Adolescent boys face sexual pressure

Tiffany Gerber
gerbertj@uwec.edu

Mike Dekan doesn’t think about sex. Neither does Andrew Duerkop or Cody Matthews. Or so they said. But according to research they are the most likely to face sexual pressures

Mike, 13, Andrew, 12 and Cody, 14, are all in the same eighth-grade class at Northstar Middle School. Although they are in the same class, all three of them have different interests and different friends.

Mike likes to hang out with his friends almost every day, sitting around, listening to music and talking about girls and bikes, he said. Friends are an important part of his life.

“We just get together and ride around,” he said. “It’s just fun.” 

Computers consume Andrew. His favorite thing to do on the computer is create cartoons, he said. Andrew already knows where he wants to go to college. He also knows that he doesn’t want to live in the dormitories, he said. Andrew likes to play baseball and so does Cody.

Cody is a self-professed sports fiend. He loves to play, watch and read about any type of sport, from college hockey to major league baseball. When he and his friends hang out they watch movies or play basketball at the YMCA.

All three boys are different, but one thing pulls them together – they are all trying to find out who they are, said Lori Bica, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. They all share the same attitudes about sexual pressure. The boys said sexual pressures doesn’t affect them. That it’s a girl thing. But the fact is that boys are more likely to face more pressure to have sex than girls, according to the 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation Report on “Sexual Health Knowledge, Attitudes and Experiences.”

“You see this relationship that is influenced by peers and the desire to fit in,” Bica said. “They don’t want to stand out; they just want to be accepted.”

Outside of the classroom, Mike, Cody and Andrew go to birthday and social parties with their friends. Mike said he goes to parties about once every two weeks.

Eighth grade teacher, Derick Black said he understands the need for peers to hang out with other peers. He sees this need on a daily basis at Delong Middle School.

“That’s their world,” Black said. “It’s so obvious when you walk through the halls, or when you watch them come into the classroom and that stuff is kind of what defines who they are.”

“We just hang out, socialize and stuff,” Mike said. “Most of the time the parents are home, but sometimes they’re not. (If they are not home) you can do whatever you want, but if they’re home you try to be good.”

“There is real pressure (there), like when you go to a party,” Bica said. “And a bunch of people are hooking up and you don’t want to, and people say ‘What’s wrong with you?’ That is direct pressure.”

Cody, Mike and Andrew said they have never felt pressure sexually at any of the parties they have attended.

“The only time the guys sit by the girls is if they are going out,” Cody said. But some of his friends might have felt pressured before, he said.

Although Andrew said he has not felt any pressures he said why he thinks guys might give into sexual pressures.

“Maybe it’s because it’s like they don’t want to feel like they didn’t live up to their friends’ standards, or maybe they do want to,” Andrew said.

Lilyanna DeWilde,13, is an eighth grader at Delong. The pressures guys feel are very different than the pressures girls feel, Lilyanna said.

“The guys brag about what they did or something to show their friends up,” Lilyanna said. “Girls don’t really do that.”

She said she has a guy friend who felt sexually pressured before.

“My friend’s friend asked him if he had kissed a girl, and when he said, ‘No,’ the other guy said, ‘Oh that’s dumb,’ ” she said. “It made him feel really bad.”

All three of the boys agree that guys can be pressured sexually, but they also said they think girls feel more pressures than boys do.

 “I think guys pressure girls more,” Cody said. “That’s just the way it seems. But I guess it could go both ways.”

Pressure can come from both their friends and their girlfriends. Guy friends can pressure their other guy friends, Andrew said.

“They can pressure them to do stuff with a girl,” Andrew said.

Courtney Wiley, 13, an eighth grader from Delong also said a source of pressure can be a girlfriend and also their friends bragging about doing stuff with girls.

Kids are more likely to face sexual pressures if the school is popularity driven, Bica said.

Cody, Mike and Andrew all said they knew of friends who had kissed a girl before. But Andrew said it depends on the group you are with whether you face sexual pressures or not.

“There’s like four main groups (at Northstar),” Mike said. “You got the Goths, the Preps, the Jocks and the kids who just like to hang out and party and stuff.”

Black agreed that cliques play a role in sexual influences. 

“It is stereo-typical that the popular kids are the one who are more visible in terms of relationships,” he said.

Further explore the 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation Report.

Advice on why and how parents should communicate with adolescents about sexual behavior and relationships.

Photo By: Tiffany Gerber

(Left to right), eighth-graders Mike Dekan, 13, Cody Matthews, 14, and Andrew Duerkop, 12, talk about the sexual pressures boys face.

Listen to audio clips from interviews in this story:

Interview with Mike Dekan

Script of interview with Mike Dekan

Continued on page two

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