I read this piece in Seventeen magazine (about peer pressure), and I couldn't help responding to some of its points. What we teach young people about sex goes a long way in molding their attitudes and approach to sex, and so what we say to them is worth careful consideration. Unfortunately, sex educators are frequently more concerned with preventing teens from becoming sexually active than ensuring they develop healthy and responsible attitudes toward sex. As a result, you have abstinence-plus education which purports to give teens good advice about being sexually active, but never misses an opportunity to slip in some propaganda designed to cause girls to second guess whether when they think they're ready is when they're really ready (because you can't possibly be ready before you're in a longterm committed relationship, with the boy you plan to marry, right?).
#1 "double-bagging"
This piece of advice concerns the risks of doubling up your condoms, and is pretty sound. But, of course, the reader is treated to a trite "the only 100% safe sex is waiting!" at the end.
I'm sorry, but not having sex does not constitute safe sex. Yes, you won't get pregnant and you won't catch a sexually transmitted disease if you don't have sex. But it's not like choosing to wait is a 100% effective way of not having sex anyway. People change their minds in the heat of a (possibly inebriated) moment and, I hate to bring it up but, rape happens.
Of course, the person who lacks the willpower to follow through on her promise has only herself to blame, and the victim of a rape is not the one responsible for it happening. But it just seems so patronizing to repeat the mantra "if you wanna be safe, wait!", especially considering that those people who don't want to wait probably want to be safe, too.
Ultimately, becoming sexually active is a choice in which one must weigh the risks of sex against the desire to have sex (a force frequently underrated by sex educators). Avoiding sex altogether because of its risks is unrealistic, especially considering the reasonable lengths to which we can go to significantly decrease those risks. If a person is not prepared to deal with those risks (reduced or otherwise), then it goes without saying (let alone repeating) that their best bet is to avoid sex.
But saying, "if you wanna be safe, wait" is like a slap in the face to anyone who chooses to become sexually active, but desires to be as responsible as possible. And if they get unlucky or screw up, then it seems less a matter of having to take responsibility for one's choices (which in this case involved knowingly engaging in risky activities) and more a matter of being punished because you didn't make the right choice and just wait. :(
#2 "blue balls"
This was an odd piece of advice. Now, I'm willing to believe that other guys experience sexual arousal differently than I do (and I certainly don't rate myself as average), but I have never experienced the phenomenon of "blue balls", the importance and severity of which Seventeen attempts to minimize here. But in my experience, it's not exaggerated, it's an outright myth.
I mean, yeah, if you're all revved up for sex, and then your partner unexpectedly leaves you hanging, then certainly you're going to feel kind of...frustrated. But that's psychological; it's not a physical ache in your balls, from accumulation of blood. At least, not in mine.
Seventeen takes the right approach in trying to downplay this phenomenon, but I don't think they take it far enough. And because I don't see it as a real problem, their addressing it as one in effect reinforces it. Which is problematic, because the very notion of "blue balls" makes some uncomfortable implications.
Like, for example, the idea that sex is all about the climax for the guy. I know, this is the stereotypical script, but I can't be the only guy in the world who likes the feeling of being turned on even when I don't have an opportunity to get off. Or am I?
And anyway, what about the woman's pleasure? All this anxiety over blue balls seems to imply that sex is an activity girls do to please guys. If the guy's not pleased, it's a bust. But doesn't the girl wanna be pleased, too? And anyway, a good sex partner is going to want to please his girl, whether he gets off in the end or not.
It just seems to me that this is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate to girls that sex can be a game played by your own rules, where the only goal is to have fun. But instead, the conservative paradigm of sex is reinforced - and that's exactly the sort of thing that breeds anxiety for girls who think sex is something men are going to pressure them into doing, instead of something enjoyable they might actually be seeking out for themselves.
#3 "virginal masturbation"
This is a tricky one. Seventeen reassures readers that masturbation doesn't count against your virginity status. It's good advice, in that it encourages girls to practice masturbation - which is good for anyone's sexual health. But it trips up in defending the notion of virginity as an admirable status to have.
I may be a little bit ahead of the curve here, but I believe we've reached a point in human culture where it's pretty clear that "virginity" doesn't make any sense. I mean, how do you define virginity? Vaginal intercourse? What about anal sex? Penetration? What about digital masturbation? Partner sex? What about foreplay, dry humping, tribadism? What about blow jobs? What about rape?
If virginity is a state of innocence and sexual purity, then even having thoughts and fantasies can spoil it. If it's about dedication to a path of virtue, then a girl could maintain her virginity through a gangbanging if she regrets it. And if it's about whether or not you've had certain experiences, who gets to decide which of those experiences count? How do we know where to draw the line?
There are vaginal penetration virgins, and there are anal virgins. There are blowjob virgins, and there are homosexual virgins. There are masturbation virgins, and there are rape virgins (one kind of virginity I would agree is desirable). But if virginity is about purity, then losing one kind of virginity kind of spoils the whole thing. And that includes masturbation.
I mean, are you really going to tell me that the sex-obsessed slut who masturbates twelve times daily with all sorts of inanimate objects and in all sorts of inappropriate situations, but has never been with a guy because she's paranoid about getting pregnant is still a virgin, and is as pure as the Mother Mary, and is much purer than the good girl who had protected sex just one time with her committed boyfriend, and didn't even like it much?
On the other hand, if virginity is about total purity, then what's so good about it anyway? Why should we treat people who shun sex as if they are superior to those who have indulged in it? A person should be free to decide when and what kind of sex acts they want to engage in, but I don't see any point in raising "virginity" as a desirable status, except to reinforce the notion that "you really shouldn't be having sex" which is just an extension of the "wait until tomorrow" mantra, which, after all, is just the sex educator's decree that "I know better than you what choices you should be making about your own life and body", which violates the whole concept of "when you're ready". Having to ask somebody else when you're ready defeats the purpose of it being a personal choice, and the only difference between that and being pressured into having sex is that the person making your decision for you is saying no instead of yes. Which, unsurprisingly, is the approach most sex educators have - "you're too dumb or hormonal to make good decisions, so I'm going to make them for you." But you don't have to have a graduate degree in psychology to see that that's not a very good way to teach people to make responsible decisions.
Furthermore, all this emphasis on virginity just makes that first time more stressful. Which is also part of the sex educator's sinister plan. The more they hype up "the first time", the harder it's going to be for a girl to tell herself, "yeah, this is the perfect opportunity I've been waiting for all my life." And the result is more girls waiting longer to have sex. Pretty underhanded, if you ask me. Especially given that it increases a girl's anxiety, and mucks up her ability to actually enjoy having sex.
#4 "everyone's doing it"
There's no two ways about this one. If you ask me, "everyone's doing it" is a pretty straightforward peer pressure tactic. Of course not everybody's doing it - you know that. More importantly, it's the image of "doing it" that's propped up as the social ideal. Well, you can lie about that just as well as anyone! (Well, okay, maybe not).
