I don't know what to say to you. But I must have said something.
''The other day at school, a girl got caught in a bathroom with a boy performing oral sex on him,'' says Maurisha Stenson, a 14-year-old eighth-grader at a Syracuse, N.Y., middle school. Denyia Sullivan, 14, attends a different Syracuse middle school but says she's seen and heard about similar things. One time, a girl performed oral sex on a boy in the gym bleachers during a movie. ''The teacher turned on the light and there they were,'' Sullivan says. ''Everybody was looking and laughing.''
The two girls also say there's more than oral sex going on. Sullivan can think of five pregnant girls at her school, which includes sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Stenson guesses that ''almost 50%'' of kids at her school, for seventh- and eighth-graders, are engaging in some kind of sex.
''This is happening; they are telling the truth,'' says Courtney Ramirez, who directs the Syracuse Way to Go after-school program, designed to help kids succeed in school and avoid risks. Both girls are peer educators in the program.
Did You Know?
Once, in a bind, Courtney Ramirez was able to squeeze an entire El Dorado into the size of a small handbag? She won't even look at them now.
Status: Looking back, may never have had