Thread: Teenagers and Sex

Hi all,

I have been going through a lot of threads here recently. An often
recurring theme was young women (typically 14-18, but sometimes
older) asking for advice on how to have her ``first time''. The result
was usually a number of posters replying with variations on ``Don't do
it!'' or even ``Wait till your married!''. Interestingly, there was at
least one thread where an ``I [the girl] want to have sex.'' was
countered by ``Don't give in to your boy-friend's urges!''---as if no
woman could actually want sex for her own sake...

Personally, I consider this advice to be very, very bad. Below I will
explain why this is my opinion. I would, however, also be very
interested in why those of you who oppose early sex do so, and would
appreciate it if you, in turn, were to elaborate your underlying
reasoning. (I assume, for the sake of argument, that the respective
girl is of legal age in her jurisdiction, and that she has no
religious reasons to abstain---the opposite cases are both obvious.)

I do not have a daughter, so I cannot say for certain how I would
react to her sexual activities; however, when I, to the best of my
ability, try to imagine different scenarios involving a future
daughter, I would consider a sexual debut at 20 a worse thing
that at 15---and I would be very worried if it happened at 25.
(I was 19, bordering on 20, myself; and I say without reservation that
both I and the next few girl-friends would have benefited, had I had an
earlier start.)

Do not get me wrong, I can see a case for recommendating abstination when we
are talking about 14 or 15 year olds, but I am increasingly sceptical when
women older than that are concerned. When 18 year olds (or even older)
are adviced to abstain, I cringe, I feel sickened.

Something I find particularly disturbing is that at least some posters
seem to consider having had sex with anyone who later turns out not to be
the future husband something bad, a mistake that they would like to go
back in time to undo. I am sorry, but to me this is a sign of a very
unhealthy and unnatural view of sex. I try not to judge, in particular
based on individual posts given without the greater context of
someones real-world situation, but I find it very, very hard when I read
posts of that kind. Sex is one of the most beautiful, enjoyable, and
natural acts there are---not a religious act of irrevocable devotion,
where worshipping the wrong deity sends ones soul into purgatory.
My mind is turned to William Blake's poem ``The Garden of Love''. (If
you are unfamiliar with that work, I highly recommend reading it. The
text can easily be found through Google.)

My reasons:


* Our youth is a perfect time to have fun (including, but not limited,
to sex) without having to take life too seriously. In particular, at
least the late teens is a period where from a historical and
evolutionary perspective sexual activities have been entirely normal.
Abstaining means losing out on a load of fun.

* The longer one waits before having sex, the more mysterious and
surrounded by imagined problems it can become (including unwarranted
feelings of shame, nervosity, even mental complexes). This is an issue
particularly important to women, who often have a fear of the
penetration, the possibility of pain, embarrasing bleeding, ``will he
turn and run when he sees my disgustingly fat 120 pound body naked'', and
similar (as is testified by a number of threads)---wait to confront a
fear and that fear will grow.

* The earlier one starts, the earlier one becomes proficient and, by
implication, the earlier one can give the boy/girl-friend high-quality
sex. Whom would you rather date at 25, an experienced and
skilled man/woman, or a virgin who barely knows what goes where?

* Waiting for ``Mr. Right'' and skipping ``Mr. Right Now'' is
pointless; realistically, only a minority of all relationships are for
the long term, and very, very few relationships started before 25 will
last. By waiting, the girl forgoes a lot of fun with her current
boy-friend (who obviously also loses out), just to eventually lose her
virginity to another guy who, in the end, turns out to also have been
a temporary thing. An interesting variation occured in ``American
Pie'': Tara Reid's character realized that she would rather lose her
virginity to her long-time boy-friend before graduating high school;
rather than going off to college a virgin, and losing it to a random
frat boy during a party while being drunk---even knowing that their
relationship would end together with high school.

* A teenager may be too immature to have children, STDs are bad at any
age, and a teenager may make poor romantic choices.

However, the first two are not a consequence of sex, but of
unprotected sex and (at least with STDs) bad luck. Enforce good
protective practices, not abstination. True, sometimes condoms and
pills fail, but everything has risks. Should we avoid running blindly
across streets? Yes. Should we avoid crossing them altogether? No;
instead we take the appropriate precautions and cross them where the
risk of accidents is sufficiently low. True, some teenagers may simply
not be responsible enough. Those, however, should not be trusted with
driving or baby-sitting either. This just shows that sometimes an
individual judgement call may be needed, not that a blanket ban should
be put in place. Better sex-ed and easier (including less embarassing)
access to preventatives will do much more good.

As for poor romantic choices:
Teenagers will make them irrespective of whether they have sex or not.
For that matter, I think that most of you will agree that many of the
romantic choices you made in your twenties, probably even later, were
poor. (And if you do not agree, then you likely either had the very
great luck of marrying young _and_ succesfully, or have spent most of
your life alone.) Further, is it not better to make mistakes early on,
gather the corresponding experiences, and proceed to make better
choices later in life? Someone who falls for jerks at 15, 16, and 17,
may have the wisdom to choose a good guy at 25. Going celibate till 25
and then falling for jerks at 25, 26, and 27, when it really counts,
is not a good move.

In the end, we mature more through mistakes and experience than
through age in and by it self. Anyone who decides to avoid experience
and the possibility of a mistake until (s)he has matured enough is in
for a long wait...

* Having sex with someone one loves is better than with a random
guy/girl---no doubt. However, even without love. sex can be pretty
darned good. Would you refuse to go to the theater on complimentary
tickets because the seats were too poor, and insist on waiting for
front-row seats at some point in the indefinitete future? Of course
not: That would just be silly. Go a step further: Feeling that you
_owe_ it to yourself or the actors to have a front-row seat, goes
beyond silly and into the realm of the idiotic.

(Women may be wired differently than men when it comes to casual
sex; however, they are not so different that they cannot find it highly
enjoyable.)

* Obsessing about whether this or that guy is special enough will do
no good. The result is just that the archaic image is continued of women as
creatures uninterested in sex, who deigns to give the odd sufficiently
deserving man the privilege of sleeping with her. I hope we have a
consensus in that both sexes will ultimately benefit when this image
has been obliterated.


* Claiming that a woman's virginity is a special gift that only can be
given once and should be saved for that one special man, severely
over-estimates how special this gift is to the typical man. Yes, we do
feel special, but that feeling lasts one night---the woman's
inexperience and awkwardness in bed can last for weeks or even months,
and it can be years before she has fully caught up with her more
experienced sisters. Further, even that one night is not _that_
special. In my personal rating: More so than a home-cooked meal,
somewhat more so than the first time with a new (non-virgin)
girl-friend, less so than an ``I love you'' (from the lips of an adult
woman, not those of an infatuated teenager), much less so than my own
first time. (My first time was really awful with regard to the actual
sex; but the sense of relieve, accomplishment, finally having it
behind me, ...)

The ``special gift'' is something that lives more in the head the
woman than the man (and not all women either, for that matter).
Certainly, I advocate waiting for a steady boyfriend (by teenage
standards), and giving thought to and planning the first time before
hand. Losing it in a toilet with a random guy during a party is not
the way to go. However, waiting for years to be ``extra-special double
sure'' is even worse.

* Speaking strictly from a male perspective: It is incredibly
frustrating to be a teen with a girl-friend, a raging sex-drive, and
not be allowed to have sex. (Thank God that those days are long past
for me!) For a woman to deny her boy-friend sex over a period of
months or even years is selfish---within her rights, certainly, but
nevertheless selfish. Similarly, I have every right to refuse to help
a girl-friend move, but I would be selfish in doing so. (In fact, if
she wrote in to a forum to complain, chances are that she would be
told to dump me by some posters...)

Consider further that this denial can have a very negative effect on
the poor boy's self-confidence (``She does not want to have sex with
me; ergo, I am not attractive/special enough.'') or lead to a negative
view on women and relations (``Yeah, I am good enough to buy her
ice-cream and movie tickets, but not good enough to have sex with her.
Women suck!'').

* Looking at the more extreme ``no sex before marriage''
recommendation: This carries the additional complications that it
increases the risk of too long a wait, worsening the consequences of
the above; and the risk of a marriage at too young an age. (Young sex
good; young marriage bad---a recipe for divorce.)

Further, speaking for myself: I would never take the risks involved in
getting married to a virgin. Is she a virgin because of psychological
problems? Is she a religious weirdo (as opposed to merely religious)?
Will she dislike sex? Will we be sexually incompatible? Will she catch
up in experience fast enough? Will she find anything but the
missionary position to risque? Will she turn out to have a penis? (Cf.
the poster Mariaangel.)

Obviously, the question would likely never even arise, because I would
simply not be willing to go without sex for a sufficiently long time
that a marriage would be an option. Having seen so many marriages
fail, I would count with at least two years of living together before
a proposal---and a preceding two years of ``going steady'' (for want
of a better expression) before I would consider living together in the
first place. A grand-total of at least four years without sex? Not
going to happen as long as I have other options...

In other words, if you want to wait until marriage, you will cut the
pool of potential candidates down to a fraction of what it would
otherwise be.

+++
In my view, once a certain level of physical and emotional maturity
has been reached, and once a sufficient amount of sex-ed has been
instilled, it is normal, healthy, and beneficial for teenagers to go
at it like rabbits. Having sex _now_ does not make sex in the future
worse---it makes it better. (Unless, obviously, one is prone to
obsessing about matters that really are unimportant, blow them out of
proportion, and talk one self into an entirely unnecessary
dissatisfaction, in what amounts to a reverse application of cognitive
behavioural therapy.)

Exactly where to draw the limits is a too large question for this
post. I just note that individual variation has to be taken into
account; that some highly developed countries (e.g. Sweden and
Germany) have an age of consent in the range 14-15 y.o. (and a very
sizeable proportion of all countries and US states is added when going
to 14-16); that most humans are biologically (not necessarily
mentally) built to start having sex in their early or mid teens; and
that it would be odd for an 18 year old (who is allowed to vote and
drive in most countries, and drink in many others) would not be
considered mature enough to have sex. Without a doubt, a teenage
driver is a much greater danger to both her/himself and others, than is
a teenager having sex.

Side-notes:

I would argue that even the terminology ``losing ones virginity'' is
unfortunate and, possibly, affecting the way women think in a negative
manner. How about thinking in terms of ``getting rid of ones
virginity'' or ``becoming a woman'' instead?

When the OPs were below 18, they often received answers along the
lines of ``You are 17! It is illegal for you to have sex!''.
Considering that even in the US this is likely to be incorrect
(depending on state), and that most other countries have a lower age
of consent, it would probably be better if such statements were not
made. Consider instead ``Make sure that you have checked the age of
consent in your jurisdiction.''---a much more constructive and helpful
answer.