Overcautious on TCS? - Page 2

I'm so sorry for all of you.

Here it's quite normal to start having sex at 14-16. I do agree that teens are often too open on the net. I also think that the US way is sometimes a bit too uptight. I'm happy with the TCS policy anyway.

I'm not sure if "uptight" is the right word here. I think that we're extremely obsessed with sex in this country, and that it is because we're completely unwilling to talk about it candidly and naturally.

Look at these anecdotes, for instance:

1. a friend of mine kept trying to hide the condoms she was trying to buy at he drug store and she was being really weird about waiting in line for checkout and made a huge deal about having to use the self-checkout lane. When I said to her "Why are you being so weird? People have sex. It's pretty normal and widespread," she looked at me like I was crazy.

2. I have 4 words for you: Abstinence-Only Sex Education.

And yet...

3. There are always half naked women on my TV and people having sex in music videos
and
4. Industries like the porn industry are huge and people feel the need to anonymously solicit people online.

I feel like we're completely unrealistic about sex. It's totally normal and natural. It's nothing we need to hide from our children or each other. In fact, in my humble opinion, we could fix many of the problems we have not only with teen pregnancy and STD's but also with relationships and sexual deviance and violence if we divorced all of this mysticism and stigma from sex. Sex isn't a bad thing for anyone who's mature and educated, but the U.S. is, on the whole, neither. Why can't we just talk about it candidly and realistically. When a person turns about 13, their hormones are telling them to have sex. Obviously, it needs to be talked about before then or the kid is going to be relying on the media for all of their info, not to mention the conflicting messages they're getting from their parents, teachers and religious figures.

Ok, I'm done hijacking this thread. Ryn just got me started

(warning: I got long winded...)

Brava! You hit it exactly. Another thing to add is that even a century or so ago people got married AT 13 or 14. Look at Shakespeare's time. As soon as a girl hit puberty, she was married off. As we grew more technologically advanced over the past century or so, we also got more (dare I say it) paranoid about the kids growing up too soon. We made rules to keep our kids under the parent's control as long as humanly possible. It's all over, but REALLY prevalent here in the US. Now the trends are of people getting married later and later (I'm 33 and choose not to be married... I honestly don't care if I ever do), because of a variety of reasons. Trying to delay maturity is having some serious effects on society.

Our great-grandparents and on back all got hitched at VERY young ages. Why? becuase that's just how it was done. That was the societal norm. Now we delay and delay until it's nearly too late. Those delays are really showing in Japan (saw something on TV... I watch way too much) where women are refusing to get married (the reasons are because they want a career and not just be the good little wife, same thing here in the US, but on a much smaller scale and it's showing quicker there). They're showing a decline in population. Not as many girls are having babies in Japan. There's one area, more rural, where the local government folk are paying women to have babies. And it's some decent cash. I think over the next hundred years or so, we're going to see a population decline... not just from disease, but from a lack of babies being born. Yes, there are some women making LOTS of babies... they're considered odd because they have 10 or 15 kids, but that was commonplace a hundred years ago... it was out of necessity, because the survival rate back then was low, but also because we were more of an agricultural society and the men needed homegrown farmhands. You didn't do high school... you finished at 8th grade and went to work. Of course those 8th graders were a helluva lot smarter and eduated than mondern day 8th graders.

Okay, that's so off topic... but I just kept typing... here's my attempt to keep it within the topic at hand:

We, as a modern society, have gotten continually more spoiled and advanced. We hold on to our kids longer, we're afraid to teach them about sex. Sex being something their great-grandparents were already well-versed in by their age. In fact they were having babies and being responsible parents by 15.

i don't have any answers... I'm not a mom... but if that opportunity is given to me, I would do my damnedest to educate my child on as much as possible, including sex. Don't just hand them some sorry little book about it. Talk to them. They have to grow up and be an adult before too long. Why not give them a heads-up. I think why kids are having sex at 13 or 14 nowadays is out of curiousity. Yes, there is peer pressure, but they don't know what the hell they're doing, so they're naturally curious. Who wouldn't be? If my parents hadn't been so d**n puritanical, I probably would have gotten more curious that early.

Anyone remember the TV show Dharma & Greg? Dharma was awesome! Greg and his family really represented modern society. Dharma was very laid back and comfortabel about sex and love. Of course having hippie parents like those two certainly helped. Although in reality, many children of hippie parents went the exact opposite. i still love that show... i catch the repeats every so often.

Okay, I'm going to go make my dinner now. Something I should have started an hour ago.

Did anything I've said make sense? I do tend to ramble.

I'm going! Really. I'll check back later.

Amanda

You may want to consider a product such as Cybersitter to help keep track and protect your son. There are also a couple other products out there that can even limit when they canget on and for how long too!
Net Nanny
CyberPatrol even offers a free 14 day trial!

Really its getting to this day and age where we almost have to lock our children into their rooms until their 18! Even that won't teach them how to avoid perverts.

Do schools have programs now on internet chatting? I.e. how to avoid internet villians? Just curious...if not that SHOULD be part of the curriculim.
It does disgust me though, thinking back to when I first sat in a chat room and how many people I gave my email address to. Even online dating...I had too many stalkers from that!
I know I may appear to be snobbish by not posting all of my info, but really if there were any weirdos on this site, then I don't want them IM'ing me and stuff.

Better to be over cautious than not cautious enough.

I agree that the restrictions for minors on this site has to help, at least a little bit.

But, I'd say it isn't always the kid's fault that they give out too much info. It may seem like common sense to us, but seriously, how much common sense DO they have at that age? Yes, some can be ignorant, but others just give out too much info just because they aren't aware of the dangers of it, & they don't know how easy it can be for somebody to find them with the info they give out. So please, don't stereotype and blame it totally on them.

(My opinion...)

Nobody is blaming anybody. We have discussed this issue so many times behind the scenes and it was finally decided to be proactive about trying to protect the minors here. Is it foolproof? No, it's not. But it is now a set rule and we do all we can to uphold it regardless.

I think the minor rules on here are great once I understood them

OMG, how horrible for both you and your friend. It's sickening when people in a position of power abuse their trustworthiness.

On the other hand, I'm so happy to hear you've had therapy and are able to have a good relationship with your fiancee. Congratulations.

Let the hijack continue a while longer:

OK, you have a point, scitzophrenic might be a better word?

In comparison: On one of my Finnish boards we have mile long topics like "Differend nicknames for penis and vagina" (I'm allowed to say those words here, right?) and "What are your sexual preferences?", underage posters participating just like adults. The topics contain nothing pornographic (ie stuff meant to excite), just good humoured chit chat.

Thank you for your kind message. I really am an advocate of therapy. As for him and my former principle I will never forgive either of them. I was in a British high school where you would think this would be a firable offence, but the teacher was Scottish and I am Arabic guess who they believed?

Sorry I went off topic

What are you doing looking for "someones email who's under 18 on this site."? Their email addresses are not available.