Major piece in Time December 2 2013, pp. 28-33: ‘What Boys Want’ by Rosalind Wiseman:
Excerpts:
The [U.S.] data [suggests] little has changed in the past few decades on key issues like when most teens lost their virginity. According to the Guttmacher Institute… only 16% of teens have had sex by age 15, and there is little difference between the genders in the age of first intercourse. In 2012 the birthrate among teens dropped to the lowest level in the 73 years the government has been collecting these date, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It’s now less than half what it was in 1991 [RC: good news and bad news – better availability of morning after pill? Abortions?]
Girls are more likely to report attempting or contemplating suicide – but boys are much more likely to die from suicide. For every 100 girls in the 15 to 19 age group who commit suicide, 394 boys in the same range kill themselves according to CDC.
‘As boys enter manhood, they begin to talk less’ (Niobe Way, professor of applied psychology at NYU and author of ‘Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection. Her research has shown a big decline in the use of words related to positive emotions and an increase in feelings of isolation among boys after age 15. And that isolation can lead to depression. The more boys reported not sharing their feelings with their friends and the more they reported figuring things out on their own… the higher their scores were on depressive symptoms such as feelings of worthlessness and loss of interest in normal activities.
A New Orleans boy recorded himself having sex with different girls and then started showing the videos around the school. “Do you want to be next?” he’d ask girls as a way to seduce new partners. The girls that don’t have a lot of self-esteem go for it. The ones who do have self-esteem think it’s disgusting…
Drinking, getting out of control, taking risque photos of one another – these things are incredibly common at parties.
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