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Post by phil on Mar 15, 2006 10:25:57 GMT -5
The average age of people marrying for the first time
has increased over the past three decades.
The average age of first-time brides was 25 in 1990,
compared with an average age of 21 in 1964.
For first-time grooms, the average age was 27 in 1990,
compared with an average age of 24 in 1964.
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) 1995.
You really think it is realistic to think a man will wait until he's 27 y/o
before he has his first sexual intercourse ... !!
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Post by chrisfan on Mar 15, 2006 10:38:35 GMT -5
Phil, the average number of people who wait until marraige has also gone down. So who is to say it's the 27 year olds who are waiting? When you're looking at the broad group of people getting married, and the smaller group of people waiting until marriage, the statistics are not going to be the same.
That aside, rhetorically, there have been a few 30+ year old virgins on recent episodes of The Bachelor. When the movie The Fourty Year Old Virgin was released, there were also several magazines and other media outlets who did stories about actual 40+ year old virgins who chose to make it that way. So whether you or I know them, such people ARE out there.
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Post by Galactus on Mar 15, 2006 11:13:51 GMT -5
I can only speak from my experence. I regret not starting earlier. I wouldn't change my life now but I regret being afraid of girls, being afraid to talk to them and being insecure about myself. I do somewhat agree that our society puts an overemphasas on sex but I also largely think it's in response to an equal movement that we should be ashamed of our sexuality. If you haven't kissed a girl you're a fag but if you masturbate you're a freak...you don't have a girlfriend? What's wrong with you? Kids feel like they have no one to talk to. I don't think there's anything wrong with waiting until you're married but I also don't think there's anything wrong if you don't. The one thing we don't teach kids is how to do whats right for them and how to decide what that is. I think the over emphasis goes both ways, that many kids will feel like they're making the wrong choice no matter....there's something wrong with you either way.
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Post by phil on Mar 15, 2006 11:22:47 GMT -5
I don't think there's anything wrong with waiting until you're married
There is indeed nothing wrong with waiting un... unless
it makes you rush into a marriage which could end up
in divorce a few years and a couple of kids later ...
Mantis ~ nice post BTW ... !
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Post by chrisfan on Mar 15, 2006 11:48:24 GMT -5
That's an assumption that statistics do not support Phil. According to a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family, women who waited until after marriage to engage in sex reported a higher satisfaction in their sex lives and marriage in general than those surveyed who did not wait. Those who waited are also statistically less likely to commit adultry once married. So it appears, based on statistics, that it's quite a leap to assume that if you wait to engage in sex until marriage that you'll obviously jump into an unhappy marriage. The virgins have to have SOMETHING to pay attention to while dating - maybe that's compatibility.
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Post by Kensterberg on Mar 15, 2006 11:51:54 GMT -5
Hey, what's with all this civil discussion on this board? I thought this was where people gave Melon hell? Hell is having Chrisfan and Phil (and others) have an intelligent and civil conversation about premarital sex?
If this is hell, I can only imagine how dull "heaven" must be ...
;D
(Seriously, it's an interesting convo. And nice to see such civil discourse.)
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Post by Rit on Mar 15, 2006 12:09:52 GMT -5
pfft. civilians.
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Post by Mary on Mar 15, 2006 13:05:04 GMT -5
Great post about AIDS in Africa, Rocky. Another thing about this policy approach that's just ridiculous is that most women in Africa who become infected are infected by their husbands. In that context, what does abstinence-only education even mean?! Do we seriously have a public policy which actively advocates discouraging condom usage.....even to MARRIED women in Africa whose husbands are the most likely means through which they will become infected? Once again - that's just insane. And I agree, it absolutely demonstrates how religious moralism has trumped sound scientific health policy. Moralism is bad enough when that's all there is to it, but there's nothing worse than moralism in the service of a policy that's actually downright immoral!
......
On another note.... JAC, I don't know that your post was really directed to me or anyone specific here, but I do want to stress that I never said abstinence was "impossible" - in fact I specifically wrote this:
So when I said that people are going to keep having sex before they get married no matter what, I did not mean it was inevitable that every single person in America would have sex before they got married. What I meant was that it was inevitable that large percentages of Americans would indeed have premarital sex - and given those statistics, when you're talking about public policy, it simply makes no sense to fund a program doomed to failure - and to dangerous failure at that.
Chrisfan's idea - teaching abstinence education programs but not in the context of the core curriculum of sex-ed but in the context of some kind of opt-in extracurricular class associated with personal issues and esteem-building and all of that - is an interesting idea but I would need to know a lot more about the content of most of these programs before I could endorse public funding. I will look at the link she posted later today.... but I've read a lot about particular abstinence-education programs which rely so much on shame and fear that I think such a class would be inappropriate and harmful even as an optional extracurricular class. The example I posted earlier is no doubt an egregious one, but that kind of nonsense should be completely unacceptable in any public education context, even an optional one. Moreover I'm just not sure I see why any such program needs to receive state funding. Can't churches provide abstinence-only education? Parents are allowed to refuse to let their kids receive sex-ed - can't they simply take that option and then encourage abstinence on their own time? I just don't really see how this is a worthy use of education funding, especially in an era when a lot of states are cutting back their education budgets.
luke's point regarding young married couples is also a good one. The presumption that the minute you get married you get down to the business of baby-making is archaic, to say the least. But this demonstrates the absolute paranoia that governs the abstinence-education agenda (so far as I can tell I don't include anyone here in that agenda - I don't mean people who think abstinence is possible and worth encouraging, I mean people who think it should be taught as the ONLY choice) The fear is that, if we start teaching kids about contraception, even if we claim to be teaching them about it so they can make wise choices when they're married, as soon as they KNOW that contraception exists, they'll run off and start fucking like bunnies.
For me the paranoia about even mentioning contraception just points up a fundamental tension within this whole approach. On the one hand, proponents of comprehensive sex education are disparaged for presuming that abstinence is impossible (even though we don't presume that, and even though most sex education classes, as we've seen, do encourage abstinence - alongside proviing other option!) On the other hand, they seem to think that the minute you mention a condom or the pill to a 15 year old, even if you still encourage abstinence as the best possible option, that kid is going to fall headlong into some decadent teenage orgy scene. If we really believe that human beings are capable of transcending their physical urges, then it mkes no sense to presume that we can't teach kids about birth control and still encourge them to wait. If we're such helpless sexual animals that we're incapable of resisting the minute anyone says "condom" to us, then that really undermines the whole presumption of abstinence education to begin with that human beings can resist temptation.
M
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Post by chrisfan on Mar 15, 2006 13:20:11 GMT -5
When you're looking Mary, here's another program [/color] that I think handles abstinence education in an outstanding way. Actually, I think more highly of this one then I do of Silver Ring Thing. It makes the primary focus self-esteem and self-confidence, and expands the abstinence beyond sex to drug use, etc. In short, the focus of the program is a recognition that the kids participating have strong self-worth, and need to engage in activities that recognize that. On the assumption that kids are going to do these things anyway -- I absolutely agree that just about every single adolescent is going to rebel in some shape or form. The few who don't likely suffer from some sort of developmental issue. Rebelling is without question a part of adolesence, and it's a good thing. But when adults move those boundaries, in recognition that kids are going to do it anyway, we're simply raising the bar for the rebellion. Where parents (and/or other adults) set that bar determines, to a degree, the rebellion. Two examples: - I have a friend who led a very very very sheltered live growing up. Every stereotype you can imagine of a fundamentalist upbringing - that was basically her. When she went away to college, she was elated to have the chance to live on her own and rebel. Her definition of crazy rebellion? Drinking pop and eating junk food. Yes, that's right, her roommate and other friends would go out to the bars with their fake IDs, and she's stay home, eating Fritos, watching R rated movies, and thought she was being a wild child. - I have another friend who works with juveniles who've been charged wth first time misdemeanors. She puts them through a court alternative, then oversees their community service sentence while also counseling with their parents. She sees over and over and over again - 90%+ of the cases she deals with - parents who have taken the "My kids will do it anyway, so I'm going to allow it so I know about it" approach. The parents have decided their kids will drink, so they buy them the beer. As a result, the kids also get into shoplifting, and other misdemeanors. Other forms of teen rebellion certainly. But the parents think they're keeping the kids safe by expanding the lines. Instead, the kids go beyond the lines no matter where they are drawn. I'm not endorsing the sheltered fundamentalist appraoch. I'm not saying it would be great if fritos and watching The Wedding Crashers was considered the ultimate in rebellion. (that friend has some issues I blame on her upbringing too) But I think that parents have to give a lot of thought to just wear they draw those lines. The kids will cross them regardless of whether or not you're seen as the "cool" parent. I believe firmly that in parenthood, you can either have a short friend for about 15 years, or you can commit to suffering through 18 years of being a parent and sometimes the enemy, and be rewarded with a friend for life after that. |
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Post by luke on Mar 15, 2006 13:31:06 GMT -5
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JACkory
Struggling Artist
Posts: 167
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Post by JACkory on Mar 15, 2006 17:52:10 GMT -5
No, Mary, my post was not directed at you or anyone in specific. It was just a general observation, offered in the spirit of the discussion.
You really think it is realistic to think a man will wait until he's 27 y/o
before he has his first sexual intercourse ... !!---Phil
What's UNrealistic about it, Phil? Why is it assumed that teenagers (or young adults) are inevitably going to engage in sex before marriage? Why SHOULD they? It's exactly that kind of attitude (which questions how "realistic" it is to remain chaste) that builds up the kind of peer pressure that a lot of teens feel they have to cave in to.
And I also have to wonder just how much of a "Western" issue this is...ie., is it a problem of equal magnitude in China, Japan or other Oriental nations? If not (and I'm sure not saying I know) then that puts a new spin on just how "realistic" it is for "a 27 year old to wait until his first sexual intercourse".
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Post by kmc on Mar 15, 2006 18:11:36 GMT -5
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Post by Galactus on Mar 15, 2006 18:54:02 GMT -5
No, Mary, my post was not directed at you or anyone in specific. It was just a general observation, offered in the spirit of the discussion. You really think it is realistic to think a man will wait until he's 27 y/o
before he has his first sexual intercourse ... !!---Phil What's UNrealistic about it, Phil? Why is it assumed that teenagers (or young adults) are inevitably going to engage in sex before marriage? Why SHOULD they? It's exactly that kind of attitude (which questions how "realistic" it is to remain chaste) that builds up the kind of peer pressure that a lot of teens feel they have to cave in to. And I also have to wonder just how much of a "Western" issue this is...ie., is it a problem of equal magnitude in China, Japan or other Oriental nations? If not (and I'm sure not saying I know) then that puts a new spin on just how "realistic" it is for "a 27 year old to wait until his first sexual intercourse". I just not sure I see the point in waiting until you married...especially into your twenties. I understand telling teenagers to wait but I see no valid reason for not having sex when you're into your twenties. You can have healthy monogmous relationships with someone you don't want to marry. I see it as a issue of maturity. Why would having a peice of paper that says you're married have any effect in the bedroom? |
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JACkory
Struggling Artist
Posts: 167
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Post by JACkory on Mar 15, 2006 21:34:09 GMT -5
We live in different worlds, my friend.
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Post by Galactus on Mar 15, 2006 21:53:21 GMT -5
Explain further, please.
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