Who‘s having sex?

Dec. 13, 2006

Nearly one of three Michigan high school teenagers reported they had sex before the age of 16. That’s according to the 2005 Michigan Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
The statistic is not broken down by school district, but interestingly, the lower a teen’s grade point average, the likelier they were to have sex early on.
Gerry Chefalo, a Traverse City attorney who has defended many teens, said that he believes they are having sex younger and younger.
An area high school teacher agreed, and believes that oral and anal sex are much more common than, say, 20 years ago.
“Our kids are doing all kinds of sex. There are three groups. The kids who are not going to have sex, and are going to wait until they get married, or aren’t interested, or they have bigger plans for college, and they don’t want anything to get in their way.
“Then there is the middle group. Guys who want to have sex, but can’t find a partner, or are afraid, but feel they should be having sex because that’s what boys are supposed to do. In this group, the girls are excited by the idea that the boy likes her. They start out with oral sex because they feel it’s safer, and they’re still virgins in their own minds. And the boy gets to feel like he’s one of the guys. Now if they are boyfriend/girlfriend and in a committed relationship, they will morph to the next level and have sexual intercourse.
“The last group has sex with whomever and wherever they can, with little or no protection. We have girls who’ll sleep with someone different every weekend. Just today I overheard a girl telling her friend, ‘She was talking to me how many times she got laid this weekend.’”

LESBIAN APPROACH
The other difference from past generations is that girls are more open about exploring relationships with other girls, said the teacher.
“I had a class where I asked each of the students to talk about what was unique about themselves. One girl said, “What’s unique about me is that I discovered I was a lesbian at the age of 15.’ Some girls walk arm in arm down the halls--some are doing it for effect, and some are really exploring that kind of relationship.”
Said one senior at Traverse City Central High School: “I think it depends on the group of kids. There is obviously a group of kids, who I’d identify as players. They’re real popular, but at the same time, they’re just out to seduce girls. It’s pretty diverse, and it’s hard to tell. The people I hang out with don’t do a lot of gossiping, but there are definitely still girls with ‘reputations.’”
His younger sister, a sophomore, believes it’s ridiculous to put a teen on the sex offender registry for 25 years for having sex with a girlfriend. She believes a parent’s best weapon to prevent this is communication.
“I honestly don’t think parents can do anything about (their teen having sex). By the age of 16, they are driving, and they’re semi independent. If someone gets in that mindset, the parents can’t stop them. The parent aspect is a trust issue—my parents trust me. I am 16 and I have a 19-year-old boyfriend. He has his own house, and my parents trust me that I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. They have taught me to think through the consequences and to take responsibility for my actions.”

WHAT DO KIDS KNOW?
Students are coached in school on a whole range of topics relating to sex: good touch, bad touch, how to say no, how to understand no, that sex with a mentally disabled person is considered rape. Then there’s the whole gamut of sexually transmitted diseases and biology. In this mix, the message is not always getting through that just normal sex with a girlfriend or boyfriend under the age of sixteen can get a teen in big trouble.
Marissa Wood-Sternburgh, a senior at West Senior High School, said she did learn that underage sex is against the law, but wasn’t clear on specifics. Is it legal, she wondered, for two 15 year-olds to have sex with each other (no)? What if sex is consensual (doesn’t matter--you’re still breaking the law if the youth is under the age of 16)? Can a woman be convicted of having sex with someone under the age of 16 (yes)?

THE DARK SIDE
Not all teen prosecutions necessarily involve “innocent,” consensual sex. There is a
dark side.
“I believe that teenagers started more sex than ever before at a younger age. There are mere children, and when I say children, I mean 11, 12 years old and younger – and sometimes it’s between two children where two young boys, two eighth graders were engaged in sodomy with each other,” said attorney Gerry Chefalo.
“These children are learning this behavior from somewhere and I believe it’s adults exposing them to pornography, molestation, and taking advantage of them. That scars a child, and that child will act out on others.
“I have a case where a teenager found himself in a relationship with an adult, a homosexual man, and didn’t want his friends to think he was gay. So he went out and became very active with younger women.
He is 17 and he’s trying to prove that he’s not a homosexual to himself and to his friends, and it’s because he was molested and now has this unhealthy appetite. So that’s a crime and that could mean prison for him.”

DISTURBING CASE
Chefalo said he’s been disturbed by the unfairness of several convictions: “In one case, for example, the man was 20, and the woman was 15, but she already had a child and told the man she was 18. And it doesn’t matter what you’re told; you can still be charged. Whether or not you’re lied to about a person’s age doesn’t matter. That bothered me. I don’t think there are many 15-year-olds with a child, and it was not a forcible situation, and he is now a registered sex offender and serving a prison term.”
Like Chefalo, 13th Circuit Court Judge Phil Rodgers Jr., believes that parents enormously influence a teen’s attitude about sex. He talked about the “new, used pick-up case” in Antrim County.
“This girl was about 13, under the age of consent, and her boyfriend is older, in his early to mid 20s, somewhere in there, and the mother stood up during the hearing ostensibly to speak on behalf of her daughter, who was the victim.
“Instead, she launched into this diatribe against (Prosecutor) Charlie Koop about protecting this young man, whom she apparently admires and explained to me that her daughter was mature for her age, interested in older men, and didn’t Mr. Koop understand that the boyfriend had a new, used pick-up. It was unbelievable. I told her, ‘This isn’t Appalachia’ and I wasn’t interested in hearing any more of her comments.”
She was still yelling as she was forcibly escorted out of the courtroom.
“This is a case of a parent not wanting to be a parent, but wanting to be a friend. Some people think it’s okay that their 13-year-old daughter is involved with an adult male,” Koop said. “I am sometimes faced with what to do when meeting a 14-year-old, and the mom is letting her 17-year-old boyfriend spend the night with her on a regular basis. Sometimes we drag them into probate court.”
Parents need to tell their daughters that wearing provocative clothes to school—short skirts and skimpy, low-cut tops—send the wrong message and opens them up to unwanted sexual attention, said Renee Dean, a nurse for the Traverse City public schools.
“It’s sad when they dress like that, especially in this age of empowered women,” Dean said

‘A HORRIFIC IMPACT’
Bottom line: when it comes to teen sex, make sure your son or daughter knows the law. That not only includes under-age sex, but also possessing or posting on the Internet pornographic pictures of anyone under the age of 18.
“Very young kids are now on the computer, instant messaging, scanning, and sending digital pictures,” said Traverse City attorney Michael Long. “It has opened up a new avenue of communication that normally ended after school, which in this day and age is occurring without supervision.  In my opinion by ‘typing’ rather than ‘saying,’ normally shy, reserved kids are empowered to say and do things out of character, such as communicating in a very provocative way.  Needless to say, the ability of a minor to get on the Internet and access anything from snuff films to porn, tends to further desensitize them.”
Even women aren’t immune from prosecution. Long remembers the case of a 17-year-old Northern Michigan girl charged with having sex with her 15-year-old boyfriend. The boy’s parents insisted on prosecution, which destroyed their relationship with their son at the time.
(Interestingly, none of the 66 sex offenders for the 49684 zip code are women.)
“Almost every weekend, you’ll find people having sex in circumstances that will violate the law, and it normally comes to the attention of the prosecutor because of some parent who objects to it—and it gets prosecuted,” said a former prosecutor, who didn’t want his name used.
“It happens so often that the parents want to end the relationship, the daughter refuses, so they get the government to prosecute it for them, no matter what her feelings are. They feel she’s too young to appreciate she shouldn’t have these behaviors.”
“Young men are getting a horrific impact on their lives with these convictions, but that’s just the way it is at this point in history.”