ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges the fear by examining why sexual attitudes have changed over the past century. The way the people think about sex has changed much more than the actual behavior. The chapter explains that youth of today are not nearly as promiscuous as some might fear. Rather than being blindly influenced by sex in media, teens are actively involved in trying to figure out who they are in a culture that might offer a lot of sexual imagery but little actual information about intimacy, sex, and sexuality. Teenage sex is by now a cliche associated with irresponsibility, disease, promiscuity, and unwanted pregnancy, while adults are often considered more mature and capable of self-control. Adults' declining ability to control children's sexual knowledge has created a high level of fear, and popular culture—the source of what seemed like secret information in the past—is often blamed instead of structural conditions and social changes.
