Literature is a major source of sex information for adolescents. Yet 44 percent of all adolescents agree that they have never read a serious educational book about sex (Sorensen, 1973, p. 385), and 33 percent agree that they have never read a serious magazine article on the subject (Sorensen, 1973, p. 402). A bewildering variety of magazines and books on sex pass through the hands of teenagers (Bernard, 1961; Brown 1961; Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1970). Some of it is very helpful to them; some is of dubious value. The magazines beamed particularly at teenagers reveal major positive (fun and popularity) and negative (overweight and underweight and adolescent acne) values of its readers. Adults worried about the effects of the teen-type magazines on the young adolescent may derive some consolation from the fact that these magazines have very little circulation when compared to some of the adult-sponsored magazines for teenagers such as American Girl (Girl Scouts), Boys Life (Boy Scouts), and the several editions of Scholastic Magazine.
Little is known about the extent to which young adolescents read the
underground newspapers now available in most cities. High school students have
taken to publishing their own underground papers in some communities. These
attempt to be more sophisticated than the teen magazines, are often critical of the
official school paper, and deal with topics such as war and peace, revolution, drugs, and
sex, among other things.
Popular songs are also a part of adolescent literature. Courtship, the downward
course of love, war, sex, and the effect of drugs, are common themes.
Teen fashion magazines, popular general magazines, all of the sex education
literature, research studies on teenage behavior, and books on morality, are all
published by adults. The pornographic literature is also adult-produced, and most
teenagers have been exposed to some pornographic literature (The Report of the
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1970). The attitudes of adolescents
toward adult-produced literature varies with the type and quality of such literature.
Clothes, of course, was a subject that never ceased to draw
attention and consume time and thought. Seventeen Magazine was
just it-we could thumb through that by the hour and never grow
weary.
After a few hours in the library with books smuggled selfconsciously
to the tables, we did learn a little about sex.
I gained sex and marriage knowledge through magazine articles.
Several good books were available in the school library, and these
formed the basis for my formal sex education.
I had an incomplete knowledge of the facts of life, picked up mainly
from some books of my father's that were considered very "dirty"
and unacceptable for reading, and that gave out some very wrong
impressions.
I managed to pick up satisfactory information from our local library.
The summer after my high school graduation, a book called Facts of
Love and Life for Teenagers by Duvall came into my hands. It was
so different from the religious booklet I had read! So many things I
had wondered about were cleared up. It was very objective and
rational in approach. If only I could have read that five or six years
earlier!
Thanks to the fact that my sister was a nurse, I discovered books in
her library that presented an undistorted picture of the
physiological aspects of sex. In her library, I found one book that,
more than any other, helped clear up my warped image of sexual
pleasure. This book was Baby and Child Care by Dr. Spock. This
may seem a very inadequate book for guidance of adolescents, and
it is. But in this book was material on two or three changes in
adolescence, problems of adolescents, and parental guidance of
adolescents.
These chapters cleared the smoke from my eyes, and
enabled me to tackle the problem of adjusting to adolescence and
adulthood with my eyes open. I naturally didn't become
emotionally and sexually well-adjusted overnight, with more
problems to arise with the advent of casual and serious dating in
my life, but at least I was no longer fighting in the dark, and I also
felt freer to seek the advice of others.