Caitlin Flanagan writes in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly about the apparent rise in casual oral sex among early teens, or more specifically about the phenomenon of girls performing fellatio on boys without any expectation of reciprocity, love, commitment, whatever.
Several people have told me enough anecdotes about this for me to believe it's really true.
Typically, the reaction is something like Flanagan's:
Obviously, there was no previous data to compare this with, but millions of suburban dads were quite adamant that they had been born too soon.
Suburban dads who don't have teenage daughters, I would imagine.
What to make of this?
The teenagers, according to Flanagan, seem to think it's no big deal, and I'm sure that's how they say it, oblivious to the pun. My main reaction was to be pretty shocked. These kids are too young to be getting that much into it; is there something wrong with the girls' self esteem that they think it's ok to simply be of service that way; are these boys going to grow up thinking that a blow job is something they can get from pretty much anyone at any time; etc.
And let me interject here that if I have to choose between drugs, alcohol, car theft, vandalism, etc. or lots of oral sex for our teenagers, I'd have to say "go with oral sex."
But since that's a dilemma many would say is false, I thought of another explanation. And it's this:
If we can agree that teenage years is all about boys trying to deal with their libido, and girls dealing with the boys' libido; then blow jobs just might be the way girls can get the boys under control. Boys who arrive at parties blown will generally behave better; boys who are satisfied in one way are less likely to insist on being satisfied in others.
I don't know if this is the case, but it does make some sense. Doesn't it?
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