posted on July 31, 2001 04:10:39 AM new
When I was 18 years old in the back seat of a '65 Plymouth Fury at the drive-in with my first husband (rest his soul), the main problem was not whether or not it was safe, but whether or not to unroll it before putting it on. He unrolled it first, couldn't get it on, and voila'! Nine months later, we found out that condoms are NOT safe! (She will turn 29 on Monday.)
Edited to say that there is safe sex going on above me!! VERY impressive, tigerlady!! You are the gif queen!
posted on July 31, 2001 06:32:31 AM new
Yes, Bunnicula, not only do the youth of today have sex that the youth of the past did not, they also "have bad manners, contempt for authority and disrespect for old people. Children nowadays are tyrants, they no longer rise when their elders enter the room, they contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers."
posted on July 31, 2001 08:14:26 AM new
Yes, yes, adults have been complaining about teen behavior since time began--you'll notice, though, that teen sex wasn't mentioned in that complaint from ancient Rome at all.
In the past there were severe consequences if a girl wasn't a virgin on her wedding night. Bearing an illegitimate child brought incredible censure.
Pooh-pooh it all you like, but there has been a social change in regards to teen sex. Every high school in my area has a "parenting" class--comprised of teenage girls who are either pregnant or have already had a baby. Some are as young as 14 years old. Some are pregnant with their second child. And I'll wager that high schools in just about every city have the same types of classes these days.
posted on July 31, 2001 08:24:50 AM new
Oh gawd..I know I have turned into my mother with this next paragraph, but I gotta say it since its my humble opinion. Cringe.
When I was in school, it was rare for my fellow schoolmates to be pregnant or already have children, much less parenting classes. While in 8th grade, one girl wound up pregnant and it was like the whole town was shocked and displeased. We all whispered about this girl, and fingers were pointed at her. She eventually was kicked out of school. Girls who were pregnant or had sex were considered "from the wrong side of the tracks" and to be avoided. That isnt the case nowadays. Its common for young girls to have sex. Safe or otherwise.
What we, as adults, see today is the same thing our parents saw when we were young. The music we listen to is bad; our values suck; we are rude; we idolize bad things; we have no goals; we are worthless; we will get no place in life, to name a few. Same thing we, as parents, are doing to the young generation now.
[ edited by hepburn on Jul 31, 2001 08:27 AM ]
posted on July 31, 2001 09:10:35 AM new
"In the past there were severe consequences if a girl wasn't a virgin on her wedding night. Bearing an illegitimate child brought incredible censure."
Nope, I disagree completely. What's changed, in regards to teens having sex, isn't that more teens are having more sex than teens of the past did, it's the some of us recognize that teens have always had sex, from way before I was born, that teens of today are having sex, and we don't think that people having sex is anything new. Every generation thinks it invented sex, that's an old truism. I think that, in addition, every older generation thinks that every younger generation is having more sex than they did.
Re this discussion, I asked my husband this morning (he's 65), if teens of his day had sex, and if pre-marital sex was common. Yes, he said, teen sex was the same, it's just more open now. He also said that, even in his day, the old saying was that - "The first baby is always born around 9 months after the marriage. The second baby can come at any time." My mother was a generation older than my husband, and her recollections were basically the same. I have no doubt that, if I could have asked my grandmother, she would have known the same, and so on and so on, all the way back to what I quoted, and before.
As an aside, the part I quoted pre-dated Ancient Rome. It was Ancient Greece, Socrates, circa 500 b.c.
posted on July 31, 2001 12:13:56 PM new
We're very obviously biologically programmed to have sex at a young age. That society and medical progress through the ages has managed to arrange things in such a way that it is no longer ncessary to procreate at 15 hasn't seemed to change our bodies at all.
posted on July 31, 2001 02:31:43 PM new
"Isn't it true that the only difference between the good girls and the bad girls is that the bad girls got caught?"
Yup, I think that's right. And, I think it's worth noting that the first "bad" girl (though not "bad" quite in that way, perhaps), predated Eve.
