Syphilitic Symptom: A Selection from Nicholas A. Christakis & James H. Fowler’s Connected (2009)

“Some of the students of Rockdale County had accumulated dozens of partners. The syphilis epidemic, when it was discovered, made a big impression on the adults: ‘By the time the investigation concluded, seasoned public health investigators trained not to be judgmental would be startled by what they found. There were fourteen-year-olds who had had up to fifty sex partners, sixth-graders competing for the sexual attention of high school students, girls in sexual scenes with three boys at once. In one case, a girl at a party with thirty to forty teens volunteered to have sex with all the boys there—and did. ‘My heart dropped,’ [Peggy] Cooper [a counselor at one of the middle schools involved] said. ‘I felt nauseated. I wanted to cry.’

When this situation came to light, people began questioning what made the children in this wealthy community behave this way. It appeared that many of the young people suffered from not having much structure, supervision, or anything else to do. But really, the STDs were a reflection of a different network process: the spread of a norm among the teenagers that sex—and sex of a particular kind, involving multiple partners—was acceptable. The real epidemic, the one at the root of the STD epidemic, was an epidemic of attitudes. Syphilis was not the problem; it was a symptom of the problem.

The schism between the parents and the reality of their children’s sexual activity was clear in the reactions of parents and other adults to the outbreak. As Toomey told the Washington Post, parents were in ‘tremendous denial’ that the local youth were sexually active at all. One nurse told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they ‘found a lot of lack of communication between children and parents. . . . Some didn’t know their kids were sexually active. Some, even when presented with evidence, refused to believe it. One woman cussed me out and said she knew her child was a virgin, until I said no, her child was pregnant.’”—Nicholas A. Christakis & James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives — How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do (2009)