A bizarre new kids' sex craze sweeping the city's schools

This article appeared in todays NY Post


KIDS' CUFF KINK

By MARIANNE GARVEY and CARL CAMPANILE



May 23, 2004 -- A bizarre new kids' sex craze is sweeping the city's elementary schools. Girls as young as 11 are stacking colorful rubber "sex bracelets" up their arms while their parents are unaware that each piece of the cheap jewelry represents a different sex act, according to a secret-code the kids share. Some symbolize an invitation to kinky get-togethers, several kids told The Post. The kids play a game called "Snap" associated with wearing the bracelets. In the game, girls wear the bracelets around their wrists, and if a boy runs up and rips one off, he gets a "coupon" from the girl to perform whatever sex act the color stands for. A black bracelet indicates sexual intercourse, blue is oral sex, red is a lap dance or French kiss and white is a homosexual kiss - and it gets more in depth. Green represents having sex outside. Some of the bracelets stand for specific sexual positions, and there's even a light-green glow-in-the-dark version that means "using sex toysMegan Stecher, 11, a fifth-grader who sells the $1 bracelets to her classmates at Holy Child Jesus School in Richmond Hill, Queens, for $1.25 said her teachers are not aware of what they symbolize. "No one wants to tell them, either," Megan said. "Everyone collects and wears all the colors to school, and all the kids know exactly what every color stands for." "One person tells someone, and they tell someone else, and that's how it spread," Megan said. "I heard about it in the neighborhood." Megan's mother, Michelle Stecher, 33, originally thought it was an innocent fashion fad. "I thought it was an outrageous Britney Spears phase, like Madonna used to do in the '80s with the black rubber bracelets," she said. "But when I found out, I was outraged. I sent her to Catholic school to avoid things like this. "I thought this could never, ever happen there." Arial Martinez, Megan's best friend, also 11, said the bracelets became so widely known around her Bronx school, PS 60 in Woodlawn, that the teachers and principal banned the students from wearing them to class. She said the teachers found out what they symbolize "because everyone was wearing them and talking about them all the time." Arial said that as her friends find more colors, they try to describe new sex acts. "I found out from kids on my block, and the word just spread fast," she said. "But I don't think it's right for young kids." The neighborhood kids are buying the bracelets for a dollar a dozen at local 99 cent stores and beauty shops. Many retailers are oblivious as to why they're selling the bracelets by the boatload. "Last week, I had to order extras, so many kids were coming in for them," said Ming Zhang, who works at Aina Gift Shop on Jamaica Avenue. "I don't know why." Although Megan says that neither she nor any friends of hers are actually having sex, she is savvy to all the graphic sex terms and the corresponding colors. Megan's mom wonders where this all started and how the kids got so educated about sex. "I'm just wondering who started this whole thing and how it reached Megan in her Catholic school," Michelle Stecher said. "I mean, I told her about the birds and the bees, but this is too much. "I want the school to know what's going on with the kids and put a stop to it."