8 ms·

Why is sex inappropriate for young people? I'm not trying to troll. I've genuinely never heard a good, logical answer. It seems to be a feeling people have, an

by qqq 18y ago

Why is sex inappropriate for young people? I'm not trying to troll. I've genuinely never heard a good, logical answer. It seems to be a feeling people have, and I'm curious if there is a reason behind it. Of course there are dangers like adult pedophiles, but supposing those were avoided... Perhaps it's better to consider just the case of seeing sex, not participating, and having play/pause/stop buttons in the child's control. People loathe that, but I'm not quite sure what harm is done besides the vague idea of "loss of innocence".

Hexstream 18y ago
Was I the only one to think sex was disgusting and immoral when I was young? (like, 5 years old)
- qqq 18y ago
  I think that's common. Most young kids wouldn't want anything to do with sex. In all of those cases, the prohibition on them having anything to do with sex is kinda useless/redundant.
- cabalamat 18y ago
  When I was 15 I thought the idea of anyone over 20 doing it was disgusting. :-) But that's not quite what you meant.
- elai 18y ago
  Kids that age say things like "why are they eating each other" or "eeeeew, boy germs/cooties" or things like that.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
there are dangers like adult pedophiles, but supposing those were avoided... When trying to explain why the cultural taboo exists, I'm not sure you get to elide that problem. How do you "avoid" these dangers? Societies try to do so by inventing cultural taboos! Sex is inappropriate for children because (society presumes) most of them are not equipped to say no and make it stick. They lack the emotional, financial, and legal resources to "break up" with abusive or manipulative lovers -- particularly if those lovers are adults, and most particularly if those adults are family members. (Note that, by this logic, sex is also inappropriate for a lot of adults. And there might be some people who are legally "children" who are nonetheless responsible and wise enough for sex (I certainly wasn't one, and I can't say that I've ever seen any, but it is theoretically possible... :) Like many societies, American society tries to deal with this ambiguity by defining a magic calendar age at which children legally and morally become adults. Alhough nobody ever said that this was a particularly realistic model, it's the one we've got. We do tinker with it occasionally, on a case-by-case basis.) Why sex and not, say, football? (It's a good question -- a lot of kids get hurt when they're pressured into playing football.) Probably because sex carries a particularly heavy set of practical, social, and emotional consequences that are difficult to separate from it. (Birth control helps a lot, but it is not enough, as many AIDS patients and stalking victims know.)
- qqq 18y ago
  So, why the taboo on letting 14 year olds rent/buy porn DVDs? Are you saying it's an irrational taboo? Or a rational taboo? Is using 18 as the magic age for buying porn really the best we can do?
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    I've suggested a rationale for the taboo, but I don't think there is such a thing as a "rational taboo". That's not how they work. The whole point of a taboo is that it doesn't require, or even allow, much rational thought. That's a design feature. The problem with rational decision-making as a universal strategy is that people can be really bad at it. Especially when they really want to hit on that hot 14-year-old, or stab their bastard half-brother, or eat that triple cheeseburger. You'd be amazed at the kind of "logic" that people can apply in a situation like that. Or when the data that's required to make a rational decision is outside their personal experience. (If every generation had to experiment with living in the swamp -- losing half its population to malaria in the process -- it would be a lot less efficient than a simple taboo against swamp dwelling.) So, yeah, it's irrational. Sometimes that is a good thing. More often you need to use some applied hypocrisy to keep your taboos aligned with reality. And sometimes it's time to chuck the old taboos and develop some shiny new ones. In the particular case of 14 year olds and porn DVDs? Technology is moving so fast that the taboos can't keep up. Only a few decades ago it was taboo for fifty-year-olds to rent porn DVDs -- read Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness for examples. That is changing very, very quickly thanks to the Internet, which has eroded the porn taboo pretty thoroughly. Who cares about DVDs anymore? We've only just woken up to discover that every 14-year-old in America has a free porn machine sitting on his or her desk, and social norms are struggling to catch up with that.
    - qqq 18y ago
      thanks.
ahoyhere 18y ago
I meant as "the having of sex" not "being aware of / seeing images of sex". I found out about sex at an early age too (thanks, Internet!) and it didn't twist me. I'm with you on the general demonisation of sex-under-18. But I don't think I'd want my 7yo having sex. Not even with another 7yo. If that were possible.

by qqq 18y ago

Hexstream 18y ago

Was I the only one to think sex was disgusting and immoral when I was young? (like, 5 years old)

qqq 18y ago
I think that's common. Most young kids wouldn't want anything to do with sex. In all of those cases, the prohibition on them having anything to do with sex is kinda useless/redundant.
cabalamat 18y ago
When I was 15 I thought the idea of anyone over 20 doing it was disgusting. :-) But that's not quite what you meant.
elai 18y ago
Kids that age say things like "why are they eating each other" or "eeeeew, boy germs/cooties" or things like that.

mechanical_fish 18y ago

there are dangers like adult pedophiles, but supposing those were avoided... When trying to explain why the cultural taboo exists, I'm not sure you get to elide that problem. How do you "avoid" these dangers? Societies try to do so by inventing cultural taboos! Sex is inappropriate for children because (society presumes) most of them are not equipped to say no and make it stick. They lack the emotional, financial, and legal resources to "break up" with abusive or manipulative lovers -- particularly if those lovers are adults, and most particularly if those adults are family members. (Note that, by this logic, sex is also inappropriate for a lot of adults. And there might be some people who are legally "children" who are nonetheless responsible and wise enough for sex (I certainly wasn't one, and I can't say that I've ever seen any, but it is theoretically possible... :) Like many societies, American society tries to deal with this ambiguity by defining a magic calendar age at which children legally and morally become adults. Alhough nobody ever said that this was a particularly realistic model, it's the one we've got. We do tinker with it occasionally, on a case-by-case basis.) Why sex and not, say, football? (It's a good question -- a lot of kids get hurt when they're pressured into playing football.) Probably because sex carries a particularly heavy set of practical, social, and emotional consequences that are difficult to separate from it. (Birth control helps a lot, but it is not enough, as many AIDS patients and stalking victims know.)

qqq 18y ago
So, why the taboo on letting 14 year olds rent/buy porn DVDs? Are you saying it's an irrational taboo? Or a rational taboo? Is using 18 as the magic age for buying porn really the best we can do?
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  I've suggested a rationale for the taboo, but I don't think there is such a thing as a "rational taboo". That's not how they work. The whole point of a taboo is that it doesn't require, or even allow, much rational thought. That's a design feature. The problem with rational decision-making as a universal strategy is that people can be really bad at it. Especially when they really want to hit on that hot 14-year-old, or stab their bastard half-brother, or eat that triple cheeseburger. You'd be amazed at the kind of "logic" that people can apply in a situation like that. Or when the data that's required to make a rational decision is outside their personal experience. (If every generation had to experiment with living in the swamp -- losing half its population to malaria in the process -- it would be a lot less efficient than a simple taboo against swamp dwelling.) So, yeah, it's irrational. Sometimes that is a good thing. More often you need to use some applied hypocrisy to keep your taboos aligned with reality. And sometimes it's time to chuck the old taboos and develop some shiny new ones. In the particular case of 14 year olds and porn DVDs? Technology is moving so fast that the taboos can't keep up. Only a few decades ago it was taboo for fifty-year-olds to rent porn DVDs -- read Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness for examples. That is changing very, very quickly thanks to the Internet, which has eroded the porn taboo pretty thoroughly. Who cares about DVDs anymore? We've only just woken up to discover that every 14-year-old in America has a free porn machine sitting on his or her desk, and social norms are struggling to catch up with that.
  - qqq 18y ago
    thanks.

ahoyhere 18y ago

I meant as "the having of sex" not "being aware of / seeing images of sex". I found out about sex at an early age too (thanks, Internet!) and it didn't twist me. I'm with you on the general demonisation of sex-under-18. But I don't think I'd want my 7yo having sex. Not even with another 7yo. If that were possible.