[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 100 (Thursday, July 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8909-S8913]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              KIDS AND SEX

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I rise today to express my shock and utter 
amazement regarding the cover story in the June 15 issue of Time 
magazine. It is entitled ``Everything your kids already know about 
sex.''
  Now, I know that any octogenarian like myself is going to be 
immediately viewed as a dinosaur and a prude on a

[[Page S8910]]

subject such as this, but I tell you that this article should alarm 
every parent and shake up every community in America.
  The piece opens up with an account of a 14-year-old couple, who walk 
into a Teen Center in Salt Lake City, Utah (of all places) and inquire 
about steps which they might take to heighten their arousal during sex. 
This is a 14-year-old couple, I remind Senators. It continues with 
example after example of youngsters as young as 9 years of age who are 
experienced sexually, and who have had multiple sexual partners before 
ever reaching the legal age of consent. Here we are talking about 
youngsters as young as 9 years of age. Many of these sexually new-age 
babies (and that's what they are, babies) claim that they get all the 
information they need to be proficient in the sexual world through such 
prime time TV shows as ``Dawson Creek,'' which boasts of a character, 
Jen, who loses her virginity at 12, while drunk, or another favorite 
show, ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', in which Angel, a male vampire, 
``turned bad'' after having sex with the 17-year-old Buffy.
  What, in the name of common sense, I ask, is going on in this Nation? 
Why are we letting our kids watch this morally degrading, thoroughly 
demeaning, junk on the airwaves? Why in heaven's name don't the 
purveyors of such trash feel any sense of responsibility toward the 
youth of our nation?
  Have the parents of these kids just given up trying to guide and 
protect them and teach them some sense of moral responsibility about 
their own bodies? I am afraid I have no answers, only legions of 
questions about what sort of a society is going to evolve from all of 
this unhealthy glorification of sex.
  I know this much. We have got to find a way to inject some measure of 
spirituality into our culture, some sort of reverence for something 
besides erotica, and we have got to find some kind of counterpoint to 
the cheap, amoral, directionless, thoroughly disgusting popular mores 
which are blasted daily at our kids over the airwaves.
  I believe one thing we could do in this Congress is to find an 
acceptable way to return prayer to our schools and to encourage 
religious values in the life of this nation.
  A lot of people who believe this have been driven into a closet. They 
won't say these things probably because they will be viewed as old 
fuddy-duddies and as being behind the times and old-fashioned and all 
that. I know of no other course which might provide a strong 
counterpoint to the hedonistic viewpoint which so dominates everyday 
American life.
  All of our poor children face the prospect of growing up, do they 
not, with no appreciation of anything but the seamy side of life and no 
understanding of the spiritual values that so enrich and refine human 
existence and have played such a vital and important and prominent part 
in the history of our country, history of our Nation since its 
beginning?
  Does no one worry about the steady diet of crass perversion we are 
feeding to our youngsters? Surely the American people expect us to 
address the moral bankruptcy that is eating away at common decency in 
this Nation. We have spent weeks publicly gnashing our teeth about our 
children's health. We hear these speeches all the time here about our 
children's health, and rightly so. Rightly so. And the evils of 
smoking, and again rightly so. We should. But what about their mental 
health? What about their spiritual health? I hear little said on these 
subjects. What about the sexually transmitted diseases which such 
casual sexual behavior fosters? I tell you, I am worried, and I believe 
we need to come to grips with the ugly reality of a society that is 
sliding further into decadence and decay right before our very eyes.
  On February 6, of last year, I introduced a constitutional amendment 
that could foster voluntary prayer in our schools and in public 
assemblies. I believe that it may do so without doing violence to the 
prerogatives of those who, as is their right, do not wish to pray. The 
amendment is simple, and I read it: ``Nothing in this Constitution, or 
amendments thereto, shall be construed to prohibit or require voluntary 
prayer in public schools, or to prohibit or require voluntary prayer at 
public school extracurricular activities.''
  I hope that the Judiciary Committee of the Senate--and I urge the 
Judiciary Committee of the Senate--will at least hold hearings on this 
matter. I am sure they could find some time on the calendar to hold 
hearings on this important subject, if not this year, certainly next 
year.
  We have reached a point of crisis in our land, and to continue to 
ignore the mounting evidence is blatantly irresponsible on the part of 
those of us who claim to be leaders.
  I know that there are concerns about the first amendment, and I 
hesitate to offer an amendment that would, in effect, amend the first 
amendment in some respect, but I am worried a great deal more about the 
destruction of our Nation. As far as I am concerned, if something about 
the first amendment needed to be modified or changed to save this very 
Nation, then I am willing to at least discuss it and debate it and make 
a determination on whether we should. I do not view the first amendment 
as being absolutely sacrosanct. I am becoming very concerned about the 
trend that we see happening in this country and about the direction in 
which the Nation is going and in considerable measure because of some 
of the interpretations of the Constitution, some of the interpretations 
of the first amendment that we have seen emanating from our courts.
  I urge all Members of the Senate and all parents to read the Time 
magazine piece and wake up and smell the coffee. The alarm bells are 
ringing all over America, and we have got to come to grips with what is 
happening and try to answer the call.
  Now, I will not be around on this globe many more years perhaps, but 
I do have children and I have grandchildren. Incidentally, I have a 
grandson who acquired his Ph.D. in physics yesterday at the University 
of Virginia. And he has a brother just 3 years older than himself who 
secured his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Virginia 3 years 
ago. So these are outstanding examples of the fine young people we have 
in this country, wholesome young people. They are not all bad, by any 
means. Most of them are not. But we do not often enough hear about the 
good things our young people are doing. They are in the laboratories. 
They are in the libraries. They are studying, trying to get ahead, and 
we are not as aware of what they are doing as we are of those who make 
mistakes, and we all make mistakes, but of those who perhaps are not 
doing as well.
  I am concerned about the future of the Nation. I am concerned for my 
own posterity's sake, as I say. I do not have the answers. A blind man 
can see that something bad is happening to our society. One does not 
have to travel far to find out what is causing a large part of it. One 
has only to go to the living room and turn on that tube and watch for a 
day the junk that has been programmed. They will see from what source 
many of our problems are emanating.
  I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Where'd You Learn 
That?'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                          [From Time Magazine]

 Where'd You Learn That?--American Kids Are in the Midst of Their Own 
   Sexual Revolution, One Leaving Many Parents Feeling Confused and 
                          Virtually Powerless

                         (By Ron Stodghill II)

       The cute little couple looked as if they should be 
     sauntering through Great Adventure or waiting in line for 
     tokens at the local arcade. Instead, the 14-year-olds walked 
     purposefully into the Teen Center in suburban Salt Lake City, 
     Utah. They didn't mince words about their reason for stopping 
     in. For quite some time, usually after school and on 
     weekends, the boy and girl had tried to heighten their 
     arousal during sex. Flustered yet determined, the pair wanted 
     advice on the necessary steps that might lead them to a more 
     fulfilling orgasm. His face showing all the desperation of a 
     lost tourist, the boy spoke for both of them when he asked 
     frankly, ``How do we get to the G-spot?''
       Whoa. Teen Center nurse Patti Towle admits she was taken 
     aback by the inquiry. She couldn't exactly provide a road 
     map. Even more, the destination was a bit scandalous for a 
     couple of ninth-graders in the heart of Mormon country. But 
     these kids had clearly already gone further sexually than 
     many adults, so Towle didn't waste time preaching the gospel 
     of abstinence. She gave her young adventurers some reading 
     material on the subject, including the classic

[[Page S8911]]

     women's health book Our Bodies, Ourselves, to help bring them 
     closer in bed. She also brought up the question of whether a 
     G-spot even exists. As her visitors were leaving. Towle 
     offered them more freebies: ``I sent them out the door with a 
     billion condoms.''
       G-spots. Orgasms. Condoms. We all know kids say and do the 
     darndest things, but how they have changed! One teacher 
     recalls a 10-year-old raising his hand to ask her to define 
     oral sex. He was quickly followed by an 8-year-old girl 
     behind him who asked, ``Oh, yeah, and what's anal sex?'' 
     These are the easy questions. Ronda Sheared, who teaches sex 
     education in Pinellas County, Fla., was asked by middle 
     school students about the second kweif, which the kids say is 
     the noise a vagina makes during or after sex. ``And how do 
     you keep it from making this noise?''
       There is more troubling behavior in Denver. School 
     officials were forced to institute a sexual-harassment policy 
     owing to a sharp rise in lewd language, groping, pinching and 
     bra-snapping incidents among sixth-, seventh- and eighth-
     graders. Sex among kids in Pensacola, Fla., became so 
     pervasive that students of a private Christian junior high 
     school are now asked to sign cards vowing not to have sex 
     until they marry. But the cards don't mean anything, says a 
     14-year-old boy at the school. ``It's broken promises.''
       It's easy enough to blame everything on television and 
     entertainment, even the news. At a Denver middle school, boys 
     rationalize their actions this way: ``If the President can do 
     it, why can't we?'' White House sex scandals are one thing, 
     but how can anyone avoid Viagra and virility? Or public 
     discussions of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS and 
     herpes? Young girls have lip-synched often enough to Alanis 
     Morissette's big hit of a couple of years ago, You Oughta 
     Know, to have found the sex nestled in the lyric. But it's 
     more than just movies and television and news. Adolescent 
     curiosity about sex is fed by a pandemic openness about it--
     in the school-yard, on the bus, at home when no adult is 
     watching. Just eavesdrop at the mall one afternoon, and 
     you'll hear enough pubescent sexcapades to pen the next few 
     episodes of Dawson's Creek, the most explicit show on teen 
     sexuality, on the WB network, Parents, always the last to 
     keep up, are now almost totally pre-empted. Chris (not his 
     real name), 13, says his parents talked to him about sex when 
     he was 12 but he had been indoctrinated earlier by a 17-year-
     old cousin.
       In any case, he gets his full share of information from the 
     tube. ``You name the show, and I've heard about it. Jerry 
     Springer, MTV, Dawson's Creek, HBO After Midnight . . .'' 
     Stephanie (not her real name), 16, of North Lauderdale, Fla., 
     who first had sex when she was 14, claims to have slept with 
     five boyfriends and is considered a sex expert by her 
     friends. She says, ``You can learn a lot about sex from 
     cable. It's all mad-sex stuff.'' She sees nothing to condemn. 
     ``If you're feeling steamy and hot, there's only one thing 
     you want to do. As long as you're using a condom, what's 
     wrong with it? Kids have hormones too.''
       In these steamy times, it is becoming largely irrelevant 
     whether adults approve of kids' sowing their oats--or knowing 
     so much about the technicalities of the dissemination. 
     American adolescents are in the midst of their own kind of 
     sexual revolution--one that has left many parents feeling 
     confused, frightened and almost powerless. Parents can search 
     all they want for common ground with today's kids, trying to 
     draw parallels between contemporary carnal knowledge and an 
     earlier generation's free-love crusades, but the two 
     movements are quite different. A desire to break out of the 
     old-fashioned strictures fueled the '60s movement, and its 
     participants made sexual freedom a kind of new religion. That 
     sort of reverence has been replaced by a more consumerist 
     attitude. In a 1972 cover story, Time declared, ``Teenagers 
     generally are woefully ignorant about sex.'' Ignorance is no 
     longer the rule. As a weary junior high counselor in Salt 
     Lake City puts it, ``Teens today are almost nonchalant about 
     sex. It's like we've been to the moon too many times.''
       The good news about their precocious knowledge of the 
     mechanics of sex is that a growing number of teens know how 
     to protect themselves, at least physically. But what about 
     their emotional health and social behavior? That's a more 
     troublesome picture. Many parents and teachers--as well as 
     some thoughtful teenagers--worry about the desecration of 
     love and the subversion of mature relationships. Says Debra 
     Haffner, president of the Sexuality Information and Education 
     Council of the United States: ``We should not confuse kids' 
     pseudo-sophistication about sexuality and their ability to 
     use the language with their understanding of who they are as 
     sexual young people or their ability to make good 
     decisions.''
       One ugly side effect is a presumption among many adolescent 
     boys that sex is an entitlement--an attitude that fosters a 
     breakdown of respect for oneself and others. Says a seventh-
     grade girl: ``The guy will ask you up front. If you turn him 
     down, you're a bitch. But if you do it, you're a ho. The guys 
     are after us all the time, in the halls, everywhere. You 
     scream, `Don't touch me!'' but it doesn't do any good.'' A 
     Rhode Island Rape Center study of 1,700 sixth- and ninth-
     graders found 65% boys and 57% of girls believing it 
     acceptable for a male to force a female to have sex if 
     they've been dating for six months.
       Parents who are aware of this cultural revolution seem 
     mostly torn between two approaches: preaching abstinence or 
     suggesting prophylactics--and thus condoning sex. Says Cory 
     Hollis, 37, a father of three in the Salt Lake City area: ``I 
     don't want to see my teenage son ruin his life. But if he's 
     going to do it, I told him that I'd go out and get him the 
     condoms myself.'' Most parents seem too squeamish to get into 
     the subtleties of instilling sexual ethics. Nor are schools 
     up to the job of moralizing. Kids say they accept their 
     teachers' admonitions to have safe sex but tune out other 
     stuff. ``The personal-development classes are a joke,'' says 
     Sarah, 16, of Pensacola. ``Even the teacher looks 
     uncomfortable. There is no way anybody is going to ask a 
     serious question.'' Says Shana, a 13-year-old from Denver: 
     ``A lot of it is old and boring. They'll talk about not 
     having sex before marriage, but no one listens. I use that 
     class for study hall.''
       Shana says she is glad ``sex isn't so taboo now, I mean 
     with all the teenage pregnancies.'' But she also says that 
     ``it's creepy and kind of scary that it seems to be happening 
     so early, and all this talk about it.'' She adds, ``Girls are 
     jumping too quickly. They figure if they can fall in love in 
     a month, then they can have sex in a month too.'' When she 
     tried discouraging a classmate from having sex for the first 
     time, the friend turned to her and said, ``My God, Shana. 
     It's just sex.''
       Three powerful forces have shaped today's child prodigies: 
     a prosperous information age that increasingly promotes  
     proudcts and entertains audiences by titillation; 
     aggressive public-policy initiatives that loudly preach 
     sexual responsibility, further desensitizing kids to the 
     subject; and the decline of two-parent households, which 
     leaves adolescents with little supervision. Thus kids are 
     not only bombarded with messages about sex--many of them 
     contradictory--but also have more private time to engage 
     in it than did previous generations. Today more than half 
     of the females and three-quarters of the males ages 15 to 
     19 have experienced sexual intercourse, according to the 
     Commission on Adolescent Sexual Health. And while the 
     average age at first intercourse has come down only a year 
     since 1970 (currently it's 17 for girls and 16 for boys), 
     speed is of the essence for the new generation. Says 
     Haffner: ``If kids today are going to do more than kiss, 
     they tend to move very quickly toward sexual 
     intercourse.''
       The remarkable--and in ways lamentable--product of youthful 
     promiscuity and higher sexual IQ is the degree to which kids 
     learn to navigate the complex hypersexual world that reaches 
     our seductively to them at every turn. One of the most 
     positive results: the incidence of sexually transmitted 
     diseases and of teen age pregnancy is declining. Over the 
     past few years, kids have managed to chip away at the teenage 
     birthrate, which in 1991 peaked at 62.1 births per 1,000 
     females. Since then the birthrate has dropped 12%, to 54.7. 
     Surveys suggest that as many as two-thirds of teenagers now 
     use condoms, a proportion that is three times as high as 
     reported in the 1970s. ``We're clearly starting to make 
     progress,'' says Dr. John Santelli, a physician with the 
     Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's division of 
     adolescent and school health. ``And the key statistics bear 
     that out.'' Even if they've had sex, many kinds are learning 
     to put off having more till later; they are also making 
     condom use during intercourse nonnegotiable; and, remarkably, 
     the fleeting pleasures of lust may even be wising up some of 
     them to a greater appreciation of love.
       For better or worse, sex-filled television helps shape 
     young opinion. In Chicago, Ryan, an 11-year-old girl, 
     intently watches a scene from one of her favorite TV dramas, 
     Dawson's Creek. She listens as the character Jen, who lost 
     her virginity at 12 while drunk, confesses to her new love, 
     Dawson, ``Sex doesn't equal happiness. I can't apologize for 
     my past.'' Ryan is quick to defend Jen. ``I think she was 
     young, but if I were Dawson, I would believe she had changed. 
     She acts totally different now.'' But Ryan is shocked by an 
     episode of her other favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 
     in which Angel, a male vampire, ``turned bad'' after 
     having sex with the 17-year-old Buffy. ``That kinda 
     annoyed me,'' says Ryan. ``What would have happened if she 
     had had a baby? Her whole life would have been thrown out 
     the window.'' As for the fallen Angel: ``I am so mad! I'm 
     going to take all my pictures of him down now.''
       Pressed by critics and lobbies, television has begun to 
     include more realistic story lines about sex and its possible 
     consequences. TV writers and producers are turning to groups 
     like the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent health-
     policy think tank, for help in adding more depth and accuracy 
     to stories involving sex. Kaiser has consulted on daytime 
     soaps General Hospital and One Life to Live as well as the 
     prime time drama ER on subjects ranging from teen pregnancy 
     to coming to terms with a gay high school athlete. Says Matt 
     James, a Kaiser senior vice president: ``We're trying to work 
     with them to improve the public-health content of their 
     shows.''
       And then there's real-life television. MTV's Loveline, an 
     hour-long Q.-and-A. show featuring sex guru Drew Pinsky (see 
     accompanying story), in drawing raves among teens for its 
     informative sexual content. Pinsky seems to be almost 
     idolized by some youths. ``Dr. Drew has some excellent 
     advice,'' says Keri, an eighth-grader in Denver. ``It's not 
     just sex, it's real life. Society makes you say you've got to 
     look at shows like Baywatch, but I'm sick of blond bimbos. 
     They're so fake. Screenwriters ought to get a life.''

[[Page S8912]]

       With so much talk of sex in the air, the extinction of the 
     hapless, sexually naive kid seems an inevitability. Indeed, 
     kids today as young as seven to 10 are picking up the first 
     details of sex even in Saturday-morning cartoons. Brett, a 
     14-year-old in Denver, says it doesn't matter to him whether 
     his parents chat with him about sex or not because he gets so 
     much from TV. Whenever he's curious about something sexual, 
     he channel-surfs his way to certainty. ``If you watch TV, 
     they've got everything you want to know,'' he says. ``That's 
     how I learned to kiss, when I was eight. And the girl told 
     me, `Oh, you sure know how to do it.' ''
       Even if kids don't watch certain television shows, they 
     know the programs exist and are bedazzled by the forbidden. 
     From schoolyard word of mouth, eight-year-old Jeff in Chicago 
     has heard all about the foul-mouthed kids in the raunchily 
     plotted South Park, and even though he has never seen the 
     show, he can describe certain episodes in detail. (He is also 
     familiar with the AIDS theme of the musical Rent because he's 
     heard the CD over and over.) Argentina, 16, in Detroit, says, 
     ``TV makes sex look like this big game.'' Her friend Michael, 
     17, adds, `They make sex look like Monopoly or something. You 
     have to do it in order to get to the next level.''
       Child experts say that by the time many kids hit 
     adolescence, they have reached a point where they aren't 
     particularly obsessed with sex but have grown to accept the 
     notion that solid courtships--or at least strong physical 
     attractions--potentially lead to sexual intercourse. Instead 
     of denying it, they get an early start preparing for it--and 
     playing and perceiving the roles prescribed for them. In 
     Nashville, 10-year-old Brantley whispers about a classmate, 
     ``There's this girl I know, she's nine years old, and she 
     already shaves her legs and plucks her eyebrows, and I've 
     heard she's had sex. She even has bigger boobs than my mom!''
       The playacting can eventually lead to discipline problems 
     at school. Alan Skriloff, assistant superintendent of 
     personnel and curriculum for New Jersey's North Brunswick 
     school system, notes that there has been an increase in mock-
     sexual behavior in buses carrying students to school. He 
     insists there have been no incidents of sexual assault but, 
     he says, ``we've deal with kids simulating sexual intercourse 
     and simulating masturbation. It's very disturbing to the 
     other children and to the parents, obviously.'' Though 
     Skriloff says that girls are often the initiators of such 
     conduct, in most school districts the aggressors are usually 
     boys.
       Nan Stein, a senior researcher at the Wesley College Center 
     for Research on Women, believes sexual violence and 
     harassment is on the rise in schools, and she says, ``It's 
     happening between kids who are dating or want to be dating or 
     used to date.'' Linda Osmundson, executive director of the 
     Center Against Spouse Abuse in St. Petersburg, Fla., notes 
     that ``it seems to be coming down to younger and younger 
     girls who feel that if they don't pair up with these guys, 
     they'll have no position in their lives. They are pressured 
     into lots of sexual activity.'' In this process of 
     socialization, ``no'' is becoming less and less an option.
       In such a world, schools focus on teaching scientific 
     realism rather than virginity. Sex-Ed teachers tread lightly 
     on the moral questions of sexual intimacy while going heavy 
     on the risk of pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. 
     Indeed, health educators in some school districts complain 
     that teaching abstinence to kids today is getting to be a 
     futile exercise. Using less final terms like ``postpone'' or 
     ``delay'' helps draw some kids in, but semantics often 
     isn't the problem. In a Florida survey, the state found 
     that 75% of kids had experienced sexual intercourse by the 
     time they reached 12th grade, with some 20% of the kids 
     having had six or more sexual partners. Rick Colonno, 
     father of a 16-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter in 
     Arvada, Colo., views sex ed in schools as a necessary evil 
     to fill the void that exists in many homes. Still, he's 
     bothered by what he sees as a subliminal endorsement of 
     sex by authorities. ``What they're doing,'' he says, ``is 
     preparing you for sex and then saying, `But don't have 
     it.' ''
       With breathtaking pragmatism, kids look for ways to pursue 
     their sex life while avoiding pregnancy or disease. Rhonda 
     Sheared, the Florida sex-ed teacher, says a growing number of 
     kids are asking questions about oral and anal sex because 
     they've discovered that it allows them to be sexually active 
     without risking pregnancy. As part of the Pinellas County 
     program, students in middle and high school write questions 
     anonymously, and, as Sheared says, ``they're always looking 
     for the loophole.''
       A verbatim sampling of some questions:
       ``Can you get AIDS from fingering a girl it you have no 
     cuts? Through your fingernails?''
       ``Can you get AIDS from `69'?''
       ``If you shave your vagina or penis, can that get rid of 
     crabs?''
       ``If yellowish stuff comes out of a girl, does it mean you 
     have herpes, or can it just happen if your period is due, 
     along with abdominal pains?''
       ``When sperm hits the air, does it die or stay alive for 10 
     days?''
       Ideally, most kids say, they would prefer their parents do 
     the tutoring, but they realize that's unlikely. For years 
     psychologists and sociologists have warned about a new 
     generation gap, one created not so much by different morals 
     and social outlooks as by career-driven parents, the economic 
     necessity of two incomes leaving parents little time for 
     talks with their children. Recent studies indicate that many 
     teens think parents are the most accurate source of 
     information and would like to talk to them more about sex and 
     sexual ethics but can't get their attention long enough. 
     Shana sees the conundrum this way: ``Parents haven't set 
     boundaries, but they are expecting them.''
       Yet some parents are working harder to counsel their kids 
     on sex. Cathy Wolf, 29, of North Wales, Pa., says she grew up 
     learning about sex largely from her friends and from reading 
     controversial books. Open-minded and proactive, she says she 
     has returned to a book she once sought out for advice, Judy 
     Blume's novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, and is 
     reading it to her two boys, 8 and 11. The novel discusses the 
     awkwardness of adolescence, including sexual stirrings. 
     ``That book was forbidden to me as a kid,'' Wolf says. ``I'm 
     hoping to give them a different perspective about sex, to 
     expose them to this kind of subject matter before they find 
     out about it themselves.'' Movies and television are a prod 
     and a challenge to Wolf. In Grease, which is rated PG and was 
     recently re-released, the character Rizzo ``says something 
     about `sloppy seconds,' you know, the fact that a guy 
     wouldn't want to do it with a girl who had just done it with 
     another guy. There's also another point where they talk about 
     condoms. Both Jacob and Joel wanted an explanation, so I 
     provided it for them.''
       Most kids, though, lament that their parents aren't much 
     help at all on sexual matters. They either avoid the subject, 
     miss the mark by starting the discussion too long before or 
     after the sexual encounter, or just plain stonewall them. ``I 
     was nine when I asked my mother the Big Question,'' says 
     Michael, in Detroit. ``I'll never forget. She took out her 
     driver's license and pointed to the line about male or 
     female. `That is sex,' she said.'' Laurel, a 17-year-old in 
     Murfreesboro, Tenn., wishes her parents had taken more time 
     with her to shed light on the subject. When she was six and 
     her sister was nine, ``my mom sat us down, and we had the sex 
     talk,'' Laurel says. ``But when I was 10, we moved in with my 
     dad, and he never talked about it. He would leave the room if 
     a commercial for a feminine product came on TV.'' And when 
     her sister finally had sex, at 16, even her mother's vaunted 
     openness crumbled. ``She talked to my mom about it and ended 
     up feeling like a whore because even though my mom always 
     said we could talk to her about anything, she didn't want to 
     hear that her daughter had slept with a boy.''
       Part of the problem for many adults is that they aren't 
     quite sure how they feel about teenage sex. A third of adults 
     think adolescent sexual activity is wrong, while a majority 
     of adults think it's O.K. and, under certain conditions, 
     normal, healthy behavior, according to the Alan Guttmacher 
     Institute, a nonprofit, reproductive-health research group. 
     In one breath, parents say they perceive it as a public-
     health issue and want more information about sexual behavior 
     and its consequences, easier access to contraceptives and 
     more material in the media about responsible human and sexual 
     interaction. And in the next breath, they claim it's a moral 
     issue to be resolved through preaching abstinence and the 
     virtues of virginity and getting the trash off TV. ``You 
     start out talking about condoms in this country, and you end 
     up fighting about the future of the American family,'' say 
     Sarah Brown, director of the Campaign Against Teen Pregnancy. 
     ``Teens just end up frozen like a deer in headlights.''
       Not all kids are happy with television's usurping the role 
     of village griot. Many say they've become bored by--and 
     even sent--sexual themes that seem pointless and even a 
     distraction from the information or entertainment they're 
     seeking. ``It's like everywhere,'' says Ryan, a 13-year-
     old seventh-grader in Denver, ``even in Skateboarding 
     [magazine]. It's become so normal it doesn't even affect 
     you. On TV, out of nowhere, they'll begin talking about 
     masturbation.'' Another Ryan, 13, in the eighth grade at 
     the same school, agrees: ``There's sex in the cartoons and 
     messed-up people on the talk shows--`My lover sleeping 
     with my best friend,' I can remember the jumping-condom 
     ads. There's just too much of it all.''
       Many kids are torn between living up to a moral code 
     espoused by their church and parents and trying to stay true 
     to the swirling laissez-faire. Experience is making many 
     sadder but wiser. The shame, anger or even indifference 
     stirred by early sex an lead to prolonged abstinence. 
     Chandra, a 17-year-old in Detroit, says she had sex with a 
     boyfriend of two years for the first time at 15 despite her 
     mother's constant pleas against it. She says she wishes she 
     had heeded her mother's advice ``One day I just decided to do 
     it,'' she says. ``Afterward, I was kind of mad that I let it 
     happen. And I was sad because I knew my mother wouldn't have 
     approved.'' Chandra stopped dating the boy more than a year 
     ago and hasn't had sex since. ``It would have to be someone I 
     really cared about,'' she says. ``I've had sex before, but 
     I'm not a slut.''
       With little guidance from grownups, teens have had to 
     discover for themselves that the ubiquitous sexual messages 
     must be tempered with caution and responsibility. It is quite 
     clear, even to the most sexually experienced youngsters, just 
     how dangerous a little information can be. Stephanie in North 
     Lauderdale, who lost her virginity two years ago, watches 
     with concern as her seven-year-

[[Page S8913]]

     old sister moves beyond fuzzy thoughts of romance inspired by 
     Cinderella or Aladdin into sexual curiosity. ``She's always 
     talking about pee-pees, she sees somebody on TV kissing and 
     hugging or something, and she says, `Oh, they had sex,' I 
     think she's going to find out about this stuff before I 
     did.'' She pauses. ``We don't tell my sister anything,'' she 
     says, ``but she's not a naive child.''

  Mr. BYRD. I yield the floor.

                          ____________________