Rainbow party (sexuality)

A rainbow party is a supposed group sex event featured in an urban legend spread since the early 2000s. A variant of other sex party urban myths, the stories claim that at these events, allegedly increasingly popular among adolescents, females wearing various shades of lipstick take turns fellating males in sequence, leaving multiple colors (a "rainbow") on their penises. The idea was publicized on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2003, and became the subject of a juvenile novel called Rainbow Party. Sex researchers and adolescent health care professionals have found no evidence for the existence of rainbow parties, and consequently attribute the spread of the stories to a moral panic. On May 27, 2010 the television program The Doctors discussed the topic with dozens of teens, parents, and professionals.

The story was originally related by American pediatrician Meg Meeker in her 2002 book Epidemic: How Teen Sex Is Killing Our Kids. The book related case stories of adolescents suffering cancer, sterility, acute infections, and unwanted pregnancies as a consequence of starting sexual activity too early in life. Meeker relates the following story from a 14-year-old patient from Michigan:

[Allyson] had heard some kids were going to have a "rainbow party," but had no idea what that meant. Still, she thought it might be fun, and arranged to attend with a friend. After she arrived, several girls (all in the eighth grade) were given different shades of lipstick and told to perform oral sex on different boys to give them "rainbows." Once she realized what was happening, Allyson was too stunned and frightened to do anything. When a girl gave her some lipstick, she refused at first but, with repeated pressure, finally gave in. "It was one of the grossest things I've ever done."

The idea of the rainbow party was publicized in October 2003 on the episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show titled "Is Your Child Leading a Double Life?", which was about the trend of increasing sexual promiscuity among American youth and the lack of parental awareness of the sexual practices of their children. In the O Magazine Michelle Burford asserted, among other things, that many teens across the United States engaged in rainbow parties.

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