<p>well ya but they covered all that in health in school didn’t they?
I know kids whose parents are in health care, and the kids are totally skeeved out by physical contact because their parents have mentioned the horrors so often ( with illustrations!) that it colors their relationships ( and they are plenty old enough to have “relationships”.</p>
<p>There is only so much you can do to protect yourself from transmission of disease. I know, cause I got Hep B from an unknown source. ( family all negative- I am not an IV drug user nor do I have sex, unprotected or not with IV drug users)</p>
<p>I acknowledge that people should realize that you are essentially having sex with all your partners previous partners, but I worry that with this emphasis on “abstinence”
as the basis for sex education, that both the pregnancy rate and disease transmission rate will rise.</p>
<p>You…you talk about this with your kids? Hmm. No one in my family talks about this kind of thing, and none of us have any problem with it. If you raise your kids to be strong and self-sufficient, you won’t have to worry. Keep an eye on the girls, though. They’re easily influenced by others.</p>
<p>Ha! Not in my house. My daughter will, I hope, someday meet a special person who can change her mind, but short of that, she is unlikely to be influenced by anybody. My son, he is much more interested in being part of the gang - I worry about him.</p>
<p>one thing to realize is that most of these surveys are almost wholly unreliable. My friend once filled out a survey where they actually came over to his house paid him 30 dollars and had him answer questions for an hour. I KNOW that he lied, most teens would on a survey(the real reason as to why they would lie on an anonymous survey is a whole different topic)</p>
<p>Personally, my school had my class fill out a survey when we were taking a standardized test. If one could have looked at my survey they would have thought that I was the most drug-addicted nymphomaniac out there. Obviously, the previous adjectives do not even remotely describe me. But, my point is that these surveys are unreliable</p>
<p>In the end, I think it depends on the individual kid. As long as they are headstrong and somewhat independent they will know when the right time is for them. The real scary part is at all of those parties where people have inebriated and done things that they don’t remeber(imagine waking up with a stranger). Such possibilities as well as the graphic pictures shown in health class (pastrami anyone?) have mostly kept me on the straight and narrow.</p>
<p>haha Marite. Did you mean: “How do you raise boys to be strong when she takes her shirt off?” </p>
<p>aim78: We’ve had plenty of frank conversations around here but, be real, actual shock and awe is readily available on the internet. Scarily available.</p>
<p>My wife’s rule, taught to the kids since they were 10, is that they are not ready to have sex of any kind until they can talk about it in all its details with their partner without giggling.</p>
<p>I know lots of 40-year-olds who could’t pass the test…</p>
<p>what I try and emphasize to my girls is that sexual relationships tend to accelerate a relationship whether you anticpated that or not. Even if you wanted to keep it casual, intimacy makes you more vulnerable. It doesn’t matter if you do everything but intercourse, or hang from the chandelier.
I think boys ( and nowdays girls) know much more about taking care of their own needs, and not having to rely on a partner until they are ready. I think that is preferable to “hooking up” just cause you don’t want to sleep alone sat night.</p>
<p>I sort of like the Amsterdam approach, but where would my husband live? (LOL)</p>
<p>I do talk very frankly with my kids. </p>
<p>I have told them that any sensitive, feeling person, however much they may believe they can be sexual with “no strings,” and however much they are intellectually aware that this partner is not “the one,” will surely have emotions and connections to people they become sexually intimate with, and will surely have pain as these relationships break off.</p>
<p>I asked them to imagine how much hopefulness, joy, and certainty they wanted to bring to their adult relationships, especially to their marriage, one day. Then I asked them to imagine how many people they could have sex with, then part from and maybe grieve, how many times they could gear up and gear down, before their capacity for total enthusiasm, hopefulness and trust in a relationship would be permanently diminished.</p>
<p>I have basically asked them to pace themselves and spend their emotions and sexuality wisely, on worthy people. This is my approach because I want them to have healthy, happy relationships in adulthood. Clearly STDs and unplanned preganacies concern me, and many parents, but I don’t think this other part gets enough emphasis. </p>
<p>Having faked a fairly cavalier attitude towards sex as a young woman I know that multiple partners can make you a harder-shelled person who is less open to love.</p>
<p>We are in an abstinence only district. It causes the “good” kids to have very harsh attitudes towards many issues. For example, we were talking about the AIDS epidemic in Africa and one girl said, “I don’t think we should give money to AIDS relief; if those people didn’t have sex with many partners, they wouldn’t have AIDS.” I also think it causes some kids to be unable to make good judgments when they do become sexually active. One of my daughter’s classmates is active in a Christian life group and is always trying to recruit my daughter. The girl tells my D that no one in the group is really all that religious; they just come to hang out. That girl has had unprotected sex with three partners this year and just has a “whoops” attitude about it. She projects a virginal image to her parents and is in denial about the need to protect herself. She is downright promiscuous and is very unfeeling when she breaks up with the boys, who have been “in love” with her. I am all for having frank discussions about all aspects of sexuality with our children and for trying to help them approach their sexual experiences in a healthy manner, particularly a mentally healthy manner.
On the topic of oral sex among teenagers, I admit I have been shocked. In my day, our initial encounters were strictly “missionary.” I did not even know about that aspect until I was well into my twenties. I cringe at the young engaging in this behavior to gain acceptance or to remain technical virgins and worry that they will be emotionally numb. Are the kids really doing this to remain technical virgins or avoid pregnancy or does it seem like a sexy thing they have picked up from internet sites?</p>
<p>“one thing to realize is that most of these surveys are almost wholly unreliable”</p>
<p>They have actually done studies on this one as well. The feeling is that teens tend to undereport about as often as they over report when it comes to surveying sex, alcohol and drug use, etc. In any case, they have also found that kids with the most accurate information concerning sex and who find adults who will share information with them usually delay becoming sexually active. </p>
<p>Sex is a normal human activity that most people engage in at some point in their lives. It is silly to treat it as something wrong or evil. We need to accept the fact that teens may be sexually active at some point and make sure they have the tools they need to make good and healthy decisions.</p>
<p>“Personally, my school had my class fill out a survey when we were taking a standardized test. If one could have looked at my survey they would have thought that I was the most drug-addicted nymphomaniac out there. Obviously, the previous adjectives do not even remotely describe me. But, my point is that these surveys are unreliable”</p>
<p>This is interesting point. A large number of kids exagerate, misrepresent, or just completely lie on these kind of surveys. I’ve always wondered how exactly statisticians take this into consideration.</p>
<p>Pattykk: I think that it’s a combination of everything you mentioned, plus some. Technical virgins, maybe -but I think it’s seen as something less likely to cause emotional turmoil - incorrectly. There’s also the fact that there’s virtually no risk of pregnancy. It also takes less planning than sex: with birth control, STD protection, and the like, it’s not very spontaneous. </p>
<p>As a young woman, I’ll also throw in a few other ideas: the idea of “pleasure” being an important component of a relationship and of (us. male) selfishness. By the first, I mean that many people (mostly men I think) really expect that a relationship will completely satisfy them physically. I’ve been dumped because the guy wasn’t satisfied physically, and he really thinks that is the point of a relationship. (ugh!). Second, related point: the selfishness thing. It’s really a one-way activity (can certainly be reciprocal, though) - so it’s ideal for those who are just in a relationship to be satisfied. It does make for a lot of pressure. </p>
<p>Then again, I’m somewhat old-fashioned - think that the pleasure will come with time and investment in the relationship itself - more as a side benefit than the main attraction.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think early maturity has something to do with sexual activity. There were h.s. kids I knew who were sexually active who had their families young, and died young. Sorry but I noticed this among the kids I knew growing up.
I also notice today that it is the parents I know who encouraged boyfriends/girlfriends early and dating early by thier kids, who later had h.s. students who were not academically inclined and married or parents by the time they were 20-21. Just what I notice in the neighborhood. I can’t really say promiscuity prevails, attachments and then marriages does.</p>