Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Let’s Talk About Sex Again
The efforts to redefine rape on campuses would be amusing if they weren’t so dangerous. But I think we need to ask ourselves why the sex-with-no-consequences-ever crowd is suddenly a champion of sex-with-hyperbolic-consequences unless it is accompanied by lots and lots of yeses. I’m wondering, do both participants have to constantly say “yes” or only the females involved? Life is so confusing these days.
It doesn’t, however, need to be confusing. The truth is that “casual sex” has always been a myth, because men and women do not approach sex in the same way, which makes it a minefield. Two “consenting adults” probably have, in other words, wildly different ideas about what is going on and what it means. It turns out that sex is not just a powerful drive and a pleasurable physical sensation, it has social, emotional, mental and spiritual consequences that complicate what the kids have been told. All that extra baggage makes it possible — even likely — that without some mores, restrictions and good old-fashioned truth-telling, men and women will use and abuse one another through sex. Who woulda thunk it?
News flash: unlimited yeses do not constitute mores that guide moral behavior. What’s curious is that campuses are trying to do what social mores and custom once did, only from the back end. They are trying to control the explosive and dangerous potential of sex without walking back the “casual sex” myth and telling young people that sex is not just about physical pleasure. Curiously, our society has elevated sex to the be-all and end-all of life without giving it any depth. What could go wrong?
We have a real problem here, but the way to turn things around is pretty obvious. The answer lies in telling the truth to young people in sex education classes around the country. You don’t need to use a religious approach to do it, though kids armed with religion stand a better chance of resisting ubiquitous lies about sex. The truth is that being “consenting adults” or “consenting teenagers” is not enough, not by a long shot, because the pill did not make men and women regard sex in the same way. Also, the pill did not change the fact that when we give our bodies to another person, the rest of us participates too — our emotions, our need for love, affirmation, and being valued and appreciated for our whole selves. The potential for hurt, misunderstanding and all kinds of damage is simply endless.
Of course teenagers are raging hormone factories, and some will succumb to that, but we need to tell them that it is possible to resist, that if they are truly concerned for that person they think they love, they will resist. They need to be taught that sex is serious. I think we will find that if we teach them the truth, kids will be able to internalize values so that they can control themselves instead of relying on the astonishingly silly and superficial “control” mechanism of demanding an unending series of yeses.
What’s interesting to me is that at bottom everybody knows that sex is serious. Rom-coms regularly affirm it. Casual, uncaring sex is not celebrated in movies about romance because it’s not romantic. On the contrary, it makes what ought to be romantic sordid. The whole formula of rom-coms is to show a process — two people are attracted to one another, though they might even superficially dislike each other at first, and they overcome obstacles as they get to know and understand each other better, which leads to love, respect and the permanent commitment of marriage. It’s a tale as old as time and true as it can be, as Mrs. Teapot from Beauty and the Beast reminds us. Since everybody knows this on some level, would it be so hard to stress the point in sex education classes? Let’s get past the idea that all behavior is equal. Some behavior really is bad and destructive.
And while we’re at it, in those classes, could we also tell kids that they can avoid poverty for themselves and their future spouses and children by doing just four things — graduating from high school, getting a job, waiting until after marriage to have kids and staying married to raise those kids? If we taught them the truth, I think we’d find that kids are not so stupid as we think. They want to avoid the pitfalls of life, but currently are not being taught what they need to know to do so.
Published in General
I think I’d broaden that to being independent, responsible, competent at your work and loving in your relationships, being a good person and doing some of what you want. I know there are all kinds of things my kids want to do that they can’t afford to do. Maybe someday they will be able to do those things, but if they never are, I’d still call them a success. And of course, as a parent, I think raising a good family is one of the things I most hope for for them–which will also limit what they can personally do.
You might want to re-read my comments on this thread; this is precisely how I have defined “success.”
Yes–I guess what I didn’t quite agree with is “living your life the way you want to.” That’s a little too close to follow your dream. Often you have to live life the way you need to, but that doesn’t mean you’re not successful.
Yikes, Merina, the “dream” is truly the crux of the great American experiment. Is this truly what you want to post on a conservative web site?
It depends on what dream you’re talking about. I would never give my kids the advice to follow their dream, which would be some sort of irresponsible aspiration to be a musician of some sort no doubt, but I do hope they will go after the American dream–owning their own home, having a family, a good job, etc.
Now high schools, too. A city school district near where I live decided to make condoms available at the school. How unfortunate for a student who wants to remain pure (typically personified in a girl). Now the school has removed one more aid that she had in resisting the advances of a sexual aggressor. When she says, “Sex would be wrong,” her aggressor can now respond, “It can’t be; if it were, the school wouldn’t be handing out condoms.”
FST, this has always bothered me. It is like telling kids they should be having sex. Wrong, wrong, wrong message all around. If they really want to get condoms, they should face the embarrassment of buying them themselves.
If teenage sex is everything the libs say it is, buying a condom shouldn’t be any more awkward than buying a candy bar, or hi-c.
And it should be bought, not given for free by another, because buying indicates a decision, and maybe implies some responsibility for that decision.
Maybe that is the new yes the the new app needs: exchange condoms with your partner, including the sales receipt. :)
and after looking at the carousel picture for a few days, I think it might be implied this young woman is saying ,
“No, I have a headache…and too much homework.”
The secret for our young women and men today in managing assaults against themselves is to keep out of situations where ‘maybe’ or even ‘yes’ might be construed as an option.
I don’t think feminists have done young women any favors with their slut walks and the like. The want them to think they can take stupid risks and not be at risk–like getting drunk at frat parties. Part of respecting yourself is staying out of bad and risky situations. Of course going to the parties is not permission to rape, but it sure increases the likelihood of stupid drunken sex, and for that the young women bear some responsibility.
OR she’s got hand to forehead doing the mentalist routine. As the comedian Gallagher used to note, “All women are psychic. Guys, they know right now if you’re getting sex tonight.”
Excellent framing sentence:
we need to ask ourselves why the sex-with-no-consequences-ever crowd is suddenly a champion of sex-with-hyperbolic-consequences unless it is accompanied by lots and lots of yeses.
Slightly off topic, but I don’t see how all the sex ed in the world can stop parents from teaching their kids the stuff about emotion, importance, etc.
So true, Zafar. But when they are teenagers, kids tend to listen more closely to what other people are saying than what Mom and Dad say. And it’s terrible when schools actually undermine what parents teach. That is the case currently, or was for our youngest son. The whole culture in fact pretty much undermines what we say.
Great post .
Re : comment 104 and 105
Teenagers, and people in their early twenties, give the most credence to the opinions of people 5 to 15 years older than they are, I think.