Is Oral Sex The New Bar Mitzvah Present? We Think Not.
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman
Filed in:
sex
4:15PM, Monday August 10th 2009
Most lucky boys get a few hundred bucks and a nice wristwatch for their bar mitzvah presents. But if a Jewish magazine article out of Brandeis University is to be believed, 13-year-old girls are gifting their male Hebrew school classmates with a bar mitzvah blowjob.
In the July 2009 issue of 614 magazine from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Shulamit Reinharz writes:
“...a woman in her seventies began sharing her concern with me about the custom in her granddaughter’s prep school; Jewish girls were giving Jewish boys blowjobs as bar mitzvah presents! Presumably because they’ve already got everything else.”
We have only one thing to say about this: oy gevalt.
To her credit, Reinharz did her due diligence on young Jewish teens having oral sex—but she didn’t substantiate the rumors about bar mitzvah blowjobs. A male student at Brandeis told Reinharz that in high school he remembers oral sex was considered a “middle-school thing,” but he didn’t confirm the bar mitzvah blowjob trend, either. Furthermore, several Frisky staffers are Jewish, and we’ve never heard of this before.
That’s not to say 13-year-olds aren’t going down on each other. A 2005 study by NBC and People of 1,000 teens found that only four percent of 13- and 14-year-olds have had oral sex. Only 58 percent of 13- to 14-year-olds even knew what the correct definition of oral sex!
If bar mitzvah blowjobs are anything like the “blowjobs are the new good night kiss” trend or teen rainbow parties trend (when a group of girls each paints her lips a different color of lipstick and then goes down on a boy)—the latter was roundly criticized as a sensationalized and overblown phenomenon—then they’re mostly BS.
But let us know if we’re mistaken. Have you heard about the blowjob bar mitzvah “trend”?
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z3nger
wrote on August 10 2009 @ 03:37 pm: [report]
13?? That is so beyond disturbing. I don’t think I’ve even seen one until late teens! What is this world coming to?
Coral
wrote on August 10 2009 @ 03:49 pm: [report]
I could believe it. I don’t think it’s the worst of what young teens could be doing either. I know that BJs are really popular in middle school now, and it is better that they do that instead of risking pregnancy. They do have raging hormones, and an evolutionary sense, it actually makes sense for people these age to start procreating and getting married. But of course, that doesn’t go along with our society.
_jsw_
wrote on August 10 2009 @ 05:15 pm: [report]
I was born too early.
Antiquity
wrote on August 10 2009 @ 05:16 pm: [report]
I totally call a b.s. alert on this. lol. I’ve never heard of this, my little sister (16) who has been to her fair share of bat has never heard of this and my Jewish besty laughed at the thought. I don’t know where this ‘trend’ is located but it’s not happening in sleepy Indiana.
sun rae
wrote on August 10 2009 @ 07:06 pm: [report]
I don’t know if it was a trend, but when I was in middle school, there were a few girls who gave blowjobs at bat mitzfahs, but then again they weren’t the kind of girl I talked to.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on August 10 2009 @ 08:22 pm: [report]
Stop the schtooping, start the zoygn!
strangeasangels
wrote on August 11 2009 @ 12:30 am: [report]
so many people got/gave head on the buses to bar mitzvahs, it’s not even funny.
spanishbutterfly
wrote on August 11 2009 @ 07:37 am: [report]
wow.. 13 and to think i was still playin with barbies in the bathtub at that age. I didnt perform oral until i was about 18 n it grossed me out. The problem is Sex is bein thrown at them all time in the movies/commercials/magazines
Every other person on the disney channel have topless/nude/ass shots.
sadie
wrote on August 11 2009 @ 08:56 am: [report]
Can’t comment on the Bar Mitzvah trend specifically but I can comment overall on sexual activity of kids today. I have a brother who is a freshman in high school and he and all of his friends have tons of sex. I don’t even know when he started, maybe 13 or 14, but he’s already slept with a lot of girls. All the girls have already slept with a ton of boys. I find the whole thing very disturbing and inappropriate. Makes me glad I do not want kids.
bumble_bee
wrote on August 11 2009 @ 01:30 pm: [report]
@ CheeeeEEEEse: oh my gosh, for some reason that really tickled me. that made me laugh.
anyway, i think the most disturbing thing in this whole post (besides the fact of 12 annd 13 y/o’s having sex,) is the rainbow parties. seriously wtf is up with that? as a girl, if i was about to go down on some guy and he had lipstick rings you know where… he’d geta mouth full of fist for even contemplating having me do that. hello didnt you get enough? ick. society is horrible sometimes.
@sadie: i can agree with you, my boyfriends brother is a year behind me age wise and he gets around alot if you know what i mean, its insaine.
ohhh boy.
katchoo
wrote on August 13 2009 @ 09:40 am: [report]
Oh come on, people. Are we willing to believe anything about the sexuality of people younger than us based on anecdotes and single examples? Study after study (see the one quoted up there) each find the same thing: that kids often have way less sex than adults think they do. Rainbow parties were blown out of proportion, those sex wristbands were blown out of proportion, and even one mention of bar mitzvah blowjobs is, I promise you, blown out of proportion.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on August 13 2009 @ 09:43 am: [report]
@katchoo: If you had said ‘blown’ one more time I would of came.
uncoveror
wrote on August 13 2009 @ 09:56 am: [report]
I don’t believe a word of this. At that age, most kids still think oral sex is when you talk about it, and written sex is when you read about it. I was probably a little younger than 13 at the time, but most of the kids in my school thought a virgin was someone who had a lot of sex, not someone who never had any. They knew the word was related to sex, but had it all wrong. We didn’t have the Internet then, but how much could change in such a short time?
Coral
wrote on August 13 2009 @ 10:08 am: [report]
@uncoveror: Times have definitely changed. I recently graduated high school, and I know that there are now middle schoolers engaging in oral sex, which was almost unheard of when I was in middle school not too long ago. Times definitely change, and to deny that this is happening is to only make it worse. I don’t know how common oral sex is for bar mitzvahs, but it definitely is common for 12 year olds and up.
ohdanielle
wrote on August 13 2009 @ 09:49 pm: [report]
As someone who started giving BJ’s at age 13(not jewish), I know how extremely common this is, and how casual sexual favors have become with 12+ year olds.
It’s called curiosity, manipulation, low self esteem, and the idea that putting some guys d*ck in your mouth is not a big deal.
I also know by experience that peer pressure is a force to be reckoned with.
Coral
wrote on August 13 2009 @ 09:55 pm: [report]
@ohdanielle: Yeah, I started when I was 15, but for me, I think it was less about manipulation and low self esteem. But I agree that it just doesn’t seem like a big deal. Plus, it’s a lot safer.
happyinmiami
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 09:48 pm: [report]
just FYI, oral sex is not safer than normal intercourse. girls can still get pregnant by performing oral. I have a younger brother who is 12 and started going to bat/bar mitzbah’s this year, and in the ones he has been to so far, no one has gotten or recieved it.
Coral
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 09:51 pm: [report]
I think it’s safer. Yes, of course it’s POSSIBLE to get pregnant, but it’s quite unlikely.
*sam*
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 10:39 pm: [report]
@happyinmiami & coral: excuse me, but how in the f*ck do you get pregnant by giving a BJ!?!?! the *ONLY* way that I can see it being even REMOTELY possible is if you give a guy head, he cums, and for some reason (perhaps a weird fetish??) puts some on his fingers and then fingers you… even then, I’m not so sure it would work. if you swallow, there’s NO WAY IN HELL it could travel from your intestinal tract to your eggs, and if you spit, unless you’re somehow managing to get it in your vag, you’re **STILL** not going to get pregnant. and if you’re only giving him head until he’s just about to cum and then let him cum on your stomach or anywhere close to your vag, and by some miracle you got pregnant from that, I STILL wouldn’t consider that getting pregnant from a BJ, but from letting a guy squirt near your vag.
maybe there’s some new research out there that I’m not aware of, but, yeah, you’re not going to get pregnant from a blow job.
you can get STDs though.
Coral
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 10:41 pm: [report]
@sam: Well, the only reason I said it is remotely possible, is because a BJ may not be the only thing two people are doing and if people aren’t careful with cleaning their fingers and hygiene, etc.
*sam*
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 11:00 pm: [report]
@coral: yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to come off sounding so harsh. it’s just that proper and FACTUAL sex education is a hot topic for me and it bothers me to end when I see something like that from otherwise very intelligent and informed young women… :/
at any rate, here’s a link to a sight busting a few common sex myths (including the preggers from a BJ one)—in case you (or anyone else for that matter) needs it
http://www.ruthinking.co.uk/the-facts/search/articles/sex-myths.aspx
Coral
wrote on August 15 2009 @ 12:41 am: [report]
@sam: That’s okay. Yeah, I highly believe in proper and factual sex education too.
kasebrad
wrote on August 16 2009 @ 01:14 am: [report]
I’m pretty sure this story has been blown out of proportion, but I know that there are kids this age engaging in this kind of activity. I feel that whether 13/14-year-olds are ready for it is very dependent on their situation. Personally, I was very mature for my age and was very educated about sex. When I was 13, I had been dating a guy for nearly a year and we had oral sex. Looking back on it, I see nothing wrong with it and certainly don’t regret it. Some people are just early bloomers, while others aren’t.
ohdanielle
wrote on August 16 2009 @ 04:19 pm: [report]
@Coral: I say manipulation because people are blindly convinced that oral sex isn’t risky, which I think that belief is one reason STD rates are so high among teenagers.
Although I wouldn’t call it any kind of epidemic and this article seems to be blown out of proportion, it’s a little scary how ignorant people have become to the consequences of any kind of unprotected sexual contact.
Coral
wrote on August 16 2009 @ 06:31 pm: [report]
@ohdanielle: Yup. So many teenagers and older adults don’t use condoms for oral sex, which is only one reason why STD rates are high among teenagers. I know I’m guilty of giving guys BJs without condoms. But I don’t think it’s smart to do.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on August 16 2009 @ 06:37 pm: [report]
*Yawn* Hands up for anyone who has actually used a dental dam.
babylaceface
wrote on September 8 2009 @ 12:43 am: [report]
i have never given a blow job using a condom… never even heard of that before now. strange. But then again my boyfriend of a year and a half was a virgin all around when i met him. safe to say i had fun fixing that, but we were adults, not middle schoolers.
the middle schoolers these days disturb me in so many ways. I remember being a senior in high school and these freshman girls called themselves the “hot bitches” and would go around giving BJs and sleeping around at parties. like i said, disturbing.
sunara_rayne
wrote on November 17 2009 @ 01:45 pm: [report]
Why the F is my earlier comment not showing up??? Hey moderator! Post my comment!!