Youth on a four day trip; Sex and the teenager

From the 1968 Wisconsin workweek of health sponsored by the State Medical Society of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin physicians service Blue Shield. We bring you another in a series of programs designed for teenagers and taking as its theme. Youth on a four day trip to Delhi Dr. Harvey LP Resnick an associate professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York in Buffalo will discuss sex and the teenager now Dr. Resnick friends Wisconsinites and countrymen lend me your ears. I have come not to praise Sachs but also not to be. That is I would like to highlight the difficulty that a speaker has in terms of cracking openly about a subject that is often spoken very quietly and

planned to Stanley in the locker room or in the bedroom in the parked car. On the other hand I may say some things today that you don't hear responsible professional men say outside the seclusion comfortable ness and safety of their consulting offices. Consequently please bear with me. It's been a difficult decision in terms of the right to say and what to exclude. And I know you will help me by your questions and very easily pick out what I have excluded. I gathered that I needn't direct my remarks to the difference between the ladies room in the men's room. This is certainly something that youngsters learn at a very early age. But really the significance of the ladies room and the men's room gains a greater greater meaning. The further you

you pass along in your in your maturity the further you pass along in your psycho sexual and psychological maturation. For those of you who who have sisters and brothers you know there's a period when it's OK for a junior to go into the ladies room with his mother and similarly for sissy to go into the bathroom with her dad but there is some magic age you know when he doesn't want to do it. And there's a magic age when he just insists that he wants to go in the men's room with his father and the little girl is uncomfortable unless she goes with mother. And you know this is identification in a psychologic way but in a way it indicates to us that even little children begin to be aware of differences in their bodily parts begin to be aware of differences in the way they're treated because of their sex and the quest for a physical identity

as one matcher rates and one grows older then begins to be linked with the quest for sexual identity. Now I needn't tell you that puberty is really the biologic sign of the. The fact that one has stepped from the threshold of the innocence to the more responsible. A world of a billion adult. The girl begins to be aware through changes in her breasts through beginning signs from her friends and conversations about the onset of menstruation What was it like. Do you have cramps. Do you have to stay out of school that this becomes a real sharing of female identity. Similarly the boy who begins to flex his muscles and to look at bar barrels and

to go out for the bar clubs and wear as tight trousers as he can and begins to be aware of his pubic hair. These are signs that he too is beginning to become aware of his body that his biologic south is signaling to him and signaling to him in advance of any real awareness of what it means to be a man. Any real awareness of what it means to be a woman and these other conflict situations which begin to be set in youngsters as they move from puberty into the stage of adolescence. You see adolescence is is the cultural and social period in which one attempts to adjust to the biologic changes which have occurred in a very natural way. And unfortunately in this period of time out this period for search of identity if information is not

available. If attitudes are not appropriate if inquisitiveness is not rewarded and often encouraged. The relationship between the individual psychology and attitude toward his biology and sexuality really really is is is in danger. Now in a sense the topic of my talk is misleading really. I'm not going to talk about sex and the teenager. I'm going to talk about sexuality and the teenager. You see sex is another one of those three or four letter words that get laden with all kinds of mysterious and subtle overtones. When I change my topic to sexuality I'm telling you directly that I think that sex or the

physical biologic substrate of a relationship is really only part of being a man or being a woman. In a sense I'm saying that sexuality is a relationship. In which you bring your body and your physical attitudes into a meaningful and. Satisfactory relationship with another human being. Now I can hardly talk about sexuality without indicating to. To you adolescence. And I I as I look over the audience I see that we range from early adolescence into at least thirty nine years of age and how to aim my remarks at an appropriate level. It is a concern for me

but I think what I'll do is I'll I'll talk to the adolescents I'll talk to the teenagers. And if any of you parents or teachers get information which is probably long overdue you might be able to to apply it. I'm reminded of the freshman who went off to the University of Wisconsin and came back for Christmas break and was surprised at how much his parents had learned. Now. You adolescents are. Being influenced by a number of variables which are not within your control. There are social variables in a sense. That they have to do with the mobility of this day and age. The fact that one is exposed to a variety of standards of values throughout the country. Families move around more people aren't set in the

same communities and exposed to the same elders and to the same moral values you're beset by the problem and dilemma of affluence. You can do more things with your time. You can buy things you can gratify your wishes for entertainment for looking attractive and often you can do these things at the expense of the kind of work that your parents had to do to survive. Simply because technology and our culture and the United States society has progressed and made this possible for you. And lastly you're really the product of a very difficult period for your parents. The period of permissive child raising of the period of being unsure whether to discipline to withhold to reject or to give to give and to encourage. And that

ambivalence that conflict that feeling of positiveness a negative miss that pervaded your parents really has not only been difficult for them but it's been difficult for us as well. And lastly. You're influenced by the biology that has occurred in the United States with the advances of medical care. With the advances of nutrition you're generally larger your physically stronger and your more mature in a physical sense. Now then your parents were. And in a sense all of these variables and a great number of them that I haven't even enumerated come to bear. They can they come and they coalesce. And what they do. They really indicate that you're grown up faster that in a sense you are physically able. And capable

both physiologically and psychologically to look at questions to demand answers and to make decisions at an earlier age than your parents and your parents parents. And what does that mean. It means first of all that you want to know that you question adult behavior and adult attitudes. It means secondly that you need reasons for things. You're no longer content to hear that it's right or it's wrong or that it's moral or that it's immoral or that it should be done or shouldn't be done. And the third thing is this quest for right or wrong. Moves in a number of directions and questions of sexuality are only

one aspect of your search for truth and integrity and responsive responsible ness from your environment. If you are interested in the right of wrong of government you're interested in the right of run of work you're interested in the right of way. Ron the poverty and lack of opportunity and you should be and often by your questions and sometimes by your attitudes that are often provocative occasionally bordering on irresponsibility. You force your parents and your parents parents to relook and to rethink their positions. I'm talking about sexuality today in terms of the right or wrong but the general tenor of my approach to you is one that I would use if I were talking about Roy

or injustice or racial or religious bigotry. I approach you as adults. As potential. People who are able to make decisions. And really my ultimate goal today. Is to help you know. To inform you to insist to me to assist you into responsible decision making so that the integration of sexual activity will occur in a balanced and meaningful life. Now when you teach physiology or biology or reproduction sexuality. It is impossible to to discuss these without moral issues being added to them. But I don't want to discuss a code of behavior for when I do say

that my code of behavior is one that's applicable and useful to you. I would much rather that you take the evidence. You make the decisions and you choose a code of behavior that's applicable and relevant to you. Ultimately it has to be the one that you modify as you grow older. Now in this pluralistic society that we have nowadays there is no standard no code for sexuality or sexual behavior. Were I talking in. Country Pennsylvania to the Mennonites. If I were in Utah talking to the Mormons. If I were indifferent air if I was in the core area of a large metropolitan city and I was talking about sexuality. It would be. Understanding.

It would be with an understanding that the people who are before me bring to bring to this meeting certain training a certain education certain values of parents of church of teachers that they have in a sense integrated into their own lives so that. What I'm saying is that there is a divergence of opinion. On sexuality and sexual relationships in adolescence and in use in youth. What I would like to do is to point out to you that even the law. In many states has not advanced. To take recognition of some of these conflicts and problems. Recently put into the past year or so out of the state of Connecticut

had a law that for bad any couple from using contraceptive devices. So that if you practiced contraceptive contraception even though you were married you were liable to be fined. Professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale Medical School rang with several interested parents took to shoot this issue before the courts to the highest courts of the land in fact and this was resolved but it took time and it took working. Within the framework and the matrix of our society in California recently a an obstetrician a gynecologist was arrested for doing an abortion. When the. Abortion. Was on the basis of his medical decision that to continue the pregnancy would seriously and gravely endangered the life of the mother. And he was

arrested. Yet another States in the United States Colorado Maryland several others there now have been laws passed which recognized that under some circumstances interruption of a pregnancy may be indicated. Medically. And so you see even the the culture the legal structure in which we live today is responding ever so slowly but continually under pressure. To respond to the needs of what the people say. Now some of the conflicts of adolescence the period of adolescence that involves sexuality is really whether sexual behavior is a choice of the individual or is a response to group behavior.

Or group pressures. You see the adolescent struggles for independence of his own thinking. Meanwhile it's the period in which he has his best best buddies and the period that the girl has her or her pajama parties and her and her girlfriends around her and the influence of these peers of your friends. Often may be so great that it modifies and forces you into behavior that you may not individually and independently subscribe to. Now in a sense. I can't go further without pointing out. That your basic sex has something to do with your attitudes and your conflicts. You see there's a long tradition that the male has it made. He's in a sense the one whom the society rewards for having had sexual experience.

He's experienced and so he brings to the marriage a greater knowledge ability and a greater opportunity to help his right. In she on the other hand sweet innocent virgin who comes to the marriage looking very helplessly and hopefully to her husband to teacher and to educate her. But the myth the myth that has been built up and which with which Royson girls teenagers struggle after O. The boy can get his experience and the girl cannot. Well why is this so. I think that this is evolved because of the biologic differences. You see the boy can have his fun and walk away. The boy needn't have a relationship. But he needn't pay the piper.

The girl that has the same relationship or the same curiosity. Pays. She may pay by a decrease in her south esteem. She's not the virgin she would like to be when she marries. She may pay by a biologic quirk of fate that she becomes impregnated. Because she hasn't really understood. The concept of Abi lation and the concept of fertility. She can become pregnant because she hasn't been informed that there are ways. That you don't become pregnant. In a sense through ignorance or through lack of education through pressure of peers. She may not be able to make the same choice that the male does. Oh

and what am I saying. I'm saying that for this generation the choice that is before you adolescence. Really. Has been simplified. Physiologists and physicians through science have now begun to offer to you methods in which. Reproduction can be controlled either through taking the pill. Or through the insertion into your or your uterus. Of a device which will almost 90 percent percent of the time keep you from becoming pregnant. And in a sense what has happened is that a medical revolution has occurred. And it's occurred in the last five years. But you must not look at the medical revolution. Without considering its

antecedents. The political revolution. The suffragettes who early said that women were entitled to a vote were entitled to have a say in the government and in their lives. This breakthrough was the first step in the equality of the sexes. Currently we have. Often in our firm climb an act by act of Congress now. You must not discriminate because of sex as well as by race and by religion. Herat the women have now arrived the biologic revolution now gives them the same freedom. And the same choices in a sense that men have had for years. But it also gives them increased responsibility.

I mentioned before that one of the variables that I believe has been an important one has been the availability through the mass media. Of a gross number of. Information sources some reliable most sensational and irresponsible. I shan't talk about the violence that appears on our mass media. But I could equally talk about the sexuality the flagrant and suggestive sexuality that's available. The sex the three letter word I talked about. The biologic. Without any consideration of feeling the relationship and commitment. In a sense if you watch carefully.

The advertising and public relations firms will sell you anything from a tire an automobile tire to toothpaste and base it on the fact that your beautiful sexual or seductive if you're a woman or that you're firm and strong and like a redwood tree if you're a man. Now the the advertisement that encourages this. In a sense suggests that this is so important in one's life. And I submit to you that it is but not in the same sense as the three letter word. You know to be a man or to be a woman has a great deal more than a correlation with your performance in the bedroom. It has to do with your understanding.

Of other people. Your ability to commit yourself. To relationships specifically relationships with those of the other sex. It has to do with. Being able to assess an honest person from a dishonest one. A person who will use you usual for sex without a commitment without an exchange of feeling without some understanding. In a sense what I'm concerned about has to do with statistical evidence is that to this time you don't have enough basic information. The numbers of illegitimate pregnancies pregnancies out of wedlock pregnancies

over the last figures we have 64 65. I read over two hundred fifty thousand in the United States and those are the reported ones. What distresses me. Is that 30 percent of these are in girls 20 years or younger. Over one hundred and fifteen thousand pregnancies. And do you know that one out of every three teenage brides rocks to the altar pregnant. That kids like yourselves they're usually honest. They're usually from homes that have tried to give them quote

everything unquote. They're usually kids who have been terribly conflicted because they have been unaware that sexuality and. Sexual relationships have a variety of meanings between people. And I just like to share with you some of the meanings that have occurred to me. A sexual relationship. Can be used and abused. It's use may be for reproduction. It's used maybe for pleasure. But use may be for belonging belonging to someone for companionship. Point emotional closure.

It's used maybe for sharing. It's use maybe for consolation. It's use may be for self affirmation to prove that one is female or male. Can I go on. Sexual relationship may be used to encourage someone you love. It can be used for physical closeness. The actual physical act of being close to someone it can be used as a gift it can be used as stimulation can be used as a distraction and it can be used to get acquainted. How many of you use sexual relationships

in how many of those ways. Hopefully someday in the future you will be permitted. To use a sexual relationship in all of these ways for in outlining the various ways I say to you that there is more to the three letter word than getting into bed. Any male and female. Of any species. Copulate. There is something about the sexual relationship in the human being that transcends

the more physical more biologic urge and apparatus that we have. And these are some of the considerations that are available to all of you. I've said how you can use sex where you know you can abuse it as well. You can use sex for mischief to flaunt the rules and authorities and the establishment and the status quo and your parents. You can use sex because it's easy. It's easy to give a sexual relationship. It's not easy to become psychologically intimate and understanding. You can abuse sex by using it to dominate your relationships with other people

to make them needy in a sense to lower them to control them. You can abuse sex by suffering and simply saying well that's the way all men are. That's all they want without really looking at your own responsibility and in your own enticement. You can abuse sex by using it for revenge. And you can abuse sex for vanity and for narcissistic purposes. Now in a way. I think that. What I say to you and what I've said to you

may or may not come to you when you were in the driveway in the parked car or when you're on a trip or in a drive in. But I haven't said to you don't feel you don't enjoy your sex. I've said to you that there are aspects of one's behavior that transcend the physical. You know Kinsey and other sexologists who have studied these phenomena. And I must say that there is more information that has become available through concerned social scientists biologists physicians so that we are now able to study what the

sexual response is in a sense what happens to a human being to their bodies to their feelings. And these are these feelings the biologic feelings are the transitory ones. They're the ones that come and go. They're the ones that most people have experienced through masturbation through an inquiry into one's own body through an inquiry into who run is male or female how one feels. What's it like. The ability to translate the biologic physical feeling into a truly sexual relationship is not

inherited. It's not genetically transmitted. It's learned and it's Maryland over a period of months and years. It's a man between a husband and his wife. Very few people when they're first married have a satisfactory sexual relationship. And this is within the security and the moral sanctions of the church and of the society. How much more difficult and disappointing and potentially dangerous is a sexual relationship or a sex relationship in a parked car. That's bang bang. That's a worry about who's going to come along. But the dangers and the penalties are tremendous.

A boy's concerned that he's potent that he's a man. A girl's disappointment. If this is what it's like. It's been terribly over publicized. These are some of the penalties that premature and I don't want to say early but premature and a relationship without the concomitant feeling with another person that comes and transcends the physical. Now I'd like you to think about what can you ask yourself. You know this guy resident he's going to go back to Buffalo. And you know a lot of words he said and maybe you've heard them or thought them maybe heard him said better. But but what can I give you you know what can you take. What can you use out of this.

Well how about these three questions. Do you have. An intense. Affection. Or feeling. Love. And a long term relationship with this person too. Is it really you who wants to do this. Or are you responding to the thing to do or the pressure of another person. Is this your commitment. Is this your gift. Is this your contribution to a relationship. And 3 How much of your decision has been

influenced by a need to be loved. How much are you buying something with your sexuality. How much are you trying to be popular. How much are you trying to keep from being lonely. How much are you hiding from conflicts in your family. If these are in any measure present the likelihood of a successful and meaningful sexual relationship is diminished and the likelihood of a traumatic disappointing unhappy experience is heightened. I didn't say no don't do it. I didn't say it's wrong. I said I think I think about what it means.

I didn't say you'll get pregnant. I said think about the relationship. Think about the amount of this that is your choice. The reason I didn't say you'll get pregnant is because that's the only theme that I touched on earlier that's the one that puts its onus its burden on the woman shoulders and not on the man's. I can tell you as a practicing psychiatrist that I have seen scores. Of Girls. Who had been left pregnant. By a sex relationship that the boy would not be responsible for. And I have supported and treated

and helped and the numbers of these girls and I'm going after the boys and I've called them up and I've invited them into my office and I've really said a word or two to them. Ultimately however. The biology as it has been. Has called The question now. Young women. Have the option of controlling their biology their reproductive functions in a sense. To allow them the same choices about sexuality and sexual relationships that men have had. Now what about teenagers.

Should contraceptive devices be available for teenagers. Well let me try this logic on you. Can contraceptive devices be available for our teenage married girls. I think the answer would be yes. Should contraceptive devices be available for teenage engaged girls about to be married. I think the answer would probably be yes. Now what I've done is I've reduced this to the last possible circumstance should contraceptive devices be available to teenagers. You know this is a terribly difficult situation and decision for the practicing physician and I don't have the answer. Medical men as yet practice according to their beliefs

their religions and their sincerity. And on this issue they differ. Some say I as a physician only treat disease and pregnancy is not a disease. Therefore I will not treat this person. Some physicians say. I treat disease but I also practice preventive medicine as well. I give shots for diptheria and vaccinations for smallpox and gamma globulin to prevent Hepatitis. I prescribe contraceptive devices because I think that a pregnancy in a teenage girl is a disease a social disease that she is not psychologically prepared for motherhood or those she may be biologically

prepared. That there is a hiatus between being physically ready and mentally ready. It's difficult enough to be a teenaged mother when you're married. To be a teenaged mother when you're unmarried is one of the most serious and traumatic psychologic difficulties that I've ever had an opportunity to treat. So these questions of increased freedom will this will this contribute to immorality and widespread promiscuity. Will our children run out and jump in and out of beds now that our girls feel that they no longer have to worry about being pregnant. I don't think they will. In the several years that contraceptive

devices have been available in my. Practice on a university campus my consultation high schools. I haven't found. That this is so although people may not tell me but this is always one of the variables in doing this kind of research. Statistically. We know. That one out of five teenagers are involved in petting casual sexual relationships involving some bodily activity. We know that three out of five. Are involved in intimacy in a mutual. Exploration of each other physically. With a desire to know.

And a desire to share and a desire to learn. And we know that about one in five. Teenagers have sexual intercourse before they reach the 20s. And the reasons for this. Are usually the abuses of sexuality that I've indicated rather than the uses. One of the problems that I would like to briefly discuss before I conclude has to do with the problem of the near real disease. This has increased 200 percent in teenagers in the 15 to 19 year age group. Two hundred percent more cases now. And I think it's based on the lack of

information. As to how one cares for oneself as well as the lack of information about what to do when you find yourself in difficulty. You know there's a danger that you can transmit. Of venereal disease in a variety of ways not on toilet seat says My grandmother told me. But by physical contact and by poor personal hygiene. The importance of. Cleanliness and soap and water. Applied very briskly to the genital parts is probably one of the best preventive measures that one can take an awareness that a discharge. From the vagina or from the penis following a sexual exposure or relationship may

herald the onset of infection venereal infection recurrent burning. Or frequent urination or sores that appear that do not heal. Are all suggestive indications that you should consult your physician. Not often as it may be the case. You may not feel comfortable seeing the old family doc that delivered you and that knows your parent you may not feel you can trust him. But I can assure you that you can trust him. I know you usually can but please don't let that be an impediment to your judgement. See another physician see someone who doesn't know you. But seek medical consultation.

There are all kinds of taboos that are involved about sexuality. I have heard so many folk tales about it I could write a paper. But what's behind the folkloric and the prohibitions. An uncomfortable attitude about self exploration. South manipulation. There is nothing unhealthy about self exploration. It is a normal stage of development and inquisitiveness and concern about one's body. Through which. I won't say every Because there's always someone who deny it. Almost every person goes. But the problem becomes a true problem when it is the sole source of gratification where it does not become replaced

by a meaningful sexual relationship. And it does usually. But the danger and the trauma. Has to do with. How bad you feel how dirty you feel how you were scolded for doing this and often as young as 2 and 3 years old. And a little two or three year old kid who's pulling on and on himself as he would put on anything. But what am I saying in a sense you know I'm saying that the danger to you is that when you become adults you do what to your children what some of your parents may have done to you. You know project their own conflicts their own feelings about what you're doing and not see that it's occurring

in child or in an adolescent or a teenager and has totally different meaning than if it occurs in a mature woman or in a mature manner frames of reference for the same behavior are always most important. Well I'm. Kind of going I don't know. I started with a joke. I could end with a joke or two or three or four. But you know sexuality at talking about the frame of reference sexuality has a great deal of you know different content contexts. You have to think about about the framework. It's all in the frame of reference. Thank you. We've been listening to Dr. Harvey LP Reznor.

Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the State University of New York in Buffalo as he spoke on Sex and the teenager. This was another in a series of programs drawn from the 1968 Wisconsin workweek of Health a project originally designed for teenagers and held in Madison under the sponsorship of the State Medical Society of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin physicians service Blue Shield. These programs are made available by W.H. the University of Wisconsin. This is the national educational radio network A.