact that organizations like Marvel and DC are more involved and savvy concerning the Hollywood machine.

|5.23.08 @ 6:01PM|#

LoL, Bingo.

|5.23.08 @ 6:03PM|#

Not at all, SugarFree.

At long last, you've got an honest-go-God thread about a post on Feministing!

alan|5.23.08 @ 6:05PM|#

Max Payne -- that's going to be sweeet. I've read that Mila Kunis is going to play Mona Sax. I don't see it. She has one of the prettiest faces in Hollywood, but Mona is a whiskey soaked voice and long legged femme fatale, and Kunis is definitely not.

|5.23.08 @ 6:20PM|#

She has one of the prettiest faces in Hollywood, but Mona is a whiskey soaked voice and long legged femme fatale, and Kunis is definitely not.

I'm so used to seeing Kunis do comedy, but I'm excited to see her in something different. Of course, Wahlberg playing Max Payne is pretty much perfect.

Regular who\'s ashamed to ID h|5.23.08 @ 7:08PM|#

we all know that teenage girls prefer to just lie there like dead fish

Uh, they grow out of that? Man, did I ever marry the wrong one.

|5.23.08 @ 7:09PM|#

Feministing chicks -- the women H&R men would like to bone, if they would just STFU.

|5.23.08 @ 7:11PM|#

we all know that teenage girls prefer to just lie there like dead fish

A little cunnilingus will liven 'em up.

|5.23.08 @ 8:07PM|#

The fact that Kerry wasn't invited is pretty good evidence that they didn't exist (at that time anyway).

I had a rainbow party once. I had to pay for it though. It cost me $2100 in Reno (but it was legal)

$2100 huh? Hmm.

|5.23.08 @ 8:26PM|#

I know everyone says rainbow parties are just a myth. I just graduated from college, and one night a few months ago was hanging out with a group that included a bunch of freshman. When I made the comment that rainbow parties were pretty much mythical, almost all of the freshmen objected and one of them (a girl) told me there were multiple occurrences at her middle school.

For what it's worth.

Jennifer|5.23.08 @ 8:48PM|#

When I made the comment that rainbow parties were pretty much mythical, almost all of the freshmen objected and one of them (a girl) told me there were multiple occurrences at her middle school.

When I was in middle school I knew for an absolute fact that certain girls in my class did some very smutty things, and one even had to make a midnight emergency room visit to have certain food products removed from her extremities ... and then a couple years later, I read my first book about urban legends and discovered every one of those salacious stories within. (The urban legend book is also how I figured out my father was probably mistaken when he told me to avoid a certain shopping mall because gang members undergoing initiation would hide under parked cars so they could cut people's tendons and cripple them for life.)

In a few years, middle-school rainbow parties will be listed right next to the middle-school hotdogectomies in urban legend books. Unfortunately, "there's a branch of the federal government that spends taxpayer dollars asking salacious sex questions to young teenagers" is not an urban legend but an absolute fact.

|5.23.08 @ 10:06PM|#

The rainbow party legend is such obvious horseshit that I can't imagine any reasons other than disingenuous ones why any adult would propogate it.

I mean, it sounds exactly like the sort of thing a high school kid out to impress - one who didn't get much sex and wanted to seem as though he had, which is 65% of all high school kids - would invent and tell other kids in a sincere tone. I have no idea whose mom originally overheard this plot and believed it, but the whole internet needs less credulity.

|5.24.08 @ 12:19AM|#

What Jennifer and hale said. Seriously -- maybe I'm missing the big picture, but I don't see what the big appeal would be for participants of either gender. Hypothetically, apart from j/o material for life, what would be in it for the guys? They get one lipstick mark from each girl. That isn't even a bj. And as far as the women are concerned, there are obvious downsides. It's like sharing a sucker with the whole room! Yuck. Most guys wouldn't have the length to fit the whole ROYGBIV, anyway. And blue lipstick is hideous on anyone.

Episiarch|5.24.08 @ 12:25AM|#

Most guys wouldn't have the length to fit the whole ROYGBIV, anyway.

Speak for yourself. Additionally, I just saw Indiana Jones.

It sucked. Bad. Embarrassing, really. Thanks, Spielberg--you managed to make one of your greatest creations a piece of shit. You and Lucas can hold your heads up high.

|5.24.08 @ 6:21AM|#

It sucked. Bad.

I was worried about that. George Lucas has become King Midas in reverse.

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