From the "Viewpoint" section of the The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN, Sunday, March 27, 1994...

Selling of the Prom Peddles Dangerous Messages

by Marilyn Geewax

Prom night has become a big-bucks industry, and teenagers need to know how high the price can really be.

We are entering the season when the grass turns greener and the hair of many parents turns grayer. In the next three months, parents of teenagers will be sweating out prom night, graduation night, the class picnic, and so on.

When it comes to the behavior of high school students, even the best mothers and fathers have only the slightest control. They can take away car keys or cut off clothing allowances, but they can't force teenagers to make good decisions about health and safety. Whether to get drunk, have sex, or drive recklessly--those choices are up to the young people themselves the minute they leave the house.

Though parents have little control, other influences are strong. Teenagers respond to peer pressure. They want to be regarded as grown-up and popular. They especially want to feel sophisticated on prom night.

TO MAKE SURE they look good, teenage girls check magazines for ideas on fashion and tips on prom protocol. I glanced through a "Prom Special 1994" magazine recently to see what dresses and attitudes were being sold to kids this year.

The cover story made it clear what the focus was: "Sex on prom night: How to Deal with It." The word "sex" was in large, bold type, with the how-to-deal-with-it part in small letters. Inside, pictures mostly show girls on the beach in the morning light with their prom gowns in disarray. The boys have their shirts open and pants pushed low enough to display underwear. Virtually every picture shows heavy-lidded teenagers clinging to each other in rumpled clothes on the morning after.

The fashion layouts have headlines such as "All Night Long" and "Slip Tease."

It would be difficult not to get the impression that going to the prom is primarily about having sex. Every picture conveys sexual passion or exhaustion. Not a single parent or teacher appears in the entire magazine, even in the far-off background. An impressionable teenager couldn't miss the message: You go to the prom to escape adult guidance long enough to have a night of unbridled passion.

MEANWHILE, JUST AS the prom magazines are hitting the newstands, a report is released from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Since AIDS was first recognized in 1981, the report says, the proportion of people contracting the virus through heterosexual sex has increased tenfold.

Of all segments of the population, AIDS is spreading fastest among teenagers and young adults, regardless of sexual orientation. "This is where the growth of the epidemic is," Dr. John Ward, chief of the CDC's AIDS surveillance brance, said about straight teenagers.

In that entire prom magazine, with all its pictures of boys and girls wrapped around each other, I never saw any of these important words: AIDS, pregnancy, venereal disease, abstinence, or condoms.

Prom night has become a big industry, with stores selling $300 dresses and hotels renting honeymoon suites to teenagers. Selling sexual fantasy nights to 16-year-olds must be very lucrative. But when the big party is over this year, many teenagers may find out just how high the price really is.

Marilyn Geewax is an editorial writer for The Atlanta Constitution.