Was sex at school less stigmatised in the late 90s?

I dont know if my friend group was perpetually uncool or just unoticed. But i dont think anyone paid that much attention to whether others were having sex. Obvs alot of the guus talked about it.

I knew some people were having sex. But i never knew there to be this whole pressurising people to do it. (Outside of relationships)

I genuinely believed that whole bullied for being a virgin/slag was a tv thing. (Honestly weird too, why are all these people so concerened about whether youre a virgin or not)

I was in high school mid noughties

There didn’t seem to be much stigma with either having sex or not having sex.

getting pregnant was absolutely the kiss of death. It happened, but you took care of it quietly and didn’t let it ruin your life. We were nice girls from good families. Even if your parents were against abortion, they expected you to go have one in secret and just not make them deal with actually having to help.

my parents made that policy very clear. If I got pregnant I was kicked out and cut off. If I had an abortion, I was kicked out and cut off. I never had to test it, but I did have friends whose parents politely ignored their mysterious stomach ailments.

I was also at school this time, there was definitely misogyny, as was mentioned "being flat" and gross comments and questions. I don't think there was quite as much sexual shaming of girls. Maybe a few got called a slapper. But I don't think there was this intense focus on women's sexuality and trying to control them with all this "body count" type of stuff. Nobody said stuff like ran through because someone had sex. When I was an older teen boys were happy to be having sex with girls who liked them and were attracted to them. You would have had to be a very weird dude to say anything like that.

Some men have always been insecure I suppose and worried that another man might have been better than them. Male ego problems. I'm sure women have some insecurities too. Of course they do!

But there are so many worse things to worry about than people who've had consensual, unproblematic, enjoyable sex with a few partners. I think this new misogyny is down to massive male insecurity and wanting to control women's bodies.

What’s wrong with thinking that way? I’d never have wanted a partner who had slept around. People can choose to, but not everyone would want to be with them. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I did my GCSEs in 98 and in the North West town where I lived most girls had to walk the tightrope between being labelled a ‘fridge’ (frigid) and a ‘slag/slut’.

By year 11 most girls were expected to have at least engaged in heavy petting activities, if not having gone all the way with one or two partners as the norm. But if it got out you’d slept with too many lads, then there was definitely a stigma attached to you. And if you did get pregnant and had an abortion, people talked about it and judged you.

And then of course if you didn’t seem to show any real interest in fellas at all, chances are you’d be labelled a lesbian.

You couldn’t pay me to go back to being a teenager.

The fact that there was the motto "remember - to be sussed is a must but sex under 16 is illegal" does suggest that there were a lot of 14 and 15-year olds potentially considering it in their immediate future.

I left school 1990, single sex comprehensive, but a lot of 6th form subjects were shared with the boys school, and we'd known most of them since primary anyway - small town, rural catchment. Sex Ed focussed a lot on pregnancy (must ask one of the boys one day if theirs did too, or whether it was the focus for us, because we had the pregnancies) and STIs, especially HIV, so everything was condoms, becausewe were all goung to die of AIDS.

Except obviously it wasn't always condoms or any other contraception - there were 3 pregnancies I knew of in my 5th year (year 11 in new money.) One ended in a miscarriage, but the other two had their babies. And scandalously, a girl a few years below had a baby at 13.

It was cool if you had "done it", but not cool to sleep around. I did not get any opportunity to do it with anyone, and didn't even get a kiss. In 6th form, I did get a few drunken kisses at socials, but no one ever wanted to go out with me. I lost my virginity at 18 at uni. I never really cracked the social codes, but it was clear there was a fine line between being cool for having had sex and being a slag for sleeping around. I think the line could vary a bit, according to how cool you were perceived to be, and also whether it was with boyfriends you were officially going out with or one night stands.

She is being honest though, not liking it doesn't change that. It is exactly what most people still think - source: the entire internet. Nobody (or very few people) actually wants sloppy seventy seconds.

Not at my school. Having a sexual relationship with one long term boyfriend might have been cool. Girls who slept around were called slags or slappers

Strict boundaries. Cool to have had sex with a boy friend who loved you. If with a non boyfriend then you’re a slag who is socially stigmatized.

The more I think of this, in the mid 90's, I actually fibbed and pretended I'd 'lost it' on a holiday romance during the summer whilst we were off school. I was 16. It kept the pressure off being labelled a 'fridge'.

Your comment reminds me of this song from a very funny musical about 17 year olds! In which a boy is singing about how he's lied about sleeping with someone and a girl is lying about being a virgin.

Yes that has improved a lot though I'm sure some people are still nasty.

Also I recall a girl a few years ahead of me, she must have been in year 11. She was heavily pregnant and wore a pinafore dress and not a skirt, as that was a better fit for her bump. She was giggled about.

Hmm...well I was (older Gen Z) and plenty of people I knew were. Though others were having sex from 14 or 15. But I was at a girls' school that was quite focused on academics and with quite a lot of girls whose parents were originally from stricter cultures. So that may have made a difference. I'd have hated to be shamed, hope that wasn't common.

I would say yes, mid 90's. It felt like a race to lose it. If you didn't have a boyfriend you were called 'a fridge', this was even at age 12/13/14. There was no question of sexuality, respect or anything else. It felt like being bullied for not having a boyfriend. It really was awful. I'm glad my DC don't experience this pressure today.

I did have a friend who between the ages of 14 to 18 had become pregnant 3 times. She didn't continue with any of the pregnancies. By the time she was pregnant the first time I had moved into another friend group. I wouldn't say the consensus was that she was seen as 'cool' for having this happen to her though.

Exactly: a 'casual thing' at 12? What was going on in this child's life?

Generally body count is used in the sense that if boys are dating a girl they want them to have a low body count. Not as in it being something you'd ask someone you weren't dating. But it's certainly used, definitely online, as an insult between strangers.

I was at a single sex school in the 90s. There seemed to be two groups tbh - a boy crazy / rebel group who thought it was exciting to sleep with a lot of people, and everyone else (a much bigger group) who mostly didn't have serious boyfriends or do more than kissing before uni.

I never felt looked down on by the other group - maybe they thought it or said it behind my back, but if they did I didn't care.

I actually lost my virginity very late. Most people in my life probably assumed I'd lost it a decade before I did.

Nice attitude!

There's evidence Gen Z are having less sex I anything.

12?? That's so young...

You couldn't win when I was at school, slept with people you were in total danger of being called a slag, didn't sleep with people you were frigid

Well it's new slang...Gen Z likes gruesome slang. (I'm older Gen Z). See the use of 💀 rather than 🤣 by Gen Z, for instance.

Underage sex isn't new but the OP seems more about attitudes to it rather than the sex itself. How common was slut shaming in the 70s, in your experience?