Most Teens' Mental Health Not Adversely Affected By Non-Marital Sex
Says a report from the University of Minnesota.
As a matter of fact, I can tell you for sure that it act improved the mental health of at least one teenager...
Another blow to the sex is evil theory so beloved by our friends on the extreme right.
Says a report from the University of Minnesota.
As a matter of fact, I can tell you for sure that it act improved the mental health of at least one teenager...
Another blow to the sex is evil theory so beloved by our friends on the extreme right.
posted by Winston Smith at
11:29 PM
5 Comments:
Gotta say - I think sex has a bad impact on teenagers overall.
Not that I think it has anything to do with marriage, but that they barely know how to socialize with one another competently. Throwing sex into the mix, from what I observed - and continue to observe through family friends and relatives still in high school - is that it tends to create more harm than good in high school situations.
All I'll say is that it seems to me the issue is way deeper than whether or not it causes depression in those having sex, and that this poll didn't demonstrate anything of interest to me.
But I will qualify my statement; I don't think any of the negative impacts that sex have on teenagers has anything to do with marriage, so I'm not arguing that point - just that I think this study is uninteresting and not really very revealing about the impact sex has on the average high school teenager.
I'm male, which probably has a lot to do with my attitude about this (as in, I wouldn't run the risk of being labled a slut, and in fact might get some props), but is seems weird to think that having sex has anything to do with depression, etc., even in teenage years.
NOT having sex has a lot more to do with depression in teen years (later teen years) in my opinion.
Sex is a good thing for people who think about it, want it, and decide to do it with someone he or she trusts. I find it weird that anyone would confuse sex (especially initial experiences) with marriage or other larger relationship related things.
It is obviously important, and a big-ass social milestone, but damn, it is a lot less than some folks make it out to be. Plus, once you are sexually active, you can actually start focusing on whether you really enjoy/like/want to be with your sexual partner, and this seems like a big ass plus and a big ass move towards maturity in my mind.
Well, M, people vary, and I'm sure there are at least some teenagers who'd be better off not having sex.
Personally, I think that teenage sex is a shaky game; teenagers are in general fairly stupid and immature, and there's going to be a lot of drama and not a little disaster if they start screwing.
But (a) that doesn't really distinguish teenagers from, say, 20 year olds, and (b) it beats the only available alternative.
I basically lost the years from about 13.5-17.5 because I couldn't think about anything but sex. EVER. When I finally started HAVING sex I could, after a bit, at least start thinking about things like math and what to do with my life again.
So, though teenage sex is a bad idea, teenage just about anything is a bad idea.
Furthermore, 17 year olds are, biologically and in most other ways, adults. Prolonged adolescence is a fairly recent invention. So advocating celibacy among 19 year olds is, really, advocating celibacy among adults.
Now, sure celibacy simplifies the life, but it also makes it poorer.
And, finally, depression is just one aspect of the question here--but dealing with just one aspect doesn't mean that a study is uninteresting. One deals with such issues one at a time...
Anyway, I'm all for trying to get teenagers to be thoughtful and responsible about sex. But not by making up stories about how destructive sex is, nor about how it suddenly becomes non-destructive when linked to marriage. But we probably agree on that.
Yes, we do agree on that point, and I think I have to concur with your point about teenage anything being a bad idea which might get more at the real basis for my thoughts on the matter than sex itself being the problem.
And now that I think about it, really, any problem I could attribute to teenagers having sex will extend beyond the range of just teenagers. I can't really think of any problems that are teenager-specific - not even married/not married-specific.
All the problems that teenagers have, you will find in adults. The real problem is that our society is so full of stupid people and that natural selection has completely been removed from the sexual process. No longer must women contemplate "You know, is this guy really worthy of fathering a son through me?". Now, use birth control (not that it's necessarily bad, but that it's bad in conjunction with stupid people) and you can have sex with whoever the hell you want! Now, most total jackasses have sex as teenagers whereas a significantly less portion of intelligent, nice people do (if only there were some way to test for this.. lol - maybe we can take GRE scores and a score on a personal niceness quiz and see how they match up to those in the doing-it pool). Then, sex acts as positive reinforcement for their jackass ways, and you've got a bunch of asshole teenagers running around thinking that they're even greater than before because women do them.
Great.
But again, I suppose the problem extends beyond teenagers and, despite my rant, I agree that they should be responsible and that we want to encourage it, but not by making up stories about it. It's the same way with drugs and with practically anything else that's on the list of social restrictions (be it law - as with drugs, or just mindset - as it is with the sex before marriage thing).
Hey, maybe if we elect another neo-con, he can illegalize extramarital sex!
"But again, I suppose the problem extends beyond teenagers and, despite my rant, I agree that they should be responsible and that we want to encourage it, but not by making up stories about it."
First it = responsibility in sexual decisions
Second it = sex and its destructiveness.
Haha, I just figured, you know, I'd clarify if you didn't get my OBVIOUS meanings behind those its.
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