According to psychologytoday.com the age group that is considered ‘normal’ to encounter one’s first sexual experience is 15-19. If you search ‘What age should you have sex’ , 18 is the first recommended ‘ideal’ age. But who comes up with these deadlines for us? Why are young people being rushed into these things?
Close your eyes and imagine you’re sitting back at the lunch table in secondary school. You’re a second year. Remember how lunch time chat was all about who and how many people you kissed? Think about the girl in the group who had never kissed anyone. Think about her going to the next disco and kissing some stranger. Her eyes are squeezed shut,she’s feeling sick at the idea of what she is doing, she’s waiting for it to be over so she can be included in Monday’s conversation.
Close your eyes even tighter now and think about being in fourth year. The conversation has evolved. Lunchtime chat is now about who you ‘did bits with’. You tell your mates you’ve never gone further than kissing. Their voices raise in pitch, and they patronizingly reply with “What?? Still??.
Next someone in your year confidently brags about her crazy weekend that she spent with multiple boys. She asks you in front of a crowd who YOU have gotten with. Imagine the feeling of blood rushing to your head and your hands suddenly becoming clammy. You lie. “A few”. Your friend is in the corner. You hope she doesn’t say anything.
In my experience,in an all girls school, there was no proper opportunity for sex to become the main discussion point. If you had had sex it was just a juicy bonus to the conversation, not a necessity. However people came out of schools with this crazy notion that “It’s embarrassing that I still haven’t done it yet” and that they “need to get it over with” .
We wonder why people are becoming sexually active at a younger and younger age, but we encouraged it. We create timelines of ages that it’s appropriate to do certain things in. If you do something before the ‘appropriate’ time , you’re labelled a slut, if you do it after or have’nt yet, your lack of sex life is gossiped about.
Girls and boys are being led into dark corners of nightclubs, alleyways and estranged bedrooms to do something they’re not even ready for. And for what? Say you have sex with that stranger to get it over and done with. What changes? Nothing. You become no greater or lesser of a person. Younger people have such a wrong mentality surrounding sex that can put them in harms way!
Sex is not something that has to be had before a certain age.It’s not something you should feel pressured or rushed into. You should choose to take part because you want to, not because ‘everyone else’ has.
There may be two types of people reading this article.The first being those who think Im laying out a very obvious message and the second being those who are like the girls that have recently confided in me. The type who feel ashamed, embarrassed and too old to have not had sex.
This article is both for peace of mind and assurance to those who might fit in the second category but also a reminder to be careful with the way you go about talking on this topic so as not to accidentally rush someone. Each of us have our own path and should not have to achieve our life milestones at the same time.