“We are living in a highly sexualized society.”
History would disagree. We’re still living in a society shaped by Quaker beliefs about sex, children, and the human body in general.
It’s telling that the article didn’t interview anyone with expertise on the history of sex or people who study sex professionally (as academic scientists and researchers). Porn is definitely more easily viewed than ever before and that may be shaping kids views of sexuality but how is that shaping adult’s views of sexuality? Why are kids special?
I’ll tell you why kids are special: It’s because it has become acceptable to assume that kids being exposed to sex of any kind is somehow “bad”. Nowhere in the article do they talk about why it is that kids aren’t learning about healthy sexual relationships: Because we hide that from them.
No one wants to talk to their kids about sex but if there’s one thing you should tell kids (not just your own!) about porn it’s this: It’s fake
It’s the classic puritanical/quaker view of sexuality. Kids should be shielded and protected from any mention of sex and sexuality. Then when they turn 18 or get into their first sexual situations a switch is flipped and they’re chastised for not “knowing better”.
Why are kids special?
I think of that quote:
“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn.
Children aren’t quite as good as the unborn, but they’re close. Advocating for children still lets you feel good about yourself without having to actually associate with children. They’re a group it’s pretty much OK to be paternalistic toward. If they do resent your condescension, you can easily write it off because they’re just children.
I answer every question my son has honestly and in plain, easily understood language. He’s in middle school. Boy are his friends being fed some bullshit from their parents and unfettered access to the Internet. Smile and nod, kiddo, then come ask me. If I don’t know, we’ll look it up together, but I will not keep him in the dark. The dangerous thing about sex is ignorance of it. And yeah, porn ain’t real.
So glad you brought it up. Not only sex but romantic partnership in general seems to be the one thing people need to somehow figure out on their own.
Another factor is the increasing focus on work from home, and remote learning.
The less “forced” in-person interaction you have with a wide range of people, the less practice you get in developing the social skills that would be useful in navigating relationships later in life.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He recently left his local comprehensive in a gritty part of south London with good GCSE results and wants to do an engineering apprenticeship after his A-levels.
“The vast majority of young people just want a nice boyfriend or girlfriend, but they are living in a highly sexualised society that makes things very confusing.”
Poor-quality sex education is a common complaint among experts: too much time spent putting condoms on bananas and not enough teaching children about healthy relationships and debunking myths about what is normal sexual behaviour.
In July, BMJ Open (a sister publication to the British Medical Journal) published an article that aimed to “explore expectations, experiences and circumstances of anal sex among young people”.
The study was carried out by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who interviewed 130 male and female teenagers aged between 16 and 18 in heterosexual relationships.
Given the right encouragement, teenage boys are keen to tackle thorny issues such as misogyny and consent, and want to develop the emotional skills to help them handle their relationships.
The original article contains 2,821 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 94%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Okay this whole “sex bad” thing has got to stop, I’m getting sick of it. I thought we were moving past ignorance like that.
Why are we all talking about a story from 10 years ago? It’s hardly news. And things have changed, at least a little, in the last decade
Definitely didn’t realize this was such an old article. Side note, it’s probably also worthwhile to discuss how things have changed in the past decade.
There was a kid staying with a relative (I think) in a building across from me and I joked that I’d start blasting hardcore porn on my projector with my blinds up to teach him about the birds and the bees.
