Right now on NBC TV: teenagers and sex with Katy Couric

[shereads]

That's not exactly what I meant, but anyway.

If you're a parent, you might want to watch this. Already in the promotion for this special, they claim that American kids on average have had 4 sex partners before graduating high school.

God I'm glad I forgot to have children!

 

[rikaaim]

That's not exactly what I meant, but anyway.

If you're a parent, you might want to watch this. Already in the promotion for this special, they claim that American kids on average have had 4 sex partners before graduating high school.

God I'm glad I forgot to have children!

I've only had one, ever. Just my wife. My one and only.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Right now on NBC TV: teenagers and sex with Katy Couric

I've only had one, ever. Just my wife. My one and only.

Yes. That's what makes this such a scary statistic. For every one like you and your wife, there's got to be another one who's had 127 partners, to make it average out to four each.

 

[minsue]

That's not exactly what I meant, but anyway.

If you're a parent, you might want to watch this. Already in the promotion for this special, they claim that American kids on average have had 4 sex partners before graduating high school.

God I'm glad I forgot to have children!

They say that like it's a brand new phenomenon. Kids have sex. I don't understand why this is shocking.

 

[shereads]

"27% of young teens say they have had intimate sexual contact. 54% of the parents of young teens say their kids have done nothing except kiss."

~ from the program now on.

"Oral sex is the new 'first base.'"

 

[carsonshepherd]

"Oral sex is the new 'first base.'"

That is so shocking!

Now if that was true when I went to school it would've have been A-okay!

 

[rikaaim]

This saddens me more than any of you can know. Truly.

 

[cantdog]

I was certainly trying in high school, just as hard as ever I could do. More power to 'em, if they can handle it.

And the way we raise 'em, they generally can't. What a society!

Take the last thousand years of human history as a baseline. Do you think the norm for the species is virginity at sixteen? If we raised children to fully expect with no fuckin around that they would be adults by sixteen, then they would be ready for that. As ready as anybody ever is, at least.

But here, although not in Africa nor central Asia or tons of places, we coddle and protect them from reality to the utmost of our ability, calling it "preserving their innocence" or "letting them have a childhood" or "giving discipline, setting limits to prevent sin."

Phooey. Expectations which are unrealistic are the only kind which ever require such extreme effort. We are working like madmen on this project of extending our children's adolescence to their mid-twenties. And for what?

Doesn't anyone see the value of having a child who can stand on its bloody own two feet and meet life?

cantdog

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Right now on NBC TV: teenagers and sex with Katy Couric

They say that like it's a brand new phenomenon. Kids have sex. I don't understand why this is shocking.

It may not shock you, but it would surprise a lot of the parents interviewed for this program. They're not being provided with birth control or condoms because their parents are clueless, and the kids think they can't get diseases from oral sex.

 

[shereads]

This saddens me more than any of you can know. Truly.

You? How do you think it makes women feel, who take pride in the quality and enthusisam of their bl --

Oops gotta run, pizza's here.

 

[shereads]

"'Hooking up,' or collecting sexual encounters with no strings attached, is considered not just acceptable but cool, by both boys and girls."

(Although the boys in the poll admit that they have a lowered opinion of girls who participate. What else is new?)

 

[cantdog]

Deaf fuckin ears

 

[minsue]

Deaf fuckin ears

What?

 

[Couture]

With pepperoni?

 

[carsonshepherd]

Doesn't anyone see the value of having a child who can stand on its bloody own two feet and meet life?

cantdog

I'm so glad my parents did that for me.

My childhood was not pampered. My parents' lives didn't revolve around me. I felt lonely and angry but now I am so grateful to them that I can handle life on my own.

 

[shereads]

Deaf fuckin ears

How was Belize?

I don't think the people who put this program together did so because kids are having sex and they think that's newsworthy; they're trying to educate parents about increasingly dangerous attitudes toward sex: the number of different sexual partners, the age of the kids who are having multiple partners, the pressure to provide oral sex on a first date, the insistence among kids in the poll that only vaginal penetration is sex - and that they don't need to carry protection as long as they don't plan to do that.

At one high school, a study of who-did-who demonstrated that one girl who had had sex with a single male partner had been exposed to potential disease risk from 218 other boys and girls in her school, based on his prior partners and their partners. 3 out of 10 said they used no protection.

 

[Couture]

At one high school, a study of who-did-who demonstrated that one girl who had had sex with a single male partner had been exposed to potential disease risk from 218 other boys and girls in her school, based on his prior partners and their partners. 3 out of 10 said they used no protection.

Sounds like they need smaller class sizes to me.\

Goddamn, these little bastards are getting laid more than I am.

 

[minsue]

Goddamn, these little bastards are getting laid more than I am.

 

[cantdog]

I'm having a difficult time reading you, carson; you could be dripping sarcasm as easily as you could be supporting my notion in a medium warm way.

The bad part of this sort of thing, the stuff Katie is wrestling with, is that so many kids have been kept deliberately ignorant. Such people really can't handle their own sexuality. It's pathetic.

The only way a person develops judgement is to use their judgement. A child, by the time she hits sixteen, ought to have been making decisions for quite some time, if she's to be any good at it.

And keeping people ignorant is just a control move. That's why governments do it, and that's why managers and bosses do it, and that's why parents and teachers do it. For control.

your growling

cantdog

 

[shereads]

If the public schools were not plunging into "Abstinence Only" as a substitute for sex ed programs, this might be less scary. Obviously there's not a lot of abstinence going on, but there's a lot more ignorance and less access to condoms.

 

[cantdog]

If the public schools were not plunging into "Abstinence Only" as a substitute for sex ed programs, this might be less scary. Obviously there's not a lot of abstinence going on, but there's a lot more ignorance and less access to condoms.

exactamundo

 

[minsue]

If the public schools were not plunging into "Abstinence Only" as a substitute for sex ed programs, this might be less scary. Obviously there's not a lot of abstinence going on, but there's a lot more ignorance and less access to condoms.

While I absolutely agree with you about the need for education, it's naive to think that these kids would stop having unprotected sex if only they knew. They're teenagers, for fuck's sake. They're invincible. STDs and pregnancy are things that only happen to other people.

 

[carsonshepherd]

I'm having a difficult time reading you, carson; you could be dripping sarcasm as easily as you could be supporting my notion in a medium warm way.



cantdog

No, I'm totally serious. It's taken me a long time to realize it, but they did me a favor by pushing me "out there". I've been basically taking care of myself since I was 9 years old. When I went to live in the dorms I couldn't believe some of the guys couldn't do their own laundry!

Of course it's more than that. It's emotional independence. I don't need someone else to make me happy. I can be happy alone, if I need to be.

 

[shereads]

I disagree that having sex at an earlier age makes anyone more ready to handle life in the big world. I'm glad I waited long enough that I at least expected some emotional repercussions, even if I wasn't entirely ready for them - and that I wasn't caving to pressure because he had bought me a hamburger and paid for the movie. Jeez. Is that how little value these 13-year-olds attach to the most intimate act one person can share with another? It's a first-date rite of passage to prove you're worth a second date?

 

[minsue]

I knew I shoulda held out for a date....