Tension between generations undoubtedly goes back to the time when extended families or tribes became part of larger communities, thereby giving young people the possibility of forming attachments and loyalties outside their own tribe. It got a new source of energy when companionate marriage arose to challenge the right of parents to marry off their children as they saw fit. It intensified again when adolescence and a distinctive youth culture was created in the early twentieth century. And it took its contemporary form in the fifties and sixties when rock and roll and the pill made sex (and drug and rock n roll) panics the preferred manner in which the older generated condemned the behavior of the younger generation.
The latest sex panic article appeared in the op-ed pages of the New York Times yesterday. A piece by Charles M. Blow reports that dating appears to be dying among young people and is being replaced by hanging out in groups with occasional hooking up among the members of these groups.
Of course, this new trend is bad for kids and, undoubtedly, the future of western civilization as well.
The first thing to notice about this article is that its central claim is not supported by the evidence. Only the misleadingly draw chart that accompanies the article gives the thesis any credence.
In 1976, roughly 32% of high school seniors had one or more dates a week and 15% never dated. That means about 53% of high school seniors dated once in a while and 85% dated at least once in while.
In 2008 about 23% of high school seniors had one or more dates a week while about 26% never dated. That means about 51% dated once in a while and 74% dated at least once in a while.
A drop of 11 points in the percentage of high school seniors who dated at least once in a while is not a terribly important change in human behavior. There is a small trend here, but no great transformation.
In addition, other social trends might explain the ten point drop in twelfth graders who date at least once in a while. For reasons connected with the larger differences in family structure between blacks and whites, black teenagers tend to date less than white ones with the difference being at least five percentages points since 1980. The rising percentage of blacks among high school seniors thus accounts for some of the overall difference between 1976 and 2008.
And twelfth graders whose parents are college educated date less frequently, by four percentage points, than those who are not college educated. While the Child Trends data on which the Times article is based does not report historical trends on this, it is likely that this has been true for some time. So, the rising percentage of twelfth graders with college educated parents could account for some of the overall difference between 1976 and 2008.
So, if one looks closely, the supposed transformation in teen age dating looks substantially less impressive than the bold conclusions of the article would lead one to think.
But even if there were such a transformation, the next question is, so what? Why is this trend a bad thing?
Well, it would fit the usual stereotype if we could say that group dating and hooking up lead to more teenagers having sex, especially casual sex–you know, the kind in which kids wear blue jeans–or sex with people they barely know. Everyone who is not a teenager knows that teenagers having sex, and especially casual sex, is bad.
But, it turns out that the rates at which teenagers are having sex is in fact dropping. And teenagers don’t seem all that casual about sex either, as hooking up typically takes place between friends not between strangers.
There might even be a causal relationship between the decline of dating and the decline of sexual activity on the part of teenagers. Dating is, after all, tied to a search for intimacy and affection, and intimacy and affection does tend to lead to people seeking sex. Perhaps a slightly rising number of teenagers have concluded that they are not in a hurry for intimacy or sex and that this is why dating has declined. Maybe teenagers, especially those with the expectation of a long period of training before they take on major responsibilities in the work force, have recognized that they have no need to rush. Maybe they have understood that it makes sense to discover who they are and want to become before forming deep emotional involvements with others.
Of course, if we explain the drop in dating this way, it almost sounds like a positive trend. But given the imperative for inter-generational conflict, seeing something positive in the behavior of our children is totally unacceptable We have to keep looking for something untoward in their changing behavior.
So Blow turns again to another common theme of the sex panic literature, that our changing sexual mores make life tougher for women. Hooking up harms women because, unlike dating, it isn’t a good way to “find a spouse.” And, given the traditional assumption that it is women who want to find spouses and men who don’t, this can’t be good for women. As the traditional perspective makes clear, if women give sex away without securing an emotional commitment in return, they will never get married. And to follow that argument out to its most general conclusion, that is bad for western civilization marriage is the means by which women tame the anarchic and dangerous sexual appetites of men.
This argument parallels one found in the other staple of contemporary sex panic articles, the ones that point to the increasing willingness of teen age women to give teen age men blow jobs. These articles also assume that this new practice harms women. Again, the traditional assumption that women want relationships and marriage while men want sex is invoked to explain why this is so. And you also see in some of these articles an assumption that there is something degrading about oral sex since, as a piece in The Atlantic a few years ago pointed out that’s the kind of sex men in the past only received from prostitutes not their wives.
And if that traditional argument is not enough, then a feminist inspired argument supplements it and the complaint is made that girls are giving boys oral sex but not receiving it in return.
My question, however, is this: do we really want twelfth graders, and especially the young women among them, to be looking for spouses? If we are committed to the equality of women, shouldn’t we be hoping that young women are thinking more about their education and careers than about finding a husband? And perhaps it is precisely the focus on career and the future, not some inherent distaste for emotional commitment, that explains why men have traditionally been more reluctant to become emotionally involved than women at a similar age…assuming that this traditional view of men and women is even true.
And while I would be concerned if the rise of feminism hadn’t lead to greater equality in the bedroom (or the basement or back seat of the car), it turns out that the sex panic articles about blow jobs sex are wrong about this, too. As one sex researcher whose respect for the evidence ultimately got the better of her traditional assumptions about men and women put it, “You assume that females are more likely to give, males more likely to receive. We were surprised that the percentages were similar.” (Of course, this statement also presumes, wrongly, that only the “receiver” not the “giver” takes pleasure in oral sex.)
Well, as someone who believes that women like men are sexual creatures and that they are not powerless in their relationships with men, I can’t say that I’m surprised that they receive as much oral sex as they give. And I have to wonder if the adult men who write the articles about the exploitation of young women by young men have totally forgotten—or, more likely, repressed—just how much it seemed that we men were the ones without any power in our pursuit of intimacy and sex when we were teenagers.
Nor would I be surprised if the long trek to adulthood to which young people are subject in our society leads them to delay the pursuit of dating and intense romantic relationships without delaying other kinds of intimacy and sexual activity. Hanging out in groups and having friends with benefits strikes me as a good way for young men and women to learn about sex, friendship and themselves without being tempted to rush into relationships far more emotionally intense or permanent than that for which they are ready.
And I suspect too that, if there really is a slowly changing pattern of sexual behavior among young people, one consequence will be a decline in the divorce rate as young people get a sentimental education that, precisely because it makes friendship central to their relationships with their partners, better prepares them for marriage than that received by our parents or ourselves.