Dear Ann Landers,
63-19915 T 03770 Acknowledgments Perhaps I should be ashamed of myself for not cul-tivating new friends on whom to impose when I under-took to write this book. But who needs new friends when old ones are so durable? One thing is certain: No writer, living or dead, ever made more unreasonable demands on busy friends and colleagues-and made them twice. The loyal little band who gave so generously in be-half of my first book Since You Ask Me came through again. My warm thanks to the best newspaper pub-lisher a girl ever had-Marshall Field, Jr., for provid-ing me daily with an ideal showcase, The Chicago Sun- Times. This remarkable newspaper has given me in-comparable exposure plus tender, loving care for eight incredible years. I can't begin to express adequately my gratitude to Larry Fanning, Executive Editor of The Chicago Daily News, who until the fall of 1962 was Executive Editor of my parent paper, the Sun-Times. Larry found time not only to produce a newspaper worthy of a Pulitzer Prize but he also continues to edit every word published by Ann Landers. Anyone who benefits from this book is indebted to Larry both for what is in it and what is not in it. This gifted Irishman, with his solid judgment and his unerring instinct for the right word, bevels and polishes until what is left is the best of both of us. Will Munnecke, Vice-President and General Man-ager of The Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Daily News read the manuscript and jotted down cogent suggestions in illegible handwriting. The Old Grey Fox, with his keen perception, wisdom and un-common common sense, makes a vital contribution to everything he touches, including this book. I am deeply obligated to Dick Trezevant, Manag-ing Editor of The Chicago Sun-Times for his cool (and sometimes cold) judgments and his forthright criticism. A keen sense of editorial balance makes him an A-l sounding board. To Dr. Robert Stolar, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., a million long-distance thanks. That's precisely how he listened to this book-one chapter at a time. I am forever indebted to Dr. Stolar for his insistence that I tackle all the problems which disturb teen-agers. This eminent dermatologist has assured me that what appears between these covers is medically correct. My affectionate thanks to my nine terrific assistants who kept the ship on an even keel while the book was being written. A 21-gun salute to my principal as-sistant, Lilyan Simmons for her quiet competence and her staunch Scottish loyalty. To Jules, my ever-lovin' husband, a pat on his kind, bright head for his saintly patience. After 24 years with this lovely man I am still awed by his beautiful disposition and his mysterious good humor. A low bow to our daughter Margo Coleman, now a wife and mother, for her assurance that in this book I am not talking down to, or up to, but rather with American teen-agers. Three minutes of silence while I face Pleasantville, New York and pay homage to Hobart Lewis, Execu-tive Editor and Vice-President of Reader's Digest. Hobe responded heroically to my cry for help-and gave a title to this book on the telephone, in 30 sec-onds flat. And finally, a word of appreciation to Publishers Newspaper Syndicate and its able president, Harold Anderson, for magnificent efforts in behalf of my daily column. Harold and his colleagues have provided me with a unique opportunity to help millions of people all over the world and I shall be ever grateful for their support. Contents Since You Ask Me Again ix one two three four five six seven eight nine ten On Cloud 9 or Behind the 8-Ball 1 What about Going Steady 8 How to Break Up with a Steady 21 Why Not Go all the Way? 27 How to Help Yourself Stay Out of Trouble 40 Booze and You 50 VD Is Not an Adult's Disease 65 What You Should Know about Homosexuality Is It Sex or the Real Thing? 93 From You to Me 108 Since You Ask Me Again Dear Ann: You flatter me by your request for a Preface to Teen-Agers and Sex, your second book. No one ever asked me to write two prefaces in a row, but then again no one ever asked me to write one preface either, and anyway, this is the first time you have written two books. A Preface should explain the purpose, method, or importance of a book, but I have no intention of even attempting to explain the purpose, method, or im-portance of either teen-agers or sex. You undertake those explanations in your book with greater skill, in-terest, and authority than I could bring to bear on either subject. I am, however, a leading authority on the purpose, method, and importance of Ann Landers and address myself to that subject with delight. Who's Who describes you accurately, though un-imaginatively, as: Landers, Ann (Mrs. Jules Lederer), Columnist; b. Sioux City, la., July 4, 1918; d. Abraham B. and Rebecca (Rushall) Friedman; student Morningside Coll., 1936-39; m. Jules W. Lederer, July 2, 1939; 1 dau., Margo. Syndicated columnist Sun-Times Syndicate-Field Enterprises, Chgo., 1955-. Chmn. Eau Claire (Wis.) Gray-Lady Corps. A.R.C., 1947- 53; chmn. Minn.-Wis. council Anti-Defamation League, 1945-49; asst. Wis. chmn. Nat. Found. In-fantile Paralysis, 1951-53. County chmn. Democratic Party of Eau Claire. Mem. League Women Voters, Brandeis U. Women. Office: Chicago Sun-Times, Chgo. 6. While the above is incontestably correct, your read-ers should know that Jules is, if possible, an even more successful businessman than two years ago when your first book, Since You Ask Me, was published. Your daughter Margo is now the wife of John Coleman, who is emulating his father-in-law in the matter of success. And Margo and John have a daughter, Abra, who will succeed Margo as Ann Landers after Margo has succeeded her mother in that role. After all, every dynasty must have a beginning. As to your purpose, it is direct and clear-to help any person make the most of himself in every way and at all times. As to your method, it is very simple, yet extremely difficult. You work harder and longer than any one I know, and harder and longer than you ever ask of others. You demand the best advice from experts in every field. You translate the advice of those experts, after seasoning it liberally with your own knowledge and common sense, into direct, moving, persuading sentences and paragraphs. In brief, you communicate with your readers with an effectiveness few match and none exceed. But purpose and method are relatively easy to de-scribe. The question and the description of your im-portance, however, almost call for a "

Dear Ann” letter imploring counsel-almost, but not quite. For as to your importance, it can be summarized in one word-hope. You hold hope high before the young and the old, the strong and the weak, the troubled and the serene. Your readers know you are old enough to understand and to merit the respect of parents, yet young enough to understand and to merit the respect of teen-agers. Hope is “a person that expectation centers in.” You are that person of hope to many. Hope is “trust or re-liance” and you are a person of trust and reliance to all. It is so much easier to begin a Preface than it is to end one. Perhaps the best way to end is to stop-but not until after one more word,
Devotedly, Wilbur C. Munnecke Vice President and General Manager Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Daily News Ob one On Cloud 9 or Behind the 8 Ball I am the shoulder to cry on. I sit in the watchbird seat, and it's not difficult to understand why. It's easier to level when you don't have to look a person in the eye and recite the agonizing details of an episode you're ashamed of-particularly if that episode involves a tri-umph of human chemistry over sound judgment. For this reason I've been cut in on what goes on be-hind closed doors and drawn drapes, in the back seats of family cars, on sandy beaches, in wooded lanes- wherever boy meets girl. Glorious teen-age years! Laughter, fun, popularity, dancing barefoot at proms, exchanging I. D. bracelets, rings, look-alike sweaters, hours of love talk on the telephone, romance under the stars. Pure bliss. Who says so? Pre-teens, post-teens (with faulty memories), everyone-everyone except the teens them-selves. They know better. And I know better, too. Mountains of mail from the most reliable source of all-teen-agers themselves-tell a different story. A staggering number of teens who appear to be cool, calm and confident, in simple truth, are anxious, frightened and guilt-ridden. They are pulled and hauled by biological urges on the one hand and fear of the consequences on the other. First, let's define our terms. Who is a teen-ager? You may as well ask "Who is man?" or "What is life?" Webster's Third New International Dictionary, which bulks 2,270 pages and cost $>314 million to produce, offers this definition: "Teen-ager: a person between 13 and 19 years of age, inclusive." Big deal! If Webster's can't come up with a better definition, then what I've long suspected must be true. There is no such animal as a typical teen-ager. He can't be de-fined because he doesn't exist. Yet we can scarcely pick up a magazine or a newspaper which doesn't have an article on "What Teen-agers Want" or "What Teen-agers Need" or-worst of all-"The Moral Decay of the Youth of America." Adults who talk about teen-agers in unharnessed generalities do all our kids an injustice. Teen-agers are not lima beans. They are human beings who come in assorted sizes, shapes and colors. Each has his own personality, his own sense of personal worth and his own moral and ethical value system. The difference between age 13 and age 19 can be 100. I've received letters from 15-year-old girls who have had so many sexual experiences they can't recall the names of all their partners. In the same batch of mail I might receive half a dozen letters from 16- and 17-year-olds who want to know if it's possible to get pregnant through clothing. Although there is no typical teen, my mail tells me an astonishing number of high school kids share com-mon problems. They are either on Cloud 9 or behind the 8-Ball about eleven times a week. They alternately love and hate their parents. They want more freedom on the one hand, yet on the other they desperately hope Mom and Dad won't let them do every fool thing they beg to do. They struggle with acne, overweight and underweight, and the sweet and frightening mysteries of awakening biological drives. They're be-deviled by pesky brothers and sisters, wail over im-possible math courses, and hunger to be popular. They die when they are left out. They want to be exactly like everybody else-right down to the skinny pants, the beat-up sneakers, the bulky sweaters or what-ever happens to be "in" at the moment. Alexander Graham Bell is their patron saint. To the teen-ager the telephone is vastly more than an in-strument of communication. It is an emotional outlet. The tinkle of this magical gadget can send a 15-year-old into ecstasy. A silent phone can plunge a teen-ager into the cellars of despair. One thing is certain. After 12 and up to 20, life is not easy. A Kooky Generation? Are teen-agers today wilder than their parents were at a comparable age-or are they just getting more pub-lic attention? I am asked this question frequently, par-ticularly by parents. They usually put it this way: "Are our children worse than we were when we were their age?" I don't like the word "worse." The teen-agers of today are different from teen-agers of thirty years ago. My answer is not based on memory. It is based on statistics. Anyone who has been working with young people since World War II will tell you that more teen-agers are in trouble today-more serious trouble, and at an earlier age-than ever before. And it isn't just that there are more teen-agers. The percentage of adolescents in trouble is up. What are the reasons? Have today's teen-agers in-vented a new kind of mischief? No, they have not. They are doing, essentially, the same things their par-ents did-but they are doing them sooner. And this is where the trouble comes in. Since World War II, the timetable of sex activity among teen-agers has been set ahead by approximately three years. When I was a teen-ager (back in the Stone Age, of course) 13-year-old girls didn't wear nail polish, ny-lons, strapless evening gowns and lipstick. A 14-year-old boy who smoked usually did it behind the barn. There wasn't the social pressure to "grow up." Our mothers didn't worry so much about whether or not we were popular. Back in the 1930's, mothers were worrying about other things-like how to feed their families. Of course we were interested in sex. (It's obvious that the interest in sex has been fairly high for some thousands of years.) But my generation was more self- conscious about it. In our day, 16-year-olds hugged and kissed and called it necking. Today most 16-year-olds go beyond hugging and kissing, and they call it "mak-ing out." It is substantially more difficult to be a wholesome teen-ager today, and, to some extent, the reasons are economic. The "under 20" group spends nine and a half billion dollars a year without adult supervision. Teens are stimulated by advertisers to buy more-and to want more. Advertising suggests that the way to be popular is to rev up the sex appeal. Sex screams from the billboards. Cigarette ads show kids lolling in the grass. The hi-fi and stereo ads show kids on the floor. The sun lotion ads show kids on the sand. Everybody is lying down with someone. Most of our newspapers and magazines glamorize the escapades of movie stars, particularly when they run around the world with other people's husbands or wives. Some metropolitan newspapers printed a full page of pictures of half-nude (and well-known) lovers locked in an embrace on the deck of a yacht. The heroine of this real-life drama is married-but not to him, and she is the mother of three young children. Small wonder our teen-agers get a cockeyed view of morality when such garbage can find a ready market in some of America's "best" newspapers. These are the gods and goddesses their elders have given them to worship. More than any single factor in the past thirty years, the automobile has exerted the strongest influence on teen-age behavior. Millions of teen-agers own cars- and those who don't own a car can often get four wheels on half an hour's notice. A car today is more than transportation. It is a status symbol and a passport to freedom. Six gallons of gas can propel a couple of teen-agers into another world. A car can be a portable bedroom-"even with those crummy bucket seats," as one teen wrote. Today's automobile has all the comforts of home, plus privacy. The radio provides mood music. The glove compartment can accommodate a few cans of beer or a bottle of booze. If it's cold outside, you can turn on the heater. If it's hot outside, you can turn on the air-conditioner. Nature's wonders can be glorious and stimulating. Safe in a car you can watch the stars twinkle in the heavens, listen to the howling wind or the gentle pat-ter of the rain. With a set-up like this, it's not surpris-ing that half the kids who write and say they are in serious trouble admit it happened in a car. Am I suggesting teen-agers should not be allowed to have cars? I am not. That would be absurd. Cars are built into twentieth-century life. We can't turn back the clock or the calendar, nor should we wish to. I am strongly suggesting, however, that teen-agers should recognize that a car presents multiple tempta-tions which can add up to deep trouble. Even the most disciplined boy or girl is battling against brutal odds when he parks in the moonlight-"just to talk." A kooky generation? No. A troubled generation, struggling not only with the problems of growing up but with the added pressures of the space age-a gen-eration forced to live in a world it never made. But what new generation ever made the world it came into? What about Going Steady ? For several years I've had a running debate with my teen-age readers about going steady. I am against it, and I continue to be against it, although I've been told repeatedly that I'm out of my mind. The high school polls-and I've seen dozens, from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Harlingen, Texas, from Augusta, Maine, to Eureka, California-prove that you teen-agers have already decided the double-harness arrange-ment isn't the living end. There are some temporary social benefits to be got-ten out of going steady, but in my book the disadvan-tages clearly outweigh the advantages. I asked a number of Chicago high school boys who are going steady why they prefer the steady arrange-ment to free-lance dating. Their answers demonstrated that going steady meant something quite different to each of them. Here are some of the reasons the boys gave for dating one girl exclusively: J.R.: "It's cheaper. When you take out a different girl every weekend, you have to spend money to im-press her. With a steady you can sit at her house a lot and it doesn't cost anything." P.: "I'm sort of bashful around girls. It took me six dates to get up enough nerve to hold this one girl's hand. It took nine dates to.kiss her. Now we are mak-ing out pretty good. I'd hate to have to start all over again with somebody else." S.D.: "I guess you might call it love. I think about Debbie an awful lot. When I am with her, I feel great. She's the only girl I have ever felt this way about." E.: "My folks say it isn't decent to take out a dif-ferent girl every weekend. They won't let me have the car or spending money unless I stick to one." B.D.: "Let's face it. A guy has to have a sex life. If a guy goes steady with a girl, it's a lot easier because then everything is settled. You aren't always arguing about it." Going steady means something quite different to this boy from Canton, Ohio: "