In which I disagree with Violet Blue about teenagers and sex...

[elfs]

Violet Blue has an article, Sex Ed in the UK is Actually About Sex, in which she praises the UK National Institute of Health for actually telling kids that the reason people have sex is because it feels good:

I keep saying it over and over, but besides my 'abstinence is harmful' message that's starting to be heard, the fundamentals of sex ed fail because they're always (hysterically) avoiding the truth: that sex happens because it feels good. It's pleasurable on a lot of levels – that's why we go ecstatically crazy doing it when we get the chance to enjoy it. My fundamental belief is that sex ed needs to be taught by both scientific principles (health, reproduction) and by pleasure principles – so people of all ages can understand WHY they want to do the things they do.

But I have to disagree in part with Violet's statement that "sex happens because it feels good." I am reminded of an important article that appeared in the New Yorker, Red Sex, Blue Sex, in which the author shows that, for example, evangelical teenage girls are the most likely to engage in premarital sex that leads to pregnancy and the least likely to believe that sex will be pleasurable. (Jewish girls, oddly enough, are the opposite: they hold off their "sexual debut" the longest of any group and yet they're most likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable when they finally do it.)

Most of them become sexually active because (now agreeing with Violet) they don't know anything about it, even as the boy, who probably knows only that little bit more about wanting tab A into slot B, is pressuring them, and they're too embarrassed to admit that they don't know anything about it to put on the brakes. Shame and embarrassment, not desire or anticipation of pleasure, are the most common emotions young women feel up to and after their first sexual encounter.

The New Yorker article is a fascinating exploration of why evangelical girls get pregnant a lot and why that's actually "okay" (in some sense) to most evangelicals: straying from the abstinence-only message is an expected, venal sin that ultimately adds to the congregation. It's such a weird, mindfucked world, I'm glad I'm not part of it.

Comments

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[larinawarnock.livejournal.com]

As someone who had their first child at 16 and grew up in a semi-evangelical home, I agree with 90% of what you say here, but I think it leaves out the important point of the paradoxical environment that most girls in evangelical homes must reconcile. In an envangelical home, sex is dirty/sinful AND it is what you do for the man that you love. In fact, it is a duty to the man that you love. So while that young girl may not know anything about sex, they have been taught that it is the ultimate symbol of devotion to a male partner. And young girls are incredibly devoted, or believe that they are, or believe that they should be.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Which 90% of "Amen" do you agree with then? :-D

[(Anonymous)]

The part that starts with "In which I disagree with Violet Blue..." and ends with me looking sorta dumb for hitting the wrong reply button. Argh!

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

:-)

[jpallan.livejournal.com]

I find this point interesting.

As a devout Catholic young woman, I was not taught anything of sexuality. There was no pro-sex nor anti-sex message being taught.

In fact, I didn't even realise I'd been raped, or in fact, lost my virginity until well after the fact. I knew I'd been mistreated, but I didn't know exactly what men were equipped with, or what it looked like, or anything else, nor did I know the reproductive health process beyond the science of it — I didn't know what sex was, period.

And I was Internet aware, but this was 1995, getting Internet porn required UUdecode and I'd never cared, I was barely pubescent.

At any rate, I have severe fertility issues but was myself a teen-aged mother, getting involved with a gentleman of my acquaintance, four years older, that I'd met while waiting tables for a summer out of boredom. (Long story.) I met him when I was 16 and his daughter was 8 months old. We married when I was 18, I adopted his daughter six months after the marriage. (My elder daughter's mother has problems, though not ones that prevent contact — breaking off contact was due to these problems rather than a coercion towards adoption as young women often feel.)

Anyway, I had very intermittent cycles after menarche (which was itself abnormally early) and had been put on birth control pills to "regulate" the problem not long after my virginity was lost. I stopped using contraceptives at the time of marriage with the intent to conceive a sibling for my elder daughter quickly, and when six months passed with no result, I was prescribed Clomid.

So my two children were born when I was 15 (and coincidentally in my first week at college) and 19. (You can read my history above if you're interested.)

I became a teen-aged parenting activist, and regret none of it. I was acquainted with Allison Crews (http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/9731/when_i_was_garbage/) before her tragic passing a few years ago. She grew up in a fundamentalist household as well, and with her death, her son is now being reared in it. I wonder how he'll turn out.

I don't see sex as sinful or wrong or even really, well, that interesting in most cases. I think that had I not made choices I did as a teen-ager (to cross the railroad tracks, basically), I might have ended up in the missionary corps as a nun, as I am generally a very dispassionate person, and while I enjoy human company, I am not very intimate with people.

I've done this on my own terms, and both my husbands and I have gotten along quite well, as well as the various lovers I've taken over the years, but, well, I'm a bit of an ice queen. :shrug: