Sex party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A sex party is a gathering at which people meet for sexual relations. Most are run by people who are either swingers or couples looking for group sex. The term has similar connotations to a gang bang or an orgy.
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[edit] Urban legends
Sex parties have been a common feature in urban legend. Such legends often claim the parties are prominent, or growing in prominence, among teenagers. In the early 1950s, it was rumored that teenage girls throughout the South and Midwest formed "non virgin clubs" to organize and hold sex orgies. There were unverified reports of couples being paired off for sex by drawing numbers from a hat and boy members having to pass inspection by the girls in order to be accepted into the club. The claims that these clubs existed were later dismissed by authorities as unfounded.[1][2]
Several stories of this type arose in 2003. In New York, rumors began that teens had been taking days off from school to attend "hooky parties" while their parents were at work. One school suspended a group of girls for allegedly skipping school to attend such a party. They refused to allow them back until each had submitted to a medical examination for sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, and allowed school officials to examine the results. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against the school on behalf of the students[3] and won a settlement which included monetary damages and a change in the school district's policy. [1] A more specific and elaborate urban legend arose about "rainbow parties", at which teenage girls supposedly took turns fellating their male classmates while wearing different shades of lipstick, thereby leaving a "rainbow" of colors on the boys' penises.
These gatherings were discussed on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2003 and remained a popular subject for several years, but were dismissed by others as baseless urban legends or moral panic. For instance, Deborah Tolman, director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University, said: "This 'phenomenon' has all the classic hallmarks of a moral panic… One day we have never heard of rainbow parties and then suddenly they are everywhere, feeding on adults' fears that morally bankrupt sexuality among younger teens is rampant, despite any actual evidence, as well as evidence to the contrary."[4] Similar stories concerning teenagers' gel bracelets being used as coupons for sex also arose at the time, with similar lack of corroborating evidence.[5]
The urban legends saw a resurgence in 2006. This time the gatherings were called "chicken parties", alleged group parties at which more than one woman engages in oral sex, or one woman gives oral sex to more than one man. Author Sabrina Weill was inspired to write her book The Real Truth About Teens and Sex after hearing about chicken parties when she was editor-in-chief of Seventeen magazine. She writes: "[First] there's a word or catchphrase that everyone starts using to describe [the new sexual trend] like "chicken parties". Then everyone's talking about it, which means probably 0.5 to 5 percent of teens are actually doing it."[6]
[edit] Variations
Key parties, a phenomenon in the 1970s, were sex parties attended by couples in which the men would all throw their keys into a common bowl, then their wives would pick a key out of the bowl and go home with the man whose key it was.[7]
[edit] See also
- Deviancy amplification spiral
- The Ice Storm, which includes a key party as a plot element.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Cahn, Susan (2007). Sexual Reconings: Southern Girls in a Troubling Age. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. (p.199) ISBN 978-0-674-02452-6
- ^ Peril, Lynn (2002). Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons. New York. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. (pp.100-101) ISBN 0-303-32354-4
- ^ "NYCLU Sues New York School Officials for Forcing Teen-Age Girls to Undergo Intrusive Medical Exams" (July 8, 2003). aclu.org. Retrieved February 2, 2007.
- ^ From Lewin, Tamar (June 30, 2005)."Are These Parties for Real?" The New York Times. Retrieved February 17, 2007.
- ^ Mikkelson, Barbara (2003). "Sex Bracelets". snopes.com. Retrieved December 22, 2005.
- ^ Weill, The Real Truth About Teens and Sex, p. 41
- ^ Bell, Robert (1971). Social Deviance: A Substantive Analysis. University of Michigan: Dorsey Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0256016635.
[edit] References
- Primetime May 18, 2006 "What Parents Don't Know About Their Teen Daughters' Sex Lives" (part of "The Secret Life of Teens")
- Primetime, July 21, 2005
- Weill, Sabrina, The Real Truth About Teens and Sex: From Hooking Up to Friends with Benefits – What Teens Are Thinking, Doing, and Talking About, and How to Help Them Make Smart Choices
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