cover image The Real Truth about Teens & Sex: From Hooking Up to Friends with Benefits-What Teens Are Thinking, Doing, and Talking About, and How to Help Them Mak

The Real Truth about Teens & Sex: From Hooking Up to Friends with Benefits-What Teens Are Thinking, Doing, and Talking About, and How to Help Them Mak

Sabrina Weill. Perigee Books, $23.95 (225pp) ISBN 978-0-399-53198-9

Hooking up: two teenagers meeting at the mall, or having drunken sex at a party shortly after meeting for the first time? Both, actually. And the central activity at a ""chicken party"" couldn't be performed by anything with a beak. Weill, former editor of Seventeen, seeks to demystify these and other steamy topics in her third book on teens and sex. Writing for parents and educators, Weill preaches communication and education as keys to staving off unwanted pregnancies, health problems and other pitfalls of becoming prematurely sexually active. Her advice is practical, but the suggested dialogues she provides can come off as Pollyanna. (""I want you to promise me you won't fool around with someone when either you or the guy or the girl have been drinking."") Peppered with survey and sexual health factoids-42 percent of 15-year-olds know someone who's had sex at home while their parents were in the house, and 29 percent of 12 - 17-year-olds think that someone who does everything but have sex is not a virgin-parents looking for insight into what goes on in their kids' beds can find plenty of answers here, though some may be hesitant to take a magazine editor's advice.