Generation Lost: The Sex Obsession

Ahh...the high school years. The time of your life when you're supposed to make tons of friends and have the best of times doing fun things you'll remember for the rest of your life. Somehow, it's not exactly everything I dreamed it would be. On TV, teenagers always go on these wild adventures with their friends that in the end, bring them into adulthood and full on maturity (and funnily enough never have any real consequences or negative repercussions.) In real life, it's not anything close. It seems like the only thing kids my age do these days is talk about having/actually have sex with their "boyfriends" or "girlfriends." And I'm tired of it!

I don't want to sit down with a group of friends (Gosh...ever since Facebook we use that term really loosely don't we?) and have a conversation about sex! #1: Most of us have never even had sex...so what are you talking about?! #2: Even if you have, it's pretty clear you weren't mature enough or you wouldn't be telling the whole world. #3: I simply don't see the need to talk about it...what exactly is so interesting? We all know that it exists. Why must we make stupid perverse jokes about something none of us should be doing?

And why is it so uncool to be a virgin? I've seen guys who shook their heads vehemently and denied it over and over and over again, when they were asked. Then their guy friends slap them on the back and congratulate them and ask them questions like, "How was it?" Same thing with girls. I heard a bunch of them sitting around a table once asking one another, "Are you a virgin?" One raised her eyebrows and winked, "Well I'd say I'm half a virgin." Giggles all around. "Oooh what does that mean?" She winked again. "Sorry, I don't kiss and tell." Then some other girl who had been quiet this whole time worked up the nerve to say, "Well, if you're half then I must only be 1/4 a virgin." And suddenly all the attention was on her whatever knowledge she must have in store. One-quarter virgin? What the heck does that mean? You either are or you aren't!

I guess at one time, it would have been horrible for people to find out that you fooled around with a member of the opposite sex without being married to them. But now, everyone wears their fornication like a badge of honor. Guys AND girls. Of course, guys still throw around the words "slut" and "whore" but not for the type of girls who actually deserve those names. No, that's reserved for the nice girls out there who won't give it up so easily. They see it as, "What? You won't have sex with me even though every single other girl I know has?  Whore..." 

It makes sense though. Everywhere we look we're bombarded with sex. Watching a PG-13 movie? There's a sex scene. Watching a network TV show? There's a slightly less explicit sex scene. Watching commercials? Well there's plenty of those for lingerie and perfumes/colognes that somehow always end up with men and women in suggestive poses. Just glancing at the cover of Seventeen Magazine? Sex advice from real teens! It's all so glamorized. Even 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom shows what will happen if you're not careful. They don't try to send the message of abstinence, they just say don't make the same mistakes as these girls and use protection. They also call that "respecting yourself." It's ridiculous. But like I said, it makes sense. After going through your whole life with sex thrown at you every second of the day, of course you end up talking about it with your friends. It just seems like the thing to do.

But it doesn't have to be! There are so many other things to talk about, so many other things to be doing besides sex. Especially as teens, we have no real responsibilities so why do we try to change that? We'll be adults soon enough, then we'll do whatever we want and deal with the consequences. But why now would we risk pregnancy and STDs and emotional scarring. Every single consequence of sex is something you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Why not wait until you're ready? Until you're married?

Peer pressure is a very real thing, I know. However, it can be overcome! Start with ending those conversations about sex, even if that means hanging around with different people. Don't pretend like you understand or agree with something you don't. Tell people when you're uncomfortable and ask them to stop! Make sure people know your stance on the issue, because believe it or not, everyone's NOT doing it! And then simply talk about something else. If we who believe this way try harder to stop this problem, maybe obsession with sex wont have to be yet another bad thing our generation is known for. 

Ahh the high school years...the time of your life when you're constantly around people you don't like in places you don't want to be getting involved in things you're not ready for and don't understand...