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, people wearing various shades of lipstick take turns fellating others in sequence, leaving multiple colors (resembling a rainbow) on their penises.
The idea was publicized on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2003, and became the subject of a 2005 juvenile novel called Rainbow Party. The book related allegations 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 alleged to be from a 14-year-old patient from Michigan:
<blockquote>[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."</blockquote>
Meeker's book did not gain much attention. The following year, the concept of the rainbow party came to mainstream attention: the August issue of Seventeen included an article on oral sex which quoted a sex educator describing the phenomenon, and in October that year rainbow parties were discussed on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The 2005 novel Rainbow Party, inspired by the Oprah feature, generated more media coverage of the idea of the rainbow party; media interest in rainbow parties peaked in this year.
The sociologists Joel Best and Kathleen Bogle, in their book Kids Gone Wild: From Rainbow Parties to Sexting, Understanding the Hype Over Teen Sex argue that Meeker is unlikely to have invented the idea of the rainbow party. Though they were unable to find any evidence of it being discussed before Meeker's book, they suggest that it was likely an existing urban legend in relatively limited circulation among American teenagers which was made much more widespread by the media attention given to it. In an article for Reason, the journalist Cathy Young identifies the media attention to rainbow parties as part of a broader moral panic about oral sex, which she suggests was triggered by the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal which came to light in 1998.
Evidence of falsity
Deborah Tolman, director of the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University, wrote: "This 'phenomenon' has all the classic hallmarks of a moral panic. One day we have never heard of rainbow parties and then suddenly they are everywhere, feeding on adults' fears that morally-bankrupt sexuality among teens is rampant, despite any actual evidence, as well as evidence to the contrary." Similarly, Best and Bogle say that while it is impossible to prove that no rainbow party ever happened, they were unable to find any evidence of them and conclude that there is no reason to believe that they were common. In an episode of the podcast You're Wrong About discussing urban legends, the journalist Michael Hobbes notes that while there is limited data on rates of oral sex among teenage girls, surveys of teenage boys' sexual behavior suggests that rates of teenage oral sex did not change between 1995 and 2011, despite concerns about teenage oral sex during this period.
In the media
- 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 O Magazine, Michelle Burford asserted, among other things, that many teens across the United States engaged in rainbow parties.
- Rainbow Party is a 2005 novel by Paul Ruditis commissioned by a Simon & Schuster editor. The book, which Library Journal declined to review, is about teens who fantasize about having a rainbow party. The book has proven controversial, as it was meant for teenagers (recommended by the publisher for ages 14 and up), thus raising questions about its propriety. In turn, concerns were raised that excluding the book from bookstores and libraries would amount to censorship. The publishers justified Rainbow Party on the grounds that it was a cautionary tale intended to teach readers that oral sex can be dangerous.
- In the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode "The High School Reunion Part 2: The Gang's Revenge", aired December 15, 2011, Charlie Kelly uses the term when describing changes in teenage behaviour.