The Virginian-Pilot’s 757 section is targeted to teenagers, but some middle schoolers read it, and parents and teachers scope it out to “find out what makes kids tick, what they’re talking about, what they’re doing,” says former 757 editor Candace Johnson.
Some readers of the weekly Friday section in The Daily Break say they learned something Feb. 28 that they would rather not have seen.
The centerpiece article, “buddysex,” told of how “teenage girls, lacking the energy for intense emotional relationships but — like boys — having plenty of sexual energy, are hooking up with guys solely for sex.”
The article from The Washington Post touched a lot of hot buttons: oral sex, teen alcohol consumption, and female teens seeking a “sexual rush.”
One reader termed it “smut . . . a trashy story” that promoted oral sex under a guise that it isn’t sex, a la President Clinton. Remember his infamous line, “I did not have sex with that woman”?
“Some things are best left unsaid,” said reader Roy Robb.
Trena Hill, a Suffolk mother of three teens, hastily ripped out two Daily Break pages so her kids wouldn’t see the article, which she said was “aimed at feeding the prurient fantasies of our teenagers.”
“Inexcusable,” said Hill of the article’s publication.
“Appalling,” said Terri Spicher of Chesapeake, the mother of a 14-year-old daughter. “You are treating this topic like it is the latest fad in video games. Children need to be educated about abstaining from sex, and you appear to be promoting it.”
The article, coupled with a related piece (“The language of `dating’ is shifting, too”) by Cox High School junior Zoe Lukic, while not the first dealing with sex, is arguably the strongest story package that has appeared in the teen section since its inauguration more than a decade ago under its earlier name, Teenology.
Was the subject too strong for teen readers?
Johnson, who ran 757 until about a month ago, when she became entertainment editor, doesn’t think so. Neither does features editor Latane Avery.
“I don’t have any second thoughts about running it,” says Avery. “It was given a conservative treatment, no blaring headlines or inappropriate illustrations.”
Johnson fetched The Post article from the lifestyle wires, she says, “because it’s a subject I’d been hearing and reading a lot about. I used to meet with the kids (student 757 writers) monthly to talk and pick their brains, and was told that this behavior is definitely increasing. It’s not rampant, but it’s not uncommon. I’m sure this article was not a surprise to teenagers who read it.”
The day after the article ran, Johnson talked with teen correspondents “and most of them didn’t have a problem with the story,” she said. “Some of them were surprised we were bold enough to print it. Some girls said they would be embarrassed to read it in front of their father.”
If parents are upset about the article, their anger is misplaced, Johnson says. “They should be angry that behavior like this is happening in the first place — not at the newspaper for printing it. Just because it’s in the paper, doesn’t mean we’re glorifying it.”
The article’s topic (oral sex included) is actually old news. It’s been reported by various media. It has also been the subject of an episode of the TV drama “Boston Public.”
Nonetheless, some readers were probably shocked about the teen behavior — and even more shocked that we provided a forum for the story. Chances are, these readers would have been less vocal had the article appeared elsewhere in The Pilot. On the Focus page would have been a likely spot.
Was I shocked that it ran in the 757 section? Like some of our teen correspondents, I was surprised to see it. But I wasn’t shocked.
The story was well-researched and handled appropriately. It can serve as an excellent basis of conversation between parents and their teens.
“Hopefully, this article will prompt some parents to talk to their teens about it and sway them in the right directions,” Johnson says.
LEFT-HANDED CARRIER? Being in a Navy town certainly keeps us on our toes. Most of the time, at least. When we goof and use incorrect rank or terminology or misidentify something military, readers quickly let us know.
As some readers did when they began seeing the latest promotional ad for Pilot13News. “As tensions build in Iraq, get complete military coverage on LNC5,” the ad says.
There was a large photo of an aircraft carrier, its island on the port side. “We don’t have any left-handed aircraft carriers that I’m aware of,” said one e-mailer.
“Tell me that I have made some humongous blunder and that all’s well in the picture,” said Leslie H. Friedman.
The photo negative was reversed in the original ad, prepared by our partners at Channel 13. It has since been righted.
Which pleases Delta Hinson, who had called earlier about the error. “It looks like a real carrier now,” Hinson said.
