Sex isn’t just sexual intercourse, no matter what your high school-aged self-styled definition tells you. Fellatio and cunnilingus are sexual stimulation of the genitals using the mouth. Oral sex is sex. Don’t delude yourself, if you’ve given a blow-job, you’ve had sex.
By your definition, sex with a contraceptive isn’t “sex” because you can’t become pregnant. Does that make any sense at all - even to a teen ager?
I agree with you that people are physically ready for sex at puberty, but that culture largely determines when people are emotionally ready for sex.
But upper-class Europeans married at a younger age than did the unwashed masses, at least from medieval times to 1700 or so. Not only did wealthy or well-connected families use their children’s marriages to cement alliances, the well-off could afford to marry. The teen-aged peasant just didn’t have the resources. The Industrial Revolution leveled the playing field a bit, as the peasantry turned working-class now had more money.
For men in colonial America, no doubt indentured servitude, apprenticeships, and military service could delay marriage. I don’t know when colonial girls became engaged, but the average age that a woman married was closer to 23 than to 16. The younger the girl was, the more likely it was that she was pregnant at the wedding. And that reinforces my opinion that kids–not all kids, but many–will have sex, no matter what.
I can’t believe that sex is necessary for mental stability. A little celibacy never hurt anyone, especially if release is available through masturbation. If sex is merely a physical release, masturbation will do nicely. If sex is an emotional connection, a business relationship probably won’t cut it. The kid is still going to have to walk around with the knowledge that he can’t get laid by any of his peers. And there’s no excuse: all of them are sexually active. They just don’t want him.
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Also, I feel that sex[ual intercourse] can only be sex if there is a possibilitiy of becoming pregnant. With the mouth this just is not possible (probably).
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And not to beat a dead horse, but your grasp of anatomy is really lacking if you believe that there’s a remote possibility of getting pregnant from oral sex.
Fuck your brains out and go down on each other til the cows come home, but at least get the basics of reproduction down before you do it.
You are completely ignoring Webster’s second definition. Oral sex is not sex? Sex is right in the name–it’s called oral sex. By your standards, gay people never have sex? Anal sex is no more intimate than second base?
Maybe a better definition of sex would be any pleasurable physical contact which runs a viable risk of spreading venerial disease.
Well…no…Not all at once.
While these guys continue their semantics debate (snicker) over what “sex” is, let me just add that our society continues to keep people in a quasi-adolescent role well after they have biologically and psychologically become adults.
Cute, really, but I must ask what sex is short for to you. Sex, from what I have always heard of, is short for sexual intercourse ESPECIALLY in this context. When I typed sex into www.webster.com sexual intercourse (and the definition I provided) is what came up.
From what I wrote: "Also, I feel that sex[ual intercourse] can only be sex if there is a possibilitiy of becoming pregnant. " There is no 100% safe blah blah blah soooo… yea.
And I added the (probably) as a joke. I do, in fact, know of the basics of human anatomy.
Anyways, none of that matters because I found this definition of intercourse: “physical sexual contact between individuals that involves the genitalia of at least one person” Yes, I can be a prick, and I fully apologize for previous postings. I think you can count me that camp of never really thinking of oral sex as actual sex. Damn teen ager, I suppose. Continue with the previous topic, I am cured, and I would like to apologize once again.
(I have also never given a blow job/recieved you silly finger pointer, you!)
I think teenagers should have sex until it gets boring…imagine an 18-year old being told…“not tonight honey,I have a headache”!! :smack:
Let me turn this around. If you think children aren’t capable of making the decisions necessary to engage in open sexual practice (note that I have no idea what “open” is doing in that phrase), what about their capacity to choose what food to eat? Whom to talk to? What religion to follow? Whether, if pregnant, to have an abortion? What classes to take in school? What to read?
Where do their rights begin, if they are assumed irresponsible enough not to make decisions about sex?
But I will answer your questions:
Daniel
I wonder how much more common it really is. When I was i high school and college teenager ( late '70s-mid’80’s ) there very much was a feeling that oral sex “didn’t count”, and least among females. Plenty of girls I knew stuck to oral sex, because they wanted to be virgins when they got married.
As far as I can tell from discussions I’ve had on the matter, whether or not “oral sex” counts as “sex” is largely a generational thing, and the break falls approximately somewhere in the eighties. Before then, “sex” tended to mean something approximating “sexual activity”; afterwards, it tended towards a meaning of “going all the way”.
It’s hardly universal, though; witness the sequence in Clerks where one party considers blow jobs a big deal and the other, of about the same age, doesn’t.
To respond to the OP: I’m hesitant to venture an opinion on “shoulds” of teen sexual activity. There are too many “shoulds” surrounding sex already, and it makes navigating the area as a teenager too damn complicated. The conflict between “should be getting some to be cool/prove you’re adult” and “should wait until you’re older/married” seems to me to cause a lot of irrational behaviour and inability to deal with the question sensibly.
The “should” that I’m willing to believe in is: teens should have access to good, accurate information about sexuality, its potential benefits, and its potential consequences; they should be taught how to work through what’s best for them (not only in matters of sex, but it’s a start). Some teens will come to the conclusion that abstinence is the best way of meeting their needs and some will come to the conclusion that some level of sexual activity is the best way of meeting their needs; I would put a fair amount of effort into discouraging stigmatisation of any thought-through and responsibly enacted choice.
Sorry- that article is one of those 'we have changed the names of our anonomous source in order to protect them" article- which are notorious for being highly exagerated (see Cecils colums about the "underground homeless city). Even if the writer didn’t maske things up, who’s to say his sources didn’t- either to sound cool, or to carry on the grand old tradition of “freaking the old guy”. :dubious:
Many minors are capable of making all those decisions.
Voting? Absolutely. Minors are citizens and they’re subject to our laws. They should have some say in those laws and the representatives who write them.
Driving? Well, I agree with Left Hand of Dorkness that the driving tests should be more thorough, but I see no reason to deny a driver’s license to someone who can drive safely just because he hasn’t reached some arbitrary age.
School attendance? Education is an important part of society, but I don’t think it should be limited by age. If we want to give everyone a certain level of education, then we should hold everyone to such a standard, whether it takes them until age 12 or age 20 to reach it.
Work force? Minors who want to work should be able to. We already have anti-age discrimination laws for people 45 and older; I would eliminate the “45 and older” part.
Raising children? Of course they should make that decision… who else would decide for them?
I don’t consider oral sex to be “sex”, and I’d consider someone who has only had oral sex a virgin, but I don’t think it’s an important distinction. A girl who blows every guy on the football team isn’t any more pure than a girl who has sex with her boyfriend a couple times.
Then minors should also be held legally accountable and responsible for their actions?
Yes, rights come with responsibility. Obviously, not all minors are ready for all those rights; therefore, not all are ready for all those responsibilities.
I’m seventeen and sexually active. I first had sex when I was sixteen, in a relationship. It was a decision that I thought about long and hard about before making, and I don’t regret it. Although the right age for one to become sexually active varies from person to person depending on emotional maturity, I think that sixteen is generally the age at which most teenagers begin to be able to handle it.
I’m emotionally mature enough in this respect to be able to handle what I am doing. I’ve never had sex without contraception, and I understand the possible consequences of my actions. My current relationship involves both the physical and emotional aspects of sex.
I once again want to mention that I feel that it is also absolutely positively completely necessary to give students information about contraception in sex ed. All we were taught was abstinance, abstinance, abstinance. I don’t know one person that that has actually convinced not to have sex. If someone was going to have sex before the class, they’re still going to. We need to help prevent pregnancy and STDs by making sure that sexually active teenagers are responsible in their actions. Sex ed needs to teach birth control methods other than just not having sex.
Now, to discuss the “friends with benifits” concept: I’ve toyed with this concept a bit. I haven’t gone sleeping around with all of my guy friends, but I have had a tendency (while single) to end up making out, and sometimes a bit more, with my guy friends. Someone’s feelings always end up getting hurt, no matter how many emotional barriers are erected.
So, do you like Indian food? 
Key to debate on this thread, IMO, is the topic of another thread I started about a year ago.
In 1840, the average age of menarche (onset of menstruation) was 17-18 years old. Now, the average age is 12.5. In other words, fgor the past century and a half, on average, every thirty years or so (roughly every next generation) the average age of menarche has gone down another year. The girls are physically ready for childbearing (and thus for sex) earlier than their mothers were.
(If anyone has statistics on whether this trend has stopped, I’d like to know about it.)
But the relevance to the current discussion is this: Any age of consent you set will be undermined by the next generation. Plus you have one less year to provide them with whatever information you can to make an informed decision.
They don’t? Holy shit, I’ve been doing it wrong for the last sixteen years!
My parents were the type that tried to drill into my head that girls must be emotionally attached to sex, that sex only happens when you love someone and marry them, etc.
I don’t know the how or why, but this did not take. I firmly remember a conversation between dadsix and myself right before I left for college in which he told me that boys think ‘why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ and that I shouldn’t let them use me. Having already been sexually active for a while I shot back at him ‘Why should I buy the bull when I can get the horns for free?’
Dad nearly had a heart attack, but I think that fully expressed that while some people male or female place a heavy emphasis on emotions in sex, others don’t. This is something that experience has confirmed, at least to me. Some women are very emotional and need the right setting, others just like to get off, and the same goes for men.
Congratulations?
You do realize that you aren’t representative of most women, right?
You realize most women probably don’t need you as their representative, right?