What a joke of an article in New York magazine. Its premise is that casual same-sex hooking up is a big deal in high schools; bi-sexuality is now very gray; adults are standing by passively, etc. I also loved the quote by the professor who’s "been studying same-sex attraction among adolescents for more than 20 years." Sounds like a great field to be conducting scholarly research.
The meta point that, due to the ubiquity of contraceptives and sex education, casual hooking up/sex has increased among teens while official dating has decreased is true, in my view. But this does not mean we have a culture where teens "kiss anything that is beautiful" and whatnot.
The more serious point in all this is what effects, if any, growing up in a pornified culture will have on the next generation of leaders. Too bad this article went the easy route of picking scandalous quotes from teens which will further the cause of every worry-mom.
Reminds me of a classic Onion article: “Wellesley drops phrase ‘Hot All-Girl Action’ from catalog.”
I think it’s funny how these so-called experts on teenage sociology automatically assume that gay relationships and bi-sexuality are running rampant among high schools around the nation. If I had to guess, I would say that less than 5% of high schoolers live these kinds of lifestyles. Personally, I think most of it is just a fad like many other things present in American high schools. When it’s not hip to be BI anymore, you’ll see it start to fade out. That article makes it sound like it’s an epidemic
There have always been a lot of LUGs (lesbian-until-graduation) on the college scene, without raising much uproar. Even assuming this article has any truth to it (which is probably false), moving the LUG phenomenon up a few years simply reflects the earlier start on sexuality today’s teens get.
I’ve never heard of LUG, but that analysis makes sense. Everything is moving up. I agree with Erik that the saddening part of these articles is its alarmist tone.