Teens' T-Shirts Make Educators Squirm

The T-shirts highlight a paradox about this generation: Even as more teenagers absorb ubiquitous sexual messages, federal data show that they report having less sex than their predecessors.

Although a recent National Center for Health Statistics survey found that more than half of all teenagers engage in oral sex, teen pregnancy rates have plummeted since the early 1990s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of high school students who reported having sexual intercourse dropped from 54 percent in 1991 to 47 percent in 2005.

"It's a puzzling picture," said Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy in the District. "When someone sees a girl or boy in provocative clothing, they make a lot of assumptions about what's going on, which may or may not be true -- which really is the point, isn't it?"

Suggestive T-shirts have been around for years. A decade ago, some teenagers sported shirts that featured Coed Naked sporting events or Mr. Zog's Sex Wax. But school officials now are dealing with shirts that are much more blunt. It's up to them to determine what's innocuous, what's mildly suggestive and what, frankly, is truly awful.

At Potomac Senior High School in Prince William, a girl recently wore a black T-shirt parodying the "Got Milk?" ad, with sexual slang replacing the word "milk." Steve Bryson, the school's administrative assistant, brought the girl into his office. "I asked her, 'Why would you wear something like that?' And she said: 'I don't know. My dad knows that I have it,'" he recalled. "So I called the dad, and, of course, he had no idea. He said, 'Throw it away.' "

One popular merchant of suggestive shirts is Hollister Co., a chain owned by Abercrombie & Fitch. Its shirts say such things as "two boys for every girl" and "FLIRTING MY WAY TO THE TOP."

Larissa Olson, 20, a Hollister employee at Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge, said she wonders why girls buy them. "I'm like, 'She has no respect for herself.' "

Asked about the messages his company markets to teenagers, Thomas D. Lennox, Abercrombie & Fitch's vice president of corporate communications, said, "Our T-shirts are sometimes controversial, which we're fine with." He declined to elaborate.

When students are caught with shirts that cross the line, they are usually given a school T-shirt or asked to turn theirs inside out. Administrators said evaluating the shirts can be awkward because the words are usually printed right over a student's chest. Sometimes students stride quickly past or take other evasive maneuvers to conceal a questionable T-shirt.

"It's almost like a live-action Pac-Man game. You see them coming through the hall, and they're trying to avoid you," said Myca Gray, an assistant principal at Gar-Field Senior High School in Prince William.

At Eleanor Roosevelt, students caught with over-the-line shirts sometimes must wear school shirts that mark them as "dress code violators." One day, Assistant Principal LaTanya Catron saw sophomore Paula Akanni wearing a tight black T-shirt that said, "I AM TOO HOT TO HANDLE." The word "Hot" had gold studs on the letters.

"Are you too hot to handle?" Catron asked with a smile. "Is that for the boys?

"It's for nobody," Akanni replied, walking away.

Most parents interviewed said that they would rather not see their kids wear the racy shirts but that they sometimes give in. Rosa Pulley tried to order her daughter Keana, 17, a Gar-Field senior, to return a T-shirt that says, "yes, but not with u!" But Keana insisted. "I have to pick my battles," the mother said. "Okay, I don't like it. She's wearing it, but it could be something worse."

Keana said her shirt's message was ambiguous. "It could mean, 'Yes, I want to go to the movies, but not with you,' " she said. "If I wanted to be sexy, like on MTV, I would just buy low-cut tight shirts."

The T-shirt trend appears to have no racial or ethnic boundaries. Girls appear to wear them more often. Guys say there is nothing confusing about the messages. "When I see a T-shirt that says, '100% single,' then you're compelled to go up and talk to them," said Paul Barrett, 17, a senior at Osbourn Park. "But if they're not single, it'd kind of [tick] me off, like they're a tease. I wouldn't let my girlfriend wear that."

At the boutique in Prince George's, Ashli decided what she would wear to school. Back to the rack went "TRUST ME..I'M SINGLE." She took "I KNOW WHAT BOYS WANT" and headed the register.

"I like this one," she said, "because I have shoes to go with it."