Puritanical U.S. has Mixed Messages for Teens
POSTED BY: firefloozysuzie
UPDATED: Saturday, April 8, 2006 20:30
VIEWED: 5317
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Quote:That is the crux of maturation in the developed world. And yet other developed societies seem to have a better handle on it than the US. In terms of unplanned pregnancies and STDs European teens are far better off than US teens. So this isn't an insoluble problem.
there are physiological, developmental reasons why adolescents behave as they do. And I'm aware that kids are leaving the nest and forming their own households at an older age than their parents did ... at least ... in increasingly complex (expensive) industrial societies.
The problem is that we have factors colliding: We've got kids developing earlier, physically, but they've got so much longer to wait before they are ready for the responsibility of having kids.
Partly, I think, the issues have to do with how business exploits teenagers and their hunger to be cool and - sexy. It also has to do with making poor teens throwaways. If these kids knew that good future was in sight, they wouldn't make default decisions. But most have few dreams b/c in reality, the economy doesn't have room for everyone to do well.
In terms of teenage years, just from the little I looked up on EEG interpretation - the brain is remodeled from about the midpoint forward to the frontal lobes. Messing around with brain development at this time (with violence and drugs - including alcohol and tobacco) has serious consequences.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:
Originally posted by Firefloozysuzie:
NOT to help hijack my own thread, but...marijuana is one of the least toxic and most useful plants that the human species has yet found.
I read that in my college ethnobotany textbook, circa 1978. The scientists who wrote the textbook concluded that hemp had proven itself for millenia as a source of safe, efficacious treatments for a host of ailments; that is has no known toxicity, unlike most manmade pharmaceuticals, and that it should be legally available, at least for study and medicinal purposes.
I don't mean to hijack your thread, but this is only half the story and I think giving only this half is dangerous. For some people canabis use can lead to depression, manic and clinical, severe paranoia and schitzophrenia.
I've done my own research on the subject and I've experienced it first hand.
Giving only half of WHAT story? This isn't the Reefer Madness thread. Did you mean to post your anti-pot spiel elsewhere? OK, so another poster mentioned marijuana, but that was more of an aside. I meant to raise the issue about how current law seems to want to define teenagers as adult enough to face adult consequences for misdeeds, yet too immature to make almost any other kind of decision, or to held accountable for sexual misadventures.
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Just because this thread is about something else doesn't mean I'm going to let something that's wrong and is possibly a dangerous misconception pass by.
I'm not spewing anti-pot spiel, actually I think it should be legal, but people shouldn't be misguided into thinking it's completely safe for any use.
It can cause serious problems for some people, maybe you should know what you’re talking about before making an assertion like "Marijuana is completely safe but it's illegal!!!"
If you had said anything else untrue in your post that is potentially dangerous I'd of posted on that to. I understand what your motives were but your popular misconception is exactly that which gets people in to trouble with cannabis.
Oh and if you check someone posted an aside, but then so did I, I think I might of labelled it as such, if I didn't I apologise for that, I meant to. Your continued dogging of an issue you seem to be missing key facts on (that's the half the story I was referring too) is perpetuating this discussion, and thus hijacking your thread. SASSALICIOUS posted an aside, I posted an aside, but your pro-pot spiel won't let it rest.
Bye now.
Quote:
Originally posted by Rue:
That doesn't argue against medical use, rather than casual use.
I didn't say it shouldn't be used medicinally, I said it's not completely safe, which is the misconception perpetuated by people that causes problems. Arsenic can be used medicinally (I've done so) but that doesn't mean anyone should stand up and say "Arsenic is completely safe!"
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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When I hear marijuana described as “one of the least toxic and most useful plants that the human species has yet found” by legalization proponents, I’m not inclined to be very open to the idea of legalizing it for recreational use. That’s such a deceptive and uninformed statement; it’s like putting marijuana in the same category with spinach or lettuce. I’m not trying to pick on any one person, because I hear proponents of legalizations making grandiose and completely absurd statements about marijuana all the time. A friend of mine who is also a legalization proponent described it as “the safest and greatest advance in medicine in 200 years [paraphrased].” (Did we even know about marijuana 200 years ago?) It is reminiscence of the disinformation campaign that was waged by proponents of the use of cocaine during the 19th century. It was touted as a wonder drug by people like Sigmund Freud, but presumably, countless lives were irrevocably damaged by the blissfully ignorant use of cocaine. Today we know about the disastrous effects of cocaine, and marijuana certainly doesn’t rise to that level, but that seems to be just happenstance, because the legalization proponents don’t seem to have any clue how toxic marijuana is or isn’t. I get the impression that they believe that it has no toxicity at all, and if this is representative of the maturity of the society that we would be releasing legal marijuana to, I’d just as soon not legalize it for recreational use.
As for the underage sex thing: when I was 24 I dated a16 year old girl for a while, but in the whole time that I dated her, we never had sex, largely because we both held to what some people might describe as “puritan” beliefs, although I would simply say that we had traditional values concerning sexuality and mature prospective on what could realistically be gained from our relationship. The same values I agree with today, which don’t including using 16 year old girls as sex objects. If I could believe that everyone agreed with those values, then I would be inclined to think that many laws concerning statutory rape are probably unnecessary, but I don’t think that is the case, and as long as there are 24 year old men out there who might use underage girls as sex objects, then I don’t think it is untimely to have some degree of deterrent. The issue is about protecting impressionable young girls, which I don’t think is a bad thing.
And things like that are always skewed to fit one agenda or another in the media. In the Catholic priest sex scandal, 80% of the incidences were male priests having sex with post pubescent teenage boys. These priests were not pedophiles, but rather they were adult males using the priesthood to take advantage of underage boys, which is no different from taking advantage of underage girls, except that in this case, the aggressors were largely homosexual or homosexual acts. But this was something that the media generally wanted to suppress out of concern, one imagines, that it would have damaged the gay rights movement that was picking up so much steam at the time, so they framed it as pedophilia instead. Distortions by the media are not uncommon and have nothing particularly to do with puritan beliefs, in fact trying to frame all of this as being the provocateur of so-called “puritans” is itself a distortion.
The very use of the term ‘puritan’ is pejorative. America is not puritan, and it is absurd to describe it as such. The closest thing to “puritans” that exist in the US today are groups like the Amish, and they have nothing to do with any of this. There are not enough of them to influence opinion in the US one way or the other and most Americans don’t have much in common with them, although some might could learn a lot from them.
Another issue that I picked up here is that of state’s rights concerning the age of consent. As an avid federalist, I support state’s rights. I think Tony Blair said it best when he said that power should be exercised as close to the people in affects as possible. This is pa
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In the sci-fi novel "This Perfect Day", children are naturally introduced to sex as soon as they become sexually 'awake', in a 'junior prom' kind of way, matching children with like personalities.
When I read that, I rember thinking "Wow. That would have released a LOT of anxiety back then, and helped me concentrate on my schoolwork."
Distracted Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by Sassalicious:
It's funny, our brains aren't fully formed until we're 25, so it would seem car rental companies are the only ones that truly have it "right".
Our brains may still be maturing but most people never advance much in intelluctual capacity (they can still learn new things of course) and maturity levels beyond what they are in the 8th grade.
-e
"Storms getting worse."
"We'll pass through it soon enough."
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
In the sci-fi novel "This Perfect Day", children are naturally introduced to sex as soon as they become sexually 'awake', in a 'junior prom' kind of way, matching children with like personalities.
When I read that, I rember thinking "Wow. That would have released a LOT of anxiety back then, and helped me concentrate on my schoolwork."
Distracted Chrisisall
Right on Chrisisall! Repression just leads to things coming up later in nastier ways and causing a whole world of trouble. Thats why the U.S. has the greatest occurances of rape and the most porn in the entire world. If we would stop viewing sex as a sin and start embracing it as part of our identities, we would see a lot less of the nastier and troublesome side of our sexualities.
-e
"Storms getting worse."
"We'll pass through it soon enough."
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Sex Ed for me was like Home Economics. We baked cakes, but didn't learn squat about the pitfalls of having a credit card. That is to say, the important stuff was glossed over.
Telling kids "You really shouldn't do this.." only makes 'em curious. Why have an urge for sex, if you shouldn't do it? Making something acceptable is the first step towards making sure it's handled safely.
Why should girls wear pants so low, they have to shave northern bits of pubic hair, and then be told sex is a no-no?
It's all around us, yet verbotten. That make sense to you?
Mixed message is putting it lightly.
Opinionated Chrisisall
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Our brains may still be maturing but most people never advance much in intelluctual capacity (they can still learn new things of course) and maturity levels beyond what they are in the 8th grade.
The kind of remodeling that goes on in the brain/ psyche has to do in part with setting social and sexual roles. The conflation of aggression/ sex often takes place around this time. And people do mature past 8th grade. Among other things they eventually develop adult relationships with their peers. And they acquire a sense of mortality. Under the influence of oxytocin, they often develop a protective caring feeling toward offspring.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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It's all around us, yet verbotten. That make sense to you?
Mixed message is putting it lightly.
I do belive that part of this is due to exploitation by business. Teens naturally want to belong to peer groups. AND they acquire sexual feelings. If you're a business and want to hawk your wares, what better hooks than those?
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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