posted
When I was finishing up at school I decided to not put up with any (former) friends who gave into peer pressure. I have a crazy theory I just came up with why they do it though, especially on the matter of sex, and especially the stupid girls (which seem to really outnumber smart girls here, sadly ).
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“Inter” (as in intercourse) means between, and since intercourse is (usually) between two people that means they have to keep it to themselves. This is often unhealthy, and between teenagers, is always unhealthy. So they do talk about sex to each other and that explains why they’re (used to include me) so open about it. As a result, however, it becomes part of the “in” culture of teenagers since it’s something that feels really good and allows them to feel more like adults and less like their parents.
Those who aren’t in on it, and have any sort of self esteem issue (all teenagers do when they first find about these things if it’s from friends – a great reason why parents SHOULDN’T take the easy, more comfortable road of not talking to their teens about it) get manipulated or if they refuse to be manipulated get harassed as the others try to exclude the refuser in order to make themselves feel more justified. Of course, this develops hatred, which is never healthy.
There’s the case where the parents don’t mind, sometimes even encouraging this kind of behaviour because it’s easier that way. But I don’t put all the blame on the parents. I blame the media blamers.
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I now have just 4 friends when I used to have dozens, but it was worth it. Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:When I was finishing up at school I decided to not put up with any (former) friends who gave into peer pressure.
So you applied some peer pressure to not give into peer pressure?
Question: If a teenager has sex does that mean they necessarily gave into peer pressure?
or to put it another way: is it possible for someone to do what 'everyone else is doing' because they want to, not because everyone else is doing it??
Posts: 409 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I don't think peer-pressure is inherently any worse than parental-pressure, or religious-pressure, or whatever.
Regardless, I had sex as a teenager, but it certainly wasn't because of any peer pressure. It was because there was a girl who happened to want to have sex with me, and that sounded like an excellent way to spend the evening.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
I didn't peer pressure any of those friends into anything. I simply stopped keeping communication with most of them when I left, and didn't make any particular effort to be their friend for the week I was still there. Or does ignoring automatically equate to pressuring for you?
I didn't say every teenager that has had sex gave into peer pressure. I'm saying why I think sex is such a big thing among teenagers.
Plus, there's no way to construe what I wrote as me being a virgin, unless you have a problem with me and are trying to be a snob. One thing you can assume from it is that I don't talk about my romantic life.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
When a teenager gets pregnant, the father is, on average, five years older.
I absolutely think that love and acceptance and self esteem and sex have become/are all mixed up together, and unfortunately, the longing for one turns into the agreement to another in an attempt to gain the first.
posted
When I had sex as a teenager (long before many of you were born) it was because I loved the man and because he loved me and making love was exactly that. It was a way to express our love for each other. I was not under any pressure. It was not because I had low self-esteem. It was my idea (and caught him a bit by surprise). It was not remotely unhealthy and is in fact a very treasured memory.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Making love is hardly something teenagers know how to pressure anyone into. Sexual activity between the more promiscuous teenagers today is (to quote more than one of them) "good exercise and stress relieving".
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I have discovered something about advice: No matter what choices someone made in their life, when asked to give advice to someone in the same position, with a very, very few exceptions, most advise to do the exact same thing that they did.
That's what makes anecdote threads tricky. People generally think they made the right decision, and they advocate it. So, of course I think sex as a teenager is generally a bad idea, and of course someone who did have sex as a teenager would think it was a good idea.
I think that's part of why rebels are disturbing to people. While some of disquiet is because of the actions taken, much of it is because it is a repudiation of the one's own decisions.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Someone please tell me, why is guilt always accompanied by a desire to repeat the act that made one feel guilty?
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Because people like to think they are right.
Changing means admitting one was absolutely wrong and shouldn't have done it. That's not good - our brains take care of us by helping us to feel good about ourselves. Good for lack of depression; bad for repentance.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by cheiros do ender: Someone please tell me, why is guilt always accompanied by a desire to repeat the act that made one feel guilty?
posted
what?! you people had sex as teenagers?! lucky SOBs. i really wanted to have sex as a teenager, but didn't really try that hard. that was how it was with most of my friends. we knew about sex, talked about it quite a bit, wanted to have it, but never really did anything that would cause it to happen. we even had little pity parties where we would talk about how we couldn't get laid. it was great. good times.
but the people that were having sex cetainly weren't trying to pressure us into having it. we made fun of ourselves way more than anyone else did.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Because people like to think they are right.
Changing means admitting one was absolutely wrong and shouldn't have done it. That's not good - our brains take care of us by helping us to feel good about ourselves. Good for lack of depression; bad for repentance.
I'm gonna take that to heart for the rest of my life. Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Just becaues someone's opinion on a subject changes doesn't mean he/she has talked himself into it. Opinions change. That doesn't mean the person is necessarily trying to justify a "sin."
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I have discovered something about advice: No matter what choices someone made in their life, when asked to give advice to someone in the same position, with a very, very few exceptions, most advise to do the exact same thing that they did.
That's what makes anecdote threads tricky. People generally think they made the right decision, and they advocate it. So, of course I think sex as a teenager is generally a bad idea, and of course someone who did have sex as a teenager would think it was a good idea.
I think that's part of why rebels are disturbing to people. While some of disquiet is because of the actions taken, much of it is because it is a repudiation of the one's own decisions.
Please don't think I would try (by my example) to make you feel that your decision was wrong. I am sure that your decision was right for you, just as mine was for me.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I'm going to infer from your post that A) you are, in fact, a virgin, or B) your experience in the matter hasn't been all that positive, for whatever reason.
Either way, try not to get too sour on the subject before you have a chance to see how fantastic it can be.
quote:Changing means admitting one was absolutely wrong and shouldn't have done it. That's not good - our brains take care of us by helping us to feel good about ourselves. Good for lack of depression; bad for repentance.
Good point, katharina. A great psychology professor I once had said, "A healthy mind, generally, attributes success to itself and failure to the machinations of circumstance. A person is depressed when they do just the opposite."
Something along those lines anyway.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by cheiros do ender: Someone please tell me, why is guilt always accompanied by a desire to repeat the act that made one feel guilty?
Not quite sure what you mean by this. Is it a non sequitur or are you implying that those of us who had sex as teenagers continue to have sex because of guilt?
If your are implying the latter, I can assure you that, in my case, it doesn't apply.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: I have discovered something about advice: No matter what choices someone made in their life, when asked to give advice to someone in the same position, with a very, very few exceptions, most advise to do the exact same thing that they did.
I don't agree with that at all. Maybe I just know a different sort of people. Most people I know who I trust for advice will share their experiences, but not expect that what worked for them would work for a different person.
There are generally good ways and bad ways to make most decisions. You can choose to have sex or not and the important thing is how you go about making the decision and how well that decision fits you. One of the common things among the unsophisticated is to assume that everyone who makes a different decision is somehow defective. When someone comes out with "Here's why all other people do this thing (which incidentally translates to me being a better person than they)", they're a generally very wrong.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I'm going to infer from your post that A) you are, in fact, a virgin, or B) your experience in the matter hasn't been all that positive, for whatever reason.
Either way, try not to get too sour on the subject before you have a chance to see how fantastic it can be.
You are an idiot. Sorry to be so crude, but you are. And your proving my original post's point perfectly, whether you're aware of the fact or not.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:I didn't peer pressure any of those friends into anything. I simply stopped keeping communication with most of them when I left, and didn't make any particular effort to be their friend for the week I was still there.
I think it's unfortunate that you abandoned your friends just because they made different choices than you. Instead of judging them, you might benefit more from learning why they feel as they do. I'm not trying to suggest that you change your views on sex, but coming to an understanding of how others see things can only be a positive thing.
I also think that the reasons you give for teenagers having sex are very simplistic and do not cover the wide range of emotions that actually go in to that decision. You see sex as something to feel guilty about, many people do not. Instead of coming with a theory about why other people make the choices they do, I think you'd learn a lot more from asking and listening.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I think that many teenagers have sex because they want to, not because other people want them to. Sure, there are some times when one party or the other feels pressured by their significant other to have sex they don't want. Actually, there are too many instances of that.
I'm not sure, however, that all or even most teenagers have sex for that reason. I'm not convinced that girls are only having sex as teens in order to feel loved and accepted. Perhaps they are having sex because they are teenaged bundles of hormones that are attracted to each other and decide to act on that attraction? I think that is a good theory as well.
--ApostleRadio
EDIT: Wow, those sentences exhibit a complete lack of organization. Sorry about that, folks. It won't happen again.
Posts: 1612 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:A great psychology professor I once had said, "A healthy mind, generally, attributes success to itself and failure to the machinations of circumstance. A person is depressed when they do just the opposite."
That's a pretty twisted definition of a healthy mind to me. Also, while it's true for a certain type of person, it doesn't fit the full data set at all.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I'm a virgin. I would advocate not having sex until you are married strenuously, for everyone.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I would suggest that perhaps, since not all people plan to be married, nor view marriage in such a sacred light, it's really going to vary from couple to couple whether sex is a bad idea.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote: Someone please tell me, why is guilt always accompanied by a desire to repeat the act that made one feel guilty?
I have found that my desire to repeat an act that made me feel guilty was because my guilt was misplaced.
I have done a few things I have truely felt guilty of, and I have never had a desire to repeat them. I have also felt guilty over stupid stuff, until I realized my guilt was misplaced. Once I recognized that my guilt was misplaced, the guilt went away.
True guilt, it seems to me, erases the desire/mistake and replaces it with remorse.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I am not a virgin. While I would not advocate sex for everybody, I believe that, carefully considered, sex can be a wonderful gift. For me, it certainly has been.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I don't plan on getting married - of course, that could change in a year, or even a week. And all my sexual experiences to date have been nothing but positive.
Of course, different things work for different people so I'm certainly not going to suggest everyone ought to have sex before marriage.
And cheiros do ender, I'm pretty new to Hatrack, so I hesitate to type this, but your response to Juxtapose seems extremely rude.
Posts: 367 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I always figured teenagers (generally) had sex because:
-- their bodies were demanding to -- they lacked either the self-control or the need for self-control -- they wanted to think of themselves (and be perceived by others) as adult, and this is what adults do -- they felt deep emotional connections to the other person -- they felt deep physical attraction to the other person -- all their friends were and they felt embarassed/stigmatized/awkward because they hadn't -- a lot of media presents sex as something fun to do -- guys felt like they weren't men unless they had -- girls felt like it was the only way to keep boyfriends happy
and probably many more reasons. And all of them apply, to some degree or another. Trying to pick one motivation and say why it's right or wrong is a bit simplistic for any human endeavor, much less something as level-heavy as sex.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
My problem with Juxtapose wasn’t that he thought I was a virgin. I think my first post made it pretty clear that I don’t have a single thing against virgins. It was that same mindset of all the stupid teenagers who talk just like he did when another teenager won’t talk about their sex life.
I didn’t abandon those friends. In high school, as you no doubt know, you go along to get along. That’s with your friends - randoms don’t matter - but it doesn’t hurt to be polite. My friends and I would do that with each other, knowing we couldn’t just agree all the time. But before I left I hadn’t been attending much (family problems) and so I lost touch with most of my friends. When I did come in they were friendly, but they wouldn’t let me have my wild opinions anymore. They always have good intentions, but they can be such jerks when you don’t know all the details of their silly little group. And I was friends with people they didn’t like. It’s weird, but somehow understandable.
I just wanted to get year 11 over and done with so I ignored them and mostly kept my mouth shut, except around my best friends and teachers. Sometimes I’d snap at the rest, but not much. When I did leave, because the good subjects for year 12 were no longer available to me for lack of attendance and thus marks, I just quit before year eleven even ended and got myself a job.
This whole group was based around the parties they had: parties I never went to. They consisted of sex, drugs and rock and roll ... literally! Later hearing 3 of them, on separate occasions, tell me they have sex more than anything else because it’s “stress relieving” and/or “good exercise”, I sort of gave up on that group. One of those 3 I’m still friends with. He actually (also) has a good reason to have sex, besides stress and exercise. It’s a spiritual thing, and it totally works for him, and there’s no reason why that should bother me.
I wasn't applying my "theory" to all teenagers, or even a majority, I was talking about a specific culture of teenagers. Peer pressure in this culture is not shaped by your friends literally trying to pressure you into do stuff (which is actually healthy, since it means that friends share differing opinions with eachother), it comes simply from being a part of that culture.
Also, I’m getting married next year. Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The difference between now and the past is that teenagers can get away with having sex because they have a high chance of not ending up with a pregnancy or a disease. Only the most culturally isolated of teens in the US aren't aware of that.
The desire is probably there for most, but practical concerns were usually too scary way back when to risk it. Now, it really boils down to your sense of religion, morality, and relationships with others because the practical stuff is less scary.
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
i remember when one of my brothers high school friends got married. they were both good christians and had abstaned until marriage. i remember my mom leaning over to me and whispering, "now i'm not saying i approve of premarital sex, but that is going to be awkward!Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: I always figured teenagers (generally) had sex because:
-- their bodies were demanding to -- they lacked either the self-control or the need for self-control -- they wanted to think of themselves (and be perceived by others) as adult, and this is what adults do -- they felt deep emotional connections to the other person -- they felt deep physical attraction to the other person -- all their friends were and they felt embarassed/stigmatized/awkward because they hadn't -- a lot of media presents sex as something fun to do -- guys felt like they weren't men unless they had -- girls felt like it was the only way to keep boyfriends happy
and probably many more reasons. And all of them apply, to some degree or another. Trying to pick one motivation and say why it's right or wrong is a bit simplistic for any human endeavor, much less something as level-heavy as sex.
At least half of those are also true of adults as well. Quite frankly, I think more teenagers have idealistic views of the virtue, or at least the romanticized importance of sex, than do the 20 somethings.
I see no problem with having sex as a teenager, so long as there is enough emotional maturity between the two parties involved. If either party does it for the wrong reasons, or really, for no reason, that could lead to some emotional stunting later on in life. But anything involving sex, relationships, and the like is a learning process anyway, and at some point you're likely to get burned. Some of that is part of growing up.
I do however think that what goes on in junior high schools these days is way over the top. Those kids can't possibly have any idea as to what they are really doing, or the dangers involved. And even if they do, I'm sorry but that's still too young.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by cheiros do ender: Someone please tell me, why is guilt always accompanied by a desire to repeat the act that made one feel guilty?
Because sometimes, the very act that makes you guilty is the only relief from the guilt-- i.e. you aren't feeling the guilt *while* you do it and are otherwise. In fact, that's often what drives people to compulsive and self-destructive behavior, according to a common behavioral model.
Posts: 121 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I think that you're correct that this is the common view. However, it saddens me that this is the case. Pregnancy should not be written off as so unlikely as to not be a concern. It is still a possibility and should be treated like one.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Thing is, it wasn't even my friends from school that caused me to make this thread, it was this email from a former friend in Britain.
quote:its not like i want our friendship 2 end. And why did u even ask anyway? Theres not alot of point if u dont like me in tht way n e ways. Plus, y r you so botherd? it hardly effects you does it? its not like were eva guna end up like tht. And its not like id do it 2 jst anybody, u proberly wont believe dis but i do hav alot of respect 4 myself. And jst becouse i dont want 2 act like a nun my whole life hardly makes me a slag. The reason i accused u of wanting me 2 kill myself, was becouse u were goin if loads of gurls jumped off a bridge wud u do tht 2, even tho thats alot more serius then givin sum1 hed. And u made me start 2 fink i didnt hav a reason not 2 jump off a bridge, so i fort u were implying tht i go and do it. Mitch at the end of the day i dont really care wht u fink of me, but if u judge me on tht sort of shit question agen then theres not alot of point in us tlkin cuz i cant tke the stress of it anymore. Obviosly i dont expect u 2 agree wiv everything i say, but u always think wht u say is rite, and dont say u dont becouse everytime i try and disagree wiv sumit u say u jst hav a go at me and dont let me explain. If u still want 2 b friends den ok, but take wht i say in to consideration sometimes.
posted
Hrm. Regardless of her position on oral sex, I think you're probably well clear of her based on her grammar skills alone.
I mean, that's DREADFUL.
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That said, you might want to consider her point; it DOESN'T sound like you're giving any consideration to her point of view, and I think it's up to you to decide whether you want to.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm a little confused on what you're getting at. I apologize if this sounds judgmental, but I'm just trying to clarify.
Are you saying you don't want to be friends with people who have sex for, what you consider, the "wrong" reasons?
Posts: 367 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
It does sound like your friend is making decisions about sex that she isn't ready to make. It also sounds like she needs a friend that won't judge her - at least right now. You may not feel right about being that person and then it does make sense for you to distance yourself.
I wish you luck.
I think that your problem here was assuming that every teenager was like your friend. That could be considered a little condescending.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
How does th turn into an f all of the sudden?!
Bad spelling/grammar or not, she does seem to have a point. Also, why should you judge your friends based on what they believe in? So long as it doesn't harm you and they're good friends in all the areas that matter, who cares if they believe the world is ruled by bloodthirsty porcupines or anything else for that matter?
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I'm wondering why her, or their, sex lives are really his business.
Especially to the point where he can make those kinds of judgements about them.
I don't think they're missing all that much in losing a friendship with a person who'd stop being friends with someone else, entirely based on their sex lives and his personal vendetta against an overactive sex drive.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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