February 23, 2010
The Sky Is Blue; Sexual Content Encourages Sex
The unfortunate thing is that parents must learn the truth of this through experience.
Authoritative parents also restrict their children's exposure to sexual content in the media (music, television, movies and Internet). It is well documented that exposure to explicit sexual images and lyrics accelerates the onset of sexual debut among adolescents. Authoritative parents will enforce a zero-tolerance drug and alcohol policy, and educate their children about the relationship between substance use impaired judgment and an increased incidence of sexual activity. Authoritative parents know their children's friends, and their children's friends' parents, and work together to monitor social activities.
The scary thing is that there are people who'll dispute some or all of Michelle Cretella's advice.
"It is well documented that exposure to explicit sexual images and lyrics accelerates the onset of sexual debut among adolescents."
I exposed myself to all the explicit sexual images and lyrics I could find and still couldn't talk anybody into having sex with me.
Posted by: michael at February 23, 2010 6:04 PMMichael:
Then give yourself a hand!
Posted by: John at February 23, 2010 6:13 PMSexually active boys are more than seven times as likely to have attempted suicide as compared with sexually abstinent boys ?? SEVEN TIMES ?
Dr Cretella has been known to make-up
facts, to fit her arguement.
It could be that sexually active boys are seven times more likely to be draged on stage at the Republican National Convention, by their mother-inlaw to be (or not to be)
In a previous LTE she claimed that sexually active homosexual boys were 4 times more likely to have attempted suicide.
Posted by: Jeff at February 23, 2010 7:37 PM"I exposed myself to all the explicit sexual images and lyrics I could find and still couldn't talk anybody into having sex with me."
I know the feeling, when I wanted to "play doctor" all the girls wanted to be nurses.
Posted by: Warrington Faust at February 23, 2010 8:22 PMI think it's the depressed kids who turn to sex, drugs, alcohol, and smoking, not the other way around. More research is in-order!
That's what I observed in my high school days, at least. The sad and strange kids (myself included, full disclosure) were the ones looking to boost their serotonin levels by any means possible. The 'normal' kids all seemed to want to play sports all the time, and were perfectly content with 'grades' and other such nonsense.
Sure, there might be a feedback loop in there, since sex, drugs, alcohol, and smoking aren't long-term ways to stay happy, but blaming depression on sex seems far-fetched and out of touch with my experience. It would certainly explain the wistful look in the eyes of many of my married friends when a beautiful stranger walks by, though. :-)
Posted by: mangeek at February 23, 2010 8:47 PM"I exposed myself to all the explicit sexual images and lyrics I could find and still couldn't talk anybody into having sex with me."
I know the feeling, when I wanted to "play doctor" all the girls wanted to be nurses.
Posted by: Warrington Faust at February 23, 2010 9:04 PMWarrington, the joke was so good, you just had to tell it twice?
Posted by: Patrick at February 23, 2010 9:28 PM"Warrington, the joke was so good, you just had to tell it twice?"
No. having trouble posting.The "progress bar" doesn't seem to move.
I was lucky enough to go to parochial schools for the first ten years and then on to two years of the worst high school in existence at that time, Central Falls High School.
Sex education then was more of a biology lesson than anything and even though it was a horrible school, we had ZERO suicides, ZERO pregnancies and ZERO std reports.
Why? Parents taught their kids through examples, a bit of instilled fear and oddly enough, a demand for respect where the children wouldn't want to disappoint their parents, they wanted to please them as all good kids do.
Parents weren't the 'friends' of their kids, they were the 'parent'.
I blame produce for the failing sex education in America.
Seems to me that all the pregnancy, std and suicide problems started with the banana/condom shows.
Posted by: Roland at February 23, 2010 11:58 PM'The "progress bar" doesn't seem to move.'
Damn straight, the Nick'a'Nees is staying right where it's always been.
Posted by: mangeek at February 23, 2010 11:59 PM My experience as a teen (I enjoyed the occasional drink and smoke, although I got about as lucky as Michael did) was that the people who were the most absolutely committed to staying clean and sober often ended up having trouble with drugs and alcohol a few years down the road.
Not saying abstinence education doesn't work sometimes, but that it's no guarantee the clean and sober teen won't become a drunk, high and sex-crazed 22-year-old (and not have any more maturity to handle it than the drunk, high and sex-crazed 16-year-old). Delayed gratification gets out of control, too.
Then why are Catholic girls so slutty?
Posted by: Dan at February 24, 2010 12:26 AMI haven't seen any studies,mainly because I really don't much care,but I would bet teenage male homosexuals aren't as likely to commit suicide nowadays over what used to be the trauma of being "found out"years ago when I was growing up.
In this day and age it's not such a big deal-people are saying openly that they're "gay"(talk about a word losing its original context forever)and the general reaction is "so what?".A lot of teenagers kill themselves over rejection,whether they are straight or homosexual.Sometimes there are distinct warning signs,sometimes there aren't.
I don't know what the mere fact of being sexually active has to do with it.
Sexual material was severely restrited in the 50's when I was a kid-the 60's changed things kinda radically by the end of the decade.
What didn't change was peoples' sex drive.It was just more in the open.