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Gen X's change of head | page 1, 2
Their children have a different take. In a study reported earlier this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a majority of college students attending a major Midwestern university did not define oral sex as having "had sex" -- and, for the most part, these were students who identified themselves as politically moderate to conservative Republicans. The journal's top-ranking editor, Dr. George D. Lundberg, was demoted for publishing the study just as Clinton's Senate impeachment trial was getting under way, in a move thought to be motivated by politics. But I suspect his dismissal was also motivated by the conservative medical establishment's anxiety over its dicey content, which challenges the status quo. Just why has oral sex become less transgressive to the younger generation? Certainly, it has to do with the AIDS epidemic and the popularization of terms like "bodily fluids." After short-lived hand-wringing about what to call the substance that stained Lewinsky's blue Gap dress, the media brought the word "semen" out of the closet and injected it into the daily news. Now the public appearance of semen -- once a symbolic violation of society's taboos about dirt, order and hygiene -- has become little more than a cinematic sight gag: hair gel in "There's Something About Mary" and a doggie treat in "Happiness." Our recent obsession with exposure and propriety violations, our seemingly relentless "tabloid mentality" cannot help but desensitize us to what was once subversive. Also Today Growing up under pressure Undoubtedly, a number of young women engage in fellatio rather than intercourse in order to maintain "technical virginity" or in the mistaken belief that they are practicing safe sex. But for them, oral sex may also be emotionally safer sex -- it is a way of performing a sexlike act without having to take off one's clothes and thereby reveal one's imperfect self. That is far from the whole story, however. Many deliberately embrace "bad girl" sexuality -- call it grrrl power -- taking pride in their erotic doings and bragging about them to their friends -- much as Monica Lewinsky did. And unlike their fathers, the young men I see today do not necessarily disrespect them for it. While virtually all my 40ish patients of either sex think Lewinsky was either a mixed-up or conniving fool, a number of those in their 20s admire her pluck. Indeed, at one point, she became a poster girl for overweight young women. Articles about how to perform oral sex have proliferated in magazines targeted to Gen X females, replete with information about the caloric content of semen, thereby addressing two sources of young adult female anxiety -- sexual adequacy and body image -- in one fell swoop. A paradoxical outcome of '70s feminism is that today's young women exult in their seductive power even though the seduction is often not reciprocal. Mimicking male bravado, some of my young female patients now regard "giving good head" as an accomplishment, an end in itself, yet they are really boasting about what they "give," while males have historically bragged about what they "got" -- the power differential still holds. In a misguided attempt to appear liberated, I believe many young women are allowing themselves to be exploited this way, participating in sex that is unilateral, usually in service of the male's orgasm. In effect, they are doing what desperate women have always done -- using their sexuality to lure a man into a relationship while deluding themselves into thinking otherwise -- that, for example, they are doing it for the thrill. But the thrill of what? Of course, sexual expression has always been a kind of "Rashomon," a social and subjective construction. Its meaning is perpetually slippery, varying from person to person, culture to culture, historical period to historic period -- not to mention from moment to moment during the act itself. To be sure, I am not arguing against young people engaging in oral sex, but I wonder if they understand their own and their partners' motives. So the Clinton-Lewinsky convergence of bodies was actually a cultural collide, with each side of the generation gap bringing to the act its own set of assumptions. To parents' horror, the gap may be expanding to a chasm as the behavior of young women and men seems to be trickling down to the preteen set. Recently the Washington Post reported that a growing number of middle-schoolers are engaging in oral sex in an effort to avoid pregnancy and AIDS, to hang on to their virginity and to become popular. Pressed by her parents about the significance of doing so, one girl quoted in the article shrugs, "What's the big deal? President Clinton did it."
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