Just typing in the above title was a bit uncomfortable. As a parent with two teenage daughters it’s certainly not something you want to even consider. It’s a shock to the system. But when I read that researchers at Boston University School of Public Health found that 1 in 13 teenage girls have reported having group sex I knew it was a topic that needed to be addressed. With the proliferation of porn within youth culture it’s not a surprise that teens want to act out what they see. And group sex is a common theme in porn. As a matter of fact the researchers point out that the teenage girls having group sex say the act is often initiated by their boyfriends who watch porn.
Here are some more details from the research. The average age of the girls in the study having group sex is 15. Most of their group sex partners don’t use condoms. If the girls or their boyfriends watched porn it was 5 times more likely that they would engage in group sex. Of those 50% did sex acts their partner saw being done in porn. It gets worse. Another study of high school girls in the U.S. found sex parties were an accepted activity among some teenagers. An accepted activity? That is just crazy but it’s happening.
I think the link between porn a deviant sexual behavior is fairly obvious. Others want to do more study on the topic. I’m not against that but I don’t think parents should be waiting around for more studies. Teens are having group sex in alarming numbers. It’s a dangerous game with sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s) and teenage pregnancies being the potential outcomes. Parents we need to be aware of this trend. We can’t just brush it off as something “my daughter would never do”. And lets make sure we don’t forget about our sons. They may be the ones initiating the activity. I know evening thinking that this is possible is tough but we can’t just pretend it’s not happening. And don’t think that if your kids go to a religious high school you’re in the clear. I have a friend that is on staff at a religious high school were, not to long ago, 3 teens (2 boys and 1 girl) were caught having sex under the bleachers.
So what can parents do? Obviously blocking access to porn on your kids computers and smart phones using a filter like SafeEyes is a start. But having frank conversations about the dangers of having sex outside the confines of marriage and the realities of STD’s, especially in a group sex scenario, should be part of your plan to head this threat off. It’ll probably be a tough and slightly awkward conversation but it’ll be a lot less awkward than walking in on your daughter having sex with two guys.