Dreams and Darkness

 

Thursday is one of two days of the week I tutor three teen-aged girls who are attending their high school fully online this fall. I like Thursdays because it is our "dress-up" day. The girls and I wear simple, pretty dresses that we might have worn in person before the pandemic. Yesterday was such a day.

It was also a deadline day. The girls turned in essays describing a "dream" they wish could have or want to have, a dream so real it would create a feeling that might stay with them for a long time after waking.

I did not expect what they read aloud, taking turns, sharing their dreams. It's not appropriate that I would share the individual dreams, but I can share a theme they all had in common: Darkness and overcoming it. They all had a terrible or evil obstacle to overcome, they all deeply involved their friends, social media was a centerpiece, two girls had bullies in their dreams, while one had a school shooter. All the girls defeated the darkness and emerged stronger women, facing a brighter day. There was no romance, no sex.

It seems to me their dreams were compilations of video games, movies, and dark young adult novels influenced by the pandemic and insane politics of today.

They had not shared their work with each other, hoping, I think, for surprises in the tutoring session. We talked at the length about their stories and why there were so many striking similarities in them. I honestly haven't heard a better discussion in college sophomore literature classes. They came away from the session thinking about current culture, media, political climate, fear, and originality in storytelling.

During our "bull session" and snacks after the session, I asked why none of them had included any romance in their dreams.

"We can't write about that!" they agreed. Trouble added, "It's too dangerous. No one is making out or having sex now." All the girls nodded.

I sensed from these girls, and my college students, that sex was far less interesting than a year ago. When I looked up some statistics, I discovered this short piece from the New York Times. Sex among high schoolers has been on the decline for some time. As well all know, it's fallen off drastically among adults too.

IDA OF THE DAY: SEX, DELAYED

The decline of high school sex continues.

In the early 1990s, slightly more than half of U.S. teenagers had sexual intercourse before graduating from high school. Last year, only 38 percent of high school graduates had done so, according to recently released government survey data. The decline spans demographic groups and has been sharpest among Black teenagers.

By The New York Times | Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

These trends are part of “a more general turn away from risky behavior among teens,” Charles Fain Lehman writes for the Institute for Family Studies. “As psychologist Jean Twenge has documented, contemporary teens not only have less sex but also drink alcohol less and drive less.” Those who do have sex are more likely to use contraception.

There is a worrisome side to the trend, though, as Kate Julian explained in a 2018 Atlantic article about the “sex recession”: It seems to be a part of a larger shift away from social activity and physical intimacy among young people, even before the pandemic.