teens more slutty now than they used to be? i don't think so.

Do you ever get sick of turning on the TV and seeing yet another show about how "kids these days" are so out of control? If it isn't some drunken celebutante flashing her lack of underwear, it's an exposé on the dangers of hook-up culture.

Give me a break.  In reality, most girls aren't having IM affairs with every guy in school, or going to wild oral sex parties. Often, what they are actually doing is not so different from what their parents were doing at the same age.

In fact, in many ways today's teens are making better choices than the kids I knew in high school back in the nineties.  Want proof?

Just check out the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which was started in 1990 to monitor teen health hazards.

The most recent findings challenge a lot of common assumptions. Here are a few:

1. In 2005, only 47% of teen girls had been sexually active by the time they graduated from high school.  This is a significant decrease from the 54% who had been sexually active in high school in 1991.
2. The amount of teens who had sex with four or more people dropped from almost 19% in 1991 to 14% in 2005.
3. Teens who are having sex seem to be making better choices.  Condom use has increased dramatically from 46% in 1991 to a very impressive 63% in 2005.

No one is going to argue that being a teen today is exactly the same as it was in the past--cell phones and the Internet are a pretty concrete example of that.  But new gadgets aren't the only sign of the times. So next time someone starts to mutter about your wild generation, feel free to set the record straight. Unless, of course, you disagree with me. If so, definitely let me know in the comments.

Comments

[Mollie]

I could go both ways with this subject. Not all teens are slutty, but there are many that are. I also agree with a few posts that are talking about how girls at a younger age are acting and dressing much more mature than they should. Also, it does seem that they are having sex at a much younger age. Many think it is the only way to get someone to love them. Their perception is distorted and they need someone to tell them they need to dress and act their age.
I'm a senior in high school, graduating tomorrow, and through my high school career I have known at least 7 girls that went to my school that got pregnant. Something should be done about all of that.

[dev]

im going to have to agree with lillian. arte girs sluttier today more than 10 years ago? No. Are they starting to act slutty younger ? absoloutly. i think thats where this idea comes form. becaus we have 10-13 year olds looking like what most people call something allong the lines of a "prosta-tot" "mini-whore" or mini anthing else that inferseasy skanky etc. people think that because girls are dreesing this way younger that they are starting other actions younger too and there for getting ahead of them selves bby their mid teamns. not always true but as some of u have said, weve all seen maury, dr.phil, tyra banks ec. where some 15 yr old girl is 8 mothns pregnant and her birthday was yesterday. so are some young girls way ahead of their time sexually, no doubt about it. is that the norm absoloutly not!

[Amir]

yeah teens are much slutty then they use 2 be cause we got girls now that having babies at the age of 12 and thats sad cause thats like giving yo whole life away and freedom away. then they having sex as young 10?i mean what's going on with our parents they have a affect on this too cause maybe if they will be in our life more maybe all this having a baby at 12 might stop. but then again wht do i know im only 13 but im a VEARY SMART GURL

[Rhi]

It's stupis to say girls are sluttier. they aren't, its just deemed more acceptable to have sex, also some girls are pressured into it by guys who then dump them, shouldn't we call the guy a pig and not the girl a slut? why call each other names when we cant say why the girl is having sex, some find it fun, and some like feeling close to that special guy, leave them alone, the ones of us who have had sex dont victimise virgins, so the virgins shouldn't call us sluts because we dont want to wait!!!

[Taylor]

No matter the situation.. even back in the modest days there were always the 'sluts'... which the sluts back then are now how the modest girls of today are.

catch my drift?
every generation is so called worse

get over it.

let teens be teens.

[Mz. Em]

What scares me is that many of the pregnant teens who come to our clinic, come the first time for a pregnancy test. If you know you can come to us, why not come to us before it's an emergency? If you know you can get birth control without your parents consent or knowledge (atleast in Virginia) why not do it?

[Lexie]

Idk. I've never found sex to be a big deal. It's fun, when you do it with all the percausions taken. I've had sex with 5 people. My first time was last year, eighth grade. Sex is just more public than it used to be. They can use the media to broadcast new "teen sex-life statistics". And, the media is filled with sex-filled ads, movies, and tv shows. It's not as crude to show that stuff in public so it just seems girls are sluttier.

[mbelle]

Oh the 60-70's were just as "worse". Ever heard of freaking key parties?

On a different note, I've only had and still have one sexual partner, my fiancee. Still, my dad probably deems me rebellious and compromising my dignity for sleeping with the man I love before marriage. To which, I say, "what the fk ever". At least, I know I'm 100% compatible with him on ALL levels. I'm 25 years old and remained a virgin only until last year. It's ridiculous for people to think it's any worst today but the news and media make it appear that way. You will always have the one half that is more promiscuous and the other half that is more tamed. This has been going on for centuries.

[Pilar]

oh BOO.
teens are more sluttier nowadays.
im a PV ( proud virgin)
and im hearing about 7th graders fingering on the back of the bus, freshman and sophomores having sex, etc.
cmon dont act all innocent out there. jesus

[shelby]

i think the common misconception that teens nowadays are sluttier than they used to be. i believe that it has to do with teens are more comfortable with their sexuallity and are able to talk more openly about it. just because my friends like to point out that i have huge boobs doesn't mean i'm slutty. or the fact that i can talk freely to my buds about my sexual history (or lack there of) with out the fear of being looked down upon. Its just that teens now are more blatent about their sexual practices than they were back in the day

[mandi]

Okay...This is to every gurl who said gurls are slutier these days...We are all gurls and every one of us have done things to try to get guys to notice us it could be something as little as smileing at him in class or to dressing revealing...what im trying to say is that you can't talk about other girls being sluts and how bad they are...do you know there was prostitutes back in the bible days Where "sluts" orignated? Its a true fact...but we are all girls "sluty" "prep" "goth" "nerd" or whatever other label you want to put on eachother....the point is we shouldn't be dissing or bashing other girls we should be defending eachother to guys who call us shit like "SLUTS" no one wants to be called that...Why do you think gurls act sluty? GUYS!!!..... so next time you think "GOD she's such a slut" insted try "GOD he's such a PIG" gurls we can't call aother gurls sluts its not right!!!!!

[Chloe]

I dont beleive that anything is "sexier" than before. It's only evolution and discovering who you truly are. Sexy comes in all shapes and sizes.

[kiki]

I agree. TV keeps putting out sex and because people watch it they continue to play it. Not to diss it because i too watch it. Parent need to just chill on the whole 'ur gonna get prego and die' yadda yadda yadda.

[Joanna]

Here's what is so ridiculous about people thinking girls now are sluttier - teens, especially late teens want to have sex. And it's always been that way. Just notice how our parents, and even moreso our grandparents got married super young so they could DUN DUN DUN have sex! but look what happened to them? They're all getting divorced! So now- i think our generation - instead of marrying a bunch we're going to have sex a bunch and then get married later :)

[Numblina]

Well, by my towns definition it seems , being a slut isn't just sleeping around. Many girls are simply teases nowadays, giving hand jobs, oral, etc., and wearing revealing clothes, often running around in tiny revealing skirts and low cut camis out and about our cold coastal town, even now, in the dead of winter. That in our book classifies as a slutty act. Teens in our area who have sex are usually referred to as whores though, which I know is inacurate, however many of the girls who are performing sexual acts do charge.

I think the term slut is more of an opinion than fact, so I'm not sure if even these statistics could prove 'sluttiness' over time.

[Victorians]

It depends on the girl. There were sluts back in the day, they just had different names. Like floozie or whatever.

Also, the whole women's rights thing... part of it was fighting for the right to express our libido just as much as men do. Some girls, true, do abuse it.

But I'm fairly sexual and by no means am a slut.

[kassie]

YES, girls are sluttier now. In my old school girls would wear tops that show of their boobs just to get guys to like them. They also wore skirts with no underwear that showed their asses and vaginas. This was disgusting!!! Girls need to learn to have self respect and wear some damn clothes!!!

[kassie]

YES, girls are sluttier now. In my old school girls would wear tops that show of their boobs just to get guys to like them. They also wore skirts with no underwear that showed their asses and vaginas. This was disgusting!!! Girls need to learn to have respect and wear some damn clothes!!!

[Emma]

I sort of believe this, though not all girls are running around doing the first guy they see, neither are they all talking to pedophiles online, which seems to me like all the parents thinks what we are doing, and were not.

It's ridiculous today, the amount of sex and stuff thats in the news, tv shows, and stuff like that, its hard being a teenager now, its very hard, exams, peer pressure; pressure to have sex, do drugs etc. But it was still hard back then, very hard, but i still dont know weather girls are slutter more now than they were then, could be, could not.

[Marina]

Well ...it's all a matter of perspective. Perhaps, more teens ARE having non marital sex much more than they did in the past, but dont forget, many teens were also married soon after graduating high school anyways (if not pre-grauation)! So, you really have to take all of these things into perspective!

[Zalex]

But I have a feeling that since 2005, things have changed (negatively).

[Domonique]

This is a hard quesiton to answer. From the beginning of time women have been held down, and couldn't do many things. And for a long time women were "supposed" to be VIRGINS, until whatever man their family chose for them to marry has sex with them. Women's wants and needs as far as sex goes weren't important. So if the women from the past had the freedom we have today I don't know if they would behave like we do or not. I will say that a lot of women today do not carry themselves respectfully. I always say wear what you feel but I think you disrespect yourself and others by showing up to class in a skirt so short people can see your panties.

[Dizzle]

I think that nowadays knowing alot about sex means your a slut. ALot of older people in my family think that people talk to kids about sex they will prone to do it more. I think that people were sluttier back then because no one ever talked about it. They didn't know what was right or wrong.

[Cari]

In my opinion, it's near impossible to compare the promiscuousness of one generation of girls to another. Fashions change, the world changes, and definitions of what is promiscuous change. Remember those women in the early 1900s who created havoc by wearing one-piece bathing suits that by modern standards would be considered modest? Girls today do seem to want to grow up fast--to wear makeup and short skirts and to attract boys--but this doesn't necessarily mean that they run around performing random sex acts all the time. In the past, sex was less blasé. People didn't talk about it as openly.
So, yes, this article is interesting and raises important questions. Nevertheless, I don't think we can judge how "slutty" today's teenagers are.
:)

[Candied Sugar]

Just a note; this decade isn't the one called the era of the miniskirt, either! I never see girls around here in anything 'sluttier' than a miniskirt, and even then most girls wear trousers. I think people often mistake knowledge of sex for slutty behaviour and it annoys me SO. MUCH.

[Brooke]

I think that teens now days are definatly exposed to more then they used to be. I went to high school in the late 90's early 2000's. Tv used to not have as much cussing or be so sexual. I love to watch old 80's sitcome reruns when they talked about sex it was a very special episode. Now when they talk about sex it's just any old episode. Plus I think a lot of teen girls do dress sexier. I know the fashions of the 80's early 90's were not all that sexy for teen girls. Now it's all the rage for girls to bare their mid drifts, wear short skirts and low cut tops. Plus teen girls seem to be developing early then they used to. you can see 12 year old girls that look like they are 16 or 17. I mean look at the singer Jo Jo she was 13 when she came out and I thought she was at least 16 maybe 17. All that said that doens't mean that all girls are having sex. I know I waited till I was out of high school to ever have sex. I think the ones who are doing stuff are giving a bad rap to ones who aren't.

[Danielle]

I personally don't agree with all this. In todays world, it's almost like a crime to be a virgin and giving a blow job now is like the same as a hello.

[lillian]

I can't agree with this 100%. The way girls act and are targeted today is at times highly innappropriate. Pick up any magazine and while they're telling you not to have sex and starve yourself, they're hurling false images of scantily clad models/actresses attached to some 'perfect' male.

When I was age 12 I was still wearing overalls. Look at your average 12 year old nowadays and she's sporting a mini-skirt and pressuring her mum into letting her wear a padded bra to account for the fact that she hasn't actually developed yet. It's like they're missing this whole transitional stage, skipping some vital kid years to dress up much older than they should. By the time they're sixteen they are having sex or engaging in other sexual acts and drinking probably more than they should.

So are girls sluttier than they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago? Perhaps, perhaps not. I refuse to listen to statistics based on the fact that you cannot assess everybody and people lie out of fear, but regardless, I think there is something seriously wrong with the way teenage girls are being brought up in todays society.

[Senny]

I so agree. Thank you for posting this artical!! My moms always trying to keep me away from the real world, as she says and I quote ''Senny I just dont want you to get pregnant!'' She also likes to say she doesn't want me to make the same mistakes she made...Sometimes I just want to go up behind her and smack her in the back of the head! (: I'm not going to make the same mistakes she made, I'm going to make my own mistakes!! Being a teen these days is alot harder then it was back in the 60-90's!! It really is. Our parents and grandparents my say otherwise...I mean we are alot smarter about what we do..We have condoms and BC, we have sex smarts!! I am pretty up front with my mom about everything, I have a bf who I have been having sex with ''w/pertection'' but I have made the decision to go on birth control too!...Where I live and this is so sad half the girls in my school are pregnant, hell half the girls in my town are pregnant! My grandmother tells me not to hang out with prego girls..LoL How stupid...Anyways Im Out

[bennita]

Finally i could get this off my chest, o.k, first of all girls have much better things to do than think about sex all the time. Parents are the ones who've gotten worser.What ever happened to the parents back in the 60's or 70's who had trust in their kids, they went out with their friends, boyfriends and to the movies and fun stuff like that.Now i cant even do things i want without being integergated.That sucks.

[babs]

i agree...BUT i know some girls who are complete whores and just don't care. i'm sure there were such girls back then but still.

you know, i think that it's just that people are actually talking about it more that makes it seem like all teens are sex-crazed these days. most of us are not.

[Ariana]

I completly agree with this article, but dont just think about the 90's. In the 60's-70's wasnt everyone getting high and making bad choices including sex. So good for you for standing up to all the people who say this era is overpopulated with plastic bimbos and sluts galore.

[Ali]

I agree with this article entirely. Another fact that people seem to over look, although was mentioned by another girl in this section, is that people are getting married a lot older then they used to. In the middle ages people were married when they were 13 or 14 and having kids soon after. Even more resently in the 50's people were getting married right out of high school more often then nowadays. If someone gets married when they are 20 people often saw they are too young to be.

[cutie_89]

i agree with this text completely. i happen to know that my mom lost her virginity at the age of 15 while i lost mine when i was 17. also she openly tells me that in her time they didn't know about AIDS and other STDs so they didn't bother with condoms.

[Cherise]

I completly agree! I mean I don't do any of the things that are portrayed on television these days. I hate it when my famiy make it out to say that I am. I mean by the looks of it, it seems that they did that when they were in highschool. I'm not that kind of person. I mean I'm not saying there aren't kids that do that kind of thing but all I know is that I;m not one of them.

[Gia]

I totally agree with this entire article! I definitely believe those in the "baby boomer" or "generation x" times were crazier because they didn't have as much education as we do today. I mean, sure people today are still crazy, but you're completely right in saying that it's the same things their parents were doing when they were teenagers too.

[Kimma]

This is great! an adult who agrees with teens these days. Some things on T.V. gives your parents bad ideas. I think that if we're open with your parents about opinions & feelings, then we wouldn't need things like this to prove facts. now i'm not saying i'm gonna go run to talk to my parents, but this was a nice addition if I ever want to.

[Raven]

Ha im sooo glad i read this its a really good artical and i really dont think this generaition is worse like my mom was sexually active at like flippen 12 and she was drinking and sneeking out to parties with guys that were like 19 and im sure she did wayyy more and her first child she had at like 20 was a mistake sooo like i know im wayy better then her aha like she was crazy aha

[jess]

I agree with this, by looking at the statistics.
But like stated above the 90's wasn't that long ago. Teens now-a-days are more educated about sex than they were in the 50's-90's and it's definitely not as taboo as it used to be...which is probably why statistics show less teens are actually doing it.

[Mari]

I'm not surprised at this, but on the other hand, the 90's weren't that long ago...like from looking at the picture I figured it would compare it to the time period that my grandparents or parents were growing up in, and not like, my older cousin. My mom was out of high school by the late 70's.

[KIKI]

I AGREE THAT THEY WERE TEN TIMES WORSE IN THE 60S AND 70S. I THINK NOW PEOPLE ARE REALLY STARTING TAKE A DEEPER LOOK INTO THE ISSUES INVOLVING TEENS HAVING SEX AND THATS PROBABLY WHY THEIR SO SHOCKED BY IT BECAUSE IF THEY TOOK A DEEPER LOOK IN THE STUFF THAT WAS HAPPENING DURRING THOSE DECADES THEY WOULD HAD THE SAME RESPONSE. IT JUST THE SAME WITH DRUGS AND PERSONALLY I BLAME THAT ON THOSE TWO DECADES. THAT WAS WHEN IT WAS GETTING INTRODUCED AND LOOK AT OUR GENERATION NOW BECAUSE OF IT.

[Faffy (on gurl)]

WHOOOO!

FINALLY. Some adults AGREE with me on this! I knew that it was always the same, despite time periods. Something just told me that everyone wasn't all completely "pure" back then either.

Great, great article.

[andrea]

oh and btw, remember a long time ago girls used to get married at 13 and have kids by the age of 16. yes it happens today that girls are pregnant by the age of 16, but at least its not COMMON, thats why they talk about it on tv and radio, because it is UNCOMMON, not like before!

[andrea]

i couldnt agree more!! parents are always talking about "kids these days" who are wild and always get tattoos which means theyre "crazy" and "crazy" piercings. and they only think about making love and screwing ppl. that is so not true!!! i am SO glad to hear that at least one adult agrees with me!!! YAY YOU!!! :)

[Brittany]

I really agree with that not everyone is acting like they have no control of their bodies. Not saying some people don't but most girls are not having sex with everyone they see. We as young girls think about many things not just sex. The media makes it out that we are all about sex and have no other interest.

[bernadette]

I think that we're becoming smarter about sex but it doesn't help that the government only funds abstinence-only education. That's not realistic; some people are going to have sex no matter what, especially in a country where adults, on average, have sex after only 3 dates. And as for the older people, they should get a sex re-education. The spread AIDS in the 60+ community is becoming really serious because they're not using condoms.

[Abbi]

I don't think we should be comparing ourselves to the '90's. I think now, compared to then, it's almost a no-brainer that we're protecting ourselves better: We're better informed now. However, I expected to see comparisons to times that are longer ago (Such as the forties and fifties) when reading the article, not to times that are so recent. You can hardly call the nineties "The good old days." I doubt the increase/decrease of teen sex or protection use has been steady: There have obviously been spikes in behaviors along with new scientific evidence or cultural expectations. I'm sure these statistics would be very different if we actually did compare them to our parents' or grandparents' times!

[Jessy]

I agree. Espescially about the condom use!

[sunshine]

well i even have to agree, i myself have had sex, but only w/ one guy and me and him plan on getting married soon.At my school though alot of teens are having sex, but they are usually very smart about it. "back in the day" there probably were just as many teens having sex as there is now. Our generation is just way more open about it.

[Rachel]

I completely agree that we aren't any crazier. I hear all the time about kids my age nowadays who realy aren't going to have sex any time soon. It's simply that we are more open about it so you always see it on tv. Also, tv targets people who are very sexually active so it portrays all of us as being stupid sexfiends. I'm sure teens have always been having just as much, or more sex. They just shut up about it.