My new novel, Social Lives, covers a variety of issues affecting super-affluent communities. I’ve written about them in my blog and elsewhere, but I have to report some disturbing new information I’ve been learning from my book tour on the issue of teenage sexuality. As a writer, this has been fascinating. But as a mother, it is nothing short of horrific. I am issuing a warning before I share these things – there is no way to avoid being a bit graphic. Just last night, I scared off a couple at a nearby table when I was telling a friend over dinner. Oops. Whatever. Get over it. This is the reality our children are facing and we have to start looking it square in the face.

So here goes. I’m going to write about blow jobs and anal sex.

From the group discussions I have been having about Social Lives and the issues that impact its characters, the following picture of teenage life has emerged. It seems that teenage girls believe the following: To have power in life, they must have power over men. To have power over men, they must have power of their penises. To have power over their penises, they can perform blow jobs. And if that doesn’t work, they can avoid the messy issues of virginity and condoms by having anal sex. Some girls are even going so far as to accept money for sex acts because this makes them feel even more “powerful.” (Read on about the book Toxic Wealth where this was reported.)

This mentality has led to some pretty deviant behavior. Take rainbow parties. Imagine your daughter invites some friends over to”hang out” in your finished basement. You leave them be, assuming they’re watching MTV or YouTube videos and gossiping about school. Now imagine coming downstairs to see if they want cookies and finding them boy-girl-boy-girl in a circle, with each girl bent over to the right, sucking on the penis of the boy next to her. Their backs are arched like “rainbows.” Isn’t that cute?

The reality seems to be that blow jobs are as common as making out used to be for old timers like me. Girls see nothing wrong with it, and boys – who are constantly let off the hook with the “boys will be boys” philosophy – are happy recipients. Add to this the fact that most of us parents hold knowledge about STD’s that is twenty years outdated, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Oral sex is rarely performed with a condom. Most STD’s can be spread orally – HIV/AIDS, gonorrhea, herpes and HPV to name a few. HPV, in turn, is now proving to be a precursor to throat and lung cancer the same way it is to cervical cancer. Think about that. Girls are handing out blow jobs like candy at Halloween, exposing themselves to incurable diseases that could lead to things like lung cancer! 

Ugh. It makes me crazy to think this is all going on and so few parents are aware of it. Or worse, they don’t see the harm and are relieved their daughters are remaining “virgins.” What good will her prolonged “virginity” do if she gets anal HPV and dies of anal cancer in her late forties? Suddenly, the picture isn’t quite so nice.

At every book reading or book club meeting, there is someone who tells me something I hadn’t heard before. One woman I met, a local psychologist named Orla Cashman, co-wrote a book called Toxic Wealth that delves into many of the social dynamics that are perpetuating these problems. It was very enlightening.

And maybe what disturbs me the most is this. How is it possible that young women in this day and age  are connecting their vision of power in this world with wrapping their mouths around a penis? These are the wealthiest girls in the world. The most educated and well-positioned. They are smart, but can’t seem to figure out that if they marry a man who is rendered vulnerable by a blow job, they are going to be in a boatload of trouble when – years down the road – some young intern moves into the cubicle outside his office. Every time a mother tells me how teenagers think today, I find myself thinking really? 

When I wrote Caitlin Barlow’s character in Social Lives, I had no idea that I was only at the tip of the ice burg. In fact, I often thought about toning down the brutality of the culture she finds herself in. I’m glad I didn’t. 

I hope parents will keep talking about this issue because it is not going away. And if my novel helped spark a few of these discussions among glasses of wine at Tuesday night book group, then I am deeply gratified. 

To learn more about these issues, please visit Planned Parenthood.org.

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