Adults are prone to create myths about the meaning of adolescence. – Louise J. Kaplan
One year ago today I wrote about those who want to “rescue” whores from lives they consider “degrading”, “disgusting”, “filthy”, “sinful”, etc. This desire is, of course, based in what I referred to as the “bizarre yet prevalent notion that sex is somehow intrinsically different from every other human activity even when it has no chance of resulting in pregnancy.” The rescuers believe whores to be victims, helpless and incompetent to make our own decisions; in that respect they lump us together with adolescents, another group commonly believed to be childlike and unable to understand the terrible “danger” of human sexuality.
I’d be the last person to deny that there is as much danger in sexual relations as there is in any human interaction; when strong emotions are involved, are any of us safe? But that’s not what the sexophobes are afraid of; they seem to believe that there is a magic, contaminating aura to sex itself, and that even looking at or sharing “dirty pictures” can somehow damage the imaginary “innocence” of teenagers. I often wonder if the adults who believe in this “innocence” are suffering from some form of amnesia or delusion; don’t they remember what they were like as teens? Yet they insist on mouthing these ridiculous platitudes about “childhood” and “innocence” when talking about a time period when they were fooling around in the backseats of cars, trying to get liquor with fake IDs and smoking cigarettes because they thought it made them look “cool”. And that’s not even counting the drugs; whereas 54% of American high school seniors in 1979 reported having used them, only 38% do now; if anything, the now-adults who were teenagers back then should have fewer illusions about teen innocence. But no; instead they prefer to construct this elaborate pretense of teenage innocence, then persecute real teenagers for daring to shatter it.
Note that in this Huffington Post article from August 18th, the dysphemism “ring”, which usually means “suppressed business”, is instead bizarrely employed to mean “group of friends”:
Nearly two dozen Vermont teenagers were involved in a sexting ring in which two of them used school-issued computers to access indecent photos and videos of female classmates, police said Thursday. Five boys admitted viewing 30 to 40 images and three videos, many of which were sent by cellphone…[and] two of the boys used school-issued laptop computers to access and distribute the images…The girls took photos of themselves and sent them to the boys, who forwarded them to the shared email account, Milton Police Detective Cpl. Paul Locke said…17 girls aged 14 to 17 were in the photos…”Technically a majority is considered child pornography because it is indecent material of a juvenile,” he said.
Former Milton School Superintendent Martin Waldron has said that school officials became aware of the case on Feb. 17, when a student who felt victimized came forward with “concerns about distribution of inappropriate pictures.” School officials then heard from more students and turned the case over to police…All of the teens had taken responsibility for what they had done…[and] will not face criminal charges but must attend mandatory sessions with a community justice board…
Prosecutor T.J. Donovan said he thought the punishment should be educational not punitive. “I think it’s incumbent on us to educate them about frankly the consequences [sic] of their actions,” he said. “When you send these images out, you lose control of them and there’s going consequences [sic]… and we really need to educate young people about frankly [sic] some of the dangers of technology”…Vermont passed a law in 2009 that permits prosecutors to send teenage cell phone “sexting” cases to juvenile courts to eliminate the stigma of child pornography convictions.
While I’m glad to see Vermont has recognized that convicting teenagers for “child pornography” is both insane and evil, these people are still guilty of treating normal teenage sexual experimentation as a “crime”. The grammatically-challenged prosecutor also seems impaired in the logic department; from what I can see, the only “consequences” of their actions (aside from the snitch’s changing her mind after choosing to participate) resulted from busybody adults criminalizing natural adolescent behavior.
I’ll leave you with this great cartoon from Kevin Moore’s In Contempt; he also calls attention to three older but still good articles: Judith Levine’s “What’s the Matter With Teen Sexting?” on The American Prospect, Dahlia Lithwick’s “Textual Misconduct” on Slate, and Tracy Clark-Flory’s “The New Pornographers” on Salon.
Pasrt of the problem is that we insist and insist and insist on classifying teenagers as “children”—which, to most people, means “people too young to have sex.” Of course, if they get in trouble with the law, the same people who squeal “They’re CHILL-DRUNN!” at the notion that they might, the Ghods forbid, be having Vile Disgusting Sex are perfectly cool with throwing them into adult courts and the adult system, vice the “juvenile court” system that was supposed to protect minors from the rigors of adult law.
Exactly. Children when they try to make decisions about their own lives but adults when they make the “wrong” decisions.
Yeah, like getting charged adult prices, but not being allowed to see the R rated movies. Or having to pay taxes, but not being allowed to buy alcohol. poor kids.
Or two fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds being charged with “raping each other.” I wonder, were they tried as adults?
The primary problem here is that adults especially parents are not teaching children that once you record, write or make a picture of something, it can be used against you in ways you never thought of and for years and decades after you did it. The electronics of this has made this exponentially worse be it cell phones, internet etc. This is the parents and other adults by making and enforcing these laws either admitting that they lost control over their children, and worse stating that they would rather lose responsibility over their children to the government. The problem is that once the government has authority over you or your children, it has a tendency to abuse that power and make things worse for you and your government. Everything has a cost. Even Thomas Jeffereson, 3rd President of the USA, and the Primary Author of the American Declaration of Independence, stated something to the effect that the problem with a government that can give one everything he needs or wants can take everything away from this person to include life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. As George Washington, 1st President of the and FATHER of the USA, stated, Government is a dangerous servant to the people when it is controlled by the people and a fearful master when it controls the people.Be careful of what you wish for, you may get it!
Actually, that was Barry Goldwater: “A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.”
I meant to say that the problem is that once the government has been given the responsibility over your children, it has a tendency to abuse that power and make life worse for you the parent and even worse for your children.
As Benjamin Franklin would say, Those who would trade liberty for security will soon find they have neither nor do they deserve either anf You have a republic if you can keep it. Parents should learn to accept responsibility rather than be breeders for the state and have the state let them be caretakers of the state’s children. Parents should claim all rights and responsibilities for their children and tell the government or state to back away. Parents and other adults should be wary of the government.
Sometimes, I think we protect our kids way too much. I think my childhood was pretty much to one extreme, but my parents had a theory (somewhat popular in the 1970’s) that children learned by experimenting in the world, and making mistakes. So I had a lot of room to do as I pleased. It’s made me a much stronger, more independent person. I’m glad I was raised that way.
These days, we smother our children, hover over them, so by the time they get out in the world they’re totally unprepared for the rough and tumble situation they find.
First: Maggie, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! for pointing out that teenagers are abusing drugs less than our generation did. Because the thing is, we adults tend to both stress their innocence as if they were all five years old, but at the exact same time we insist that today’s teens are worse than ever. They’re taking more drugs! (as you point out, teen drug use is down) They’re all getting pregnant!! (teen pregnancy is at historic lows) They’re all shooting each other!!! (sorry, teen gun violence is also down)
So again, thank you. Now I’m off to read a little Judith Levine.
When I was a teenager, I recall there was a minority of students who were puritanical. As an adult, I’ve encountered a good number of people who might have been promiscuous, but who now espouse a more “spiritual” brand of sexuality – and want to shove it down everyone else’s throats.
Moral busybodies are in the business of telling other people what they can and can’t do. This is their purpose in life.
It also accounts for a small segment the anti-prostitution lobby. They find many aspects of normal heterosexual sex uncomfortable.
People with odd sexual responses tend to this sort of behavior. Repressed sexuality also tends to lend itself to fear (of sexuality generally), paranoia, antisocial behavior and a particular kind of violent response.
The major problem is … law enforcement getting involved to enforce otherwise parental duties.
I’ve raised one daughter … got one more who’s eleven, and you’d better damn well believe I’ll get involved in how she uses her phone, or her computer. She’s in my eyesight whenever she’s home … and when she’s at school, I pay a fortune for the nuns there to watch her!
No, I never raised my kids to be “prudes” … but I DO believe they are still children when they’re minors. My job, as a Dad, is to help them navigate through society and it’s ills and evils successfully. Once they’re 18 – they’re responsible for their own conduct but, I don’t have a problem being held responsible for my kid’s conduct while they’re below that age.
This “sexting” – is a parental issue – not a police issue. I actually think the number of potentially damaging “sexts” that are transmitted out there are very, very, small. And … I actually think most teenage girls are aware of the dangers.
Maggie points out that most kids today actually do fewer drugs than we did as children. Let me tell you, as someone who grew up in the 70’s – we were into some pretty bad joo-joo and we were self-centered as hell. I saw this in the military … kids today, for the most part, are pretty damn good (well, compared to us anyway!).
CS Monitor covers the story (also republished by MSNBC):
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0902/Feds-warn-colleges-handle-sexual-assault-reports-properly
What a bogus title! They don’t want the universities to handle the reports properly (i.e. with proper standards of evidence as in our own courts) but rather improperly. The Obama administration wants universities to handle criminal matters themselves using third-world standards of proof rather than passing them on to legitimate courts where there wouldn’t be a high enough number of convictions to please the neofeminists and the vice-president, who has been their lap dog for over 20 years. My column for this coming Friday (September 9th) is on this very subject.
The real issue is that, given a 1st world *availability* of excellent nutrition, young people hit puberty about as early as is biologically possible.
There is a small, but significant gender based difference in the onset of primary sexual development (menstruation in girls, reflex erection/ejaculation in boys) at or about 12 or 13. The process completes (including adult body development, full sexual maturity, significant growth) anywhere bewteen 15-17 for girls, and 16-17 for boys, assuming no significant medical issues.
See Puberty, Wikipedia for verification.
The key to remember here is that each person matures at their own rate. To say that *EVERY* person under 18 *MUST* be a child is, at a biological level, plain wrong.
Using the above ranges as fact, any given 15 year old woman may be just that : a biologically mature individual female, a woman, and any given 16 year old man, in the same vein.
And that’s where the idea of “age related sexual behaviour” gets unstuck.
The Law, as the enforcement agency of government and society, is relying on the blanket application of chronological age in a one-size-fits-all approach as a yardstick of both physical *and* psychological maturity.
My niece, at the age of 15, has an extremely grown up level of maturity, self determination, and high-order executive function. She wants to become a Psychologist. That’s not an expression of an infantilized person, right there.
I’ve no idea what her “personal” life is like, nor tbh is that even my business, but she seems very level headed indeed.
The issue is that, frankly, our view of our own offspring/nieces/nephews/etc often doesn’t jibe with the reality of their experience, ideas or actual physical status. We don’t, in some cases, really want to admit the truth, either.