But, I want to bring up another thought to chew on.. Just because a child is PHYSICALLY ready to have sex, doesn't mean they are ready for the emotional and mental damages that having sex (or effects of sex) could cause.
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:
A favorite argument of abstinence advocates, and one that ignores so many issues. Always bring up the negatives of sex, never the positives. Scare people into staying "pure," then wonder why it takes them so long to sexually adjust to their spouses.
First, if teenagers aren't ready to have sex, I blame the parents and society. We're raising teenagers to be kids rather than young adults. It bothers me no end when a 25-year-old man is called a "kid" these days. No, he's an adult, and he should be a fully functioning member of society (his bones are fully ossified and his nerves fully myelinated, so he has no further excuse). π In most parts of the world, teenagers are ready for the responsibilities of adulthood. So the irony of our mad dash to protect our kids is that if they're truly not ready for the "dangers" of sex, it's because we as parents have created those very dangers from which we now seek to protect them.
Second, contrary to the claims of abstinence advocates (who never back their claims with research) there are no studies that show evidence of lasting psychological harm from having teenage sex. None. If anything, they show that teenagers who have responsible sexual activities grow up to be better-adjusted adults, which makes complete sense, considering teenagers are
designed to have sex and it's biologically unnatural to deny them that outlet. As MSNBC.com pointed out in an article last year, biologically speaking, the ideal age to conceive is between 16 and 22 -- not coincidentally, in my opinion, around the same ages most people tend to fall in love.
Third, studies have shown since at least the 1970s (consult the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1973 ed. to see what I'm talking about) that the vast majority of mental trauma that accrues from sexual "abuse" comes not from the activities themselves -- which, by the way, a lot of kids report as having been
pleasurable (imagine that!) -- but rather from the reactions of those around them when the "abuse" is revealed. The wails and imprecations of grief-stricken parents and relatives; the frightening medical examinations; the intrusions of social workers; the interviews by police and forensics investigators; the assurances by counselors that they've been terribly harmed -- these are the factors that children report transforming the experience into one of terror for the children. Yet again, it's our well-meaning interventions that produce lasting scars in our young people.
The irony is that in trying to protect our children, we cause the very harm we're trying to prevent.
Obviously, I'm not condoning sexual abuse, nor am I even promoting premarital sex. I'm advocating objectivity about an issue that is clouded in paranoia and obfuscation by self-serving politicians and media hacks. Our draconian efforts to surround our children in an idyllic existence that was never meant to be has caused them far more psychological harm than any amount of experimentation they could ever dream up.
As George Carlin once said: "You want to help your children? Leave them the fuck alone!"
"Formo" wrote: