AIBU to wonder if teens are really shagging quite as much as we hear?

[schomberg]

I get the general impression that there has been some sort of teenage sexual revolution - especially in the last three or four years - since I was at school (80s) with school age teens with casual sex and group sex simply being something that "goes on" without much of a fuss and kids having more sex at a much younger age.

On one level I struggle to believe this as my school experience, and the school experience of my close friends, seems so far removed from the things I've been reading about, particularly this latest thing with two 13 yo Bedales students kicked out for having sex in a sandpit. Have things really become as open and free as the media would suggest? How does the perception shape up to any MNers who were at school in the 90s/00s?

I'm also wondering if anyone has any sort of a handle on how common sexting is. It seems like everyone with bits and a camera is at it.

As a parent do you actually need to know if your teenager is having sex?

Judging by the amount of very nervous/worried looking faces when we did sexual health and the risks of teenage sex in class a few weeks ago I do think it is very prevalent...though any different from 10 years ago I don't know.

I do think more young people are sexually active now, and are more sexually adventurous than when I was at school in the 1980s.

I've met girls of 14 and up who are having oral, vaginal and anal sex quite regularly with a number of different boys. They are very clued up on contraception and sexual health (nearly all know about chlamydia and pregnancy) but are prone to risk taking and don't always use condoms.

I don't see many under 14s but my colleagues at CASH and youth outreach see a fair few, usually within certain demographics, schools and localities. Sexualised behaviours, especially in groups, seems far more prevalent than when I was at school, and the use of technology such as YouTube, smartphones and iPods means that sexual behaviour is much less private than it ever was.

It scares the chuff out of me - I have a 12.7 year old and can't bear to think of her caught up in that sort of pressure/environment.

As a parent do you actually need to know if your teenager is having sex?

Perhaps not, but you might be interested to know that your 13 yr old dd is having trains run on her and 10 guys are ejaculating on her face and uploading the video to the internet.

anyone with a teenage ds would do well to check their laptop, i think many would be appalled by the amount of home made videos being passed around, and not just in quantity by the type of sex as well. The sexualisation of our society is perverse.

Did anyone see the court case involving 6 footballers who all slept with he one 12 yr old who instigated it via sexting? It was not a one off for her

I left school in 2000 and my experiences are a lot different to slightlyunbalnaced. Quite a few 13 - 16 year olds had babies at my school and abortions. It was quite common to be having sex at that age.

a girl at the high school near me aged 13 had sex with 3 boys during lunch time one day for 3 fags. bout 4/5 months ago it was in the local paper.

nothing like that happened at my school and i only went about 10 yrs ago!!!!!!

That is obscene! it was 10 for a touch of tit, back in my day!

i dont smoke and wasnt popular at school

i think if i did smoke they'd be handing their fags over to stop me coming onto them

I finished secondary school in 1993, lost my virginty at age 13 in my lunch break and had had five partners by the time I was 16, four of whom were one-night-stands, one of whom was a proper long term BF. I wasn't unusual. At least one girl in my year had a baby before her GCSEs and several were pg whilst doing them, a huge number of my school friends had had kids by the time they were 18. Quite a few girls I knew had abortions at age 15 or so and we were all overly reliant on the MAP.

We didn't have the internet or mobile phones and this wasn't in some grim inner-city, we were in rural Cornwall with nothing else to do but get laid, get pissed and do drugs.

I now teach in a comp down the road from where I went to school and, tbh, nothing seems to have changed in two decades.

i smoked like a chimney

I have worked in sexual health with young people for a while now. The average age to lose virginity is still 16.

Many girls are on the pill, but have no idea about it works or regard for hiccoughs like being sick when pissed etc. Many actually have no idea even about what Periods are, apart from the fact that they have them iykwim.

It seems like the kids from less well off areas are having sex much younger, and kids who have a leaning towards the emo culture are a lot more experimental with their sexplOits with many of them being in same sex and bi relationships.

This is just my observation from one city though.

I now work with teenage boys and many of them are very unaware about sex etc but those who are at it really are at it in a big way with the phone filming thing.

It really worries me....in the olden days, we would expect sex to be fumble and mainly missionary position.... Now, thanks to the ease of access to hardcore porn, boys are finding bodily hair on girls disgusting, anal is par for the course and sharing partners is no big deal.

I think that sex ed in schools really needs to be looked at as a matter of urgency.

AIBU to start collecting brochures for single sex boarding schools now then?

From my anecdotal personal classroom experience it's the attitude rather than the activity that is different. When i was at school (20 years ago) everyone was doing it about the same age; 14-16 was normal virginity losing age. But we didn't shout about it, or tell teachers, or think it was funny, or anything like that.

When i was teaching (4 years ago) the kids felt totally unashamed and proud of what they were doing (not saying it's shameful but more inappropriate) and they didn't seem to understand differing conversations to be had at appropriate times.

Sort of because it was so acknowledged and the kids felt acceptable why should they not announce it.

Just one of many incidences to illustrate - i was teaching yr 9 and leaning over the desk to check some girls work. one girl (inches from my face) said to another 'did you fuck x then' the other replies 'no, i just sucked him off' i said something to them and they looked shocked and told me i was being rude to listen to their conversations.

Being a young women as well, i had many of the boys say really sexual things to me. And my colleagues in the primary school said the favourite insult was 'suck your mum'.

My 17 yo DD says this is all over-hyped. she has nothing to do with all this and is still a virgin.
She has promised me she will bring her two kids up in the same way

I teach sex ed in my current school and have taught it in three others. Have to say it's quite revealing.

I also have to say (anecdotally), that I reckon there is a strong link between intelligence and when you lose your virginity i.e. the lower the IQ, the lower the age you lose it. Thus when I've taught sex ed to sixth formers, there is definitely a higher percentage of virgins than when I've taught it lower down the school.

My conclusions are also that far less kids actually sleep around than claim to. Yes there are always a few high profile cases in each year, but the vast majority remain a long way from being sexually active until they reach about 16/ 17.

In my current school (in case you're interested), we reckon that the statistics must be way, way below national average. In September we (the staff) taught a lesson on safe sex, only to find across the board that we'd pitched this at far too high a level. Around half the staff had had to completely backtrack during the lesson in order to start by explaining what sex was. In my own form I actually had one boy crying with laughter because he was honestly so ignorant that he completely could not understand why you'd want to put a man's penis in a woman's vagina. I should probably say that most of our kids are from ethnic minorities and are quite clearly well shielded at home!

Mine is 17 and I know for a fact inexperienced. I would estimate that out of all her friends 60% have probably had sex.

"Perhaps not, but you might be interested to know that your 13 yr old dd is having trains run on her "

what does that mean?

this thread is really shocking.Genuinely!. Mind you I left school way back in 1982 and most of us were still virgins. One girl got pregnant at 16 and it caused a huge scandal. DD1 has had one boyfriend (she's 20) and DD2 is nearly 18 and still a virgin.
Is it really normal for kids to be losing their virginity and giving blow jobs at 13 and 14?? I must have led a very sheltered life!

It was the norm in my inner London school, dementedma, and the same in many schools in my area.

i left school in 2005. i thought we got up to all sort but after reading some of these posts clearly not!! my two best friends lost their virginity at 12 but they only had sex with boyfriends, never had one night stands or anything like that. most relationships lasted a year at least. i lost my virginity at 15 and became a what i thought was a bit of a whore. never had group sex or recorded it and never did anything like a blowjob queue (even I had enough self respect to not do anything like that) i did have other sexually active friends and we had sex at drunken parties but 90% of the time it was with someone who we had fancied or flirted with before and knew not some randomer. i don't think todays young girls have any self respect. how can you blame them when their world is filled with WAGs and sex tape stars and making them think they are only worth how many boys want to fuck them like throwaway dolls. i thought it was bad back when i was a teenager but just lift a magazine and its full to bursting with women who are famous because of who they are shagging or got their boobs out or just act like dumb dolls.

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=run%20a%20train

Not for the squeamish.

Sorry, that was directed at demented.

can't open the link, thankfully!