Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
...the over sexualization of our youth is a big issue.
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This has me curious.
As a life-long Evangelical Christian I am well aware with what this means and how it plays out, and at the heart of it is a fundamental distrust and practical revulsion for normal, human sexuality. However, to the conservative Christian, this is misconstrued as protection of the sacredness of human sexuality. Because sex is a sacrament, it is carefully constrained and controlled within the strictures of religious regulations. At the heart of it is the suspicion that as fantastic as sex is, it is also something terribly dangerous.
Growing up as an Evangelical, I don't think there is a single thing for which I suffered more angst than the ongoing, relentless impossibility of keeping my own lust and sexual curiosity in check. I was constantly reminded about the supreme sacredness of sex in church, and then constantly overwhelmed by a barrage of internalised failures for my inability to restrain my very active imagination. In my experience the "over sexualisation" of youth was a product of my own guilt, for my own inability to repress my very natural attraction. It was an agonising cycle of desire and self-loathing.
This was (and I believe it still is) compounded in my religious circle by the added unreasonable responsibility that was foisted upon me to "protect" the virtue of my future, ambivalent spouse, who would surely suffer for my premarital foundering. The success and satisfaction of my yet-to-be realised lifelong partnership to my wife was utterly dependant upon my mastery of my own adolescent desire.
The good news is that I got over it. But I often wonder about the social conditions behind my experience as they compare to others from vastly different upbringings. As I said, the anxiety I grew up with was part of the expectation that sex was SO dangerous that any missteps had the potential to ruin not just my life, but the lives of those who I love.
The "over sexualisation of our youth" is a perpetuation of this same fear, but how rational is this fear?
Is adolescent sex dangerous? In every circumstance? Does it produce long-term consequences for anyone but those who grew to fear it?
I am a firm believer (and I teach my own kids) that sexual experimentation before adulthood(?) is not altogether smart, and is best reserved for a time when they are mature enough to handle the potential consequences. But how much of this is a projection of my own anxieties that I was raised with?