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

[blubberball]

I was at school in the late 90s. I see things online now about "body count" and how that can be used by some to shame people (women). I don't know about your school and the general attitude around at the time, but it really seemed like the opposite was true back then. The cool people at school were the ones who had experience. Admittedly my town did have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe at the time. Was this the case when others were at school? People didn't seem ashamed of sex when I was at school. It was the opposite, they were very proud of it and laughed at the inexperienced people.

Yes, it just seems now the attitude is that you need to be a virgin otherwise you're "ran through". This only applies to women obviously.

I left school in 2001; I remember several girls sticking their morning after pill packet(s) in their leaving books - most of us just thought they were tramps.

London - secondary school in the 90's and I would say people actively slept around. Especially at 6th form - lots of shagging mates / one night stands. Was fun!
No pregnancies and it was cool to go to the std clinic and get tested and free condoms.

When I was at Secondary (early-mid 90s, SE England), girls were labelled either ‘frigid’ or a ‘slag’ by the boys, so basically you couldn’t avoid being insulted whatever you did (or didn’t do).

What fascinates me is why the phrase 'body count' has become a thing people say. Feels like a phrase a tv reviewer would use for Midsommer Murders or a Skandi crime drama.

Yes I agree. I thought body count meant dead bodies in a film or game. No one asked "What's your body count?" when we were at school

It wasn't cool to be a virgin, but it also wasn't cool to be considered a "slag," so there was a fine line which was considered acceptable - I was a virgin till uni so definitely not cool. This was a smallish private school, no teen pregnancies in my year that I knew of (but a few scares)

90s Bolton was very like what you are describing too.

I wonder what the magic number between virgin and slag was?

I’m only a few years younger than you and I distinctly remember about 8/9 girls with bumps queueing for GCSE exams. Some of them are great grandmothers now too.

We didn't have boys listening to twats like Tate when we were at school.

The misogyny has definitely ramped.

I was at secondary school 91-98….

it didn’t seem that many were actually having sex. If you did you perceived as a slag, if you didn’t want to you were perceived as frigid.

The cool girls were the ones who boyfriends, had some experience but not necessarily actually having sex. Snogging, some touching etc.

Same in my school. Locally it was known as Mothercare, because so many girls got pregnant.

I was a West Country teen in the mid 00s and the body count thing was definitely a thing then (but not called that), if you did the smallest thing it went round the school. I let a boy touch me (over clothes) in the cinema once when I was 14 and it went round the school the next day. I was too scarred to have another boyfriend for 2 whole years 🙈

I was at secondary school in the 1980s. Loose your virginity before 16 and you'd be judged, a high body count would be judged (esp for girls) and if you got pregnant you were considered a total looser. There was a large garrison in town so getting pregnant by a squaddie, marrying, moving to Germany with him then returning divorced w 2 kids in tow by your early 20s was a fairly frequent occurrence . Our school was very big on sex education (esp contraception) and I was totally shocked to find out years later that 1 night of unprotected sex or heavy petting doesn't automatically lead to pregnancy.

In my school (1995-2000) it was cool to have had sex but not a lot, so the couples that had been together for a while and had sex were seen as really cool, but girls who had sex with multiple boyfriends weren't. I had sex with my long term boyfriend at 14, one of my friends lost her virginity in a casual thing at 12. Nearly everyone had lost it by 6th form. But in my more alternative group we were already very sex positive and were screwing everything that moved from 16 onwards 🤣

Misogyny was certainly around, but I seriously didn't notice it at school. I was at a mixed sex school, and I honestly felt completely equal to the boys. I felt like we were in the same class, accessing the same education and resources. I left school and worked in a male dominated field, and earned the same as the men. I felt equal. It was only when I got pregnant in my early 20s that I felt their hatred, and sensed them looking down on me as a woman

I was a teen in the 90s and it there wasn’t this body count stuff like now, but equally it wasn’t cool to sleep around. The lads who slept around were misogynistic and the girls who slept with a lot of them weren’t really liked by others as they were in the small minority of trouble makers who didn’t do as well at school, which didn’t really fit with the majority who were academic at my school. Most lads and girls didn’t want to be with anyone who had slept around.

I was at a comprehensive in a market town in the Midlands and agree with the - not cool to be a virgin but not cool to be a 'slag' comment. (Obviously for boys lots of partners would make them a 'stud'.)

There was no magic number. You just had to play the game between not looking to eager or too 'frigid'. Making worldly comments but demurring on details and totally denying any specific claim by a boy.

I think things got a lot better if you went away to university, though the 'slag' label was still bandied about a bit.

Misogyny was definitely present as they judged you for your body. The boys would ridicule girls for being flat chested. Maybe that still goes on today though

I was a teen in the early 90s and at my school there was a constant chat about your “number”.

A lot of people made it up and just hoped they found the “cool” sweet spot somewhere between frigid and easy.

I think the type of sex young people are having has massively changed but not the amount particularly (comparing my time at school, my elder kids who are 20’s and my 14yo)

In my experience - mid 90s - there was a very narrow window. Too many, and you were a slapper. Too few and you were too ugly/whatever to get a boyfriend. The "correct" path was lots of sex, but with a small number of long term boyfriends.

I think who you were sleeping with made a difference also. Attractive and popular boys = fine, other boys = slapper.

Yes secondary school in mid to late 90s it was a badge of honour to lose your virginity at our school!

People who slept around were considered undesirable in my school. Who wants to go where multiple people have already gone?

I remember Donny locally being called the HIV capital of Europe in the 90’s.