Is coupling up in year 7 now normal?

[notevenat20]

I expected to be too old to understand teenage relationships when my DC got there. But DS is in year 7 and has told me that lots of boys and girls in his year are coupling up as boyfriend and girlfriend. Then my friend with a DD in a girls school told me the same thing is happening there. As far as I know they are not actually doing anything physical but it seems so young! AIBU?

@notevenat20

Really? Last stats I heard was about 10% for men and a lot less for women. 10% for men is quite high.

The ONS has different numbers to that www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2017

"We estimate that 4.2% of people aged 16 to 24 years identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, a higher proportion than for other older age groups. Around 7 in 10 of the lesbian, gay or bisexual population are single and have never married or registered a civil partnership. This reflects the younger age structure of this population and that legal unions for same-sex couples are relatively new. ”

Overall it is quite a lot lower.

Is that from the Census that is filled in by the head of household rather than the individuals concerned?

@notevenat20

I should have posted this above. It's actually a much smaller percentage than I had thought.

Less than 2% of men? I get that some sectors/social groups can have an over-representation, but that is so, so far from what I've come across in my life that it's really shocking.

For another perspective see this claim of 20%: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-percent-of-the-population-is-gay-more-than-you-think-5012467/

My goddaughter (in year 4 so all 8/9 year olds) was talking with friend (call her A) on facetime and mentioned another girl's (B) name. When she came off facetime, she said as serious as anything "Oh, A and B are together". There are girls getting girlfriends at 9 years old!

For another perspective see this claim of 20%:

Your link www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19508/w19508.pdf doesn't exactly claim that (and it's US based).

"In the Direct Report treatment, 11% of the population reports that they do not consider themselves
heterosexual (8% for men, 16% for women). In the Veiled Report treatment, this increases to 19%
(15% for men, 22% for women). "

Not saying you are heterosexual is not the same as saying your are gay/lesbian/bi I suppose.

But however you slice it, the results are very different. I do tend to trust the ONS in general so it would be interesting to hear from someone who knows more.

"I do tend to trust the ONS in general so it would be interesting to hear from someone who knows more."

I do about things like wages, but not about such personal matters. I asked whether it's from the Census as I definitely would not trust a survey filled in by one person in the family and in the case of 16-24 year olds living at home, probably one of their parents.

What's the relevance of it being US based though? Identification could be lower in homophobic countries, but there is no reason why a high percentage in one western country wouldn't be reflected in other similar countries.

We recruited participants from an online labor market, Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk).

Having seen that, I have no idea how kosher this survey is :)

@Gwenhwfar

Take a look at table 1 of <a class="break-all" href="https://sci-hub.se/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1044-z" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sci-hub.se/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1044-z .

And.. "WhiletheCoffmanetal. (2016) studywasposted
on AMT, the Epstein et al. (2012) survey was freely available
online and received both mainstream and LGB media coverage. Giventhat non-heterosexuals might bemorelikelyto selfselect to take an online test of this sort, the high figure obtained
in this study probably overestimated the prevalence of nonheterosexuality in the general population"

I will stop now :)

"Having seen that, I have no idea how kosher this survey is smile"

But you continue to insist on the superiority of a survey filled in by the young people's parents!

"Take a look at table 1 of sci-hub.se/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1044-z "

Very low numbers. Interesting.

We do know that there are people who are in denial otherwise we wouldn't have such convoluted abbreviations as MSM used for public health purposes.

I’ve two teenage daughters in the later years of secondary and neither have had relationships they’re not very interested at all

@Yennefer19

Oh. Playground weddings. Awe. That’s sweet.

[quote Beautifulbonnie]@Yennefer19

Oh. Playground weddings. Awe. That’s sweet.[/quote]
I had one when I was 7. He 'married' everyone though :(
Grew up to be a bit of a ladies man as well.

But you continue to insist on the superiority of a survey filled in by the young people's parents!

That's not right. I feel like one of the guys who always whinges that their wife doesn't understand them :)

That sounds like they have those weirdly invested parents who ask "us that your girl/boyfriend" . Seriously creepy.

We started this in year 2

I'm 33 and peoplewere coupling up in my year 7. Nothing serious but some kissing... I had my first kiss around that age. I think its very normal. Id keep an eye on anything which seemed unusually intense.. but just these casual 'so and so is my girlfriend!' That's totally normal for that age

My DS now 13 has been with his girlfriend since 11. It was all very innocent.
Although now we have moved on to dates at frankie and bennies and the odd kiss here and there that freaks me out a tad 🤣

I’m 46 and there were “couples” in my year 7. I don’t know if any of them did anything more than say they were a couple. There was a phase where you would write your boyfriend or girlfriends name on your shoe. It all seemed sort of meaningless even then.

There were definitely no gay public gay couples in our small town where a gay teacher or two in the uppermost grades was tolerated only as long as they stayed in the closet, even though all the students knew.

I'm 34, young people in year 7 definitely 'coupled up' when I was at school. I 'coupled up' with DH in year 9, here we are almost 20 years later.

My youngest DD is 11 and in Year 7. A couple of weeks ago she asked to talk to me privately and was very distressed. She told me that a boy from one of her classes had 'asked her to be his girlfriend' in front of the whole class. DD is very kind and hates the thought of hurting someone's feelings, so felt really pressured to say yes, as she didn't want him to feel upset or embarrassed in front of his friends. Happily, one of her friends went to Primary school with the boy, so she spoke to him on her behalf and let him down gently. She knows next time that if she's not interested, it's ok to say no

DD is just not interested in anyone in that way, so far. Her older sister has had various 'boyfriends' since she was at Nursery! I had a boyfriend all through Junior School and then from Year 8 onwards, so I don't think it's a new thing, but I do think that there's a huge difference at this age between those children who are really keen to have a boy/girlfriend and those who have yet to start fancying people at all.

Kids started coupling up in Year 4 at my kids' school.p
Didn't mean much though. Words/status only. No actual dates or even hand holding. more developed about 2 years later.

Hi, I’m 19 and in my school a good 33% of people came out as some kind of LGBTQ+ during secondary.
For some people you could really tell it was a jumping on the band wagon thing, fomo lol.
For others it was authentic. I guess as you’re reaching sexual maturity and your body going through those changes it get you thinking and questioning. The LGBTQ+ community is so well known about and is a massive part of our society, kids must see ru pauls drag race or YouTube stars like James Charles etc that are openly LGBTQ+ Along with pride being he’d in basically every town, so the knowledge of what that is is always there.
At the kind of age you feel different to everyone else and being gay might be a label you might try to give yourself to see if it fits. Big mouth on Netflix explores this with a couple of the boy characters to get a 12 year old (ish) take on things.

I will say that when I was growing up and watching stuff out at the time like glee, Disney channel shows etc. All them shows were so outdated, there was the mean kid who would tease and bully and somehow be the most popular still. In reality bullying or incessant teasing rarely happened, was quickly nipped in the bud and no one wanted to be friends with them after. This kind of led to free expression I guess.
Year 7 is early but kids these days live on the virtual world of social media and know things and have opportunities for things a lot earlier than previous generations. I’m thinking if this secondary environment was anything like mine then even by year 7 I can definitely see kids coming out and coupling off. Hope that helped getting a young view.

I love these stories of people being together since they were small children and now happily married. Does this mean that neither half of the couple went to university or can young love survive that?

I agree. Girls start all kind of times, some much earlier, some much later. You can’t peg an academic year that it will most likely start- some may be 11months older (September born) then another (august) for goodness sake.

@notevenat20

I'm not criticising you, I'm criticising your assumption that everyone feels like you. I am however criticising you for your belief that people choose their sexuality. That's damaging bullshit.

This a problem on MN. People just assume the worst of each other. Let me repeat: I don't assume everyone feels like me, although some may and I don't believe that everyone chooses their sexuality, although some may.

Nobody chooses their sexuality.