Third, while repressing one's sex drive out of shame (a concept that we can find root of in Greek philosophy) is indeed antihumanistic, the concept that humans can't suppress their sexual drives is likewise so. To say that kids having sex is inevitable seems to be akin to saying that men are controlled by sex (see the Fuck Sexism thread).
Unless I missed something, ZeaLitY didn't say anything specifically about teenage boys, so, at best, he's saying that adolescents and young adults "are controlled by sex." I think you'd be stretching his words to say that, though.
The physical desire to have sex is very strong in most people, particularly those in this age group. In addition, the social pressures to have sex can be quite potent themselves, in a completely different way. Statistically speaking, sex at this age
is inevitable for many people, and will continue to be so until the underlying factors are addressed. I'd like to see us, as a society, ramp down those social pressures considerably, and I would expect that to help somewhat. But the biological drive? I'm not in favor of drugging people to reduce their libido (except possibly in certain criminal cases), and I don't think there's any other way to clip that desire. We can give people all the attractive alternatives in the world to sex, from food to video games, and they'll
still spend a lot of time wanting sex. You know this from your own experiences. I know it from mine. Just about everybody on the board knows it for themselves.
The inevitability of sex at the collective level is a consequence of underlying issues and you are treating it as though it were an independent occurrence that can and should be directly curbed. It
can be curbed, partially, but, because we're dealing with the human factor and we're talking about a behavior that
isn't independent of many other issues, to impose curbs without taking other action would simply hurt people, not help them. As for "should we," honestly, Thought, I don't know that lowering the copulation rate is even the right way to be going at all. We've come from that direction already, under the repressive controls of Christianity. When sexuality is repressed, it hurts people. It disorders them. Biologically, plain and simple, people are "supposed" to be seeking sex at this age even though the law tells them that it's wrong and our hypocritical society tells them that they're not ready (even as it encourages them with its other face). I think I'd be in favor of one of those, as the right-wingers distastefully call it, "social engineering" experiments: What would happen if, instead of discouraging "underage" sex, we taught adolescents all about sex and even provided them with a safe environment and the appropriate materials to do so? You know...it can be as simple as a mom and dad going out for the weekend leaving their teenage kid behind knowing full well that he or she is going to have their girlfriend or boyfriend over for the weekend. There you go: a safe environment, no pressure to act one way or the other, and trust on the part of authority figures that the kids will decide to do what they most prefer. That's not even purely hypothetical; I know such families.
Human beings are animals, not
merely animals, but not
not animals, and the judgment as to which animal impulses we should be allowed to act upon, and when, and which impulses we should not be allowed to act upon, is one of the great questions of civilization. On one end of my personal spectrum, many people seem biologically predisposed to a sexist mindset, for which I favor absolute education, re-education, and strict legal controls and social mores to repress the bigotry. On the other end is something like food, where biology and society are at odds with one another as to how much a person should eat, and you know that I favor allowing people to eat whatever they want in whatever quantity--indulging the animal, as it were. My judgments on these various issues are, of course, not the law of the world, but my point in mentioning them is that there isn't a single correct course of action to take with regard to all human instincts, and when it comes to libido, and sex in adolescence and early adulthood, I simply think we've gotten it all wrong. We can teach
some kids complete abstinence, and some kids will choose that for themselves, but, in an imperfect society, some other kids will not have the authority figures in their lives to teach them that message, and other kids still will be entirely unresponsive to the education. Do we lock them up because they have sex when we think they shouldn't? Maybe rape and sexual assault would go down if our society made it clear that sex is neither shameful nor something sacred that must be reserved for special situations only. Maybe there really is a productive place for plain old sex without any additional layer of relationship, or, at least, sex in a very loosely-defined relationship. Maybe there's not, or maybe what I'm proposing is too general, but the fact of the matter is that we've never tried it, and only experience will tell us for sure. The religious have argued against such social freedoms since time immemorial, but they've never really seen such a society. All the "promiscuous" societies of the past were deeply and profoundly imbalanced, with substantial portions of the population having little or no say in who would be having sex with them. I submit to you that they do not know what they are talking about. They have failed in repressing people's sexuality, in depressing the copulation rate, in restricting which domestic arrangement of sexual relationships are allowable. Only progressive innovations like condoms and literacy and medical abortion have succeeded in reducing the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. You know...the stuff that actually
works, rather than the holy hocus pocus.
I'm a big advocate of self-discipline, and strong education. In my opinion, most people in their teens do not have the emotional maturity for sex. But I recognize--and this is not opinion--that not everyone is capable of or willing to be shoehorned into responsible behavior, and so I prefer to draw the line at
ethical behavior. In my world we'd still lock up pedophiles and rapists, but we wouldn't teach kids that they have to learn how to be mature about sex
before having sex. Honestly, there's nothing more educational about sex than having a sexual relationship. Youth is all about learning, and, unless you are of the opinion that sex is inherently shameful, I see nothing wrong with adolescents having sex even if they don't really know what they're doing, so long as they use protection and feel free--with no stigma attached--to bring any questions or concerns to their parents, their doctor, or some other key authority figure.
