Dating and the 16-year-old boy. (J. Pat Carter/Associated Press)The stereotype of the 16-year-old boy is that he has sex on the brain. But a fascinating new report suggests that boys are motivated more by love and a desire to form real relationships with the girls they date.
The report, published in this month’s Journal of Adolescence, paints a far different picture of teen boys than the stereotype of testosterone-fueled youth. Psychology researchers from the State University of New York at Oswego surveyed 105 10th-grade boys whose average age was about 16. The boys, most of whom said they were heterosexual, were given surveys asking them to select various reasons why they asked girls out, dated and pursued physical relationships. Most of the boys had dating experience, and about 40 percent were sexually active.
The boys were asked their reasons for dating and were allowed to mark more than one answer. Notably, being physically attracted to someone wasn’t the primary motivation they gave for dating. More than 80 percent of the boys noted “I really liked the person.” Physical attraction and wanting to get to know someone better were the second most popular answers.
Among the boys who had been sexually active, physical desire and wanting to know what sex feels like were among the top three reasons they pursued sex. However, the boys were equally likely to say they pursued sex because they loved their partner. Interestingly, only 14 percent said they sought sex because they wanted to lose their virginity, and 9 percent did so to fit in with friends.
The researchers note that there is no way to assess the truthfulness of the boys’ answers, but the rate of sexual activity in the sample is consistent with national trends, suggesting the boys were answering honestly. The survey group was ethnically and economically diverse, and 95 indicated they were heterosexual, while 10 boys didn’t answer the question.
The overall findings are contrary to cultural beliefs that boys are interested primarily in sex and not relationships.
“Let’s give boys more credit,” said study author Andrew Smiler, an assistant professor of psychology at the university. “Although some of them are just looking for sex, most boys are looking for a relationship. The kids we know mostly aren’t like this horrible stereotype. They are generally interested in dating and getting to know their partners.”
The data also suggest that teenage boys will be receptive to parental messages about the importance of getting to know a girl and respect within relationships, even if they act otherwise. “Very few parents really talk to their sons about relationships,” Dr. Smiler said. “We know that many parents do have these kinds of conversations with girls.”
Dr. Smiler said parents should talk to boys and girls and try to teach them about both romantic and platonic relationships, how to develop and maintain them, how to deal with ups and downs and how to forgive and regain trust.
“Somehow we buy into this idea that guys aren’t emotional, that guys aren’t interested in relationships, so we don’t give our teenagers the information,” Dr. Smiler said. “Boys rarely hear this kind of information about relationships from parents, whether about friendships or romantic relationships.”
Update: See what readers and other experts have to say on this topic, in an article that appeared in the Week in Review section. Click here.
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From 1 to 25 of 230 Comments
Sublimation.
— jackSo I wasn’t weird or gay 50 years ago as a teenager when I wanted more from a relationship than just sex. Now they tell me I was normal.
— RichYou already knew this.
— PeterHow refreshing, thank you. This is a nice change from the hormones-drive-everything mentality that drives so much research and reporting (and movie making) these days. Boys are human, too. Gee, what a concept. I know some wonderful, really neat teenage boys who doubtless think about sex, but I know from listening to them that they’ve got lots more on their minds. Maybe it’s our sex-obsessed adults who need to deal with their own fixations.
— sarah d.Thank you for this article. The constant degradation of the opinion of male adolescents in this society has gotten out of hand. It is refreshing to know that some can still look past the media-induced stereotypes and see that men (and boys) are not from Mars, women (and girls) are not from Venus. We’re all from Earth and have similar psychological needs.
— ScottBoys are not dumb. They know how to answer theses silly questions. “Oh, baby I really do like you, now can you take off your clothes.” Can a 16 year old boy distinguish between love and lust? What about a 30 year old boy?
— Lyle VosGreat article. I would like to see a similar study on adults. My wife accuses me all the time of wanting only sex. The truth is I want a great love relationship, a friend, and sex. They are all mixed up together. Why do these stereotypes about men exist? Two reasons: 1) a small number of guys give the rest of us a bad name, and 2) women equate conversation with relationships. Most men don’t have the same kinds of conversations that women have, so they think we aren’t really into the relationship. Not true, we just really aren’t that good at empathetic listening and we like to rock out and drink beer and talk about concrete things like trucks and politics.
— Curt ManginoThough I have not read the study referred to above, I do not sense from the summary that the authors have interpreted their results with the greatest reliability.
Teenage boys would not be the first humans to ascribe nobler reasons for their desires.
— LewisWhat I’m getting from this is BOTH/AND, not either/or. When I was a kid, most of my friends and I were desparate for female companionship, hoping for both love and sex - hard to tell which we wanted more. The desire for a relationship somewhat constrained behavior, curbing really outrageous overtures and demands, but the guys still had too many hands, like an Indian deity. So, as always with kids, we need to appeal to the angels of their better natures, which are alive and well and seated right next to the devils.
— THMThere were only 105 participants in the study. That’s not really a lot, is it? I’m so tired of hearing about all these “scientific findings” in the NY Times only to discover they’re based on teeny tiny samples.
Present a study of thousands of teenage boys over a decade or decades and then I’ll be more apt to believe the results.
— Sara S.I’m depressed that in 2008 we’re still surprised by this… gee, a stereotype that’s not strictly true!
Have we all figured out yet that women aren’t too emotional to be allowed to vote? Or are we still stuck on that one too?
— EroCan we differentiate between espoused theory and theory in use?
— Miguel LunaIf my 18-year-old HS senior and his friends are any indication, teenage boys are more concerned about getting good grades, getting into a good college, and pursuing their hobbies than getting laid. My son has had two girlfriends and dated both for over a year. Earlier this year he told me he wasn’t going to date this year because he’d be leaving this fall for college and they would just have to break up, so why bother? Perhaps a little *too* pragmatic, but a clear sign he views girls as relationship material, not just a chance for sex. By the way, from what I’ve seen of the way teenage girls dress, if all the boys DID think about was sex, it would be hard to blame them!
— A Boy’s MomI don’t care why a teenage boy is after my daughter, I still don’t trust him. I remember being a teenage boy myself. But hey, I still don’t trust my brother-in-law either. I don’t care if they’re grandparents now, stay away from my sister!
— Rickthis will depressingly tip my hand, but:
— RHI’m not surprised. Whether there was a relationship or not or sex or not was almost always controlled by the females (except in a very few cases…and those guys were usually enormous jerks). I’ve often seen girls use the argument that a guy was only after sex to get rid of them when that clearly was not the case. Take my advice kids: date someone from another high school, the next town over!
Kids are also smart enough to know what the answer to these questions ’should’ be. Is this really what is motivating them, or is this what they think society wants to hear?
— JasonHa! Yeah right! 16 year old boys are concerned about relationships? I’m gonna have to go with Jack and Lyle Vos on this one. What we’re hearing from these kids nothing but a well developed Reality Principle. I can just about pinpoint the exact moment in my prepubescent life when the “lies I told the ladies” turned into “the ‘truths’ I told myself.”
None of this is gonna to stop me from cleaning my shotgun when my daughter’s prom date comes to pick her up. These punks have got one thing on their minds, and it ain’t relationships.
— briani was 16 only 3 years ago… and i would not have needed to conduct a study to reach the same conclusion.
— quinNot so fast. The 2nd most common answer was physical attraction. As is so often the case, the data are one thing, the meanings people attach to the data are another.
The comment #10 about sample size is offbase. The sample can be very small and highly accurate - as we know from Gallup polls on Presidential elections - if the sample is valid. That’s the question we should be asking. And the article suggests that they went to some length to get a representative sample of ethnicity/economics.
— hazbinTo Sara S, #10, actually a sample size of 105 is pretty good. Let me put on my geek hat and suggest —
It seems contrary to common sense but the math shows that the absolute size of the sample is more important than what percent of the population is being sampled. 105 boys out of 1,000,000 has effectively the same confidence as 105 boys out of 100,000 and (surprisingly) nearly the same statistical confidence as 105 boys out of 1,000.
However, this sample being discussed here would be too low, say, a political poll where small differences matter in absolute terms, but it’s quite good for a sample measuring relative differences (boys who say X more than Y). To be +/- 3% with 95% confidence, you’d need a sample of about 1,000 boys. But 105 boys gives a confidence interval of around 9%. So these smaller in-
— JohnJaydepth surveys are surprisingly helpful.
Sara: 105 participants are more than enough to draw conclusions in this type of study, unless you have reason to believe that the sample is unrepresentative. Also, why do you need a decade to track them? Are you proposing some sort of longitudinal study to track the progression of specific boys? Or are you interested in observing changing social norms over time?
As for the study itself, I agree that self-reporting isn’t the most reliable. But what sort of support does the competing thesis–that 16-year-old boys are interested mostly in sex–have? Isn’t that thesis also mostly rooted in self-reported studies? If so, why be selectively cynical in believing studies that confirm negative perceptions of teenaged boys, and downplaying studies that suggest they are acting out of better motives?
— IvanParents teach youngsters about relationships? In practice I suppose, no better better option. But these guys have for the most part done lousy jobs themselves. So lettem teach, but don’t expect much enlightenment to spread on that basis.
— JABIt’s good to pay attention to the details in a scientific study but depending on the statistics they used, 105 participants may indeed be enough. You would be surprised at how many people you really need for it to be statistically reliable. It is also just one study; the best conclusions obviously can be formed from many studies.
— Paul FIn spite of Comment #5, men really are from “Mars” and women really are from “Venus”.
Just look at how hard it is for some “Martians” to vote for a “Venutian”. I suspect most would rather vote for a “Martian” that doesn’t look like them than a “Venutian” that tries to act like them.
— Al CyoneI agree with those statistics. I think the desire for sex gets stronger more quickly with boys than girls during a relationship however.
— J.S.