What Our Kids Know About Sex: All Mechanics, No Meaning

I know its a long read but this guys right on the money with this one!

Recently I found myself in a classroom conversation with a group of 15- and 16-year-old girls about sex and relationships. Bogged down at one point over the question of sexual values, I said, "How about if we shift gears? Let's talk about the meaning that sex is supposed to have in people's lives. Maybe that will help us think more clearly."

"Meaning?" the girl next to me said, looking totally nonplussed. "Sex is supposed to have meaning? What do you mean by that?"

My heart sank.I knew that popular culture had undermined fundamental values, but until that moment I hadn't realized, or accepted, quite how profoundly. The sexual revolution really is over, I thought, and sex has finally lost.

The revolution had promised to liberate not only people, but the whole issue of sex, from centuries of negativity and ignorance. Sex would finally be seen as a positive, life-enhancing part of our humanity. It didn't happen. And if the federal government thinks that sinking more money into abstinence-only education is going to improve things -- just last month, the House approved extension of a $50 million-a-year program promoting abstinence before marriage -- it is sorely missing the point.

Consider that not one of the students in the group looked shocked, or even surprised, at their classmate's response. True, several quickly became engaged in thoughtful dialogue about the possible meanings of sex and professed deeply held moral values. But, clearly, the girl's assumption -- that sex has no real intrinsic meaning -- had been accepted as merely another point of view, one just as valid as the next.

Actually, it would be too easy, even disingenuous, to blame popular culture for the erosion of sexual values -- now at the point where sex supposedly has nothing to do with values at all. Movies, music and fashion merely capitalize on the sexual-education vacuum that American families and schools continue to create in young people's lives. To understand our part in the "de-meaning" of sex -- literally, the removal of meaning from the very idea -- and to understand our own inarticulateness on the subject, we'll need to consider our recent history.

The 1960s saw unprecedented questioning of authority in all aspects of American life. Centuries-old attitudes about sex seemed suddenly too strict and outdated. Many couples began to ignore the official dictum that sexual intercourse was moral only within marriage in favor of a contextual and relationship-based ethic. A marriage license is "just a piece of paper," people said. The really important considerations were the quality of the relationship and the degree to which the couple was capable of handling maturely the responsibilities involved.

To many, this change signaled a breakdown in morality, because traditional values such as chastity and monogamy were no longer seen as absolute. What occurred, however, was not so much a breakdown in particular values as a switch to a different way of looking at values. Sexual morality was no longer defined strictly in categorical terms, i.e., with marital intercourse viewed automatically as "right" and non-marital intercourse as "wrong." The "morality" or otherwise of a sexual act now depended not on marital status (objectively determined), but on the status of a given relationship (subjectively determined). This was an entirely new way of thinking about sex because that is precisely what was required -- thinking.

Whether this shift was fundamentally a good change or a bad one, it nonetheless represented a radical departure from the past and one that we have yet to come to terms with as a culture. We have never done the collective headwork required to figure out what our new contextual, moral yardsticks should be. How are we to think -- to make our subjective judgments about what is right and wrong sexually -- without them?

Truthfully, what the nation experienced in the '60s was not a sexual revolution, but a sexual revolt: We tossed out the old ideas but failed to replace them with anything specific enough to make an ethic out of. Is itsurprising, then, that sex is nowso frequently depicted as an amoral enterprise -- simply another form of entertainment or recreation, deserving no moral reflection of any kind?

Thirty yearsafter the sexual revolt, our children are paying the price for this ethical sloppiness. With the advent of HIV, we've reduced sexual morality still further to a simple issue of "safety"; ask almost any young person what the phrase "safe sex" means and he or she will say, "Using condoms." The notions of emotional safety or social safety or ethical or spiritual safety do not even come to mind.

The gradually increasing openness about HIV and sexuality in the media (a good thing) during the 1980s gave license to the entertainment and advertisement industries to push the sexual envelope as far as they could in the '90s.Those industries now use sex to sell everything from breakfast cereal to school backpacks; they market sexually provocative images, artists and clothing to children as young as 6; they flood all forms of the media with depictions of sex that are depersonalized, sensationalized, sexist and exploitive.

We have to picture our children as little Martians, plopped down in the middle of a culture that screams for their attention at every turn. Even young children receive literally thousands of messages a year about sex -- some good, some bad and some very, very ugly. How can young people tell which is which unless we, the responsible adults in their lives, are standing right by them, seeing the world through their eyes and serving as vigilant cultural interpreters?

If we want our children to come to think of sex as a meaningful and value-laden part of the human condition, we'll have tocomplete the work of a well-intentionedbut long-stalled revolution. If a situational and relationship-based ethic is what we want our children to adopt (and I hear the majority of parents I work with saying that it is), we'll have to figure out how to put real teeth in it.

We'll have to learn to articulate clearly the specific kinds of situations and relationships that we consider morally acceptable (or not), and why. We'll have to be able to spell out the specific kinds of moral values -- such as honesty, caring, responsibility, privacy, respect, mutual consideration -- that we expect them to bring to any sexual relationship, from first kisses to intercourse in its various forms.

And we'll have to be prepared to explain how and why morality and meaning have something to do with sexual behavior in the first place. Certainly, while most sexual acts do not result in procreation, and many sexual acts don't even have the potential to, human sexuality is nevertheless inherently connected to the awesome powers of creation and regeneration. Sexual acts also have the potential to give great pleasure, to express unparalleled emotional and physical intimacy, and to cause great suffering. None of these things should be taken lightly, and all of them have to do with human relations and therefore with morality.

Finally, we'll need to make clear how sex, meaning and intimacy come together. How many of us came home on 9/11 and said to our spouses or partners, "Please hold me" or "Please make love to me"? That's because in fundamental ways sex doubles as the adolescent and adult version of the cuddling that gave us such comfort as children.The human need for physical connectedness is primal, and the power of touch to make us feel instantaneously loved, protected and treasured is nothing short of magical. When that connectedness finds expression in a loving sexual embrace, the full human capacity for intimacy can be realized on all possible levels.

To think of sex as something bereft of meaning is to cheat oneself of one's humanity. We can't let that happen for a whole generation of our children.

Deborah Roffman, the author of "Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parent's Guide to Talking Sense About Sex" (Perseus Books), has taught human sexuality education at the Park School of Baltimore and other Baltimore-Washington area schools since 1975.

[Wren57]

I know that many people that go to the all-boys school and people at our sister school feel the same way... I do not, and most of the friends I hang out with regularly do not feel the same way... sex should be a special bond between two people, elevating their relationship to the next level, not a means of creating a bond or just for physical pleasure... Im sure most people agree with me on this one

[ChrisCantSkate]

im sorry, i tried, but the words blured together after "Recently I found myself in a classroom conversation" maybe when im more with it i'll try again

My first thought is why the **** is he talking to 15 and 16 year olds about sex??? That's the problem right there....15 and 16 YEAR OLDS SHOULD NOT BE HAVING SEX.............School has ****ed everything by teaching you about sex at such an early age. I remember having sex ed classes in ****ing 5th grade but they all said you shouldnt have sex til your older. Why do you teach someone about sex when they shouldnt have sex til many years later??????? When do you start taking drivers ed in school?? When your 1 year away from being about to have a drivers license. Our society is ****ed up and nothing is going to fix it, it will continue to get worse. Ive watched montel and shit where 14 year olds actually want to have a baby. What happened to parents??? Do parents no longer have the right to say sit down and shut up. Do as I say because im the ****ing parent and thats that. **** giving children rights. The simple fact is, it shouldnt matter one ****ing bit what a 14 year old girl wants to do. I believe problems started happening when they started coming down on parents who punished there children physically. I was smacked for ****ing up. I dont know one damn person who wasnt. Im gonna smack my kids and thats that. I find timeout the most disgusting thing ive ever heard of. no child is afraid of timeout, i was scared to be hit though. When schools started telling children that if your parents hit you, you can call 911 is when everything ****ED UP. end of story, nough said.

well i must agree some form of punishment is needed but i would say there has to be limits to what goes on in the house. My paretns only ever hit me once or twice when iwas little but i learned dam fast and it wasn't like it was uncalled for. I needed it! there does need to be some sort of physical punishment but the pproblem is to many people cross the lines with their kids

Those people can be punished accordingly but dont **** up the whole american society because some people are ****ing stupid and like hitting their kids. Ive been hit with a frying pan, belt, switch, thrown through a wall and i turned out fine and completely hate violence but it needs to be done to an extent.

Originally posted by toykilla
Those people can be punished accordingly but dont **** up the whole american society because some people are ****ing stupid and like hitting their kids. Ive been hit with a frying pan, belt, switch, thrown through a wall and i turned out fine and completely hate violence but it needs to be done to an extent.

you say your alright? YIKES

Yeah man, I've been punished by a form of physical punishement at a young age too, but not a frying pan, or been thrown to a wall. That's too much.
I must agree with you on the fact that physical punishment should be there though. Kids have nothign to fear these days.

EX.

You kick another kids ass at shcool when he did nothing, you get what? A suspension from school for 10 days. Logic that goes through the 15 year old's head "Next time, I hit another guy, and get ANOTHER 10 days off of school, YAY!"

In the older days, principles used the ruler on the hand, which taught alot more kids to be good.

Let me Clarify the wall and frying pan bit. I was 15 and my mom couldnt hurt me anyways. She just swung with what was in her hand. Still didnt hurt, it was kinda funny actually. It wasnt like she said wait here and came back ready to beat me. The wall thing, I was 16 and would rather not say what I did but I will never do it again, thats for sure. For both the exetreme punishments that can be considered abuse, I was old enough to take it. Its not like I was 9 years old and knocked over a glass or something. They were deserving and the wall taught me to respect my mother. Havent said anything to her that I shouldnt have since then.

I dunno what happened, nore will I feel the same way as you since I'm not in your situation, many series of key events could have lead to your conclusion, but I still think it's a bit too much.