I am being a complete mug, but are many teenagers "up to it" on a casual basis?

[Parttimeslave]

Just had an eye opening conversation with some friends and they were discussing how some of their dcs are frequently having one-night stands at parties etc. Their dcs are around 17.

I decided to try and have the conversation with my ds2 (17) and only got blushes and awkward body language. I am 99% sure he is probably doing the same. He has a very active social life with lots of parties and no particular girlfriend. Apparantly, the girls can be more forward than the boys these days. I told him to be VERY careful if he is having casual sex and also to be respectful to his partners. I said he could chat to me about anything it if he wanted to, but he definitely didn't want to!

I am shocked tbh. Times seemed to have changed so much since my day. Is promiscuity this rife amongst teenagers? Anyway seen any evidence?

Unfortunatley this is all too real, my 16 year old niece has just been diagnosed as having herpes and gonorhea, so sad :(

Imperialblether - giving teen boys CSA leaflets is a fantastic idea (one I will copy in a few years)
But I do agree with flow4 the CSA are stunningly useless.

I missed a call from the CSA today, they left a message asking me to call them back. So I did. This was the conversation we had.

CSA man: Are you calling to make a payment?
Me: Errrrr no! Im calling because I missed a call from the CSA today, Im returning your call.
CSA:

CSA: So why did you call us today?
Me: YOU called me I am returning your call
CSA: Ahhhh!

Then I commented that could they please actually send a letter to my X
They said we do on a regular basis.
Actually gov. no you havent - you havent sent a single letter to him in SIX years, perhaps you could send him one now.......!

Yes she knows, and yes it is awful. Never mind the fact that she's been in so much pain for a week she can hardly walk, she'll have to live with this for the rest of her life and inform any future partners.

I really wish I could take this away or turn back the clock for her, the whole thing is really upsetting :(

A friend of mine waited until she was 19 and after her second man, discovered she had herpes. Very sad as she is a lovely person.

I really fear for my Dc's and the pressure they may feel under to do the deed. I hope it's not fashionable when it comes to it, but Ds is nearing his 14th birthday and I'm worried for/about him.

Yes, I think it's pretty common these days. I've heard it referred to as "hooking up" or "linking".

www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/opinion/13blow.html?_r=1

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/love-actually/8094/1/

These two articles are from the US but I think more or less the same applies here. I strongly recommend the Atlantic one. I think when it comes to sex the teenage boys are the ones calling the shots and the amount of casual sex reflects that.

Yes, I think it's pretty common these days. I've heard it referred to as "hooking up" or "linking".

www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/opinion/13blow.html?_r=1

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/06/love-actually/8094/1/

These two articles are from the US but I think more or less the same applies here. I strongly recommend the Atlantic one. I think when it comes to sex the teenage boys are the ones calling the shots and the amount of casual sex reflects that.

Plenty of boys and girls going out when I was a teen, a fair few (but not all) having sex, only one teen pregnancy that I ever heard of- and that was the daughter of the Baptist minister getting pregnant on a language trip to the US.

The only case of herpes I knew of for sure was someone contracting it from mouth sores whilst still a (very young) virgin.

I think there is plenty of evidence that very early sexual relationships and teen pregnancies are not so much about sexual freedom or even sexualisation of society.

Instead, they tend to happen to vulnerable young people who do not foresee a very interesting future, so they don't bother to take care. These were precisely the kind of young people who got pregnant when they shouldn't in Victorian times too- and for all I know probably in the Middle Ages too.

Teens who feel good about the other relationships in their lives, and who are looking forward to a career and an interesting life, tend to approach the whole thing with a good deal of caution (starting later and taking more precautions), quite regardless of the conservative or liberal views of their parents. If you have something worthwhile lined up, you're not going to want to blow it.

I was interested to hear from dd-conveyed gossip that the girls (and boys) who started very early in her school were not actually the very popular or very bright ones, and that early sex did very little for their street cred: if anything, the other girls thought it made them look a bit sad; it high-lighted the fact that they weren't very imaginative about other aspects of their lives. From my private observation they also often seemed to have the kind of parent who worried about their sexualisation in a very prurient way and who did not have a very close relationship to them in other ways. This is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So I'd say if you want to keep your children safe, don't worry too much about the messages of society- concentrate on your relationship and the encouragement of their dreams. Dreams are the safest thing you can have as an adolescent.

Excellent post Cory

I agree with some of that cory, and particularly with that excellent last line - teenage dreams and aspirations are marvellous, and help them avoid all kinds of risky behaviour. :)

But sex is not inherently risky or 'bad'. When I was young, I had one boyfriend at 16 and another at 17-18, and both enriched my life hugely. :) When I discovered sex, I did as much of it as possible, because it was great! But I was careful not to get pregnant, cos I had aspirations; and I only had sex within loving relationships, because I had self-respect.

As parents, we need to remember that sex is generally popular with teens because it is fun and free - and they don't need to rely on their parents' money or chauffeur services to do it!

That's why I didn't say "confident teens don't have sex", flow4, but "they approach it with caution". Absolutely agree that we shouldn't forget that sex itself is a positive thing- it's the circumstances that can be less than positive.

Ime a confident teen with dreams for the future is less likely to have unprotected sex, less likely to have sex with a boy who disrespects her, less likely to have sex before she feels ready. She may well have sex, but will be cautious enough to have it on her own terms. Which is what I would wish for my own daughter.

Of course my wishes for her do not include life-long celibacy, just that she should be able to continue to think of sex as something negative, without becoming disillusioned.

typo alert!!!!

"continue to think of sex as something positive"!!!!!!

that wasn't a Freudian slip, honestly- just the consequences of sloppy word processing

I was very shocked when I found out the extent of it and who was involved. Some of teh sweetest and least likely(in my eyes obv) are the worst! My ds is fairly open and they all seem to be getting up to all kinds within their group

Ds is 18 btw and this has been since 6th form All from good typically middle class families

A few years ago I did some part time youth work and within this role I was C-Card trained (ie: trained to give sexual health advice and free condoms).

I worked on a tough, tough estate where the young people had little or no aspirations, many were already caught up in the youth justice system etc - they were lovely kids who I felt a real warmth towards but I guess I expected them to be at it like rabbits, they were what the Daily Mail would term 'underclass' and reminded me of my own friends growing up who went on to be teenage parents (I grew up on a similar estate - not that teenage pregnancy is any respecter of class).

What shocked me was the amount of teenagers who would come into our centre and confide in us that they were virgins but still wanted condoms because they had to keep up the pretense of being at it. This seemed to be particularly prevelant amongst the boys, I remember one friendship group where the majority were virgins (they individually talked at length with me about the pressures they were under and the anxiety they felt about not being fully up to speed with the slang and general bravado). Not being able to get them together collectively and tell them they were all in the same boat was very frustrating, of course that would be breaching their confidentiality.

I think we've become so used to the idea of early sexual activity, sleeping around and promoting the idea of safe sex that we've forgotten to tell our young people that its actually okay to not be sexually active.

"Pregnancy isn't the worst consequence of sleeping around - if she got pregnant we would deal with it (having a baby isn't the end of the world); if she ends up with an STD that affects her fertility for example...that is harder to deal with" - I so agree with that.

I think the current govt policy, with its emphasis on reducing teen pregnancies and its deafening silence on STDs including HIV, is hardly short of criminal.

From a societal point of view, rapid spread of STDs like herpes and HIV is going to have worse long-term consequences than pregnancies. Your poor neice, qo. God forbid that happens to any of our dds.

Another good post - Chrome. Not usually a fashionable view on here, but one I agree with wholeheartedly.

My son came home from school after sex ed, full of information about how babies were made...
"But you knew all that", I said, "I told you years ago"... "Yeahhhhh", said my son scornfully, "But I didn't believe you" !

I think it was always just part of general conversation for us and then dp talked to ds when he was about 12/13 about the details!

Agree with the STI stance too that has always been more at the front of any chats we have had than pregnancy although that is important too but health is a priority.