# How much should you earn before having sex? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 5, 2000, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081 "2000-09-05T13:50:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![amberly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@amberly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amberly)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/41 "2000-09-07T05:23:14Z")
Yes, I may be nostalgic, but I doubt it is rose-colored. You don’t have to look too far back in history to find a stigma attached to illegitimacy, at least in the U.S. And I do think that this stigma is wrong, because blaming a child for the actions of his or her parents is wrong. But I do believe parenting without commitment on both sides is not in the child’s best interest. It is true that sex doesn’t always equal babies, but without birth control, the risk is high that it will, eventually. This is not rocket science. Sex exists in order to create other humans. With birth control widely available, this does not have to be the case. So if you are not willing to invest the time and money required to raise a child (and I mean any child), then wear your rubbers, or take your pill, or just don’t do it. And, BTW, Bill Gates might be able to raise handicapped quadruplets and pay for everything out of his own pocket, but few others could. Until you walk a mile in the mocassins of the mother of a handicapped child, you will not know the anguish it can entail. Guilt should never be added on top of it. Adequate care vs. the bottom line will only be an issue until YOUR child is one suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/42 "2000-09-07T13:10:18Z")
Of course there was a stigma attached to being “illegitimate,” but that has nothing to do with your earlier statement: > [@](#): > > Once, it was automatically understood that two parents were needed to raise a child. Once that child was conceived, it’s needs took precedence over the desires of it’s parents (in society’s view). You are quite wrong. For most of this nation’s history, the needs of the adults took precedence over the needs of the child. Heck, they used to swaddle babies and hang them on the wall, send them to work in the factories, beat them until they shut up (legally). It is only since the 1950s that this country has become child-centered. Also, I find little evidence that “society” ever did anything to make sure two parents were around. Did you see slave owners buying up the daddies of the slave children? Was there ever an exemption from military service for fathers? And let’s face it, men have been leaving their wives and children since time immemorial, and “society” hasn’t done a damn thing about it. Yes, your nostalgia is rose-colored. You appear to assume that everyone is white and middle class and living in the imagined 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/43 "2000-09-07T15:06:35Z")
My grandmother (who is 87 years old) had an aunt who was raised by her “widowed” mother. The family secret was that the scumbag impregnated her (they were engaged) and skipped town. This was fairly common. It was easy before drivers licenses, social security cards, and the rest to just begin referring to yourself as Mrs. It helped if you moved to another town, but, since it was difficult to travel more than ten miles, you didn’t have to move too far for too long. To a certain extent, we can blame the rise of illegetimacy on change in social structure and technology, which made these little fictions more difficult to pull off. ---
**Author:** ![Necros](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/necros/32/11086_2.png) [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/44 "2000-09-07T15:12:20Z")
Once again, I must recommend _The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap_ for anyone who thinks that the good old days were golden and we’ve fallen very far since then. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/45 "2000-09-07T15:24:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Green Bean \* > Heck, they used to swaddle babies and hang them on the wall, send them to work in the factories, beat them until they shut up (legally). The image of swaddled babies working on an assembly line nearly made me hysterical with laughter. In fact, what’s changed recently is not that we’ve suddenly developed a rash of people willing to have sex before marriage; rather, we’ve decided that single parents are better than no parents. Read some serious social history of the 19th century and you’ll find that illegitimate children were quite common, and usually either dropped off at an orphanage or church, or left out in the cold to die from exposure. Common enough that Emporer Napoleon I enacted a law mandating churches to have points where babies could be dropped off, and a bell ringer nearby so that the priests could be alerted to the drop-off. So we’ve traded infanticide for single motherhood, but apparently some consider single motherhood the crime. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/46 "2000-09-07T20:10:14Z")
Oh, that’s a howl! I sure didn’t mean it _that_ way! Thanks for the laugh, John. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/47 "2000-09-26T15:06:10Z")
So, have we come up with any figures? ---
**Author:** ![Stella\_Fantasia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@Stella\_Fantasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stella_Fantasia)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/48 "2000-09-26T16:03:03Z")
Wow, if you’re even asking the question of “how much money is enough?”, you must have an incredible amount of self-control. I’m really impressed. That thought has never even crossed my mind…it’s more like “must…get…laid. Unable…to…think…about…anything…else…EURRGH!” Wow. 99.7% is good enough for me. Plus I’ve had an abortion & it was no big deal. $250 & I got my future back. ---
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081/49 "2000-09-26T16:06:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lee \* > \*\*So, have we come up with any figures? > \*\* 36-24-36 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-should-you-earn-before-having-sex/32081.md?page=2)