They are no more promiscuous than my generation..... how do I know? Because my generation a 16 year old virgin was unheard of. We all had pre-legal sex. I was 11 when two 13 yr old girls introduced me to that fascination.
Well, not everybody experienced the kind of sex education you are describing. In the geographical, social and political localities in which I grew up, I perceived most of my peers as virgins who were too career-focused to conduct the kinds of experiments you allude to here.
Pardon me if I sound a little snobbish, but I went to a rather high-performing public secondary school. My closest peers, as far as I know, were very academic and quite intellectual. I could hardly have imagined them copulating under my nose. I would think that they spent most of their secondary school life working hard to achieve a good ranking in the state secondary school examinations.
It could be a case of classism. I have no idea. Do low-class people have more sex than upper class people?
Well, imagine my shock as a twenty year old when I discovered (posting a question on a message board) that large numbers of people in high school were having sex (around the world). What on earth? Are you kidding me?
What are these kids doing?
Ok, I suppose I was a bit of a nerd in secondary school. I spent too much time trying to get as many A+'s as possible, much like Lisa Simpson. I was also fairly anti-social. I also had rather weird social theories about how the world worked. So perhaps I was deluded in underestimating the number of teenagers having sex.
Tao, having been in high school fairly recently (about 12 years ago), I beg to differ.
Would you mind if I use that 12 years to guess your age? I won't disclose the results of my calculations, I'll just keep it to myself.
LOL It's the result of a highly sexualized culture in which sex is plastered everywhere and you realize from puberty that as a girl, you are more powerful and well-liked if you are sexual.
I am not sure what "basics" they propose the kids are foggy on- I would imagine the stuff that matters like STDs and birth control. However, we know that statistically kids are increasingly experimenting at younger ages and being rather flagrant about sexuality in public.
I think it's disappointing when I hear people saying that it's good to lose one's virginity, that a man proves his worth with how well he can get a woman to share her body with him. They say it proves your manhood and greatness if you can get a girl to sleep with you. Rubbish . . . true manhood is founded on prudence, not on recklessness. If a girl offers herself to a guy like that, she can't be very smart either.
People have dreams and ambitions but lunging forward at your dream at an early age is not a good idea. Realised dreams turn out to be disappointments. You realise that this is not all there is; there is more to the world than what you have just sought. Your bubble will burst very quickly.
I am conveniently a virgin. Nobody ever forced me to be or not to be one. It just happened that way. Having said that, I appreciate my virginity a lot. I am happy that I didn't give my body away for some short-term pleasure.
I don't intend to be judgmental here. When you lose your virginity, you gain sexual experience. Experience is knowledge and knowledge is power. When you lose your virginity, you lose a part of your personal dignity. You have been used by someone else for pleasure. You have not only shared a part of your body, you have given away a part of your soul. Yet the experience (and thus power) you gain will compensate for your loss of dignity. The power you gain from having experienced sex may itself be a way of recovering your lost dignity.
If you manage this balancing act poorly, you risk being psychologically damaged. If you're smart, you may actually improve your quality of life.
The merit of being a virgin is that you keep your dignity. Nakedness is a state of great human vulnerability. It is an opportunity for humiliation. You are opening yourself up to be judged and evaluated by a member of the opposite sex. If you're a virgin, you have never been used and made cheap by your sharing your body with someone else. If you're not a virgin, your dignity comes from your sexual experience.
While one may regard me as a coward for being a virgin and not having yet faced a member of the opposite sex, I retain my precious dignity in not having my body used by another. It means I am not cheap. On the other hand, people who lose their virginity for the sake of impressing one's friends and buckle under peer pressure are cowards too. I credit them for exposing themselves to danger, but not for being reckless and for lacking prudence in their behaviour.
Studies on college campuses indicate a lot of confusion from both men and women about gender roles in sexuality and when "no" means "no" versus when it means "try harder" or "yes." It's a big mess.
Furthermore, there is little appreciation of real women and men and real sexuality- everyone is trying to be something they are not.
I reckon there's too much nihilism in this generation (not that I am not myself a nihilist
, but this is over-the-top nihilism). People by default adopt a cavalier, don't-care attitude of not developing adequately sophisticated and mature social theories about how to think and behave.
Overall, I find much of my own generation's public behavior revolting.
The clothes are ugly
and leave nothing to the imagination,
the dancing is worse.
That sounds almost poetic . . . is this a literary style I should have learnt in secondary school?
Girls as young as 9 and 10 now are worried about getting fat and having wrinkles. Girls in high school are using anti-wrinkle cream, starving themselves, and getting Botox "as preventative measure."
When it comes to women, body shape is not the primary factor for me. The fat people are too fat. The skinny people are too skinny, and there are too many skinny people that it's boring. I actually find skinniness rather ugly and find the chubby and chunky more appealing.
Most of the time when I find a woman attractive, it's because she's nice. An attractive woman is one who psyches me out with her voice, her eyes and her fashion sense. A sophisticated mind and a good education are also factors. It's about messing with my mind and emotions.
Do I subscribe to negative stereotypes about skinny women? I guess I do to some extent. I often feel like they're somehow tainted. That's probably why I've been having so few crushes lately. I don't like them much physically because skinniness for me seems degrading. They seem unattractive rather than attractive. I feel ashamed of them. It's one of the first checks I make and if they don't pass they don't make it to the next stage. But if one of them is nice it just confuses me . . .
It makes me wonder how a nice person can live in a body like that. I feel like kissing the nice person but I'm not sure if I want to kiss that body.
So many of my girl friends in high school had low self-esteem and sought to be affirmed through sexual acts. It's just plain sad.
Oh boy. Don't these women have any pride? I would have thought the feminist movement would have taught them something. Self-respect? Did the movies where you had smart, studious college girls mean anything? What about the cartoon character Lisa Simpson?
The real world is no ideal. These kids do not care about the social theories that describe their behaviour.
Are kids so nihilistic these days that they don't think about social theories at all?
As for some school suspending a kid for dancing, a lot of Christian schools are a bit over the top. But such is life. Don't like the rules, don't have your kid go to that school.
It's not good education anyway. That's indoctrination. Education is not where you tell people what to do with their personal life. Education is where you guide them and get them to think about it. If you contribute your personal experience, that's even better. You pass on your learning to the young ones.
