Another interesting trend may be on the rise among teen girls—sexual contact with other girls. In a comparison of data from 2002, a new analysis of the U.S. National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) from 2006-2008, found that 17-year-old girls were significantly less likely to have been heterosexually active (63% v. 46%) but more than twice as likely to have had same-sex contact (5% v. 11%).

While this trend likely explains why these same girls were less likely to be pregnant (18% v. 12%). The fact that this group of teens was also more than three times as likely to have used emergency contraception (5% v. 17%) doesn’t quite fit the same-sex contact finding. But the drop in the percentage of 17-year-old girls who had ever been pregnant does, although this stat could also mean girls are waiting longer to engage in heterosexual activity.

Given the small sample size in this study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior—roughly 200 teen girls—the researchers say that more data is needed to determine whether this is a trend that is expected to continue, and what factors may have contributed to the change within the four-year span. They do note, though, that fluidity in sexual behavior and orientation is particularly common among young women and this finding may be an example of just that.

I think it’s also possible that girls may be more open to admitting same-sex contact now, as the idea has become increasingly less taboo within a very short period of time. Plus the percentage of girls who engaged in same-sex contact was still quite low.

What do you think about the idea that girls may be having more same-sex contact?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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There’s really no way to half-A$$ it: Your kids are incompetent.

As I ease into life as a first-year teacher for an under-funded, shoddily-staffed, failing charter school on Chicago’s Far South Side, I’m learning the myriad ways in which young black children are being bred for failure – if not general insufficiency – in an economically crippled society that increasingly demands competition.

I could write a long thesis paper about the socioeconomic failures of our government and society when it comes to how we handle poor minorities. In this case, however, I’d rather focus on things that I think you, dear reader, can actually control:

Raise ‘em old school: It sounds prosaic when older people say that the new generation doesn’t have the respect that they had when they were kids. But dammit, it’s all the way true…mainly because parents are getting younger and younger. If grandma is 39 years old, how much can you reasonably expect from students who literally, unabashedly curse out their teachers? Since I can’t pop ‘em in the mouth like I’d like to at times, perhaps you should make them a bit more respectful. Just a thought.

Bathe them: I teach freshmen. By the end of seventh period every day, it’s a safe bet my classroom will smell less than stellar. I have certain students I can’t even stand next to. I was a grubby kid (and some might argue I can be a grubby adult at times), but I was at least acquainted with a bar of soap. Get them familiar just the same…do you really want your boy to grow to be a man without ever having a woman within a reasonable circumference of their person?

Help them with homework: I was not the class valedictorian, by any means. And though I had very educated parents, they didn’t ride me to study and perform well. But boy, I knew the value of getting my homework done. Too many of my kids look at me like I’m speaking Mandarin Chinese when I ask them to get homework in. So many are failing for that reason alone. Your average 14-year-old needs to be ushered into high school the right way, so do your best to help them with the basic algebra at home. And if you don’t remember it, pay your nerdy cousin with free sixers of MGD to tutor your kid.

Have frank sexual conversations: As of this writing, I’m dealing with a student who is now the rumored Amber Cole of the school because she got busted in the boy’s bathroom. Twice. Servicing two different boys. As can be expected, her name is buzzing around the school in a major way. Make sure you don’t have that daughter. If you have a son, give him the common sense and wherewithal to see that he is not the teenaged sire of a child destined to be one of the many students I have with no papa at home.

 Teach them the true value of material items: It’s funny how many students I have who think that I’m paid because I wear an $80 pair of Cole Haan shoes and a nice leather motorcycle jacket. If only they knew. I went to school with a bunch of materialistic hood ferrets who valued Tommy Hilfiger and Nautica more than they did bread and water, so I know what misplaced priorities look like. Teach them that a brand name is just a reason to exponentially increase the price of a sweatshirt. The sartorially awkward geeky kids will thank you for it.

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Last month social media was a-twitter about Amber Cole, 14, who was seen on camera performing oral sex on a boy said to be her ex-boyfriend. According to lore, she did it in an effort to win back his affection. And by all signs, it looks like she was desperate for it.

YouTube went ablaze with with people opining on the incident, one of which was done by a wanna-be comedian. Baldy said, “If you 14, and you know how to do that, you ain’t a girl, you’s a woman!”

Wait. The ability to put a penis in your mouth and move it automatically makes you a woman? Not true. How about if the girl is 12? Or 11? How about nine? What if the perpetrator is an adult, and not some mean-spirited, hormone-fueled, pimply little boy?

Lisa Ling recently reported on sex trafficking in the United States for the OWN Network and found that young American girls were being recruited as young as 11 years old by pimps aiming to “turn them out” for profit, some of the girls servicing 20 men a night, with all–not some–of the profits going to the pimps. “If that’s not slavery, I don’t know what is,” said Ling in an interview on the Dr. Oz show, which aired Nov. 15.

Most of the young girls were black. Most of the young girls were fatherless. Sadly, many of the pimps were black. According to Ling, part of the pimp’s seduction was telling these children how beautiful and special they were, and the men insisted they call them “daddy.” This is a guess, but I’ll bet those girls were willing to call the pimps “daddy” because they didn’t have one worth a damn at home. “How important is it to a young girl to hear someone say I love you and you’re beautiful?” Ling asked. (Quick! Somebody do a study on the correlation between the 73 percent out-of-wedlock epidemic in the African American community and the sex trade. Oh, wait…)

But how is it that often in the black community, the pimp–the perpetrator of these horrific crimes against children (yes; they are children)–are glorified, and the girls are hoes? Don’t think that true? Then BET must not be in your cable network.

Here’s a newsflash: You don’t get to call an 11, 12, 13, 14, 17 year-old-girl a Slore while men out here make pimping a viable lifestyle choice. A girl’s ability to give a man oral sex, or lay down with a man does not make her a woman. Oftentimes, it makes her a victim of RAPE. “Guess the average age a girl starts prostitution in the U.S.A. Give up? The average age a GIRL enters prostitution is 12 YEARS OLD. Most of the girls sexually enslaved are poor, prior victims of sexual abuse and black or Latino,” wrote Jenee Darden on her blog, Cocoafly.com in a post titled, Saving Our Girls From Oakland’s Streets.

What is more, a young child does not have the brain capacity to fully grasp consequences of their actions and impulse control–that part of the brain doesn’t mature until a person reaches their early twenties. Would you hold a crippled person responsible for not getting out of the way before being hit by a runaway bus? Would you belittle a blind man for improperly reading a “Keep Out” sign? Yet, many are starting to hold children responsible for actions that they can not fully process or are powerless to prevent.

Girls are made to have sex with these guys even during their menstrual cycles…the pimps are stuffing cotton, baby wipes whatever to stop the flow, which leads to infection that causes infertility. But…she’s a hoe…right? Pimping ain’t easy…right? “Many of these kids are made to advertise themselves on Craigslist and other places. Traffickers don’t see them as kids, they see them as disposable commodities,” said my friend, Stag Brumfield, a youth advocate.

Next time I hear someone call a young girl a hoe, I might just have to pimp slap them.

Christelyn D. Karazin is the co-author of Swirling: How to Date, Mate and Relate Mixing Race Culture and Creed (to be released April 2012), and runs a blog, www.beyondblackwhite.com, dedicated to women of color who are interested and or involved in interracial and intercultural relationships. She is also the founder and organizer of “No Wedding, No Womb,” an initiative to find solutions to the 72 percent out-of-wedlock rate in the black community.

I’m starting to think that hot underwear for teens and tweens is a sad marketing tactic that misinformed companies have decided to pursue  for the sake of attention. I remember when Abercrombie and Fitch came out with thongs for kids in 2002 and now we’re looking at crotchless panties for young girls.

A  new store called Kids N Teen inside the Greeley Mall in Greeley, CO, stopped selling racy underwear with splits down the crotch only after parents pushed back against the inappropriate undergarments. The owner defended herself by saying only 25% of her merchandise is for teens. So as long as the girl is 13, it’s OK?

It’s insane to think that nowhere along the manufacturing process did anyone stop to say, um what is this? Or that a woman would even conceive of excusing these panties as OK because they’re for teens. Can we be surprised at the rates of pregnancy, STDs, abortions, and sexual activity among teens when we practically psyche them up to it?

Crotchless panties are just one piece of a huge hypersexualized pie we are throwing right in front of our young girl’s faces on a continuous basis. Gone are the frilly dresses we used to put little girls in, unless of course we’re dressing them up for a beauty pageant. Clothes for tots and tweens are now made to mostly mimic adult clothing in a mini size. Every time I turn on Lifetime there is a movie with some teenagers getting it in, and not always with any type of warning of the dangers of engaging in sexual activity too young; MTV’s “Skins” show has been likened to Adult Videos for teens; and models who are barely legal, or nowhere near, are photographed in suggestive poses in the shadow of images of grown women being sexed up to sell anything from cars, perfume, to diet pills.

There is enough sexually explicit “noise” out there for young girls to happen upon, it’s irresponsible to shove sex down their throats and excuse it away for the sake of a few dollars. I want to ask what sort of thought went into making this product, but it’s clear there wasn’t any at all. Watch this video and judge for yourself.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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 By Charlotte Young

James C. Anderson stood near his car on an early morning in June, unknowingly standing as a target for a group of excited, crazed teens on a mission.

He was ran over in a motel parking lot in Jackson, Mississippi and The NY Times reports that his death could have, at first, been connected to an accidental hit and run. But a motel security camera caught the incident on tape – CNN posted the video on its website on Sunday, prompting additional interest in the case.

Hinds County district attorney, Robert Shuler Smith, is sure that a group of white teenagers from a predominantly white town only 16 miles away, beat and killed Anderson, who was African American. One witness says they came to Jackson looking for African Americans to “mess with.”

“This is the first business that you get to coming off the highway, and so that was the first person that was out here and vulnerable,” Smith told CNN.

The district attorney says Anderson was standing near his car at a motel in Jackson at about 5 am on Sunday, June 26. Two carloads of teenagers then got off the Interstate and drove into the motel parking lot. Some jumped from the vehicles to beat Anderson and as he tripped around the parking lot, he was run over by a green Ford F250 pickup truck. A local hospital later pronounced Anderson dead.

One motel worker who witnessed the assault says one of them yelled “white power” after they beat the man. Others who saw it take place, said they heard a suspect laugh and brag about the incident. While two carloads of teens were involved, Deryl Dedmon, a skinny 18-year-old man with blond hair, was the driver of the vehicle that killed Anderson. He has been charged with murder and is in jail on an $800,000 bond. There were two teenage girls in the truck with him but police say they were not charged.

Another 18-year-old, John A Rice, was at first charged with murder but a judge reduced the charges to simple assault. He has been released on bail. This month a grand jury will hear the case and prosecutors will argue that it was a hate crime and a murder and that both teens should be convicted. Smith says that these teens “have a history of harassing white teens who had black friends or gay teens.”

Dedmon’s uncle Ray Dedmon says his nephew was a “good boy” who “probably got with the wrong crowd.” A Facebook page supports Rice’s case, with his friends arguing his innocence. His great-aunt says that he is neither “a racist or a murderer,” and that she is “sick of the race card.” But the case has Jackson residents and surrounding towns wondering how far the state has come in race relations. While Smith tells NY Times that “this does not happen very often,” he also says “it’s still highly segregated in most ways” with high racial tension in some groups.

“There’s no way to get around it,” he said. “It is what it is.”