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True Love Waits (‘Til 16.3 Years of Age)

Lauren

Turns out evangelical teens are as slutty as the rest of us:

Teenagers who identify as “evangelical” or “born again” are highly likely to sound like the girl at the bar; 80 percent think sex should be saved for marriage. But thinking is not the same as doing. Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7 for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had three or more sexual partners by age 17: Regnerus reports that 13.7 percent of evangelicals have, compared with 8.9 percent for mainline Protestants.

Sit down before you break your neck getting to church, Little Johnny, because part of this is due to a verbiage issue. With the advent of megachurches, the number of people identifying as “evangelical” has grown even if their values don’t match the churches they attend.

Further, as the research has been telling us, even though evangelical parents tend to talk to their kids about not having sex, even the True Love Waits crowd gives in to the urge and when they do so they’re less likely to use protection than less motivated virgins.

In a quiz on pregnancy and health risks associated with sex, evangelicals scored very low. Evangelical teens don’t accept themselves as people who will have sex until they’ve already had it. As a result, abstinence pledgers are considerably less likely than nonpledgers to use birth control the first time they have sex. “It just sort of happened,” one girl told the researchers, in what could be a motto for this generation of evangelical teens.

So, abstinence-only philosophy works, except when it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t it’s more dangerous than doing it, so to speak, with contraceptives.

(via Chaos Theory)

58 thoughts on True Love Waits (‘Til 16.3 Years of Age)

  1. I read this article this morning, and while the results of the study deserve wider circulation, I have MAJOR problem with the way the author (Hanna Somebody, who I assume is female) frames the story–from a teen male’s perspective: “who can I trick/goad/ into ‘giving it up’ for me?” He spies a pretty blonde object talking about Jesus and thinks “nope”, but we learn that she is indeed likely to put out. No word on her desire, though, because sex is something that women give to men.

  2. Agreed on the male desire thing, but I think the author was trying to mimic/mock the traditional and/or evangelical view of sex and desire to some extent. I could be wrong.

  3. Nothing new from fundamentalists:

    Against premarital sex … unless it’s for them.

    Against abortion … unless it’s for them.

    Against drinking … unless it’s for them.

  4. 17-year-old from Florida who calls herself nonreligious…who estimates she’s had 10 or 11 sexual partners.

    Huh? That’s impressive, but it seems like a bit of an exaggeration if the author is trying to lump all nonreligious people together…

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  6. I’m 18. I think I’ve had about 11 partners. That’s… hm… 3-4 partners a year since I started having sex, on average.

    Gosh, sex every 3 months sure is skanky. *eyeroll*

  7. JW, I agree, and it’s not just the prose. Though this isn’t the title, on slate’s homepage, the blurb for the article currently reads “do religious girls have more sex?” (emphasis mine)

  8. Lord save these children from the Devil and his sins of the flesh! Save them Lord Jesus, heal them! HEAL them!

    Okay, so I’m a little rusty on my Evangelical Minister Impression. Oh well, there are worse things in life. –Like being raised Evangelical.

  9. Nothing new from fundamentalists:

    Against premarital sex … unless it’s for them.

    Against abortion … unless it’s for them.

    Against drinking … unless it’s for them.

    This reminds me of a story — and I love to tell a story, so this one’s free. Back in the Old Country, we got a joke goes a little something like this:

    How come you always take two Baptists when you go fishing?

    ’cause if you just take one, he’ll drink all your damn beer.

  10. Hmm. This is interesting.

    The ‘special and embattled’ part is particularly interesting, because as a atheistic little feminist teen, I waited. And I did feel special and embattled, but I was, as stated, an atheist. Hmm.

  11. Thank you, Lauren. I tried earlier, in a different thread, to call attention to this research.

    We’re evanluth, with three twentysomething sons, and back in the day, the best, the very best we could do was demand accountability, and respect. One go-round each at the kitchen table was sufficient to impress on our sons their responsibilities to the young women they were pursuing.

    We had no choice but to accept the reality that our seventeen year old sons were in love and active. (The eldest got started much earlier, and remains single and popular with the ladies. So tired of it)

    I want one, just one of these evangelical promoters of ignorance to tell us how our family would be better off had we not rejected abstinence education, and instead insisted on telling the truth to our children.

    For fuck’s sake, get off our damn backs! We may not have been able to hold our sons to “spiritual” ideals we ourselves blew off, but we sure as hell prevented major heartache and yes, any piss poor conduct on the part of our children.

    .

  12. There’s always my favorite religious joke:

    What are the principal differences between the religions?

    Jews don’t recognize Jesus, Protestants don’t recognize the Pope, and Baptists don’t recognize each other in the liquor store.

  14. I guess I used this forum to blow off some steam earlier, but damn, out here in rural podunk, the disconnect is bizarre.

    “Evangelical” based education resulting in ill-informed teenaged sexual activity and subsequent unwed reproduction is better than “evangelical” schooling fully informing offspring and resulting in childless higher ed.

    Fer cryin’ out loud, no one is saying that parents have to be happy that their kids are growing up and engaging in adult relations before the “proper time.” We did not endorse sexual activity because we educated our children AND demanded responsible behaviors.

    But you cannot convince a large segment of our rural “evangelical/baptist,” equivalent-aged parents of this, many of whom are sitting the offspring of their daughters while evangelically raised “Mom” studies for the GED. For the sake of good neighborly relations, I get to fake being impressed that “Mom” is getting her “good enuf diploma” while evangelically raised Dad may or not be in the picture.

    I know this is harsh…but I will take responsible teenaged sexual activity and the undergrad degree with honors, and we are no less evanluth for it.

    Thanks for the opportunity to rant.

  15. JW, I agree–paragraphs like this one were pretty problematic…

    I recently spent a year among some evangelical teenagers who belong to this elite minority, and I can attest to the inhuman discipline they exert over their hormones. They can spend all evening sitting on the couch holding hands and nothing more. They can date for a year, be alone numerous times in a car or at the movies, and still stick to what’s known in the Christian youth literature as “side hugs,” to avoid excessive touching. Muslims have it easy compared to them. At least in Saudi Arabia the women are all covered up, so there’s nothing to be tempted by. But among this elite corps of evangelicals, the women are breezing around in what one girl I know called “shockingly slutty conservative outfits” while the men hold their tongues. (No, they don’t hold anything else. Masturbation is strongly discouraged in the literature because it promotes selfish, lustful behavior.)

    Did it just not occur to this author that women may have some sexual decision-making power themselves? Apparently not…the way this article tells it, it’s just sheer discipline on the part of poor Romeo that keeps him from getting with every “shockingly slutty” object he knows. Evangelical girls, apparently, take a perfectly passive role–this article seems to think their sexual decisions are made by the men pursuing them.

    Yikes.

  16. Ironically, I think I can remember that the Bible discourages making pledges or promises – doing that only sets you up for a fall. Instead, you should ‘have your no mean no, and your yes mean yes’. Meaning, don’t stupidly devote yourself to something just because everyone expects you to and hope that’ll keep you pure – just simply make the informed, mature choice not to and mean it.

    If it’s one thing fundies don’t get, is that it takes moral CHOICES to keep to a behavioural code, not ‘pledging’. Problem is, choices involve thinking and analysing other possibilities. Oh no!

  17. There must be something seriously wrong with me if people being told NOT to have sex until marriage are having it at around 16 year of age. Yet Im a 19 year old atheist and cant so much as even get a girl to look twice in my direction.

    Sorry, its not my intention to be scrounging for pity here, but its just thats either a problem with me, or just plain sods law.

    But Im wondering, does that make me -a filthy savage non-believer- more pure than those little evangelical darlings, because I havent done it yet, but they have?

  18. As a former Baptist who did buy the line and wait, agonizingly, I say What the fuck?! They were all doing it? I am so pwned. I want my teenage years back, damn it!

  19. Evangelicals are obsessed with sex. Dirty, sinful, orgasmic, explosive, shuddering sex. They can’t fall to temptation to engage in throbbing, gasping, clawing, back-arching sex. Keep your thoughts pure, young fundies! Don’t spend your days dreaming of teeth-chattering, salivating, blood-vessel popping intercourse, because it’s bad! Stop it! Stop thinking that! Thing about Jesus instead, and how he is love. Not as engaging? Well, just pray harder for forgiveness. Harder.

    Deeper.

    Faster.

    (Seriously — I don’t really like this need for people to tick off their sexual experiences to make a point in threads like this, but I can say that the people I know who were raised fundamentalist were so obsessed with dirty sinful sex it turned into their entire environment).

  20. TheBends – I’m also an atheist that didn’t have sex until 19 years of age. I think I should be on a banner: “Atheism: the key to sexual purity!” and I’ll be holding a textbook on evolutionary biology. Hee hee.

    I didn’t make it until marriage, but it was a hell of a lot better than their track record. And I used 2 types of protection!

  21. TheBends — I think it’s in large part because church is a great place to meet people. I know a lot of religious people who have met their girlfriend/boyfriend there.

    (and yes, this is another atheist who was late to the whole sexual activity thing)

  22. I’m 18. I think I’ve had about 11 partners. That’s… hm… 3-4 partners a year since I started having sex, on average.

    I think stnemmoc’s point was not that this was skanky or wrong, but that it’s not (necessarily) representative of non-religious teenagers as a whole, as the author seems to be suggesting.

  23. There must be something seriously wrong with me if people being told NOT to have sex until marriage are having it at around 16 year of age. Yet Im a 19 year old atheist and cant so much as even get a girl to look twice in my direction.

    I’m not an atheist, but I’m a pretty bad Christian and I was late to the whole sex thing too. I think it’s because I didn’t go to church or youth group — that’s where the good Christian kids meet their good Christian fuck-buddies.

  24. There must be something seriously wrong with me if people being told NOT to have sex until marriage are having it at around 16 year of age. Yet Im a 19 year old atheist and cant so much as even get a girl to look twice in my direction.

    Heh, I was sort of one of those people- raised in an evangelical Christian family. But I clued in and realised the whole sex before marriage thing was bollocks (among other things), so I left the church to have lovely hot atheist sex at 17. Thankfully, with protection.

  25. Wow, that article was stunningly sexist. It was all about women’s decisions to have sex or to abstain — as though men all want sex all the time, so it’s only women’s discretion that matters. Slate: F-.

  26. Mighty Ponygirl – Google “evangelicals” and “addicted” to see the hundreds of pages referencing a study that found they are addicted to *drumroll…* PORN. Surprising? Hardly.

    Between my experience and my observations, I have concluded that the more your religion or environment keeps you sexually repressed, the more you will be obsessed with sex. (See: the entire history of the Catholic clergy.) Here’s to no repression!

    Heh… Now all I can think is “Help, help, I’m being repressed!”

  27. Crap, I just read the whole thing. I don’t get the teen boy How to Pick Up Chicks vibe to it. I like (not) how they ended it, talking about the non-religious girl: “Romeo, that’s a sure thing.” Which is such a great term to use to describe a girl. Because if she’s a sure thing, she can’t say no! Even if she says no!

    Grrrrrrrrrr…

  28. Are you sure you have read the study correctly?

    “Evangelical teens [present tense] are actually more likely to have lost [past tense] their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics.”

    Can you really conclude that ‘evangelical teens are [present tense]as slutty as the rest of us’ from this? Not if you ask about people’s current identity and relate it to their actions in the past. The idea that your identity isn’t wedded to your past is a big part of the whole born again thing.

  29. Well, so much for abstinence-only sex ed(on top of the many other studies showing that it doesn’t work):

    One study found that the pledge works better if not everyone in school takes it. The ideal conditions are a group of pledgers who form a self-conscious minority that perceives itself as special, even embattled.

    And the author seems to use “sex” and “loss of virginity” pretty interchangeably, which makes me wonder how many of the kids that supposedly keep their pledges are really demi-vierges.

  30. My favorite part was:

    Over the din, he can make out snippets of her conversation: at Bible study the other night … Pastor Ted says … saving it for marriage. Discouraged, he walks away in search of a more promising target.

    Yeah, if I were a straight guy looking to pick someone up, I’d avoid someone quoting “Pastor Ted,” because that would imply that they like gay sex while on meth. But, I don’t think that’s what they were trying to say.

  32. Yet Im a 19 year old atheist and cant so much as even get a girl to look twice in my direction.

    I’m getting from this it’s really not your choice that you’re a virgin.

    But Im wondering, does that make me -a filthy savage non-believer- more pure than those little evangelical darlings, because I havent done it yet, but they have?

    Which kind of makes this point moot, doesn’t it?

  33. I signed one of the true love waits pledge cards in (I think) 9th grade, I waited until I was 18, but that was more out of an intense fear of my father killing me if I got “caught” then any actual desire to wait. As it turns out, my rural abstinence based sex education forgot to mention how bc pills work (I thought you were covered immediately) and that the pull out method doesn’t work. 4 weeks into my first adult relationship I was three weeks pregnant and disowned. Out of my dozens of high school friends that signed pledges, I know of five who stuck to them for sure and one is my sister (who after her wedding night said something along the lines of “Why the fuck did we do that? We could have done this years ago) and one is her husband. Interestingly enough, the other three are a set of brothers. I’m sure there might be a couple more, but I know 5. Out of like 60. Not a terribly successful campaign.

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  35. This whole “how many teens are having sex” thing is a red herring. What is needs to be examined is why our society feels it is important to keep them from having sex. Because frankly, there is no reason for it. Any kid who is emotionally/physically ready to have unchaperoned, one-on-one dates with people they are attracted to should be expected to be ready for sexual contact. ‘Cause that’s what dating is for. Teen bodies know that (even evangelical ones). To quote a George Michael song, “Sex is natural, sex is fun.” All of the stuff about sex being too emotionally difficult for teens is crap. SOCIETY makes it difficult- it is not intrinsically so (unless they have sex with a real creep, or the sex is not consensual, which would be rough on anyone).

    As fun as it is to mock the hypocrite fundies, I feel it is important to try to get out the message, “You go, girl (and boy)”. “Having sex is NOT a bad thing- don’t be ashamed.” As long as we still look at this issue in the light of “failure” when teens have sex, instead of “success”, we keep the bad old societal sex-hatred alive. And I know, there is the whole health/pregnancy angle, but really, think about it. Are these sex-ignorant teens who wait until they are sex-ignorant adults to loose their virginity really any safer ?

    So, I really feel this article and others like it are wrong not only because they tend to reinforce stereotypes of women as being sexually submissive, but because they make the deviant (suppressing the sex drives of teenagers) look like the desirable norm.

  36. I think stnemmoc’s point was not that this was skanky or wrong, but that it’s not (necessarily) representative of non-religious teenagers as a whole, as the author seems to be suggesting.

    No, I didn’t mean to be insulting. I was sort of expressing admiration, but with poor wording. Anyway, I suppose it’s not really either impressive or bad.

    Yet Im a 19 year old atheist and cant so much as even get a girl to look twice in my direction.

    That’s exactly like me except I’m gay. But my situation is more dire: I’m pretty certain that I should already have had like 100 different sexual partners and like 10 different STDs if I’m ever going to catch up with these numbers.

  37. I don’t know, Neko-Onna. I think it’s dangerous to swing the pendulum back too far the other way. I don’t like sending teens who DON’T think they’re ready, or have smaller sex drives than their peers, a message that they SHOULD have sex and SHOULD want it, either. I like messages that are about individual variation and choices.

  38. I don’t think the “free love” ideal would work at all. We have absolutely horrifying STDs (AIDS and drug resistant ones) and even with birth control, even a lot of adults don’t use it properly, so people WILL get pregnant and get STDs. I mean, I wouldn’t really entrust most 13-14 year olds with making life or death decisions. In the US at least, you can’t drive until you’re 16, you can’t get most jobs until you’re 16-18, you have to be in school until you’re 16-18, you can’t open a credit card account until you’re 18 and you’re not allowed to make really dangerous choices like join the military or use alcohol and tobacco until 18/21.
    IME, the most adjusted people waited until they were at least 16 and then they were mature enough to be responsible about it.

  39. I like messages that are about individual variation and choices.

    They just did an interesting study that found that the two kinds of people who have the most sex are the most antagonistic personalities and the most friendly. When it comes to the friendly people, the theory is that they’re people who are warm and physically affectionate (the huggers of the world), so it’s likely that they view sex as just another way to express their affection.

    Me? Not a hugger. 😉

  40. I’m getting from this it’s really not your choice that you’re a virgin.

    Very perceptive of you. Yes, while I have been somewhat reserved in my attempts at looking for a sexual partner, its because I hate the idea of being one of those assholes that bugs (in my case this is) women who just arent interested. Id say Ive tried a few times, but never going over the top with it.

    Shit, maybe I should start going over the top, annoying plenty of women, appear as asshole to other people, but still perhaps get what I would like at the end of it?

    Which kind of makes this point moot, doesn’t it?

    Does it? Im not that sure to be honest. I thought I was generally writing about the irony of me wanting to find a sexual partner, but having no luck. While those evangelical teens want to wait for sex until marriage, yet still manage to fuck someone way before that time.

    That generally falls under my category of sods law, you know? Like ‘aim to hit that post with a stone, and you miss. Aim to miss the post, and you hit it’.

    My being facetious about how Im more “pure” aside, does that really make the point moot? Im generally asking that, because I just get the idea that you dont like the implication that I am more “pure” then them, and still think I am just as bad for desiring an unmarried sexual relationship, even though I have yet to have one?

  41. TheBends, you’re veering close close close to NiceGuyism with this: “Shit, maybe I should start going over the top, annoying plenty of women, appear as asshole to other people, but still perhaps get what I would like at the end of it?” And by close I mean deep into the interior of. I understand your frustration — I kept hearing about all the people my age having mad weasel sex all the time so why can’t I get some of this mad weasel sex?! (And I like you, please don’t misunderstand. The NiceGuyism thing is meant as a friendly word of caution, not as a condemnation.)

    But what is it you really want? Sex? A longer-term romantic relationship? It’s easier to get what you’re after when you’ve figured out what exactly that is. Find someone you like, and ask them out. “Hey, would you like to get a coffee with me some time?” It’s terrifying — especially if they’re someone you find very attractive, because their (possible) rejection of you is that much scarier. But it’s worth trying anyway because they might say yes. It does work out. You don’t have to be a jackass to get women to like you. Be who you are, notice the women who like you. Don’t try to be who you think they want because most of the time you’ll be wrong and you can’t keep it up for very long anyway.

    Please trust me on this. I was deeply fucked up and damaged and (to my mind) not the least bit attractive. This changes. Or it can.

    Yes, while I have been somewhat reserved in my attempts at looking for a sexual partner, its because I hate the idea of being one of those assholes that bugs (in my case this is) women who just arent interested. Id say Ive tried a few times, but never going over the top with it.

    Don’t be that asshole. Please? For me? ’cause I’d hate to have to come and beat you with a sack full of Xbox controllers. I’m old, and savage beatings make the fibromyalgia flare up something awful.

    In the meantime, take care of yourself, TheBends. Seriously.

    Oh, and ‘sod’s law’ doesn’t work. It’s very very difficult for someone to know what you want unless you tell them.

  42. Does it? Im not that sure to be honest. I thought I was generally writing about the irony of me wanting to find a sexual partner, but having no luck. While those evangelical teens want to wait for sex until marriage, yet still manage to fuck someone way before that time.

    I think the problem is that you’re mixing a couple statements and conclusions here.

    I said your point was moot because it was not your choice to be a virgin, if a girl “looked twice” at you, you probably would’ve lost yours by now.

    That doesn’t make you more pure than evangelicals who had an opportunity to lose their virginity and then went for it.

    But, to push my arm-chair psychoanalyzing a little further-

    I have a hard time believing anyone has a hard time getting laid in today’s society. It doesn’t really matter what you look like, as long as you’re not a creep chances are there’s someone out there for you.

    So that makes me also wonder if the problem is not that girls don’t look twice at you, but that you simply do not want to have sex right now.

    Which changes the discussion, obviously.

  43. I have a hard time believing anyone has a hard time getting laid in today’s society. It doesn’t really matter what you look like, as long as you’re not a creep chances are there’s someone out there for you.

    Morningstar, shut the fuck up. This isn’t helpful. It’s not even wrong, it’s so bad. Yeah there might be “someone out there for you,” but they can be awfully hard to find sometimes.

  44. I have a hard time believing anyone has a hard time getting laid in today’s society. It doesn’t really matter what you look like, as long as you’re not a creep chances are there’s someone out there for you.

    Huh? As someone who has spent a fair amount of time being single (and not wanting to be) this kind of advice is really frustrating and not at all helpful. Being in a relationship is not the default. You can be decent, smart, and attractive, and still have stretches of time where no one seems to be interested in you, or times when people are interested but you don’t reciprocate for whatever reason. That’s life. Most people (especially young people) who are unintentionally single just haven’t clicked with anyone. That doesn’t mean you are a creep. Or ugly.

    And how can you have a hard time believing people have trouble getting laid when you’re talking to one? Unless you think TheBends is lying, that doesn’t make any sense.

  45. So that makes me also wonder if the problem is not that girls don’t look twice at you, but that you simply do not want to have sex right now.

    Youre partially right I suppose. Im not specifically looking for sex like other guys I know are. Im looking for something more than to just use someone for own pleasure, unlike so many other people I see. So I guess that makes me something of a misfit (or creep perhaps….) in a “society where nobody has trouble getting laid”. Still, this is more about me than what this post was actually pointing out, so this is pointless anyway.

    As originally pointed out though, no matter how you look at it, I cant help but see the irony in the situations of people like me compared to these evangelicals who arent supposed to have sex before marriage.

  46. And Moira, I apologise. I wasnt aware at the time, but my post does really scream “but Im a NICE GUY, why cant I get any!”

    Seriously though, this whole subject doesnt actually enter my thoughts that often, so its not like its eating away at me. So besides occasionally (like now) questioning why my NiceGuy™ status doesnt get me any (joke) Im fairly indifferent about the whole thing.

    So if you will all excuse my melodrama, I can stop chewing on my knuckles in embarrassment now……

    And thanks for the support as well Moira. I really appreciate it.

  47. TheBends, by all means, don’t be a guy who uses other people for his own pleasure. But, while trying to distinguish themselves from the assholes, a lot of guys still assume that women have to be cajoled into sex. I’ve run into a not-insignificant number of college age guys who think that because I’m a “nice girl,” (whatever the fuck THAT means) I must not actually be interested in having sex.

    There’s nothing more maddening than a 20 year old with a madonna /whore complex.

  48. So I guess that makes me something of a misfit (or creep perhaps….) in a “society where nobody has trouble getting laid”.

    The idea that this is a society in which nobody has trouble getting laid is, as Moira said, bullshit. Utter bullshit. Plenty of decent, attractive people have trouble getting laid.

    As for you, I’ll echo something else Moira said, and take it a step further — don’t be an asshole. It’s not the right thing to do, and it won’t actually help you get laid.

    There’s a difference between being an asshole and being direct. Telling a woman you’re interested in spending time with her isn’t assholery. It’s actually harder than assholery, because it exposes you to the possibility of real rejection.

    But women won’t know you’re interested in them unless you let them know. And the more direct you can be about that, the less time you’ll spend pining and worrying and freaking out — and the less creepy you’ll seem.

    Moira’s absolutely right: Find someone you like, and ask them out. That’s what you need to do.

  49. The idea that this is a society in which nobody has trouble getting laid is, as Moira said, bullshit. Utter bullshit. Plenty of decent, attractive people have trouble getting laid.

    It depends on what you want. If you want to have sex just for sex’s sake it’s fairly easy.

    Maybe we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that.

  50. Any kid who is emotionally/physically ready to have unchaperoned, one-on-one dates with people they are attracted to should be expected to be ready for sexual contact. ‘Cause that’s what dating is for.

    I gotta disagree. #2 DIL came out of hell, and the kids started the “unchaperoned” dating at 16/15. Had our youngest son, however smitten, expected this remarkable but troubled young woman to be “ready” for sexual contact before she was actually ready, he would have continued the pattern of bullying and abuse she had experienced her entire life, however unintentially.

    “Unchaperoned” is not the milestone for sexual activity.

  51. Rather than just going back and forth with this “is not,” “is too,” why don’t you say what you have in mind?

    Because I have several friends who’d be thrilled to learn the secret to readily available casual sex for anyone on request, and I’m sure there are plenty of other folks reading this who’d be all ears as well.

  52. Because I have several friends who’d be thrilled to learn the secret to readily available casual sex for anyone on request

    The people who have trouble “getting laid” are usually the people for whom getting laid absent some degree of personal and emotional satisfaction isn’t the point. And some of us are rockin’ feminists. Some of us are even (gasp) churchgoers.

    In contrast, the people who are looking for that casual sex are rarely the people who care whether their partner cops a nut.

    Look, I’m one of those sad, obscenely fertile women who had to be absolutely certain another bun wouldn’t be rising before I could cut loose. Took years to learn that there are ways, and then there are ways. Now that it isn’t an issue, we’re gettin’ it right regularly? And via the alternatives? In our soon to be fifties?”

    Had I been more aware of those profoundly intimate yet inherently contraceptive alternatives way back when, I might have gotten my act together way before I was 30. I’m blown away by my DILS, and their frank “wickedness,” and fine humor, their assumption of their right to control the action so that they actually get a piece of the action…I could go on. My DILS are the kind of woman I would like to have been, all those years ago.

    C’mon…this is about the concern that your “casual sex” partner is not on the hook for all the negative consequences of sex, with none of the rewards. One way to get there is abandoning the “plug and play” mentality.

  53. I’m sure there are plenty of other folks reading this who’d be all ears as well.

    I know I am. If anything, I’ve found it harder to find guys capable of engaging in honest-to-goodness casual sex. They seem to find it necessary to salve their consciences by believing that I must be smitten with them and that’s the real reason I want to have sex. Because girls only have sex if they’re in luv. Or something.

  54. If there’s a secret to getting all the casual sex I want, when I want it, from a hot, tingly someone who isn’t a creepy-ass, overly-entitled Nice Guy, a clinging vine who will fall madly in love with me despite the clear-cut Just Sex, No Love guidelines, or an insanely busy workaholic who will let months or years slip by before remembering I’m Readily Available, I’m all ears.

    If, however, all you’ve got is unsupported platitudes about how slutty the world is, then stuff it. Personally, I can think of eight or ten guys, and about four women, any of whom I’d trip over my heels and fall flat on my back with legs spread for, and not one of ’em is interested in sex with me. If YOUR “sex is easy for anyone to get” opinion = data, then so does MY “like hell it is” anecdote.

    Bast

  55. Yeah, I disagree with the unchaperoned=ready for sex too. I don;t feel like any teenager should have to feel ready at any point… I know I couldn’t have handled sex with my high school boyfriend until long after we started spending time together unchaperoned when we were 13. I think most teenagers, given proper sex education that includes waiting until they are ready to have sex and encouragement to respect themselves and others will know when they are ready. I personally wouldn’t be terribly concerned if my 16 year old were having responsible, mutually satisfying sex. My 13 year old, on the other hand, I probably would be, although I guess it would depend on his/her mindset and maturity level.
    Also, the whole “you can have sex if you really want to” is disturbing. Most people I know have at least some standards for people they are considering having sex with, and sometimes it just doesn’t click for whatever reason. It most certainly doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with said person.

  56. Because I have several friends who’d be thrilled to learn the secret to readily available casual sex for anyone on request, and I’m sure there are plenty of other folks reading this who’d be all ears as well.

    Sign me up for that shit, too. Because it certainly has never been obvious to me.

    If anything, I’ve found it harder to find guys capable of engaging in honest-to-goodness casual sex. They seem to find it necessary to salve their consciences by believing that I must be smitten with them and that’s the real reason I want to have sex. Because girls only have sex if they’re in luv. Or something.

    I wish I’d realized this when I was younger. I mean, I knew it in an intellectual sense, but it didn’t sink in until I was in my late 20s. I suspect that lesson was a function of simply having known more women by the time I’d reached that age, along with maturity and improved confidence. So the irony for me is that the whole casual sex thing is much easier for me to handle now that I’m in my 30s, when I’m supposed to be settling down.

    Hey, better late than never.

  57. A lot of us would like to get to know the person, get to know whether they apply the rules of good sense(always use protection for example) to sex, know if they are abusive jerks,etc before popping for the casual sex.

  58. Pingback: appletree » Blog Archive » ‘Abstinence Only’ Education is a Scam

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