Other than that untimely endeavor, the advice I’ve received on teen sexuality basically consists of a sex-ed class in which my greatest achievement was suppressing my giggles at the mention of the word "hump,” and an awkward dinner conversation with my dad after he discovered the existence of my first boyfriend.
That night I was simultaneously turned off of both making out and pasta with pesto. While I intensely stared at my left knee, my dad granted me a few uncomfortable grunts centering around the idea that "older boys want different things."
It’s no real discovery that society has changed since my parents grabbed their hiking boots and trail mix and headed out for some sexual exploration (gahh). Teenage sexuality has always been a pretty straightforward thing; we realize we have some virtually unused body parts, we feel as though there is some potential we should be filling with them. The adventures commence.
Sex, in itself, hasn’t changed, but the hype surrounding it definitely has. In the past, sexual endeavours were subtle, personal matters, considered with reputation and respect in mind. Especially among girls, there used to be a certain type of respect reserved for virgins, and a decent amount of pressure not to have sex.
I’m not naive enough to claim that before my generation no one slept around, but you didn’t exactly advertise your adventures until recently.
I believe that one of the reasons my parents and I are on a different page (to the extent to which we’re not even in the same book anymore), is that now, due to the media aggrandizing of beautiful women whose appeal involves their openness to sex, virginity has lost its righteousness. There is more admiration than ever before for girls who are "liberal" and "open-minded," at least as far as their bodies are concerned.
Teenage girls, not the most confident of demographics in my experience, either by their own will or external pressures, want to be attractive and pretty. An inherent quality of those deemed “sexy” is that they have sex.
I am in no way saying that my demographic is incapable of deciding what they’re comfortable with, just that as opinions on teenage sexual activity shift, so do the pressures teens are exposed to.
Logically, pressure to have sex early is counter-intuitive, especially if you consider the whole “It’s supposed to feel good” aspect, which is buried somewhere under a large pile of stress, stigma, STIs, social concerns and some other nasty issues we grapple with.
Young, fumbling sex usually isn't the best experience. Although I guess you could argue that “practice makes perfect,” I can definitely see some upsides to waiting until you’ve gained a little more maturity before jumping right into the game. You don’t generally hear people talking about how much the wish they had more awkward, fumbly teenage sex, right?
As captured in numerous books and films, the timelessness of the “coming of age” concept lies in the fact that for every generation, sex is a key component. The irony is that as every generation changes its views on teenage sexuality, for the most part, the only advice confused teens can get is from their seemingly out-of-date parents.
So my choices are basically striking out alone into potential disaster or returning to mom’s room to see if Howie has gone back to waxing his head.
*****
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