Sex and the teenage mind

For months, P.E.I. has been astonished and dismayed by revelations related to a trial in which 12- and 13-year-old girls testified they routinely engaged in oral sex with senior high school athletes. "Everyone's doing it. It's not really a big deal. It's just casual," the girls said. In a radio interview, another girl using gutter names nonchalantly listed popular sexual activities that many adults have never heard of.

"They think, 'Nobody's getting hurt. I can't get pregnant. I'll still be a virgin. I'm satisfying the guy. It's like kissing.' They think what they're doing is not sex," one girl's mother told reporters. "They're brainwashed. It is sex."

A 16-year-old noted ruefully, "When you do it, the guys are nicer to you, 'cause they know they're going to get something out of it." She became sexually active at 13 and a mother at 15.

"They just have sex, like, anywhere at all," said another junior high student. "In bedrooms. Bathrooms. Laundry rooms. Fields. Up against dumpsters."

"At parties," another explained, "you see people having sex anywhere. Walk in the door and see two people on the floor - you just walk by. They don't care. It doesn't matter."

"Well, I think it's really wrong. That's why I'm still a virgin," one girl told CBC. "But if you're still a virgin, you're kind of looked down upon. You're a prospective prospect with whoever you go out with. They think that's just what couples do."

The older teens (15-16) repeatedly said, somewhat wistfully, "It's not considered special any more." One said, "Sex isn't valued nowadays like it should be." Another added, "It's like a competition to see who's the skankiest person."

Many times reporters asked, "When is it appropriate for people to start engaging in sexual activity?" Not once did anyone say, "After marriage." Typical answers were, "Sex should be between people in love ... when the right person comes along... when you know you're ready." The teen mom said, "I would never want my kid to do what I did. I want him to wait for the perfect person to come along."

One older girl said, "We used to be shocked if someone in Grade 9 was doing it. Now it's like expected in Grade 7 - at the age of 11 or 12."

Yet, most of the young people say there is no pressure to become sexually active. "It's just what they want to do, how they want to express themselves" - a phrase that seems implanted, rather than the usual language of young teens.

The chief concern expressed by everyone - from teens to adults, parents to "experts" - is that 12-year-olds are too young for this activity.

Kelly Redmond, of the P.E.I. Women's Health Network, says, "The problem is that young people expressing themselves sexually are engaging in risky sexual behaviour at young ages."

One older girl observed, "At that young an age - they're not really in their right mind about what's right and wrong about that kind of thing." Only one person - a teen herself - said it was wrong for teens to be actively expressing themselves sexually at all.

The father of one of the 12-year-old girls says, "She is basically a good girl. She made a mistake. She's never even dated. She's just a baby." The law agrees with him.

One mother says her daughter was conscientiously supervised, but still managed internet-organized trysts with the older boys. "She made a bad decision. But it was a decision she should never have had to make at her age." The law agrees again.

In the eyes of the law, under-14s are indeed children, and deemed too young to consent to participate in any kind of sexual activity.

Crown Prosecutor John McMillan told the court that child protection laws are in place to protect children from sexual predators. But they also exist to protect children from themselves because children can make bad decisions.

The whole experience has been a terrible ordeal for the families involved. They feel dismayed, mystified, shamed, betrayed, and frustrated.