May 24, 2002
WHAT’S WRONG WITH TEEN SEX? The U.S. News cover story is about a perennial bogeyman, teen sex. This reminds me of something.
In his African history classes, my brother asks the students: “What do you think they call ‘deadly African killer bees’ in Africa?”
The answer, of course, is simply “bees.”
In the same way, what we now call “teen sex” and treat as somehow aberrant or frightening was known for nearly all of human history simply as “sex.” Most people were married — and more were having sex — in their teens, and often their early teens. And they managed to deal with it, and with the other aspects of adulthood, pretty well. A Roman youth was old enough to serve in the Legions at 14, and to marry, sign contracts, etc. The Bar Mitzvah preserves a similar tradition from that era. And much closer to our own times, George Washington was bossing a survey team in the wilderness at 16, British midshipmen were commanding sailors in battle at even younger ages, and even in the 20th century lots of soldiers were teens.
It is not teen sex that is the aberration, but our increasingly absurd modern effort to treat teenagers as babies. I say increasingly absurd because teenagers are actually sexually mature at an earlier age than they were in those older days.
This doesn’t mean that teen sex is necessarily a good thing — as with adult sex, that depends on the circumstances, and the individuals, and also on what part of the teens we’re talking about. But treating it as something scary, aberrant, or unnatural is part of an overall pathology about sex that is both unfounded and — when, as it now usually does, it comes from baby boomers who felt quite differently about the subject thirty years ago — pretty hypocritical.
Brian Knapp says:
Most of the negativity surrounding “Teen Sex” and “Teen Drinking” comes from adults’ regrets from past mistakes, I believe. A guilty soul that warns “do as I say, not as I do.” Most adults (like politicians) are so uninvolved with those that they need to listen to, that they don’t understand the circumstances in which the said activities exist and in what context they are performed. But, why would we expect news organizations to investigate and report accurately?
May 24, 2002, 8:28 amRollerball says:
Good call. I am in favor of a new graduated adulthood scale, which should include graduated drinking privileges, driving privileges, etc.
I just returned from Germany where teens can drink in bars until midnight. Drunk driving in a huge no-no, but the kids still seem to handle it well.
Why is it that European standards on teen behavior (sex, drinking) seem so much more appropriate than our standards?
May 24, 2002, 8:41 amBarbara Randol says:
For me the scary and aberrant thing about teenagers having sex isn’t so much the having sex part as the having babies part. I work in a university children’s hospital and deal w/ teenaged parents all the time. There may be an occasional (older) teen who is mature enough to be a good parent, but they are *by far* the exception to the rule. And one absolutely definitive characteristic of teenagers is lack of foresight; I don’t have any figures off hand but would be willing to bet that sexually active teens become pregnant at much higher rates that adults. Birth control only works if you use it. We were joking at work the other night that what we really need are norplant dart guns. Not only is teenaged parenthood horribly bad for the affected children, it’s devastating for the teenager in terms of education. Rightly or wrongly teenage parents are very unlikely to finish their educations and be able support their children.
May 24, 2002, 8:47 amRandy Harwell says:
Not very convincing, Instaman. The fact that teens down through history “managed to deal with [sex and drinking] pretty well” ignores a whole lot of heavy cost that adults down through history have tried to prevent their offspring from paying to the extent possible.
I think that “negativity” surrounding teen drinking and sex arises from justifiable parental fear. Teens (and many adults) believe themselves to be immortal and live surreal lives in which they think there are no consequences from what they do.
Teen drinking can be deadly. Teen sex can have huge life altering consequences. Both carry potentially enormous social costs that I don’t believe we can simply blink away because “they all do it.”
There is hypocrisy and inconsistency in state efforts to regulate these issues, no doubt about it. We could argue the extent to which a state, as opposed to a parent, might intrude into this kind of conduct. But it seems to me that should be the focal point of the debate, not whether teenagers have historically gotten away with stuff that is potentially very harmful for them.
May 24, 2002, 8:47 amNoah Millman says:
The declining age of onset of puberty is a serious cultural problem. 11 year olds are not emotionally mature enough to be having sex – but they are doing so, in increasing numbers, because they are biologically able to do so and culturally encouraged to do so. Neither was true in ancient or medieval days.
Nonetheless, it was never a norm for kids in their early teens to marry. Boys tended to wait until they could afford to support a bride and the children that would follow, typically into their early 20s. Girls waited until they were minimally mature enough to undertake the responsibilities of marriage, typically into their late teens. There are cultures today that are strong and healthy and have a high incidence of youthful marriage. The Mormons do this. The ultra-Orthodox Jews do this. And non-religious groups do, too. There’s a great article in the latest New Republic on how campaigns for pre-marital continence and marital fidelity have made enormous strides at eliminating HIV in Uganda, and have been much more successful than condom campaigns elsewhere in Africa. One key side effect of the campaign? A doubling of the rate of marriage among late-teens.
11-year-olds have got to wait, and we have to help them do so. 17 to 20-year-olds, well, I agree it’s folly to suggest that they should keep waiting until they are 35 and well established in their careers before they have sex. But we might want to take another look at the idea of cultural support for them getting married. It certainly beats an epidemic of STDs among teenagers, which is NEWS. And bad news.
May 24, 2002, 8:50 amWilliam James says:
Many STDs are deadly. Parents who do not fear for their *children’s* health and well-bing are not intolerant or stupid, just loving and concerned.
May 24, 2002, 8:58 amJohn says:
I would bet that to the Man on the Street “teen sex” & “teen drinking” would probably be considered younger teens. I understand your point about how history shows us that teens were active in the past, but as you point out, they also had responsibilities. Today’s teens have none. The pleasures of life, and the consequences of such pleasures, should be restricted to those who can be held responsible for their actions. Granted, many of those who can be held accountable never are, but that is a different arguement.
May 24, 2002, 9:09 amGlenn Reynolds says:
Well, I wasn’t necessarily saying that teen sex is desirable — only that it’s not unnatural. And late teens are different from early teens but the discussion tends to conflate the two.
Personally, I think teens need more responsibilities, and that there should be more of a connection between privileges and responsibilities. Instead, we see the infantilization of teenagers and even twenty-somethings (remember how Monica Lewinsky and Louse Woodward were both described as children or near-children?) I think that’s a bad thing.
May 24, 2002, 9:27 amcarol says:
I think the real issue is the age of majority. In industrialized countries (US certainly) the age of majority has increased from 14 to currently 18 and is headed for 21 (drinking laws, the perception that a college student is somehow less accountable for their actions because “they’re just a kid”).
So what do we do with all the kids between the age of 14 and 21? Used to be their bodies matured and they were set loose on the world to make do as best they could, because 1) a strong working body was very important (it took 97 people working the land to support themselves and 3 people who didn’t have to work at food production) and 2) people couldn’t afford education. And not as in it was expensive, but as in if we educate our brightest child, the rest of the family will starve to death.
In industrialized nations a strong back to plow the field with isn’t that important, all you have to do is look at what a farmer makes for proof of that. What is important is knowledge, and that takes time to acquire. If teenagers have babies they are reducing their chances of having the time to acquire the knowledge it takes to earn a “decent” wage in an industrialized country.
Teen sex only becomes a problem in a society when a large percentage of families can afford to send their kids to school beyond the 8th grade.
I don’t know the answer to the question of what to do, but I sure don’t want the government deciding it for me and mine. Nor do I want to live in a pre-industrialized world.
May 24, 2002, 9:32 amPete Harrigan says:
You might also consider the increasing payout to advanced education. In earlier eras, when the rewards to advanced education were lower, or possibly just unavailabe to many, there was a lower price paid for starting a family earlier. Now, with the earnings gap between those with a college degree and those without historically high, it makes sense for parents to want their children to delay child rearing.
May 24, 2002, 9:38 amJoshua J. Fielek says:
One of the significant aspects of teen sex that we miss out on comparing now to 100, 200, or more years ago is that maturity was enforced at an earlier age in pre-modern times.
In the 1800s, you would be working from the time you could walk, whether on a farm, or in the city, you would be helping the family. Girls would help around the house, making meals, learning their duties as women. Boys would help with the farm, or with the father’s business, or be apprenticed out to learn a trade.
So from the age we call “elementary school”, where we go for that 30 minutes a day of knowledge packed into eight hours of group exercises, our ancestors were learning the real world.
By the time our ancestors were fifteen, they’d been making a living for half their lives, in one way or another.
We have it good — we essentially get a free ride for the first eighteen to twenty-two years of our lives.
May 24, 2002, 9:41 amRandy Harwell says:
I’m reminded of Ava Gardner’s remark in response to the furor surrounding her fling with Sinatra: “I just fail to see what is wrong with two attractive people taking off their clothes, jumping into bed and doing what comes naturally.”
That’s ok as far as Ava and Frank are concerned but can someone explain what the upside to me is for letting teenagers taking the Gardner View? I have huge societal downside from teen drinking and sex — my upside seems limited to the abstract idea that somewhere some kids are slamming some brews and “doing what comes naturally.”
I just read the link that started this conversation and I tell you plainly, that vacuous dialogue between the chicks at the end of the article just captures it all. I weep at the prospect of these erudite young women driving, voting, or doing anything of social consequence.
Note: this is not a gender based observation but an age based one.
May 24, 2002, 9:52 amPJ says:
Glenn’s original post was a lot better than his update that brought in the comments from the miscreant Jonah Goldberg. It is the “teen” aspect that matters, not the individual level of maturity, judgment, etc. No matter how stupid or poor you are, as an adult you’ve got to be allowed to make your own decisions about your life. Protecting teens make sense because they’re going to get more intelligent and develop better judgment in a few years, and we’re just guiding them though a rough spot. If somebody’s permanently stupid, well then, you’ve just got to give them the controls, and wish them good luck?
May 24, 2002, 9:54 amalisa says:
first, glenn, i absolutely agree with you. second: am i the only one here who is aware of the condom and the pill? i have an 8 year old. every time he crosses the street to go to his friend’s house, i am absolutely terrified, (because people drive too fast). does this mean that i should keep him inside the house until he is 18? every time he goes, i remind him to stop and look, etc. when i catch him not doing the above, he gets grounded. but you cannot keep your kids from living! where i come from, the pill is widely used by teenagers, and teen pregnancy, while i am sure is existent, is not nearly as big a problem as it is in the us. and yes, with the appeasement of arabs, and antisemitism and all that, there are still some things that americans could learn from europeans.
May 24, 2002, 10:08 amPlains Monk says:
I’d like to first challenge the notion that teens today are as mature as they were in times past. Heck, I’d even argue with those who claim teens today are as mature as teens even twenty-five years ago. Yes, they are exposed to much more explicit sexual content than teens of the past. Does exposure necessarily translate into “maturity”? Not in my book, it does not.
Also, as others have pointed out, teens in times past normally had to grow up very quickly, taking on adult responsibilities by their mid-teens that we don’t expect from our children until their early to mid-twenties.
If you want to see a modern teenager who approaches the level of maturity of teens of the past, take a look at the teens who are home schooled. They are typically several years ahead of their peers not only intellectually but in maturity as well. Some of these home schoolers do indeed marry at a relatively young age (late teens) but they are quite capable of handling the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood.
May 24, 2002, 10:19 amDan says:
Why must Jonah continue with his absurd comments at Nationa Review Online?
http://nationalreview.com
May 24, 2002, 11:33 amErnst Blofeld says:
Teens were having sex back in prehistory, but the society they lived in was also not particularly desirable from a modern standpoint. Back in the day you didn’t face the grim prospect of a post-doc in wooly mamoth hunting or grading exams in obscure subjects like law. You could get by with a strong arm and a spear. These days you need to learn a bunch of stuff, and that’s not easy when you’ve got a rug rat to take care of.
Yes, teenagers with babies could function when they’re out herding cattle, as long as you’re williing to accept a high infant mortality rate. It’s a bit more difficult in modern society, at least if you want something more ambitious than a fast food job.
May 24, 2002, 11:52 amblah says:
I see the hooha over teen sex as jealousy on the part of older folk who were more prudish their own youth. Sex has been largely divorced from the threat of procreation and teens can freely engage in it with little stigma attached. Surf the net and find me a dating advice/guide site that doesn’t mention sex by the 3rd date. Courtship is a thing of the past. Hooking up has become the norm.
May 24, 2002, 12:21 pmgoethean says:
“Why is it that European standards on teen behavior (sex, drinking) seem so much more appropriate than our standards?” Posted by Rollerball at May 24, 2002 08:41 AM
Make sure Glenn doesn’t see this. It may disrupt his studiously blind dismissal of all things European.
May 24, 2002, 12:39 pmPeter Nicolaysen says:
Genetics Rule: Once puberty is passed, a person is a physical adult. The concept of being, “mature” or “smart” or “educated” enough to have sex is completely artifical, the terms themselves are completely subjective. Our youth know this also; when we apply those terms to them they laugh. I have allways believed that I could never control “when” one of my children would start, and that my best option would be to educate them about the safety issues, the social aspects and the emotional issues. I then provide extensive supervision through the “Dangerous years” of 10 – 14 when the horemones are screaming but control has not yet been developed. The goverment can do or fund what they will, I as an individual will never abdicate my right or my responsibility to my children. I read recently about a 6th grader, dead, due to a sexual relationship with an older man via the internet. The man was the killer, he confessed, but she was doing the “Teen-Sex” regularly, and her parents were “enabling” this behavior, were they blind, or just stupid.
May 24, 2002, 12:55 pmKris Hasson-Jones says:
I don’t think having sex when I was a teen did me any damage; in fact the sex I had stands out as some of the few happy moments of my teen years, when I was in control of my life and doing something for my own pleasure. I look at my children, and I think the 15-year-old is mature enough to handle it at least as well as I did. Sex is yet another area available to learn that choices have consequences.
As far as STDs, I think there are so many things that can affect you for the rest of your life (a drunk driver running into you, for example), that the risk of STDs, while an avoidable risk, is no more or less important than any other.
May 24, 2002, 1:05 pmJohn Fulton says:
“…European countries somehow seem to have similar levels of teen sexual activity with much, much lower levels of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.”
Could it be that the European underclass consisting of semi-literate fundamentalist Muslims has severe social strictures regarding Teen Sex? If so, this would be in marked contrast to the American underclass. And this might skew the statistics, would it not?
May 24, 2002, 1:16 pmRay says:
My experience of American teenagers vs teenagers from other countries is that the American teenagers are “younger”. Sorry to say this, but the American kids seem to grow up about 5 years later. I personally think it is because they are treated like children and not given enough responsibility, nor discipline. Americans just don’t let their kids grow up.
I was tought that I could do anything I liked as long as I considered the effects of my actions. If I was irrisponsible, I lost the right to be self regulated. I really worked hard to retain my freedom, and as a result was a very responsible teenager. I could do what I liked, and what I liked was to prove I was responsible. I went on all-night club crawls in high school, without ever getting seriously drunk, driving drunk or doing anything else that could hurt others. I knew that my parents didn’t sleep on the nights when I was out, but they would never bring it up. This meant the world to me.
I was told I could have sex as long as I considered the consequences. In fact I was told that if I wanted to have sex, then rather arrange a place with them, because it isn’t something that should happen as guilty groping whilst wondering if the folks would be coming in through the front door.
Unfortunately, as a result of this upbringing, I think I had a lot less sex than some other people. :-)
I know my parents worried, but I know that they trusted me, and I valued that trust. I heartily recommend this way of bringing up your children.
Glenn is right. Teen sex is only a problem if your teenagers are a problem. And that is only an issue if parents and society are doing things wrong.
May 24, 2002, 1:34 pmJohn says:
This conversation reminds me of a game of Battleship. All these near misses as everyone is trying to find and define the target.
I believe that consentual sex is just that. The problem is that in order to consent, a person must be held accountable for his/her actions. Remember the old adage? And I paraphrase, “Ignorance is no excuse before the Law”. Or something like that.
If a kid or an adult wants to go out and have sex, normal or kinky, fine. Knock yourself out. No jealousy here.
But don’t come to the government cry’n, because you have 13 kids and can’t afford food & necessities, your genitals are on fire because you poked/were poked where you shouldn’t have, etc.
May 24, 2002, 1:58 pmjeanne a e devoto says:
Barbara said, above:
There may be an occasional (older) teen who is mature enough to be a good parent, but they are *by far* the exception to the rule.
It’s worth asking why that is. A teenager is, biologically, an adult. Teenagers have all the cognitive capacity they need to take responsible care of a baby (or have sex, or understand the consequences of drinking, or responsibly use drugs). Why do teenagers impress people as so dangerously irresponsible?
I’m not sure of all the reasons. But I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the way children are brought up, a culture of infantilization that’s been getting steadily more pronounced for decades. It used to be fairly normal that you could leave a (reasonable mature and sensible) child home alone for a few hours if need be. It also used to be that kids would go out in the neighborhood playing all day, with no adult supervision or programmed activities. These days…. I get the impression that most kids simply aren’t allowed to do that. People were talking the last couple of years about eliminating trick-or-treating, for heaven’s sake, because it’s too “dangerous” and the kids should instead go to a party at a central location with plenty of adult supervision.
I have no idea why this is, though the trend’s pretty clear to me. Economic pressures to keep young adults out of the work force? That might account for longer schooling but I don’t think it accounts for hypervigilance. Fear of crime against children? That’s often mentioned as a justification for these new standards, but since crimes against children were always rare (and are even more so now – a child going out to play in 2002 is even safer statistically than one playing in 1962).
May 24, 2002, 2:23 pmTed Esler says:
Well, I guess if you’re right, Instaman, then we should roll back those youth labor laws, lower the driving age to about 10 (hey – they got the “gear,” right?), and send them to fight the Taliban at about 14.
Would it be okay to ask how many teens live in your home? Trust me – they ain’t ready!
May 24, 2002, 3:56 pmangela says:
NO HEAVY PETTING! That’s what the caption warned in the state-mandated morality class (er, Sex Ed) textbook I studied as a junior in high school. It was placed right above cartoon depictions of a girl and a boy. They were staring at each other in that awkward teeage way. Honestly, it was a little hard to tell the boy from the girl.
My friend Ray and I would giggle every time we saw it. I don’t really remember much else about that class. Well, I also remember the pretty little 14-year old girl who sat in the middle of the front row right in front of the teacher who was forced to sit through those ridiculous lectures on how great abstinence can be, even though she was about 5 months pregnant when the class started.
My point, teenagers know the consequences of sex. Adults, need to be, well, adult and acknowledge that teenagers are not idiots. Sex education should be approached in a scientific and realistic manner. There are definite health and psychological reasons to not do it when you’re a teen. There are some pretty good reasons to do it from the teen’s perspective.
By the way, does anyone else think it was a little strange for me to be taking sex ed at 16?
Come on! By that time, I’d already known the basics for 8 years. I’d had a period for 6 years. If I didn’t understand it by then, that class would not have helped.
May 24, 2002, 4:20 pmChristina says:
The increase in teen sexual behavior isn’t simply a matter of kids having more opportunities to act out their natural hormonal urges. It’s also the result of the increased amount of sexually explicit material they are exposed to from an early age, especially when parents aren’t making an active effort to shield their children and protect their innocence. I’m not a fundamentalist right-winger. I just see this as my responsibility as a parent and I’m dumbfounded when other parents try to justify taking the path of least resistance (not only with regards to sex but also to discipline, clothing, study habits, etc.) A few readers suggested that the debate results from parents who have regrets about their own earlier sexual experiences. Huh? Parents are supposed to teach their kids not to repeat the parents’ mistakes. That’s their job as parents. Also, parents shouldn’t just pass on the bad news but also the good news. I believe that sexual happiness is most possible within a committed relationship, preferably marriage. This is what I will teach my daughter. Again, that’s my job. Maybe the most disturbing part of the article was how so many parents aren’t teaching their kids much of anything at all.
May 24, 2002, 4:23 pmDaniel Wiener says:
It’s well established by now that birth rates decline sharply in wealthy, more-advanced civilizations (in contrast to obsolete Malthusian fears of inevitable population explosions) because parents rationally choose to invest greater resources in fewer offspring as a superior survival strategy. I think modern-era views of teenage sex are merely one aspect of this trend.
Back when people had large families, and attrition among children was commonplace, it made sense to push youngsters out of the nest and on their own as soon as possible. That implied a lot of early marriages and teen sex and (in the absence of easily-accessible contraceptives) teenage mothers. So teen sex also had to be more socially acceptable.
Today college degrees have replaced high school diplomas as the minimally acceptable level of education expected for a successful life. Conversely, teenage marriage and teenage motherhood are seen as major impediments to a successful life. Parents who have only one or two children can’t afford for their child to make a major uncorrectable mistake during the difficult teenage years; they’d risk losing half or all of their investment in the next generation. So they are highly-protective, but not irrationally so.
Societal norms regarding sex and many other aspects of child-rearing and teenage maturity have definitely shifted. This shift may or may not be a good thing, but it is neither pathological nor hypocritical.
(At this point I am strongly tempted to brag about my own daughter, an only child who is now 21, but I shall exercise enormous self-control and restrain myself.)
May 24, 2002, 4:24 pmalisa says:
it does not cease to amaze me, that in america we let kids drive at 16, and expect them not to have sex or drink. am i the only one who thinks that sex is much less dangerous than driving? i’d give my child all the scientific information i can give regarding sex, provide them with adequate birth control, and have them invite their boy/girl-friend for a sleepover, and they can have a drink, if they want to, rather than have them driving i do not know where, with i do not know whom, drinking and smoking i do not know what, etc.
what is it with americans and sex, anyway? i just do not get it. can someone please explain?
May 24, 2002, 5:18 pmJohn "Akatsukami" Braue says:
http://www.win.net/ratsnest/Articles/fog0000000245.html
At least one teenager has an interesting attitude towards this question.
May 24, 2002, 5:40 pmRichard Bennett says:
What is it about Americans and sex? How about a 35% out-of-wedlock birthrate, where it was 4% just 40 years ago.
Some things do change for the worse, and teen sex is one of them – it’s more common than ever before, and it has consequences.
May 24, 2002, 6:16 pmLucian Chimene says:
A minor cavil. You comment:
“A Roman youth was old enough to serve in the Legions at 14, and to marry, sign contracts, etc. The Bar Mitzvah preserves a similar tradition from that era.”
Actually the ceremony of the bar mitzvah doesn’t really go back that far. It’s nowhere mentioned in the Talmud (the collection of Jewish law and commentary, dating from about A.D. 400-500) for example.
Reference: http://www.jewfaq.org/barmitz.htm.
Also, personal communication from a good friend who, as a rabbi was called on to be a technical advisor on one aspect of a TV special on the life of Jesus. Franco Zeffirelli, the director, had decided he should have a scene on Jesus’ bar mitzvah. According to my friend, the cermony dates only from the 15th century, but he figured that they probably had SOME kind of coming-of-age ceremony back around the year 13. He cobbled it together, and the special is still around.
May 24, 2002, 6:23 pmalisa says:
to richard bennet: so why don’t all these kids, that are having sex and babies, use birth control?
May 24, 2002, 8:39 pmRay says:
Richard Bennet: All actions have consequences. What is so special about teen sex?
If you do your job properly, your children will consider consequences and act accordingly. If they aren’t able to do this, then that is your fault.
Christina: Children aren’t tought to be responsible. Children teach themselves to be responsible by having to make choices. If you’ve protected them from making choices in the past, don’t expect them to make any in the future. Denying your children access to explicit material merely makes them curious in a way that guarantees they do not have enough information to make informed choices.
May 24, 2002, 9:44 pmEric Olsen says:
This entire issue boils down to perspective. Like Glenn, I don’t particularly regret my teen sexual experiences, but that doesn’t mean I want my kids reproducing them – so to speak. I have found that my entire “libertarian” attitude toward teen sex changed when my daughter turned 13, which is when “teen sex,” by definition, became bad. Sure, it’s a NIMBY situation, but few issues are more personal.
I like seeing people take bold stances however; it stirs up the natives.
May 24, 2002, 11:35 pmShawn Levasseur says:
On a side note…
Here’s the real test of the blogosphere:
To see if blogs will displace porn sites on google searches for “Teen Sex”…
May 24, 2002, 11:55 pmRichard Bennett says:
Ray sez: “Richard Bennet: All actions have consequences. What is so special about teen sex?”
Are you for real? OK, maybe you’re a libertarian, so we have to start with first principles. Teenagers, in America in the year 2002, aren’t very responsible people; they act on impulse, and don’t think about consequences. Therefore, many get pregnant at 14, 15, or 16 years of age.
Irresponsible parents, who are actually children themselves, don’t do a very good job of raising responsible children. Consequently, the offspring of unwed teens commit crimes, drop out of school, and end up on welfare at higher rates than the rest of us. And guess who pays for that?
That’s what’s so special about teen sex.
May 25, 2002, 1:47 amBrian Knapp says:
Richard Bennett: A greater percentage of adults commit crimes and are on welfare than teens. If that’s because of “the offspring of unwed teens” then it’s the fault of wedded individuals for not reproducing more. Face facts: It’s not “teen sex” that’s the problem. It’s “stupid people” sex that’s the problem. Stupid people sex begets stupid people who have lots of sex and makes lots of stupid people. Viscious cycle. And if your beef with teen sex amounts to government programs and funding ( you said:Consequently, the offspring of unwed teens commit crimes, drop out of school, and end up on welfare at higher rates than the rest of us. And guess who pays for that? That’s what’s so special about teen sex.) then the problem is with the legitimacy of the programs and not the act of sex itself.
May 25, 2002, 5:47 amRandy Harwell says:
convincing letter to the editor in the washington post today from the President of Concerned Women for America and the director of the Culture and Family Institute. excerpt:
“Everyone knows that HIV is fatal. But how many know that at least 5,000 women die yearly in the United States from other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)?
Most cases of cervical cancer are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), an STD that infects more than 5 million people annually. Condoms are useless against HPV and nearly useless against genital herpes. Despite this, the government is still spending millions of dollars to persuade kids to have “safe sex” by using condoms.”
then it concludes:
“Health authorities now contend with more than 20 venereal diseases, up from two (syphilis and gonorrhea) before “safe sex” education dawned. Herpes, HIV and HPV are incurable. Does that make anyone feel “safe”?
We don’t ask kids not to smoke marijuana or snort cocaine and then tell them the “safest” way to do it. “Comprehensive” and “abstinence-plus” programs tell teens that we assume they will be sexually active, equip them to do so and provide the backup “solutions” of abortions and drugs to deal with the STD symptoms.
Finally, Harvey contends that because people are marrying later, they can’t be expected to refrain from sex. Could this be self-fulfilling? Egged on by “safe sex” advocates, many people waste years in reckless experimentation that could have been spent building a marriage. And just because Cohen thinks saving sex for marriage is “sanctimonious nonsense” doesn’t mean other folks can’t keep their pants on.
It’s time to abandon the “safe sex” lie and instead teach about sex within the larger context of character, risks, life goals and marriage. That’s why abstinence programs work.”
letter can be found at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7551-2002May24.html
May 25, 2002, 10:13 amalisa says:
randy harwell: most of the points you are making are perfectly valid, and i absolutely agree that we need to “teach about sex within the larger context of character, risks, life goals and marriage”. however, i do not see why this should inevitably lead to teaching abstinence. do not get me wrong, i do not consider saving sex for maririage a “sanctimonious nonsense”. i just do not think it is practical in today’s western society. it may work for some families and some teenagers, but it simply would not work for most others. there are some teenagers that simply are not all that interested in sex. i was not at all, until i was 18, while some of my close friends lost their virginity at 14 and 15, and others were very sexualy active, while still technically virgins (that was in the 70ies). i am also disgusted by teenagers running around, screwing and drinking themselves into oblivion.
but i think that the main reason they are doing this (exept for a few that would be doing this no matter what) is because they are being treated like babies (especially when it comes to responsibilities), and they are intent on proving they are not.
richard bennet: when i asked “what is it with americans and sex”, your answer implied that sex is a problem. but that is the actual point: what i am asking, is why do americans treat sex as a problem? any natural activity can be harmful, especially in industrialized world. a lot of the food we eat, air we breath, water we drink are, in fact, harmful. yet we do not stop eating and breathing. but for some reason, in america (and also in the muslim world and, to some extent, in catholic church) people think that we can stop having sex. well, guess what: if a person wants to have sex, he/she will have it, no matter their age or marital status. so american teenagers do their thing, and muslim man screw young boys, or sheep and goats, and i am not going to talk about catholic priests…) now, i am not asking about muslims, but what is it with americans? people always mention the puritans, but it does not seem to be a complete answer. it just beats me…
May 25, 2002, 3:26 pmchristina d says:
I have so much to say about this topic. I’m 16 years old and I think I can relate to this more since my usual Monday’s attending high school are nothing more than the weekend updates on everyone’s raging sex stories.
As Angela stated: “My point, teenagers know the consequences of sex. Adults, need to be, well, adult and acknowledge that teenagers are not idiots”
Just because someone knows about something doesn’t mean they are mature enough to do or have it. I feel that doing too much too young gives you nothing to look forward to when your older. I’m not saying teens are complete morons. But we sure as hell are naive. Come on, you can’t tell me that you can’t look back on your teenage years and deny that you had the feeling of “living forever” or like you “knew everything”. No matter how much people my age tell me that they have their mentality, future, and whatever else figured out, they don’t. I’ll be the first to admit that I lie in saying I know everything.
It’s funny because we have a great source of sex education available, however it’s almost like we use being naive as an excuse. A girl in my grade just had a baby. She’s ecstatic about it and so is her mother. Is it just me or this just a cry for maturity and an excuse for her to look after someone else rather than herself? I feel like the teenage population is just making more mistakes rather than learning from them. We may know that sex can lead to pregnancy and STD’s, but often we are misinformed and use stupid methods like “pulling out” as a form of protection rather than something called a condom.
“All actions have consequences. What is so special about teen sex?”
What disgust me more than imaginable, is that having sex while your a teenager isn’t even that big of an issue anymore. It’s worrying about the preteens. There has been a spread of gonorrhea in the middle school in my town last year. The middle school here consist of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Last year and this year there had also been a spread of crabs within my school. Obviously majority of teens are not as educated as you give us credit in being. I’m a virgin and more than proud, but to know that this is going around repulses me. And to think it doesn’t affect me? To go to a school with an infestation? Or to know that my friend’s actions will only increase, meanwhile the time before having it will decrease between each person that they sleep with? How can this seem normal? I know I’m young, maybe nothing has changed since you were my age, but it doesn’t seem like this is a society that I want my children growing up in when I have them.
I’m not against sex in general. I just don’t feel that “sleeping around” is something that someone my age should do. We’re not entirely mature enough. It’s kind of funny because once a friend asked me to go and buy condoms with her since she was embarrassed. If your too embarrassed to buy a condom then what the hell are you doing having sex?!?! Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are people who have sex under normal circumstances and are proper about it. But this goes for the majority that isn’t
May 25, 2002, 5:34 pmRichard Bennett says:
Alisa, read Christina’s post, slowly and carefully; I think it answers all your questions. Teenagers pick up on the cues adults give them in our behavior, spoken and otherwise. We’re conveying the message that promiscuous sex is a good thing, and teaching sex ed classes that take it as a given.
The culture did the same thing with divorce, which used to be a rich person’s game. Overall, the increase in teen sex, adult sex, extra-marital sex, and divorce hasn’t been good for our culture. One way or another, this cat needs to go back in the bag.
May 25, 2002, 6:42 pmJody says:
Just as a point of fact, “abstinence only” programs don’t work as advertised. If you check the data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a federally funded, multimillion-dollar, school-based study designed to identify and assess the various factors that place adolescents at risk for a host of potentially health-compromising behaviors, you find that, at best, you get a year or so delay in teens having intercourse, but that’s only if you get them to make an “abstinence” pledge at 15 but before 18. Even then, it only will work if a minority of the students are making such a pledge — in other words if its a way of setting themselves apart from the larger group some teens will give it ago. The problem even here, however, is that if they break their pledge, they are actually more likely to engage in unprotected sex than those who never made such a pledge. (Think of it like going off of a diet — after that one chip, you’ve got no problem eating the whole bag, another one, a pound of M&M’s and some fries before trying to start over again.)
European, Canadian and Australian teens, who are subjected to pretty much the same levels of sexually suggestive advertising, movies and music that we are, consistently have less pregnancies, STD infections, HIV infections and less partners than American teens do. Why? Because they live in societies that take sex for granted and “teen” sex as a fact of life. They start early by talking openly and honestly about the facts of life. They make contraceptives and family planning available from the get go. They don’t look at teens as being some kind of hormonally challenged and intellectually feeble minded class, but as young adults who will benefit not from control but from guidance and ever increasing levels of responsibility.
Judith Levine pointed this out in “Harmful to Minors,” the latest bugbear book that the Reactionaries labeled as a pro-pedophilia manual. I read. It’s nothing of the sort. I’ve got a full review of the book here.
You can’t treat teens as some form of mentally challenged life. You’ve got to work with them — within reason — rather than against them.
May 25, 2002, 6:59 pmalisa says:
jody: i think you are making the same point i do, from slightly different angle, no?
richard: i have a feeling that you are lumping together sex in general and promiscuous sex. or do you view any sex as promiscuous? i agree, with you, by the way, that teens pick up adult cues about everything, including sex. however, i think these cues signal a message different from one you have suggested, and the real message is: we (adults) are confused about sex. we like it, but feel gulty about it. we feel guilty when we do it and anjoy it. we feel like loosers when we do not have it, and are annoyed by others doing it and enjoying it. how can these adults help confused tenagers, while confused themselves?
by the way, i completely understand christina, but there is nothing in her post that answers my basic question: why cannot americans take sex, in jody’s words, “for granted”?
christina: i do not know if you were responding to my post, among others, but just in case: i am by no means advocating promiscuous sex, and recreational “sleeping around”, not by teenagers, and not by anyone else. granted, there always were and will be people who just cannot behave any other way, but when it becomes a fenomenon, especially among teenagers, it is truly disturbing. i am glad that you are a virgin, but not because i place any value on virginity in it self, rather because it shows you have a strong character, and a mind of your own. i think that when you meet a guy who is able to appreciate it, you will enjoy sex much more than all those idiots who run around, screwing like rubbits. like with many other things in life, sex is about quality, not quantity. i hope you always do what you really think and feel you should do. never do or abstain from doing something just to spite someone, or to appease someone, be it your parents, your peers, or anyone else.
May 25, 2002, 9:31 pmTibi Tibianco says:
Childhood, nevermind being a ‘teenager’, is itself a relatively recent construct. Neil Postman’s “The Disappearance of Childhood” (where he argues that the construct of childhood serves people and society) traces the appearance of childhood back to the era of Guttenberg’s printing press. Until then 7 year old Timmy was treated as an adult of short stature, as responsible for his actions as anyone else. … Curious how a 22 year old Monica Lewinsky wasn’t capable of chosing to fellate a willing Arkansan … Of course we can say that the age of majority is reflective of the superlatively more complex society through which minors must traverse and the extra years of relative irresponsibility help prepare them for the realities of our time. Will this burgeoning complexity demand further and further extensions of childhood/teenagerhood? No. The fact is that no one’s truly competent enough to consent or be responsible for anything save for the oligarchy in fashion.
May 25, 2002, 9:50 pmRichard Bennett says:
Neil Postman’s “The Disappearance of Childhood” … traces the appearance of childhood back to the era of Guttenberg’s printing press.
So what? This is merely playing with definitions, and not honestly at that. The common law has made a distinction between adults and children from the beginning, not just since the printing press, and non-Western civilizations make the same distinction. Indeed, biology makes the basic distinction between adults and children, separating men from monkeys primarily by the extended childhood that allows our brains and our emotions to develop.
The basic questions here have nothing to do with the details of language parsing, they have to do with new standards of behavior among a group of people – teenaged children – profoundly incapable of self-control, self-support, and self-directed behavior.
May 26, 2002, 12:47 amalisa says:
richard, i think you have a teenager at home, otherwise you’d be sleeping now, and not worrying about teenage sex…go to bed! good night.
May 26, 2002, 12:56 amJody says:
Richard— teenagers are about as capable of self-control and self-directed behavior as adults are. As far as as self support, they were capable of doing that up until about 30 years ago when changes in the economy away from manufacturing and towards hi-tech services made it impossible to survive on just a high-school education. As our economy continues to evolve, teens may indeed be able to support themselves again. Witness the tech boom of two years ago, when some high school graduates with good web and computer based skills, were actually able to land $50k sallaries before they made it through commencement.
Our myth of teens as emotional and social incompetents is purely that — a convientient fiction. While young people do need guidance, ignorance and control don’t do them any favors.
May 26, 2002, 1:54 pmRichard Bennett says:
Today’s teens don’t live in the culture of Ancient Rome or the 19th Century Agrarian economy of America, Jody, they live in the world of the here and now. And try as you like to idealize teens, anyone who’s been amongst them recently knows, without much thinking, that they’re less capable of self-directed activity than adults — peer-pressure rules teen life.
Getting into situations where you don’t have the ability to deal with the consequences is the essence of immaturity, and teens are less mature than adults.
The US News article which was the alleged stimulus for Glenn’s article (that we’re commenting on) says teen sex is on the rise, a fact that Glenn hasn’t seen fit to deal with, enamored as he is with his linguistic constructions and other irrelevant details. This highly-sexualized culture is taking a toll on the young people, at many levels. We can face facts and try and deal with the problem, or we can sweep it under the rug.
You’re sweeping, and so is Glenn.
May 27, 2002, 1:14 amGlenn Reynolds says:
Actually, the U.S. News article says that emphasis on abstinence and virginity has led to risky behaviors (like anal sex) that teens see as maintaining “technical” virginity.
Yeah, that’s silly, but it’s no real surprise. That’s why I maintain that it’s more important to give teenagers positive alternatives than to keep condemning teen sex.
BTW, I’m probably shutting down comments here soon. This post will be linked from my FoxNews column, and I don’t want the comments engine overloaded.
May 28, 2002, 1:27 pm