Teens in a ‘Sexplosion’? Or Is It All Just Talk?

Defending three young men accused of gang-raping a teenage girl in a high-profile Orange County trial, attorneys not only say the sex was consensual, but also have an argument sure to chill the heart of any parent: These days, this kind of thing goes on all the time.

“This wasn’t an isolated incident,” said lead defense attorney Joseph G. Cavallo. “We feel the jury will understand this behavior didn’t just exist on this particular night, but exists among teenagers across the country.”

But psychologists, school counselors and teens themselves say otherwise.

And at least one long-running scientific survey backs them up, showing that high school students are less likely to say they have had sex, unconventional or otherwise, than they were a decade ago.

Among teens, “talk is bigger than actual action,” said Newport-Mesa School District counselor Laurie Rybaczyk.

To be sure, popular culture offers plenty of evidence to support the defense contention: Provocative images of teen sex are common. Youth clothier Abercrombie & Fitch depicted naked young people in its 2003 Christmas catalog in a layout labeled “Group Sex.”

Designer clothes bearing “Pornstar” logos are hip among high school girls. Teen heartthrob Britney Spears sings of masturbation in “Touch of My Hand.”

But images are one thing, teens say -- reality is something else.

“I want guys to notice me,” said one 17-year-old girl shopping last week at South Coast Plaza -- wearing shoes sporting the Playboy logo. “But I don’t want guys to look at me and think, ‘Hey, I wonder how long it will take to get her in bed.’ ”

Issue Raised Early

The issue came up early in the Orange County trial. Defense lawyers argue the girl was a willing participant in unconventional sexual behavior that they contend has become popular among teens.

The jury will be asked to determine the guilt or innocence of three teens: Gregory Scott Haidl, the 18-year-old son of Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, along with Kyle Joseph Nachreiner and Keith James Spann, both 19.

Each faces up to 55 years in prison if convicted of raping the then-16-year-old girl and sexually assaulting her with a pool cue, a Snapple bottle and a lighted cigarette in Don Haidl’s Corona del Mar home.

Prosecutors say the boys drugged the girl unconscious, but defense lawyers believe the girl feigned blacking out and was awake the whole time -- as if she were an actress in a kinky sex scene.

The girl, known in court only as Jane Doe, “is a girl with no morals, a girl out of control, a girl who is subject to what society has to deliver to our teens today,” Cavallo said in his opening statement.

It’s unclear how far the defense will go to prove its point that unconventional sex is common among teenagers. Much of their case so far has focused on trying to destroy the credibility of Jane Doe.

But in his opening statement, Cavallo, portraying the defendants as ordinary young men, stressed his contention that Internet pornography and graphic television shows inspired the teens to do what many others nationwide might do: “engage in a four-way sexcapade.”

Cavallo says he intends, at a minimum, to raise the issue again in his closing statement.

Defense witness Melissa Matsumoto, 18, a former friend of Jane Doe’s who testified against her, offered some support for Cavallo’s argument.

She said in an interview outside court that she knows both girls and boys who engage in group sex or film homemade pornography to get attention.

“It’s for the shock value,” Matsumoto said. “You want to do something to make sure people are talking about you. There’s a competitive aspect of wanting to outdo other people and outdo yourself.”

On the surface, it makes sense. In the last several years, pop culture has experienced a “sexplosion,” with sex becoming mainstream through edgy television like “Sex and the City” and provocative advertising, said Amanda Freeman, vice president of Youth Intelligence, a youth market research consulting and trend forecasting company.

“There is more permission for brands to push the envelope with sex and with sexual imagery because violence is the new taboo,” Freeman said. “Violence is bad, but sex is OK as long as it’s safe sex.”

And it’s not just old-fashioned sex between a man and a woman in the privacy of their bedroom.

She noted an episode of the popular teen drama “The O.C.” in which characters on New Year’s Eve end up at a “key party.” Partygoers drop their keys or watches into a bowl, then go home with the person whose keys they draw.

No Direct Evidence

But there’s no evidence the trend is anything more than a big tease, she acknowledged.

While teens are wearing skimpy tank tops with the “Pornstar” designer logo, she said, “wearing sexy clothes isn’t translating into their sexual behavior.”

Lynn Ponton, a psychiatrist who specializes in adolescents and author of “The Sex Lives of Teenagers,” agrees, citing statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 1991, more than 54% of high school students responding to an annual survey said they had had sex.

Twelve years later, the number dropped below 47%. The percentage of teens saying they had had four or more sexual partners dropped from nearly 19 to about 14.

As for the notion that teenagers are commonly having sex with more than one partner at a time, “There’s no reason to believe that group sex is more common than it had been 10, 20 years ago -- none,” Ponton said.

Though the idea is pushed by marketers and entertainment media, “those images are misleading and teenagers get furious about them. They look at MTV and a girl undressed and sleeping with four guys and they say, ‘Boy, is that misleading.’ ”

Many teenagers questioned last week at South Coast Plaza agreed.

“I haven’t had sex. It’s not my thing,” said a high school junior who lives in Costa Mesa, who asked that she not be named. “I’m 16 years old. I want to save it for a long time.”

The 17-year-old sporting black mules with a Playboy logo said she regrets the one time she had sex with her boyfriend of six months.

“I believe that sex is for marriage, and we just got carried away,” she said. “I told one of my friends, and she just about killed me.”

Word may be filtering up to marketers. The trend of featuring teen sex in advertising and entertainment is fading fast, Freeman said.

“It’s the backlash to the sexplosion,” she said. People are already asking if society has gone too far, decrying Janet Jackson’s breast-baring Super Bowl halftime performance and shock jock Howard Stern.

She may be on to something, if the kids at South Coast Plaza are any indication.

“I’m so used to it, it gets me sick,” a 16-year-old girl said of all the sexy images. “I’m way over it.”

Times staff writer Regine Labossiere contributed to this report.