Here's data on the "Percentage of Never Married Teen Males Ages 15 to 19 Who Have Had Oral Sex, by Sex Type and Sexual Experience, 1995 and 2002" (table 1):
| 1995 | 2002 | |||
| Given oral sex | Received Oral sex | Given oral sex | Received Oral sex | |
| Total | 38.6 | 49.4 | 38.4 | 51.2 |
| Hispanic | 36.8 | 43.6 | 35.5 | 47.3 |
| Non-Hispanic white | 41.8 | 50.8 | 44.2 | 52.9 |
| Non-Hispanic black | 20.5 | 47.1 | 20.5 | 56.6 |
| Have not had sexual intercourse | 11.7 | 15.4 | 12.8 | 20.7 |
| Hispanic | 8.7 | 9.6 | 5.4 | 14.8 |
| Non-Hispanic white | 12.8 | 16.7 | 15.1 | 22.9 |
| Non-Hispanic black | 1.1 | 5.6 | 5.9 | 19.9 |
| Have had sexual intercourse | 60.8 | 77.4 | 65.5 | 83.5 |
| Hispanic | 57.4 | 68.3 | 59.7 | 73.2 |
| Non-Hispanic white | 70.5 | 84.6 | 80.4 | 90.2 |
| Non-Hispanic black | 26.1 | 59.1 | 28.2 | 75.6 |
Even in 2002, the "received" fraction exceeds "given" by nearly 13%, and even more among some ethnic groups. Say what you will about raising a generation of teenagers who have more premarital sex than before (in my view, that's pretty troubling in some ways, inevitable in many ways, obviously less troubling once we get higher in the age range, just fine and on balance quite pleasant for many teenagers who have sex safely and responsibly, and very bad for many teenagers and adults who don't have sex safely and responsibly). But regardless of all that, there's just no excuse for raising a generation of selfish cads.
Among girls, by the way (table 2), the direction of the difference is similar — more reported having received than given — but by a smaller percentage (6% overall). For whatever it's worth, among the richer teenagers (family income at 300% or more of poverty), both males and females have more oral sex, and the "selfishness gap" declines, though the data I cite doesn't control for race or for family structure.
The data of course reports only whether respondents have had oral sex at least once; it doesn't report on the frequency of giving and of receiving. My fear is that the selfishness gap there will be even greater ....
1 - Although I first thought of this as reflecting heterosexual oral sex, that does not (from the copied table) appear to be the case.
2 - Keeping my initial assumption in mind, there is an a priori judgment being made that there is an equivalence between a male giving oral sex and a male receiving oral sex (put in terms of the male since that is apparently the data's perspective). A selfish cad, after all, is one who unduly receives more than he gives (as at least a limiting factor), but the only way we can make that comparison (from this data) is by assent to the initial assumption I mention. Although that assumption may be initially tempting, I think it should quickly crumble under interrogation, and I think it reflects a range of underlying judgments about value subject to significant controversy.
Seriously, though, this is the data on oral sex -- according to this source (and echoed by Michael et al., though for older cohorts), 15-to-19-year-old blacks are more likely to have had sex than 15-to-19-year-old whites, and the total number of sexual partners generally is somewhat higher for blacks than for whites. I don't attach any moral labels to this, but I mention it to respond to Justin's assertion.
I guess that makes black teens "sluttier" than white teens, right Justin?
Seriously though, Georgia should just indict every male who attended highschool prior to 2006. Send the entire state to jail, except for those who were so spotty and overweight that they didn't even have a "band camp" story. An excellent reason to stay away from jurisdictions that are so repressive as to outlaw behaviour between consenting adults or between similar age peers who are almost adults. This is likely constitutional, as the old Texas Sodomy law should have been, but profoundly silly and stupid.
Prof. Volokh is deeply wrong in accepting that this behaviour should be illegal. A just and equal application of the law would see dramatic fractions of the population locked up, and thus the law is simply a tool for prosecutorial oppression and abuse.
It is bad enough when we don't enforce the speed limit laws because they are unrealistic and illiberal but keep them on the books and apply them unevenly and unpredictably, but it is fundamentally evil when serious crimes (I think a year in jail for a misdemeanour is serious punishment, though much less than 10 years) are crafted and applied in this manner.
Example -- you have a couple where one party has both given and received, and did not enjoy receiving. The other party has neither given nor received. Party #1 is not interested in receiving, so Party #2 does not count as a giver. They both are game for Party #2 to try the experience. So in this case, Party #1 gets counted as both a giver and a receiver, while Party #2 only gets counted as a receiver. (This is true even in those cases where Party #2 does not enjoy the experience and they never repeat it -- since the question is about "at least once").
In one of the earlier posts, a statistic was quoted that 60% of Americans enjoy oral sex. If true, the 40% who don't make up a sizeable block of people...
These numbers are just so dry. How about some juicy details to perk the interst?
But regardless of all that, there's just no excuse for raising a generation of selfish cads.
Is this based solely on the give/receive discrepancy, or are you somehow blaming males for mutually consensual sex? Or are you saying its bad for males to be a receiver and not a giver but its OK for females?
Altho I don't know if I'd trust ANY poll given to 15-19 year olds.
As to blaming the males for mutually consensual sex, I'm not proposing that someone pass a law criminalizing giving but not getting -- I'm just suggesting (partly tongue-in-cheek) that it's not very nice. And not very nice behavior can happen even if it is "consensual" in a legal sex.
Males, 2002:
35.2% had both given and received
3.6% had only given
16.3% had only received (the "cads")
Females, 2002:
38.9% had both given and received
4.7% had only given
10.7% had only received (the "fem-cads"?)
So it is true that males have a higher cad-to-altruist ratio than females. But it's also true that a substantial number of both males and females demonstrate cad-ish behavior (16.3% and 10.7% respectively).
We should also note that the largest subgroup for both sexes is the "both given and received" cadre. Of coursed, we don't know anything about the frequency; maybe there are lots of males who have only given once and received every time. The data aren't specific enough to answer that question.
1)Truthful reporting across key cross-sections: Since Eugene's post is about the comparative rate of giving/receiving across gender and race, it doesn't really matter if teenagers lie about their sexual experience, as long as the lies are symmetric cross-sectionally. However, we have good reason (mostly cultural) to believe that teenage boys will overstate the case while teenage girls will understate the case. I have no idea about race, but it is entirely possible (again, for cultural reasons) that race might affect boastfullness or bashfullness in question answering.
2)The "slut/stud" factor: these types of surveys are often statistically off, because although many teens have had a few sexual experiences, the majority of teens have not had many partners, while a small minority teens have had a large number of partners. This explains why the classic "how many heterosexual sexual partners have you had?" question routinely shows men with more partners than women. It's simple: if all of the 2000 boys in the high school sleep with some percentage of the same 30 girls, we have 60000 sexual encounters total for both girls and boys. But if we take a 10% sample (plenty large for polling purposes), we will find that 100% of the boys have had sex, with many reporting more than 5 sexual partners, some reporting more than 10, and some reporting more than 20, but 98% of the girls will have had zero partners and 2% will have had "more than 20"). Turn those kind of statistics into a bar chart, and it looks very strange. Most people just assume that kids are lying, but it's really an artifact.
3)Attitudes about oral sex: This is related to #1, and I was surprised Eugene had not mentioned it. Many girls (and many women) are squeemish about receiving oral sex. It might be that a large part of the selfishness gap is girls/women refusing to accept oral sex that is offered by their partner. Very few men behave as such. I would like to see some stats on the number of women 15-19 who have been offered oral sex by their partner but turned it down. It's a non-trivial amount, I'm betting.
Had an interesting conversation one time with my friend Butch (called that because he isn't very.) He claims that when one is young, the focus is on getting oral sex (and so giving might be more about reciprocity) but that as one ages, the focus tends to shift to being more interested in giving.
So who's doing who a favor isn't clear just from the behaviors. Questions for further research include who's doing what to whom, why, and what do they claim or admit to.
"Cad" is an adjective used exclusively for men, which is why I asked for clarification. I think its out of place in this context. First, because it is archaic. Second, because it doesn't accurately describe what is going on. Since what we are talking about is consensual, there could be all kinds of things going on. Some women may not like or be comfortable receiving, in which case it isn't the male's fault if he was willing. And if it was a real concern the giver could stop giving to the non-reciprocating partner.
Now "cad" could apply to some other behavior in modern dating, most centering around dishonesty - like lying to someone to get them in bed, cheating on someone you have an exclusivity agreement with, etc. (Which is why I, for one, don't do these things.) Of course modern women basically do as much cheating as modern men, so using the term "cad" is inaccurate since it is focused on males.
For instance many girls I know are much more hesitant to recieve oral sex than to give it. Receiving in some sense puts you in a more vulnerable position and requires greater trust than merely giving.
As an aside oral sex is definitely something that ought to be presented to kids as a good alternative to actual sex. It has very low incidence of HIV transmission and almost no pregnancy risk.
Miss Manners has said this "There is a moral underlining to manners but the sex life is not part of that." She has also said this, "I'd like to make a case for prudery." And so, I think she would decline to participate in this discussion.
Now, since I am not Miss Manners, I would like to add I am dubious of theseclaims that young women are declining offers to receive while being perfectly willing to give.
I should think the opposite is more likely. After all, I have heard rumors that some men, particularly young ones, often can't perform satisfactorily after receiving. Might this not be a reason some young men prefer to give but not receive? Thus clearing those poor girls of the slur of caddishness?
How about, *no* sex should be presented as a good alternative to actual sex for "kids"? Good grief. Oral and other sex is still sex, and still has a lot (albeit less) of the same physical and emotional consequences you might want to encourage kids to be avoiding, at the very least while they're still teenagers.
Sorry, I'm supposed to be taking this all tongue-in-cheek, but even if the statistics aren't skewed, they're still too high.
And it's true... BGates wins.
I'd think surveyors specifically wanting to measure the indicated civility gap accurately would want to include a query for those who have either received/given oral sex, as to how often they offered reciprocation or were offered by the partner.
But it's just a matter of prurient interest....
While I doubt Ms. Manners would be inclined to be specific about this matter, I believe she might be willing to offer more general advice:
Disclaimer: I am not Judith Martin, and don't even have half of her level of class.
For example, if the participants find themselves in a parked car, it will simply be easier, as a
physical/logistical matter, for the female to give than receive.
In any event, the WashPost had a series of stories about sex...and not sex... in the Northern Va...Virginia suburbs, and, if memory servies, the percents of males and females getting and giving...not sex...was about the same.
Criminalizing behavior that virtually every teenager today engages in just breeds contempt for the law as a whole, and in the case of that law in particular, and the legislature that enacted it, the contempt is richly deserved. Hell would freeze over before I'd vote for a prosecutor that brought that case. Heck, I'd donate money to his opponent.
And in Georgia, that they'd had oral sex made matters worse. Until 1998, oral sex between husband and wife was illegal, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. In Wilson's case, even though he is only two years older than the girl, she was 15 and — willing or not — could not consent legally that night.
I guess down in Georgia they call that "traditional values." Well thank God I don't live in Georgia.
I'm not sure how you mean this question, but I have no problems recommending that teenagers, in particular, stay away from oral sex. I don't know how telling my kids that they shouldn't have sex, but it's okay to stick their faces in someone's genital area for similar effect, would really square. Stick to kissing. As for myself, sure, since I also have no problem following that advice for myself (being committed to waiting until marriage to have sex). But while the vast majority of people would disagree with my decision as an adult, I don't see why it should be at all controversial to state that it's not a good thing to be encouraging teenagers to have oral sex (or sex at all), and it's not a good thing these numbers are so high.
If this is true, I am very worried. If you don't want to have intercourse, then don't! Don't let a guy push you and manipulate you and demand it of you. There is absolutely no reason that she can't reciprocate in kind if that is what she would prefer.
In the end, though, I agree with Kim: kids shouldn't be having sex of any sort.
I'm not going back until they declare amnesty.
I think recent events in Georgia have shown that its citizens cannot rely on prosecutorial discretion or jury nullification to protect them from insane statutes.
The data of course REPORT only whether respondents have had oral sex at least once; THEY DON'T report on the frequency of giving and of receiving.
For the cad-factor analysis, I think you’re using a needlessly poor proxy. I went to a different report on the same data in order to source the cohort sizes (the cohort sizes proved to be quite similar hence unimportant; you could actually infer what turns out to be a reasonable estimate from the report Prof. Volokh cited).
The cad factor analysis should really use a statistic more along the lines of:
In which case the cad factor looks like this:
All ages 15-19 (2002)
Population: 55% of teenagers has some oral experience (male = 55%, female =54%)
Cad factor: 25% of teenagers having some oral experience did not give (male = 30%, female = 20%)
15 year olds (2002)
Population: 31% of teenagers has some oral experience (male = 35%, female =26%)
Cad factor: 45% of teenagers having some oral experience did not give (male = 56%, female = 30%)
19 year olds (2002)
Population: 74% of teenagers has some oral experience (male = 74%, female =74%)
Cad factor: 20% of teenagers having some oral experience did not give (male = 26%, female = 14%)
Anyway, using this method yields a substantially more selfish population. Just what I suspected (tongue in cheek).
N.B. this data differs from the earlier report in that it includes both married and unmarried teenagers (but the overall incidence didn’t vary from the narrower estimate).
Nick