Dating game: Teens juggle seriousness, levity in social circles

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001 | 8:40 a.m.

Talk to teens today and you'll realize that the phrases "seeing someone," "dating someone" and "being together" still have traditional roles when defining romance and intimacy.

But add to the list "hooking up," "friends with benefits," and "hitting it, then quitting it" and you're likely to be more current with the reality of teen dating.

To the outsider, it may seem that local teens are doing the same activities they have been for years.

But talking to them reveals a different story a changing attitude about relationships.

"Friends with benefits" is the common term for two friends who share a sexual relationship with no romantic ties no strings attached.

"Hitting it, then quitting it" means having a physical encounter with someone, then abruptly severing all ties.

"Hooking up" is commonly used by some teens to describe anonymous kissing, sexual intercourse or anything in between.

Dating in groups is more the norm. The formal one-on-one night out with a partner is becoming a tradition of the past.

One-night stands are preferred, some teens say, because they are much less stressful than emotional relationships. And dating someone who attends a different school is more desirable because it's easier to have their own space, flirt and/or mingle while avoiding gossipy tales and attempts by others to break up the relationship.

Essentially, the swinging lifestyle is readily available to local teens who are rarely wanting for a party on weekends, find drugs and alcohol to be easily accessible, are comfortable with the idea of multiple partners and have mixed feelings about monogamy.

But teens say that not everybody is jumping on the party float, and not everyone is a swinger. Michelle Crevelt, a 17-year-old senior at Clark High School, said she has a boyfriend, but plans to remain abstinent until she is married.

Attitudes about dating, relationships and expectations depend on the individual, she said. "Some people are dating. Some people are friends with benefits.' I have friends who are single."

Teens who claim they want to remain abstinent say they feel no pressure to change their ways, Crevelt said. And, while stories of parties, one-night stands and multiple partners are common conversation in school, those options are not always tempting.

According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which is conducted every two years by the Centers for Disease Control, sex among teens nationwide has decreased during the past decade.

In 1999 49.9 percent of high school students said that they have had sexual intercourse compared to 54.1 percent in 1991.

"There are a lot of students drawing the line, saying, 'I will wait,' " said Chris Trethewey, the senior high director at Central Christian Church in Henderson.

Some teenagers, he said, have already had sex and are choosing not to participate in it again until they're married. "They've experienced the emotional side of sex and have decided that they want to wait."

Changing times

Shirley Feldman, a senior research scientist in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Child Development at Stanford University in California, has worked with California teens in her research on adolescent sexual behavior. She has also studied national trends.

Feldman said that most youths she has worked with seek love and relationships. They don't approve of sex with a partner outside of a relationship and disapprove of one-night stands.

However, she added, teenagers' definitions of relationships are much different than they used to be.

A couple can meet one night, have sex and call it a relationship, Feldman said. "They still argue very clearly that it's a relationship," she said. "To them, this is considered part of getting to know someone."

And having a relationship doesn't necessarily mean that teens are going steady, in love or planning any type of a future together, she said.

Citing past studies, Feldman said that in the early 1960s the relationship trend among young couples who might be having sex was that they were either engaged or about to be engaged. They were committed.

In the late '60s and early '70s, people were in love and going steady and planned on staying together for awhile. But 10-15 years later, Feldman said, it was common for couples to go steady without planning a future together.

"And now it's been weakened again," she said. "Sex once occurred late in a relationship, after you knew the person. Now it occurs more early."

Adult exposure

For 16-year-old Nicole Hawkins, an 11th grader at Coronado High School, none of this is part of her world. She's not dating and not looking to date. She said she plans to remain abstinent until she is married.

While she knows others at school who are sexually active, she said that she also knows others who refrain from sex because of the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

"There are kids (who) don't want what's out there," Hawkins said. "But that doesn't mean the temptation is not there.

"We are more of a party generation because we want to grow up too fast," she said. "Girls 9 and 10 (years old) look at Britney Spears and want to be just like her."

UNLV sociology professor Robert Parker, who has studied the effects of the gambling culture on Las Vegans, said he sees the same trend in today's youth. Thirteen-year-olds today are trying to act out what they see in videos on MTV, he said. Likewise, teenagers on television are behaving sexually and acting as if they are 35.

"The message that young girls are getting, (is that) it's not only right, appropriate, but the thing to do is be as sexual as you can as early as you can, and I see all that magnified in this city.

"A lot of it has to do with the casino culture and the highly sexualized character of the city itself," Parker said.

Life for young people is quite different in Las Vegas than in other parts of the country, he said. By comparison, there are less community-center, community-based activities and events in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, teen hangouts are found in some unusual places, such as at game arcades on the Strip, and parking lots and bowling alleys at casinos.

"Some of the best (movie) theaters you go to, you go through a casino first," Parker said.

This leads to negative spinoffs of trying to have social relationships in a city designed for adults, and puts pressure on teens to be accepted if they are more sexually accessible.

"There's evidence to back that up, high rate of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases."

Decisions

To help teens handle temptations and the social attitudes toward casual sex, Trethewey said that Central Christian Church offers a Sunday church service for high school students that addresses issues such as dating and sex.

Last year it offered a Sunday morning series titled "Sex in Six Weeks," which discussed what the Bible says about sex versus what behavior is socially acceptable.

Another series conducted this year, "Bad Dates, Roommates and Soulmates," focused on dating, relationships and marriage. A couple that was married at age 17 and have been together for 23 years talked to teens about their journey. Tretheway said up to 350 students attended the sessions.

The teen years are a difficult and exciting time, Trethewey said. Some of the biggest concerns among teens who are dating is how to deal with the heavy emotions they are feeling and the expectations they think they have as a couple.

"Parents aren't talking about (sex) so much anymore," Trethewey said. "When I grew up my parents had the sex talk with me."

Hawkins explained: "Adults don't understand how much we take from them and how much we base our lives on what they do," she said. "Kids kind of want to know what their parents did. They want advice ... I can go to my parents if I'm having a problem and I can set my goals according to what they did.

"I know some kids whose parents are never home and ... don't care."

Party time

Parties where alcohol is involved are where teens can run into trouble, said Jodi Tyson, director of Nevada Coalition Against Sexual Violence.

The coalition, along with the Nevada Public Health Foundation, operates a program in which guest speakers talk with teens in high school health classes about safe dating practices and healthy and unhealthy relationships.

A lot of teens feel pressured to have mature sexual relationships and drink alcohol, Tyson said. "(They) feel like they're ready to make adult decisions but in reality they're not."

Responsibilities -- teens who have jobs and are already parents -- enforce this, she said.

Based on results from the Youth Risk Assesment Survey, among 51,842 Clark County students in grades 9-12 surveyed, 13.8 percent of girls said that they had been forced to have sexual intercourse in their lifetime, and 6.5 percent of boys said that they had been forced to have sexual intercourse.

Additionally, a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health said that one in five teenage girls will be involved in a physically or sexually violent dating relationship before they graduate from high school. The statistics were based on the findings of the Massachussetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

To help teens understand what is a sex crime and what isn't, Tyson said her program offers scenarios that students can talk through. For example, she said, speakers pose a hypothetical situation to students: "A girl has lied to her parents about going to a party where alcohol is involved. The girl and her boyfriend are drinking and end up in a back room by themselves. He's pulled her pants down and she's afraid to say no."

From there, it's up to the students to talk it through, Tyson said.

Perspectives

Tyson said that she's found that there is a low tolerance for cheating for teens in committed relationships.

"A lot of kids in high school don't feel they can play they field," she said.

Brittany Lape, a 16-year-old junior at Silverado High School, said she avoids parties and spends time with her friends and other teen couples bowling, playing miniature golf, going to movies and eating out.

She said relationships among her friends are usually long-term -- two- and three-year relationships. She's been with her boyfriend for 1 1/2 years and plans for the monogamous relationship to last beyond high school.

Others, such as Billy Tufano -- this year's homecoming king at Cimarron High School -- have a different perspective on relationships.

"We (his friends) figure we have the rest of our lives (to be in relationships)," Tufano said. "I haven't had a girlfriend in 2 1/2 years. I like being single. I can flirt with anyone I want and nobody cares.

"I think more people are looking to have fun and go to parties."

His friend, 17-year-old Bryan Atwood, also a Cimmaron senior, said he recently got out of a six-month relationship and doesn't plan to date anyone, but said that he's willing to "hook up" with girls at parties.

"We're all single," he said, referring to his group of friends. "It's the best."

But at 16, Brandie Condon, an 11th grader at Centennial High School, said that she's already burned out on the party scene and now has a boyfriend -- as do most of her friends.

"You get burnt out on (parties) really fast," she said. At parties, "You hook up you act stupid. Go make out, act like you're going to call them and then you never see them again."

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