Teenage sexuality has been a perpetual concern for parents--and for good reason. In our own times, American teenagers have unprecedented opportunities to experiment sexually and they are bombarded with cultural messages that encourage sexual experimentation and promiscuity. In a very real sense, the chickens have come home to roost as this nation faces the inevitable result of a breakdown in sexual morality.
A shocking portrait of the new shape of teenage sexual activity is provided in a cover story published in the February 6, 2006 edition of New York. In "Love and the Ambisexual, Heteroflexible Teen," Alex Morris introduces us to the "cuddle puddle" of New York City's Stuyvesant High School. Brace yourselves--this is a shocking form of reality therapy.
Morris first introduces his readers to Alair, a sixteen-year-old junior at Stuyvesant High School. Alair is dressed in a tight white tank top that is cut off above the hem in order to expose her midriff. She accessorizes with a black leather belt that features metal chains and studs, and she attracts a great deal of attention as she walks down the halls of her very selective high school.
Alair is on her way to the "cuddle puddle" that takes place during the students' free tenth period of the day. As Morris describes the scene, "There are girls petting girls and girls petting guys and guys petting guys." Alair quickly connects with Jane and Elle, fellow juniors at the high school. "All three have hooked up with each other. All three have hooked up with boys--sometimes the same boys. But it's not that they're gay or bisexual, not exactly. Not always," Morris advises. The boys and girls of the "cuddle puddle" are experimenting with sexuality in all of its varied forms--and this will stretch the imagination of most adults.
"With teenagers there is always a fair amount of posturing when it comes to sex," Morris admits, "a tendency to exaggerate or trivialize, innocence mixed with swagger. It's also true that the 'puddle' is just one clique at Stuyvesant and that Stuyvesant can hardly be considered a typical high school. It attracts the brightest public-school students in New York, and that may be an environment conducive to fewer sexual inhibitions. 'In our school,' Elle says, 'people are getting a better education, so they're more open-minded.'"
In other words, the "cuddle puddle" at this New York high school is not fully representative of adolescents across the nation, but it may soon be. Indeed, data released by the National Center for Health Statistics indicates that eleven percent of American girls age fifteen to nineteen reported same-sex sexual encounters.
As Morris explains, "More girls are experimenting with each other, and they're starting younger." Many analysts believe that these numbers are actually under-reported. One researcher indicates that as many as twenty percent of teenage girls experiment sexually with another girl during their teenage years.
"Go to the schools, talk to the kids, and you'll see that somewhere along the line this generation has started to conceive of sexuality differently." No kidding. The teenagers at this high school greet each other sexually, grabbing various body parts, the way students used to slap each other on the back or the way adults shake hands.
The difference in the way these teenagers conceive sexuality has led some child-development specialists to identify them as the "post-gay" generation.
Homosexuality--lesbianism in particular--is seen as a developmental stage or as a completely valid lifestyle choice. The participants in the "cuddle puddle" tend to think of themselves as more than heterosexual or homosexual. As they have collected and coined words to describe themselves, they use terms like "polysexual, ambisexual, pansexual, pansensual, polyfide, bi-curious, bi-queer, fluid, meteroflexible, heteroflexible, heterosexual with lesbian tendencies" or "just sexual." As Morris concedes, "The terms are designed less to achieve specificity than to leave all options open."
