to think sex ed encourages earlier sex?

[Sleepysand]

Not saying get rid of it, but seems to me a big part of me hanging on til I was 20 was a result of fear, not of pregnancy, but just the unknown. I had no idea what a man's bits looked like, and trust me, in my imagination they were scary (for some reason I thought the testicles were a clamp that grabbed you!)

Not sure that level of ignorance was great, but does familiarity breed more pressure on girls?

Babies are not the only/worst result of sex while still immature though Erica

Of course Teenage parents can be a worry but having sex or being pressured into having sex at a young age can be hugely damaging in itself.

As a society great importance is placed on sex.
It's like a golden chalice.
A target.
Something to aim for.
A goal to reach more so now than ever before.

It would be foolish to do away with sex ed when society still promotes sex the way it does.

You wouldn't be removing anything other than factual/helpful information in a world saturated with the message than everyone and everything is better sexed up.

Sex ed at my high school came in two forms. The first was the reproductive cycle of frogs, the second was the tampon lady. At no stage did we actually learn about our bodies, or anything remotely connected with sex ed.

One of my close friends became pregnant at 14 and couldn't understand why. As far as she was aware, you had to actually sleep (as in fall asleep) with a boy to conceive, and she hadn't done so.

While our society promotes sex so vigorously, it is only prudent to teach our children the facts of life, so they can make informed choices and actually know what is happening to their own bodies.

Ericaequites I've read your post a couple of times now - where are the equally shaming consequences for the boy concerned? He's just as much to blame for the pregnancy as the girl is.

But he isnt tapir (love the name btw!)

He was trapped by a shameless slapper who is, to use a phrase of my other grandma, no better than she should be. All the girls lead these poor innocent boys astray and when a 14 year old girl cries rape against a man twice her age it wasnt rape because she was wearing a short skirt and must know that men can;t control themselves.

Dont you know anything?

Yep, at school it was all biology rather than sex ed. About 5 or 6 had kids by the time we were in the last year.

I think the contraception strategy where I grew up was to chuck so much chlorine into the local swimming baths that contact with the water rendered you instantly infertile.

Obviously not, I must have forgotten it is slut shaming day on MN...

It does make me wonder if people ever actually listen to the crap that comes out of their mouths.

"But the evidence is also that the age of first sex has fallen alongside increased sex ed, and pregnancy rates have gone up."

I think you are guilty of the 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy.

Just because one thing follows another, it does not mean there is a causal relationship.

I feel males who get a girl pregnant should bear as much shame as girls, but it's much harder to identify them.

I do believe that sex education should be comprehensive in schools, and include contraception information. Teen should be encouraged to delay sex with each other as long as possible. Boys and girls should be told about masturbation as a way to delay sex. But how can impressionable children say no when society screams yes? I have no idea how to keep young people from having sex except to scare and shame them out of it.
I am over forty, and was told very little. I learned what fellatio was at sixteen from a mention in a Latin text. Our Latin teacher had no intention of explaining such things, but admitted the word was the same in English. Other girls and I looked it up in the long form Oxford dictionary. We were shocked and disgusted that people would do such things- "just like dogs"! The Biology teacher didn't mention that. We were never even shown a pictue of a naked man. Lesbianism and homosexuality were unspeakable things.
But I was no more ignorant than my peers at school. One girl had five abortions before she graduated. A girl was expelled for using the f word to a teacher after other misdeeds.
We weren't meant to have healthy attitudes toward sex. Our parents paid up to have us protected from much of the real world. We were meant to study diligently, be good sports, go to university, have posh careers, marry well, and start the cycle over. If we choose not to marry, we were expected to be spinsters with careers, hobbies and pets.

My parents sent my siblings and me to private Quaker schools because two of my sister's classmates had babies at fourteen. My mother was a bastard in a very small town, and suffered for it until she became too successful for people to talk behind her back. My sister lived with men before she married, and my parents disapproved greatly. My brother married young to a virgin with an Electra complex, and divorced over twenty years later. I was a lesbian for a time, and my parents loathed my behavior and my girlfriends until I married an even more unsuitable man. In short, none of us were served well my our parents over sex education. It is notable none of us had children of our own, despite parental pressure. My sibs are past fifty, so it shan't happen.
I had a lucky miscarriage at nineteen when I slept with a man who could not be faithful. I had used a condom, but it failed. I would have wanted an abortion otherwise. I would rather have killed myself than had people know what had happened. My parents would have paid for an abortion, but Mother would have lectured, and made sure my father never knew.

Well countries that provide it early and often don't have the teen pregnancy rate the UK suffers from and the teenagers wait longer .

So yes, YABU

Hey, composhat I'm a middle-aged Yorkshirewoman! Leave it out! lol

Age-appropriate sex education helps to reduce all kinds of nasties.

(Trots off to find whippet.)

Considering everything you've just posted ^^ - why on earth would we want to pass that onto our children and continue the cycle of ignorance and shame?

Knowledge is power, and we have come a long way in the last few decades with enlightened attitudes towards loving relationships of all kinds.

Sex is not dirty, degrading or something to be ashamed of - my dcs have had sex ed in school since they were 6; any questions before that were answered honestly by me or dh.

There is still a lot of prudery and shaming involved when this issue is brought up, unnecessarily so IMO.

Just so I can clarify - why is it much harder to identify the boy concerned? The girl will always know who he is, unless conception was achieved by force.

Bogey- Teen mothers could let their parents raise the child, perhaps signing over custody. They could have abortions; it is legal now. Abortion is no more dangerous can carrying to term. They could give the child up for adoption. Adoption into a carefully screened home with mature adults is far better than what teen parents could provide on their own. When girls were not given a state funded option to keep children they could not support, far fewer teens had sex.

Yes, some teen girls married the father of their child. But that could lead to misery as well. Teen marriages are far more likely to lead to divorce. Child support is difficult in the States.

There are no good answers. In a perfect world, no one would get pregnant until and if she was ready to parent. We have to deal with what exists.

^I still feel only negative aspects of having a baby as a lone parent should be presented by school sex education. Pregnant or parenting girls should not be allowed to represent their school in extracurricular activities. Schools should not offer nurseries for girls who keep their babies. Teen mothers should not receive public benefits to keep their babies. They should receive appropriate health care for the child's sake. Studies show teenagers generally make poor parents; why should they receive public assistance to do something destructive for society at large?
As for the fathers, few pay significant child support or stay in the child's life long term.^

Surely one of the main reasons teenagers struggle with having children young is that they are financially dependent on others/the state, often forced to leave school/ isolated by former friends and family and left without a safety net?

Why the fuck would you insist these things befall them? How vicious and cruel to make them feel ostracized by their peers? If a young girl gets pregnant and is still managing to take part in extra curricular activities and take them away you aren't teaching the other children that a pregnant woman can't do these things you are teaching them that the adults in their lives won' let you. Also the fathers will be even more difficult to identify as likely their poor girlfriends won't want them to suffer like they will in your Scarlet Letter scenario.

If you aren't a parent don't really have any first hand of parenting how do you know a teenager can't parent properly? It sounds like your perfectly adult parents did a shit job with you.

I know of women who have no idea who the father of their child is, because they were with several men at the same time. How then does one identify the father if no one will owe up?

I still feel only negative aspects of having a baby as a lone parent should be presented by school sex education. Pregnant or parenting girls should not be allowed to represent their school in extracurricular activities. Schools should not offer nurseries for girls who keep their babies. Teen mothers should not receive public benefits to keep their babies. They should receive appropriate health care for the child's sake. Studies show teenagers generally make poor parents; why should they receive public assistance to do something estructive for society at large?As for the fathers, few pay significant child support or stay in the child's life long term.

Surely one of the main reasons teenagers struggle with having children young is that they are financially dependent on others/the state, often forced to leave school/ isolated by former friends and family and left without a safety net?

Why the fuck would you insist these things befall them? How vicious and cruel to make them feel ostracized by their peers? If a young girl gets pregnant and is still managing to take part in extra curricular activities and take them away you aren't teaching the other children that a pregnant woman can't do these things you are teaching them that the adults in their lives won' let you.

If you aren't a parent don't really have any first hand of parenting how do you know a teenager can't parent properly? It sounds like your perfectly adult parents did a shit job with you.

Tapir- I am glad the world has changed.

We have something called DNA,... if the 16 year old in question has been with so many boys she can't possibly hazard a guess at the father it really can be ascertained with a cheek swab of the potential fathers. I personally have never met a teenager in that situation and I think it really only happens in your head for the most part. But hey, just saying.

There are plenty of statistics and studies in the UK and elsewhere that the children of teen mothers have more problems and do less well in life than the children of older mothers, including more mature single mothers.

I actually don't understand why it's a goal to delay when people start having consensual sex? As long as you teach kids about contraception and STDs. And they're old enough to meaningfully consent. I had sex at sixteen and it was bloody fantastic, thanks.

The thing is that a lack of sexual education does NOT lead to a lack of sex. Just a lack of protected, safe, consensual sex.

I feel you are coming across rather badly Erica; the general tone of your posts is coming across as quite female shaming.

You do realise that men are responsible for their own sex drives right? That they are able to control themselves, be responsible human beings and not go around shagging everything they can get their hands on?

I know of women who have no idea who the father of their child is, because they were with several men at the same time. How then does one identify the father if no one will owe up? - You may know a person like this - I have teen dcs and know of no-one who has done this. They are, down to the last boy and girl, responsible and capable individuals.

(You have heard of DNA, I presume)

Hang on. OP, at thirteen you had a boyfriend with whom you were having a sexual relationship (but not PIV sex). You had condoms. You loved him. You both wanted to. But it wasn't until three years later, and A level biology, that you realised testicles didn't clamp you? And you were still with the boyfriend then? And yet you didn't have sex until you were twenty?

It seems like such a contradiction. You had a loving boyfriend, with whom you were presumably sexually involved on some level - since very few people go straight from "hi" to discussing PIV sex - and were both responsible and knowledgeable enough to prepare contraception ahead of time. But your position is that you were so innocent and ignorant compared to the Yoof of Today that you didn't have sex?

I just love the thought process that goes "children of single mothers do worse THEREFORE we should ensure that all single mothers live in dire poverty, are banned from completing their education, refused secure or adequate housing, and are stoned in the street". That'll solve it. Those kids'll be much better off then".

There are plenty of statistics and studies in the UK and elsewhere that the children of teen mothers have more problems and do less well in life than the children of older mothers, including more mature single mothers

Considering your earlier post re benefits etc, , I'm not suprised that teen mothers do less well with such negative and shocking attitudes pervading society.

Tortoise

There are plenty of contradictions in Ericas posts.....

I've considered the notion of a bridge dweller for a wee while now.

There are plenty of statistics and studies in the UK and elsewhere that the children of teen mothers have more problems and do less well in life than the children of older mothers, including more mature single mothers.

You have in no way address my comment which is that they do badly when they are abused of their rights.

Who the fuck are you to say that they can't continue to go to school when their grades allow them to?

Who the fuck are you to them they shouldn't be allowed to receive benefits when a 20 year old would be?

Who the fuck are you to shame them and make them feel isolated? As an adult woman in a new area with few friends and small children I find it a massive struggle wouldn't wish it on anyone let alone a vulnerable teenager.

Who the fuck are you to deny the very things to a teenager that will give them the power to make the best of their life, so they can go on to have a good job? So they can go on to be in healthy relationships (if they aren't already)? So they can make sure their child is brought up as well as possible?

I just love the thought process that goes "children of single mothers do worse THEREFORE we should ensure that all single mothers live in dire poverty, are banned from completing their education, refused secure or adequate housing, and are stoned in the street". That'll solve it. Those kids'll be much better off then".

Yeah it makes loads of sense