Adolescents at Risk from The Prevailing Culture on Sexuality

By John Mallon

(The following paper was submitted as part of course work for the course Adolescent Issues in Human Relations, at the University of Oklahoma, October 2009)

An argument could be made that teenagers are a 20th Century invention. While reflecting on this notion as the opening to this paper, a friend mentioned she just happened to hear that very idea put forth by a distinguished scholar. The source was an article appearing on the Internet, a shortened version of a paper by Dr. Michael Platt, entitled, “Myth of the Teenager.” (Platt, 1993).

The Teenager is a modern invention, Platt says, “There were no ‘teenagers’ before World War II. Ask those still living who raised their children before then. Or spend a rainy Saturday in the basement of your library, comparing old Life magazines from before the War and after.

“Instead of Teenagers, there were Youths. Youths were young people who wanted to become adults. However confused, wayward, or silly they acted, however many mistakes they made, they looked to the future. They knew that adult life was different than a child's life. They planned to grow up, leave childhood behind, and become adults. They were aware that life is more than youth.

“The Teenager has no such horizon. Beyond the "Teeny" world there is no adult life, no past with heroes, no future with goals.”

Clearly Platt takes a dim view of this development; not blaming teenagers themselves, but seeing it as a negative cultural phenomenon. In a footnote, Maris A Vinovskis of the University of Michigan, makes a comment on the phenomenon but without the chagrin of Platt, merely noting it: “In the past people were more likely to use the term ‘youth’ rather than ‘adolescent’ or ‘teenager’ and it encompassed individuals roughly from age 15 to 21 or 24. For purposes of this chapter, however, the terms ‘adolescent’ and ‘teenager’ will be used interchangeably and will be used interchangeably and will refer to children from 13-19. (Vinovkis, 2008)

Following the “invention” of the teenager, we have another phenomenon, the categorization of succeeding generations of teenagers to the present day. We have the Babyboomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and currently the Millennials. The Babyboomers who led the way are now the grandparents to this phenomenon and in actuality; what it will all mean in the future remains to be seen. But one thing is clear; the Babyboomers seem to be somewhat indignant at having had to give up the crown of being the Youth Generation, as others naturally followed. There is also some shock at no longer being young. To illustrate, the friend who told me about Platt read an excerpt from a talk by someone who based his talk on Platt’s observations, lamenting Mick Jagger as an icon for youth. I quickly responded, “Mick Jagger is in his 60s.”

Somehow the 60s generation remains the model of what “youth” represents. The babyboomer is the proverbial orange in the demographic snake, which remains the image of youthful rebellion.

But as Platt laments rebellion was not a fixture of youth previous to World War II. Rather, youth of that time were eager to be adults and join the adult world. Why rebellion? After the ravages of the Second World War no one could blame the returning veterans from wanting to settle into conventional domestic bliss and raise families. However, the elements of the cultural revolution of the 60s is beyond the scope of this paper. 

Instead we will look at the results of that remarkable shift on the actual youth that followed who could be Mick Jagger’s grandchildren.

As a side note I recently heard a question put to Mick Jagger in a recent interview, asking if he was still rebelling against the Establishment. He answered, “I don’t think there is an Establishment anymore.” My first thought was, “No, Mick there still is, it’s just that you’re it! This interview was after he had been knighted by the queen as a Knight of the British Empire and was now Sir Mick Jagger. (Source unknown)

Besides drugs, the 60s ushered in the so-called “Sexual Revolution” and was bequeathed to the generations that followed. In order to knock down social mores you have to attack what are viewed the bulwarks of those mores and impute to them sinister motives like “Social Control.” A very handy target was the Church and religion in general, and this involved a shift from objective morality to social relativism. All cultures throughout history, on whatever level of development, included some form of religion, and beginning with Judaism religion was closely tied to morality. In the modern or post-modern age traditional morality has been judged as limiting freedom. You can get in trouble for mentioning God in the Pledge of Allegiance but teaching children (pre-adolescents) how to put condoms on cucumbers is considered laudable.

In the West, the Judeo-Christian tradition has been an essential component of the culture, and to remove it leaves out a large slice of the pie, and the culture unbalanced.

How has this served the youth? Saint Thomas Aquinas (1485) said, “No one can live without joy. That is why a man deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures.” This is a stark description of the source of addiction and, traditionally speaking, a violation of the First Commandment against idolatry. C.S. Lewis (1960) clarifies this in his classic book, The Four loves: “We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe God. Then they become gods: Then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred.” While Lewis is speaking of unhealthy forms of human loves, the danger can only be magnified when applied to sexual activity that has no pretense of love.

Addiction is known to arrest development and sex addiction has come into its own complete with its own 12-step groups. With this in mind where once we could say adolescence spanned from age 12 to age 19, in the 21st Century we can say it spans from age 10 to 60. Furthermore, with the sacredness and meaning removed from sexuality sex becomes a kind of recreational drug, a mere game and the human body the toy with which it is played. Removed from its cultural safeguards of family and commitment it becomes a very dangerous game.

One of the by-products of the sexual milieu that has been created is pornography, a culture of pornography that is pervasive. Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D. (1991) reports forcefully on the dangers of pornography to its consumers and to children. Her book, “Soft Porn” Plays Hardball: Its Tragic Effects on Women Children and the Family, supports a thesis that an unchecked addiction to pornography can lead men to violence and even pedophilia, and has in fact done so on a mass scale.

Addiction brings denial in its wake, and according to Reisman, this has taken place on a culture-wide level. With impressive insight Reisman points out the key distinction between normal healthy sexual desire and the lust that enslaves the pornography addict. She says the addict has “an intoxicated, disoriented central nervous system. Pornography is media induced stress.” (Reisman 1991, P. 17) The addict becomes addicted not to sex per se, but to the “rush” pornography produces. (Mallon 1994, 2005)

To reach this “rush,” the addict must turn to ever more sensational stimuli and novelty. To one who is moving more deeply into shame and anxiety, novelty lies in the direction of innocence. Thus, Reisman shows, in this world where all object relations become sexualized, children become an obvious target.  (Mallon, 1994, 2005)

No one can dispute that the landscape of modern America suffers from a pandemic of women (and men) sexually abused as children. Ask any social worker how many of her clients are women in poverty with no husband with 4 or 5 children all by different men with substance abuse in the mix. Few would argue that this is the sexually liberated utopia promised by the social engineers of the 60s.

Yet the cultural reaction to this is schizoid. The culture, having eschewed authentic religion as a moral base, behaves as though the only sin left is hypocrisy: “I smoked marijuana so how can I tell my child not to?” or “I was sexually active as a teen, how can I tell my son or daughter not to be?”

Another example: TV sitcoms have all become one-joke wonders. The comedy consists of a lovable blundering boyman (e.g. Charlie Sheen, in Two and a half men, whose real-life ex-wife Denise Richards charged him with abuse, frequenting prostitutes, neglect of the couples’ two daughters, a gambling problem and drug abuse), in a never-ending quest to “get-lucky.” From Seinfeld to Friends to Two and a Half Men this is the recurrent theme: sex is a playful accomplishment with high fives all around and consequence free. This is then followed by the nightly news which is inevitably packed with stories of child abduction and rape, children molested by a woman’s live-in boyfriend, women disappeared without a trace with the husband named a “person of interest.” The list goes on. Yet does anyone see the juxtaposition of the message given by sitcoms, and media in general, featuring the above mentioned “consequence free” sex and the brutality on the news?

The United Nations Population Fund, (UNFPA) who draws many of their officers from former executives of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, who has a vested financial interest in these matters, has a record of heavily funding programs promoting “Sexual and Reproductive Rights” among adolescents in the developing world. Often in contrast to the religious traditions of the peoples affected. Billionaire Ted Turner has been active in funding these efforts. The UNFPA stated, “UNFPA will also use its grant to "encourage participation of 42,000 girls age 13-17 in reproductive health activities and life skills." (See Ruse, A. 1999)

I covered a United Nations Prep-Com for the UN Cairo+5 conference in the Netherlands held by the UNFPA in February, 1999 for Inside the Vatican magazine (Mallon, 1999). There was an overwhelming campaign to promote “Sexual and Reproductive Rights” for adolescents, free from parental involvement, with the UN defining adolescence as beginning at age 10. Following the conference, the Friday Fax, the weekly newsletter of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute at the UN, reported the following: “[A] German delegate speaking for the European Union added a disturbing new twist to the debate when he pressed for replacing the term ‘young people’ with the term ‘boys and girls.’ The German made it clear that he wanted the ‘boys and girls’ language to ensure that ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ would include children younger than ten years old. The EU spokesman insisted, "We're very attached to 'boys and girls.'" (Friday Fax, March 12, 1999)

The Netherlands conference also discussed plans to promote their agenda throughout the United States in schools and libraries. (See Mallon, 1999, The Daily Oklahoman).

There is no denying that sexual activity is a very powerful and very good force, in its proper context, but corruptio optimi pessima est, (the corruption of the best is the worst) and like any powerful force it can pose grave danger to those who engage in it recklessly or ignorantly, be they adults or adolescents. The role of adults has always been to protect and guide young people, but we are facing an unprecedented moment in history where instead of youth striving to be adults we have adults striving to be youths, which in my view, partly explains the trend outlined above where the media and international organizations make light of and even encourage risky sexual behavior, while the evening news reports the tragic results. We can only hope that what Rolla Lewis (2004) has to say about individual adolescents in her chapter on resilience in the text for this course is also true for cultures undergoing periods where common sense is thrown to the wind: that these things have a way of righting themselves, while those in a position to do so try to love, guide, teach and model healthy behavior to the young in what is currently an uphill battle.

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REFERENCES

Aquinas, St. T. (1485) Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, 35.4 ad 2.)

Friedman, R. Inside Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards' Divorce, Fox News Website, Wednesday, October 03, 2007, retrieved October 14, 2009.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299100,00.html

Lewis, C.S., The Four Loves, (1960) pp.17–18, A Harvest/HJB Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. New York.

Lewis, R. E. Resiliance: Individual, Family, School and Community Perspectives. In Youth at Risk: A Prevention Resource for Counselors, Teachers, and Parents, (pp 35–65), Cappuzzi, D. & Gross, D. R. (ED), American Counseling Association, 2004, Alexandria, VA.

Mallon, J. (1999, March) The World Grows Old. Inside the Vatican, pp. 80–87.

Mallon, J. (1999) U.N. Idea Makes Families Yield Control, Column, The Daily Oklahoman, March 3, 1999

http://www.johnmallon.net/Site/UN_Idea_Makes_Families.html

Mallon, J. (1994, 2005) Book Review: Pornography’s Threat to Men, Crisis magazine, pp. 54-55, September 1994. Also in The Sooner Catholic, June 5, 1994, and Catholic Online, March 3, 2005.

http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1870

Reisman, J.A. (1991) “Soft Porn” Plays Hardball: Its Tragic Effects on Women Children and the Family, (p. 17) Huntington House, Lafayette, LA

Platt, M. (2003) Myth of the Teenager, Practical Homeschooling magazine issue #2, published in 1993. Publication of Home life, Inc., Fenton, MO. Retrieved October 13, 2009. http://www.home-school.com/Articles/PlattTeenagers.html. Copies of the much longer essay from which this is taken, entitled "The Teenager and the West," can be purchased from the author for $10.00; Friends of the Republic, Sugar Hill, East Wallingford, VT 05742.

Ruse, A., (1999) New Turner Donations Promote Adolescent Sexuality in Developing World, The Friday Fax December 3, 1999 Volume 3, Number 3, Retrieved October 15, 2009,

http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.118/pub_detail.asp

Ruse, A., (1999), Abortion and Contraception for Pre-Teens Promoted at Key UN Meeting, The Friday Fax March 12, 1999 Volume 2, Number 20, Retrieved October 14, 2009, http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.82/pub_detail.asp

Vinovkis M.A. Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy and Childbearing in Early America. In School Age Pregnancies and Parenthood: Biosocial Dimensions, Lancaster, J. (Editor, Introduction), Hamburg, B., School-Age Pregnancy and Parenthood: Biosocial Dimensions (pp. 303–322) (Paperback) Aldine Transaction; Reprint edition (April 17, 2008). New Brunswick, NJ

© John Mallon 2009

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