The Straight and Narrow

She walks into the raucous party, hands in her pocket, confident smile spread across her face, looking for her friends mingling in the interwoven traffic of a teenage house party.

As her eyes scale the room, littered with crushed beer cans, red plastic party cups and bottles of alcohol, she sees her friends giggling in a corner.

She begins walking toward her friends when an outstretched arm flies in front of her holding a red cup filled with an alcoholic beverage.

"Want a drink?" coos the teenage boy holding the cup, a Cheshire cat smile glued to his face.

"No way, I don't drink," the girl says, pushing the boy's arm away. "Of course I don't drink," Emilee Korach thinks. "I'm Straight Edge."

Korach, a senior at Green Valley High School, follows a movement that thousands of kids around the world have joined since the 1980s, when the band Minor Threat coined the term "straight edge" to define a person who refrains from drinking alcohol, smoking, doing drugs and having casual sex.

"I never really had gotten into the whole alcohol and drugs thing," says Korach, who has been part of the Straight Edge movement for 3½ years. "People would ask me if I was Straight Edge and I would say, 'No,' because I didn't know what they meant. Once I looked up Straight Edge though and found out what it was, I was like, 'Yeah, that's me,' "

Some who follow Straight Edge use the clean lifestyle to set themselves apart from others in a society that accepts drinking and smoking as a rite of passage, one expert says.

Ross Haenfler, author of the book "Straight Edge: Clean Living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change," says many kids avoid the pitfalls that trouble youths by adhering to the movement's principles.

The Straight Edge scene serves as one of the few drug-free "spaces" in youth culture, a place where kids are cool for not drinking, Haenfler says, where they often form lasting bonds of friendship with other straight kids.

"I go to a lot of punk shows and I see a lot of friends and people I hang out with doing a lot of drugs and things that they think are 'fun,' " says Jacob Forsberg, a senior at College of Southern Nevada High School and Straight Edge devotee for 15 months. "I want to show that I can have fun without those things. I want to distinguish myself from the crowd of people who are drugged all the time."

Straight Edge is symbolized by a large black X or series of three Xs on the back of the hand. Those involved in the Straight Edge movement, which also is known by the emblem "sXe" and names its followers as being "Edge," generally wear T-shirts and pins with the X or triple X symbol to express their belief.

Forsberg says his new lifestyle was cool with his parents until he started drawing Xs on the back of his hands. Not only did his parents fear that he was becoming aggressive, but also vulnerable to joining a Straight Edge gang or being physically hurt by those who opposed his clean lifestyle.

Some students also think Straight Edge followers are aggressive and intend harm, though only a small number of Straight Edgers belong to a gang.

"I think it's stupid," Korach says. "We're the clear-headed ones. We don't have anything in our bloodstreams that would make us act violent." But, she acknowledges, "there are punk kids who are Straight Edge who wreak havoc, too."

Those who follow it say the Straight Edge lifestyle offers a safe haven from following a path of self-destruction.

"You're not poisoning your body with alcohol or drugs or anything else," Forsberg says. "You live clean, and overall, you're a happier person. When you live a lifestyle of drugs, you aren't a very intelligent person. You don't make wise choices. You're basically cutting out a big portion of random things that could potentially happen to you from doing unhealthy and unclean things."

Haenfler says that teens can be drawn to the movement for many reasons, one being trouble at home.

"Some have had difficult family situations, including abusive parents or loved ones who have had substance abuse problems, leading such kids to reject drugs and alcohol completely," she says. "Others have had their own struggles with alcohol or drugs and see Straight Edge as a way out. Still others see Straight Edge as a rejection of not just drugs, tobacco and alcohol but a conformist mainstream culture that is not fulfilling."

Korach says she has made a long-term life decision.

"I didn't want to be in trouble with the law and I didn't want to look like an idiot, because I've seen people that have looked like an idiot from making the wrong decisions," she says.

Others, like Forsberg, have been influenced by punk bands such as Minor Threat or H2O, who have been Edge for 35 years, inspiring Straight Edgers to hold strong in their beliefs.

"Straight Edge is definitely a lifestyle," Forsberg says. "It's just something that is against what society tells you all the time."