Oral Sex Is The New Goodnight Kiss

Aired on Good Morning America May 28, 2009
By CLAIRE SHIPMAN and COLE KAZDIN
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/Story?id=7693121&page=1

 
They don't give their names, but viewers can see their faces plainly and what these teens are saying is shocking parents. "I ended up having sex with more than one person that night and then in the morning I was trying to get morning-after pills," one of the girls said. "I was, like, 14 at the time."

It's just one of dozens of stories from teenage girls in a new documentary by Canadian filmmaker Sharlene Azam that aims to shed light on the secret, extremely sexual lives of today's teens.

After four years researching for the documentary, Azam told "Good Morning America" that oral sex is as common as kissing for teens and that casual prostitution -- being paid at parties to strip, give sexual favors or have sex -- is far more commonplace than once believed.

"If you talk to teens [about oral sex] they'll tell you it's not a big deal," Azam said. "In fact, they don't consider it sex. They don't consider a lot of things sex.

Evidence of this casual attitude may be seen in the fact that more than half of all teens 15 to 19 years old have engaged in oral sex, according to a comprehensive 2005 study by the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics.

'Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss' In the documentary, "Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss," girls as young as 11 years old talk about having sex, going to sex parties and -- in some extreme situations -- crossing into prostitution by exchanging sexual favors for money, clothes or even homework and then still arriving home in time for dinner with the family. "Five minutes and I got $100," one girl said. "If I'm going to sleep with them, anyway, because they're good-looking, might as well get paid for it, right?"

Another girl talked about being offered $20 to take off her shirt or $100 to do a striptease on a table at a party.

The girls are almost always from good homes, but their parents are completely unaware, Azam said.

"The prettiest girls from the most successful families [are the most at risk]. We're not talking about marginalized girls," she said. "[Parents] don't want to know because they really don't know what to do. I mean, you might be prepared to learn that, at age 12, your daughter has had sex, but what are you supposed to do when your daughter has traded her virginity for $1,000 or a new bag?"

For some of the girls, the sexual favors are not about clothes or money, but used to keep a relationship together in a chillingly objective way.

"I think there's very much trading for relationship favors, almost like 'you need to do this [to] stay in this relationship,'" one girl told "Good Morning America."

"There's a lot of social pressure," said another. "Especially because of our age, a lot of girls want to be in a relationship and they're willing to do anything."

The girls laughingly admitted they never talk to their parents about their sexual activity.

"I mean, we're not looking for our future husbands," one girl said. "We're just looking for, maybe like ... at our age, especially, I think all of us, both sexes, we have a lot of urges, I guess, that need to be taken care of. So if we resort to a casual thing, no strings attached, it's perfectly fine."

Azam said she thinks the "no strings attached" romances could be a defense mechanism against a greater disappointment.

"A lot of girls are disappointed in love," she said. "And I think they believe they can hook up the way guys do and not care.

"But unfortunately, they do care.

CELIA MILNE FOR METRO CANADA May 26, 2009 12:58 a.m.

Oral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss by Sharlene Azam documents the stories of Canadian girls being recruited for prostitution.

Right under our noses, girls are trading oral sex for pretty shirts and sex for money. For her new book and film Oral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss, Canadian journalist Sharlene Azam interviewed teenage and pre-teen girls about sexual attitudes and found many who use sex as currency.

Even in middle-class Canada, girls are being recruited — often by other teens — to provide sexual services to groups of men and boys.

“I was most surprised to learn that there are girls recruiting other girls,” Azam told Metro. “It is chilling to sit across from a teenage girl who talks about targeting a pretty, popular girl at her school because she thinks she has everything and is jealous of her.”

Parents often believe that their daughters are safe when they are at school, at the mall or chatting on the Internet. But Azam found girls as young as 12 were actually giving oral sex to groups of boys and telling their parents they were hanging out with friends. All the boys had to do was say they “want a piece” of her, and she’d perform oral sex while the others watched, reports Azam, who splits her time between Los Angeles and Vancouver. She also interviewed girls who were willing to pose nude on their webcam and get paid to send the pictures to anonymous men.

“There is very little education or awareness of what is happening to girls because the problem is so new and it is well hidden.”

Why are girls today more promiscuous than in the past? “The Internet has sped up teens’ sexual willingness and behaviour,” says Azam. “Girls are surrounded by a hypersexualized culture where they are being groomed and encouraged to think of themselves as: Hooter’s Girl, Stripper, Porn Star. Exposure affects behaviour.”

Girls who are looking for attention know that a sexy video or picture can give them power and launch them into fame.

This behaviour can have long-term health effects. It could affect the girls’ ability to trust men later in life and to have normal, living relationships, says Azam, who is married with a young daughter. In addition, many girls are getting STDs. One public health nurse told her that at the four schools she visits, hundreds of kids have Chlamydia.

Azam suggests that parents pay close attention to their daughters during their teen years and have regular conversations with them about sex. “The parents that I interviewed wished they had paid attention to the warning signs. When you learn that your daughter has traded sex for $60 or has sold her virginity for $1,000, your whole life stops,” she says.

A revealing read
• Oral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss by Sharlene Azam is available through www.thenewgoodnightkiss.com and Amazon.