"People just treat it like a tradition, you need to have sex before you leave high school. It's kind of sad. It's like a stage you have to pass through, like a rite of passage."
- Thomas, 17, junior
Teen Attitudes Toward Dating and Sexual Abuse
© 2002 The Patriot Ledger
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A BOY'S POINT OF VIEW
Locker room bragging just
a myth
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DEBEE TLUMACKI/The Patriot Ledger
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By Jim Daly
The Patriot Ledger
It’s a common assumption that when high school boys talk about girls, they share the juicy details of their sexual escapades.
Thomas, 17, a junior from a small high school on the South Shore, says that’s usually not the case.
Thomas, whose name was changed to protect his privacy, said guys with longtime girlfriends don’t share the intimate details of their sex lives.
“Most of my friends right now have girlfriends,” he said. “They may talk about the sexual act but withhold a lot out of respect for the girlfriends they’re having sex with.”
Of the sexually active boys he knows, most began having sex when they were juniors and seniors in high school, at 17 and 18 years old.
He said freshman and sophomore boys don’t usually have the opportunity to date because girls their own age won’t date them, and older girls are more interested in older guys.
Thomas said junior and senior boys often go after sophomore and freshman girls because they are “more vulnerable.”
“Seniors in high school, they want to have fun,” he said.
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Sometimes guys are a lot like the male characters in the movie “American Pie,” focused so much on sex that they miss out on other aspects of life. – Thomas |
Most guys believe it’s important to lose their virginity before leaving high school. He said sometimes they’re a lot like the male characters in the movie “American Pie,” focused so much on sex that they miss out on other aspects of life.
Having sex before graduation is “subconsciously” a race against the clock, he said.
“People just treat it like a tradition, you need to have sex before you leave high school. It’s kind of sad. It’s like a stage you have to pass through, like a rite of passage,” said Thomas.
He estimated that about 35 to 40 percent of junior and senior boys date girls but the term “date,” is misleading, at least in the traditional sense.
“It’s not like (a guy and girl) start going out,” he said. “It’s like they’re together.” One night they kiss or start fooling around at a party “and they’re just labeled as together.”
Thomas said he thinks the attitude toward sex among high school students “is becoming more and more casual and laid back.
“I don’t think people take it that seriously anymore,” he said, adding that sex is a serious subject.
He said all his friends use condoms, and a lot of the girls his friends date are on the pill. “A majority of the girls I know who have had sex use birth control,” he said.
Thomas said most teen sex takes place at the homes of boys and girls who are dating. Some “fooling around” happens in the upper rooms of house parties, but almost no one has sex in cars anymore.
“I think that happens only in the movies,” he said.