Tween & Teen

"It was a big thing at my middle school, especially in grade seven and eight," says Alana Moralis* of Hamilton. She's not talking about smoking, skipping school, or extreme low-rise jeans. Alana's referring to oral sex — an increasingly common practice among 12- and 13-year-olds in middle schools, junior highs and even elementary schools across the country.

It's disturbing enough that children are engaging in sex — oral or otherwise — much more at younger ages than previous generations. According to the 2002 Canadian Youth, Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Study, which surveyed more than 11,000 Canadian adolescents, almost a third of grade-nine students have had oral sex, with a quarter of the boys and a fifth of the girls admitting to engaging in intercourse, often without protection.

"But there's a double standard," says Alana, now 16. "The girls who were sexually active were not the popular girls, not the best looking. But the guys who were sexually active had lots of friends and had that whole sports-team profile going for them."

Recent research corroborates Alana's observation. Children engaging in sex at very young ages tend to be girls with low self-esteem and, conversely, boys with high self-esteem. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, Statistics Canada reported in 2005 that girls whose self-image was weak at ages 12 and 13 were more likely than girls with a strong self-image to have had sexual intercourse by the time they were 14 or 15. However, the opposite was true for boys.

"That sounds right to me," says Kyle Jones,* 14, of Barrie, Ont. "A guy who's confident can get girls, and the insecure girls are the easiest to get."

Of course, researchers who survey people about their sex lives can't verify the information, and a study that asks kids about their self-image may seem particularly nebulous, since a seventh-grader's self-esteem can soar and plummet like a roller coaster. Even the term "self-esteem" is imprecise, struggling to encompass a person's perceptions of acceptance, belonging, competence and confidence. Still, by any name (self-worth or self-image), self-esteem's long been touted as a factor in how we make life decisions. And experts agree with the findings of these sex surveys.

Originally published in Today's Parent, June 2006