Bluebird of happiness

This isn't nec. what you wanted, but I have to leave a comment because my answers won't fit in the text box. x_x Two points for consideration:

1) I answered "no" because a sensible fixed chronological age (whatever that is), biological maturity (puberty), and emotional maturity are not interchangeable and not even simultaneous in many people. Ideally someone should have met all three criteria before becoming sexually active.

2) I think the "bases" notion is kind of antiquated and doesn't really reflect the order in which most people experiment with sex anymore...and it's pretty heteronormative. So even if I were to take a hard-line stance of "no sex before age A", sexuality to me is such a fluid concept that it would be impossible to put age constraints on the various activities individually -- what feels like "okay" vs. "going too far" is going to vary for different people.

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Yeah, I agree with you wrt bases, and actually find the whole idea of virginity kind of irrelevant to modern conceptualizations of sex, making the term "sexually active" harder to define; but it's the most convenient shorthand when I don't feel like doing a 500 question purity test here ;).

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Oh, and just a note for your readership (and you!) -- it's not actually possible to fill out a poll anonymously. Anyone who votes needs to use their LJ account to do so, although I suppose they could create a dummy account just for the purposes of voting in the poll...(seems like a lot of work though!) [See FAQ (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=69)]

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She may have meant "anonymously" in the sense that results are visible to "none", so none of the rest of us know who answered what.

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leora.livejournal.com

I'm either not understanding you clearly or you're not making sense. I'm not sure which. Who can post in a poll is independently settable versus who can see the results. She set the results to none, so even if it were friends-only answering, she would still be the only one who could see the results, and so it'd be equally anonymous if people used their own accounts. A dummy account is the only way I can think of to thus answer anonymously.

Anyhow, I do fully support hitting people who say that young people cannot know real love.

Also, my views don't fully fit into the textbox. Basically, I feel that it shouldn't be set by age. And I'm open to the possibility of a situation with a person of almost any age being able to engage in something I'd call sex that would be perfectly acceptable. However, I do feel that for practical reasons we need to set limits that may, every now and then, unfairly make a moral action illegal because otherwise we would have no way to protect against vasts amounts of immoral actions.

Just as it is sometimes completely acceptable to have sex with someone who is drunk or asleep, but unless consent was gained in advance (either in a general or specific case sense) it should be illegal. Having sex with someone who was far too drunk to give informed consent with no prior consent should not be condoned just because in some cases the person will guess correctly about the person's wishes, attitudes, desires, etc.

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Actually, no, it was just me misunderstanding the possibilities of anonymity; if I'd realized anonymity was impossible, I'd have kept it friends-only. Oh well. :)

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ksledge.livejournal.com

if you're interested, I have opinions on the matter, but I won't fill out the poll because you only want your real friends to.

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Sure, go ahead and respond. I have responses from two *total* strangers skewing my results, and you and I at least have one acquaintance in common at this point! ;) (A friend of yours who RA'd at Penn came to visit UW-Madison this past weekend; she was really cool and had complimentary things to say about you. :) )

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ksledge.livejournal.com

I just talked to Melissa last night. She's about 95% likely to come to Wisconsin! She absolutely LOVED her time there. I'm so happy for her. I have not yet decided where I will be attending graduate school next year....

I responded to the poll. Basically I said there is no hard-set limit. However, if I had to choose an age, I think people start to get ready for kissing at around 12 (but for some more like 14 or older) and that they start to get ready for sex around 16, but for some more like 20 is a good age. In general, out of the people I know, those who first had sex 14-17ish had MUCH less enjoyable "first time experiences" than those who had sex for the first time when they were 18-23ish.

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That's interesting data - the fact that the 14-17-year-olds you know were less happy about it. I'm all about encouraging people to make choices based on empirical data about what tends to make people happiest - I'm just not convinced that that's what's really behind abstinence-only or abstinence-focused education.

And I'm thrilled that Melissa had such a good time here - it would be awesome to have her come to UW!

Good luck with the grad school decision yourself! - when Melissa said one of her friends had applied to 20ish places, I was like, OK, now that's just total overkill, and then she mentioned it was ~you~ and I thought, Right, with the fiance and the law school, and then 20 places looked less like overkill and more like a prudent but unbelievably painful chore. :/ I hope you guys have matched at some good places!!

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ksledge.livejournal.com

yeah, abstinence-only/focused education is about religion/morals, etc. It's not about being happy, so kids who are ready (mature, in very serious, monogamous relationships for a long period of time) are still discouraged from having sex, whereas if I were to meet a responsible young couple of high school seniors or whatever in that situation, I'd say go for it (with protection of course!) Most or many of the people who have sex for the first time when they are 14-17 are not in the right relationships. Some of them know they aren't in love but don't think that it's important for having sex, but then after the fact wish they had been in love. Some of them think they are in love but later change their minds about it and wish they hadn't had sex. This is still of course true of older virgins, but more often these older individuals have a more mature outlook on their selves and their relationships.
For the record, I also think that emotional maturity for sex almost always comes after physical maturity.

As for me, yeah, I'm well known in the psychology world now for my over-applying to schools. We are now VERY happy that we applied to so many places. We haven't heard from almost all of the law schools, but we do have one match that is actually my top choice, but it's not near his top choice. So, we're waiting on hearing from the rest of the law schools to see what other matches we get and whether they are better than the one we have already. Luckily I've been aggressive about making decisions and eliminating schools as we get news, because I don't want to be an asshole by applying to so many places (and therefore hanging on to many admissions slots).

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drspiff.livejournal.com

I got in two questions and had a problem because I think it's possible that you can agree there is an age where the line is drawn but that it varies with levels of individual developement. i.e. not all 13 year-olds are the same. I'll do my best anyway.

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drspiff.livejournal.com

NEVERMIND. Reading through to the end I now get how I should answer question #1.

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I said yes there is an age. I don't know what it is, and it may vary. So maybe I should have said no. Clearly at some age people aren't really equipped to make good decisions. 9 year olds don't choose what to eat, otherwise it would be all candy and ice cream. That's really my only concern.

Yes the bases is not the best sex metaphor. Although the way I know it is not really heteronormative, but we may know slightly different versions. In college we came up with a much better "dot system" but that's another story...

I'll admit to doing things totally out of order. Pretty much backward. (3,2,1,4 I think).

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So I'm not sure what it means to say, "yes there's an age," independent of having an actual, nonvarying age ;).

Perhaps what you mean is that there's a maturity level one should reach first. I definitely agree with that, and I have to tell you there isn't a lot of support for it in the broader culture. At least, there's not a lot of support for the notion that readiness may vary.

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kirin

It's always fascinatingly disturbing how many things that are glaringly obvious to me have "not a lot of support in the broader culture".

Although I wonder, is it *really* true that most people don't believe that readiness may vary at all, or is it just that there's an implicit unquestioned assumption that you have to pick an age so that you can legislate/make rules/etc.?

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That's not quite what I meant. What I meant was that many people assume that there are ages below which having sex means that there is something wrong with you, and also that there are ages above which not having sex means that there is something wrong with you. I guess it's not necessarily that people have hard age limits - but their willingness to tolerate deviance outside of a particular range, maybe 15 for the lower and 21 for the upper (at a guess), seems to me to be quite low. (Then again, my experiences are guaranteed not to be a random sample, &c &c.)

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Yes. If you do not have sex on the ninth day after your 17th birthday, you are SCARRED FOREVER.

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I am so fucked. :)

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...or not, as the case may be. ^_-

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kirin

Ack... Ok, I think I filled it out in the way that will be most useful to you, and I'll elaborate here.

I ended up putting "No", with "People mature at different rates...", though I'd also want to emphasize mental maturity over physical. I also think "make their own decisions" applies, and in fact takes over completely once some (impossible to quantify) baseline of mental maturity is reached.

Given the question's wording, I was tempted to answer "Yes" and select the lowest available age for all other choices, simply because I have never seen and never expect to see a six year old who is mentally and physically prepared for a sexual relationship. But that would be pedantic and skew the averages, so I refrained.

Also, I've never been able to remember what all the bases are anyway.

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darlox.livejournal.com

I don't think I can answer the poll as stated for two reasons -- one because of the confounding factors that don't lend themselves well to absolutes. Two, because *sheepish look* I can't honestly remember what all the Bases translate to in reality...

I have to comment on the comments -- I've seen the word "Heteronormative" twice in the comments here. Aside from factors such as the gender breakdown of the neighborhood you live in, if you're talking about "playing doctor" after school, I'm curious why anyone would perceive underage sex as a orientation-related issue? Is there an argument that boys might be _ready_ to screw around with other boys at a different age than they would with girls, or vice-versa?

As for the overall question, yes. I think there is a definite age before which nobody should be sexually active, and agree with the earlier poster that drew the analogy that if you let a 9y/o choose their own menu, they'd eat nothing but candy.

I think it's very feasable and reasonable to say that there is a wide range of ages where a kid might be "ready". However, just because they're ready, still doesn't mean it's a good idea based on a zillion other factors. When it comes to restriction of liberties and rights, and penalties therein, I'll fight to the death for anybody who gets smacked down at age 18+ for any civil liberties. (Note, I'm not saying they have no rights... shelter, food, protection from abuse, etc...) However, prior to that, IMHO, kids HAVE no liberties other than the ones they earn through the graces of their parents, and I can't imagine, speaking as a prospective parent, how a preteen/teen could possibly earn the right to be sexually active until they're out of my house, and generally supportive of themselves.

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I can answer two of your questions in one shot, I think... :D

As one of the people who brought up the term "heteronormative," I was using it specifically to refer to the "base system" of sexual conquest, not to sexual activity in general. For one, it's something that's traditionally been said by boys to other boys, within the language of conquest -- "I got to third base with her last night! Whoo!" -- although I suppose in more recent years girls use it too...I never did, I just used the colloquial terms for the acts to describe what I'd been doing. :D

At any rate, the "base system" as I learned it (perhaps, as Rich mentioned, it differs by region) was:
1st base - kissing
2nd base - hand-on-chest action (though there were local differences on whether that meant over-the-bra or under-the-bra)
3rd base - hand-on-genital action (I guess in other regions this is replaced with oral sex? Anyway that's how I learned it)
home plate - full-on PIV intercourse

So you can see why this is a heteronormative system -- unless I've been sorely misled by my gay friends, two boys aren't going to see touching each others' chests as a huge hallmark of sexual activity; and for lesbians, restricting the notion of "sex" to PIV intercourse is completely missing the point.

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It's true this version of the system is definitly built on the assumption of guy on gal action. Party why we forward thinking individuals spent much time coming up with more elaborate and amusing metaphors for sexual activity ;)

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I want to hear about this "dot system" of yours sometime. =D

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darlox.livejournal.com

*shrug* I dunno... I think the bases as a meterstick of activity are probably just obscuring the actual issue. Unless you've got a couple of 1st-class hornballs that go from zero to 69 in under 10 seconds, there's going to be SOME natural progression of activity.

I never recall kissing being a "base". I seem to conjure up Jr. High memories of 1=top, 2=bottom, 3=oral, 4=the old bump'n'grind.

Kissing, especially, opens this conversation up much wider than it already is. From a cultural perspective, 1st base by that definition is how you say hello! (Of course, just because I'm not aware of a culture where crotch-grabbing isn't a commonly accepted greeting, doesn't mean there ISN'T one, I guess...) ;)

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Eeep...the (I thought!) automatic implication there was French kissing. If it were just chaste closed-mouth kissing, I'd really have to take issue with the poll results, 'cause I did that in preschool...

There is certainly going to be some natural progression, whatever order it winds up being in. I'm just saying the "base" classification as a benchmark for that progression comes with its own issues. If the poll had been "how old before kissing / top-touching / bottom-touching / oral / penetration (with whatever parts or devices)", I still would have responded to the poll as I did, but I probably wouldn't have left my first comment to this post. ^_^

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I kissed a girl (closed mouth) in first grade all the time. On the hand. She liked it, so I kept doing it. Once the authorities got wind of it I got in trouble for it.

I just had a waaay too long convo with someone who just couldn't get around the fact that kissing is considered differently in some cultures. She thought it was just plain wrong for people to just it as a greeting. She thought it was just automatically sexual and therefore inappropraite.

The base metaphor is just an aside. Though there is the whole issue of what's considered sexual and how sexual. Some things are considered more advanced than others.

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I don't think anyone is saying that the concept of a natural progression is heteronormative; I think they're saying that the particular activities chosen for each base only make sense in a heterosexual context (and thus imply that we're all heterosexual here).

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Wow, if people say "young people can't know real love" I will have to HIT THEM.

Also, um, er, looking at those ages people specify...um...er...yeah. Oops!

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Wow, if people say "young people can't know real love" I will have to HIT THEM.

I think you're well aware that there are many people in this world who believe it, although they may not read my LJ ;)

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Let us HIT THEM ALL.

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