Matt Sabre

As a kid I'd often see used johnnies in the bus shelter. I think they have gone the way of white dog poo though.

Getting contraception back then was incredibly difficult. I recall the barber stocking 'something for the weekend' or you had to go to the chemist and risk getting seen. Buying johnnies was as traumatic as asking a girl out.

SultanOfSwing

White dog poo. Now there's a blast from the past.

I didn't see too many used johnnies though. Maybe one or two here and there.

Obviously here you can grab them at Walmart and bring them to the self scan checkout if the need arises. but this is why we need organizations like Planned Parenthood, so that teenagers (and anyone, really) have the ability to gain access to birth control without any stigma attached to it.

scrubbedexpat091

I was a late bloomer and it took a fairly aggressive and determined 20 year old girl to get me out my shell, so sex as a teenager was never anything I was too concerned with and well I didnt have to handle the topic too much as a teen.

Its totally unrealistic though to think teens done have sex so since we all know teens do have sex, I think its far better to have them prepared with the knowledge to do it safely and with reducing the risk of disease and pregnancy.

Giving the teen knowledge does not in my view mean one is encouraging the teen but rather teaching them to do it safely if they so choose to have sex.

Knowledge gives them the power to make an educated decision.

If I had a kid, I would likely prefer them to wait until late teens rather then in high school. But gotta be relalistic at the same time and not stick ones head in the sand pretending teens dont have sex.

Anian

Kids who wore purity rings were found to be more likely to have sex than those who didn't. While it would be absurd to blame the purity ring itself, I don't think it was determined whether it was the culture of people who thrust them onto the hands of their children or the symbolic act making the children want to do it more.

SultanOfSwing

That doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Matt Sabre

Kids are bombarded with sexual and violent images and we still wonder why they are more sexually active and violent.

SultanOfSwing

I don't subscribe to that at all. It's as bad as the whole 'GTA makes kids into murderers' nonsense.

Sexuality would exist with or without external images. It's a driving force of nature to procreate. That kids want to have sex all the time is down to evolution, not pornography.

Violence exists in nature as well, and not just in humans. If a person is violent to an extreme degree, it's because they're a knucklehead, not because they watch action movies.

Nutek

Good advise... That could be really painful.

Matt Sabre

Well watching porn gave me lots of ideas early on. I think easy access to porn is a bad thing but have no idea how to do anything about it.

I don't see how you can't think that behaviour is influenced by what you see around you. Are advertisers just wasting their time and money?

Leslie

I wasn't giving advice. I'm just answering your question. If you didn't want to know what I thought --- the keyboard is under your control.

I also don't encourage or condone anybody regarding anything about their sexual activities. I'm just pragmatic. Teenagers have sex. FACT. If you and yours can prevent the teenagers in your family from doing so ... that's fantastic. However, as you so eloquently put it, if somebody gets "up the spout" ... the rest is history.

Matt Sabre

Sarah Palin's approach was fantastically successful.

SultanOfSwing

Porn gives a lot of people bad ideas as far as the mechanics of the act goes, and possibly some behavioural problems, but it isn't making more kids want to have sex, they're going to want to anyway.

Easy access to porn isn't always a bad thing. Masturbation is a healthy way of getting some of the pent up frustration out of your system.

I am saying that sex and violence existed long before current media did, so I don't believe that just because there are films/games that have both in them, that they are somehow responsible for kids having sex and getting into fights.

Matt Sabre

Yes it existed but it wasn't as in your face as today. You were lucky to see some tits on The Sweeney if your mum let you stay up but that was about it.

kodokan

I don't find this the case at all. It was commonplace when I was 15/16 to have a boyfriend/ girlfriend with whom you were having sex with the full knowledge and acceptance of the surrounding adults - watch something like the movie 'Please Sir!' to see just how everyday sexualized teens could be portrayed in the 1970s, in what's just a comedy school story with no underlying morally-shocked agenda, without anyone batting an eyelid. It's only in the last 20 years, with the extended infantilization of childhood into the teens, that everyone's getting uptight about it.

As for violence - kids seem perfectly capable of realising that computer games and movies are imaginary and statistics show societal violence is measurably decreasing. I, on the other hand, grew up in a time/ environment when a man knocking his wife about on a Friday night was shrugged off as one of those things that simply happened, and when all children were smacked and some - including a friend of mine - were beaten to the point of leaving buckle-end scars on his torso.

The rosy olden days were savage compared to modern times. 'Better Angels of our Nature' does a decent job of explaining this:

Edit: in my experience, a good deal of this is class/ education-based. I grew up on a resolutely working-class council estate where absolutely no one stayed on at school past 16 (until I did), so 16 year olds were working full time and, even if living at home, were considered 'adults' or virtually so. The idea of them being told they couldn't have a fully adult relationship would've been laughable. They were mostly heading towards marriage and kids before 20.

The 'not until they're at least 18 and 20 would be better' seems to come from the more middle-class parents, who - nowadays at least - consider that they are entitled to an input in the life decisions of their offspring about 5 years past the age point where I was running my own life.

SultanOfSwing

It's too easy to dismiss things like this as being created by the media. Teenagers are going to have sex, or are at least going to want to, whether they see a pair of tits, full frontal nudity, hardcore pornography or nothing at all.

It's only 'in your face' because, let's be quite honest here, as a species we like having sex and watching things get blown up. It is what it is.