Teen sex surveys debunked!

I’ve been railing against those ridiculous teen sex/bad behavior surveys for more than a year now. You know the ones I’m talking about: "20 percent of 6th grade girls engage in oral sex while injecting themselves with Botox so they’ll look like Angelina Jolie," or "Most 3rd grade boys have tried marijuana while playing violent video games in their rooms."
I’m convinced these surveys are cynical ways for publicly-funded think tanks or cloistered academics to get big wordwide headlines for their bogus findings, which in turn leads to more government funding.
I can’t prove that, but a new study shows these surveys are about about as reliable as Britney Spear’s parenting skills.
The American Journal of Public Health took a closer look at at survey involving 13,000 students in grades 7 to 12. It seems the kids claimed they were sexually active in one survey and later denied it in a second survey.
Really? But I thought teens could be relied on for honest and insightful commentary about their messed-up lives. Yeah, and Connie Chung can sing.
If some survey guy had asked me in the 8th grade if I was having sex, I would have lied and said all the popular girls thought I was hotter than Leif Garrett and wanted me to do unspeakable things to them under the bleachers. Of course, I was barely able to talk to a cute girl without puking.
Here’s The New York Times’ take on the issue: "Why did so many students change their stories? "We can’t really get inside their heads and and know what they’re thinking," said the study’s author...But the study raises questions about how much reliance should be placed on surveys about sexual activity among teenagers..."
So the next time you read your daughter may be part of trend of teen girls getting pregnant with men they meet on MySpace so they can deliver the baby in Namibia, just disregard it and be rest assured her bedroom door is closed because she’s studying for a chem test.