Sex Is For Adults (Rabbi Shmueley Boteach: Not Kid Stuff Alert)

Jerusalem Post ^ | 12/23/2007 | Rabbi Shmueley Boteach

[goldstategop]

Sex is NOT kid-stuff. Yes, that includes teens. No 16 year old should be having sex. Especially girls. It comes with a serious kind of commitment and to put it quite simply: children are not ready for marriage or the responsibilities of an adult relationship, including raising a child.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Tax-chick]

Good article. I know I’m whistling in the wind, but I hope Miss Spears will place her child for adoption with a stable married couple.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

Agreed and parents should both be present in their lives in order to guide their children.

[Just another Joe]

You will not stop your 16 year old daughter from having sex unless you chain her to the bed, home school, and never let her out of your sight.
It's even harder to stop your 16 year old son from having sex.

That said, the only person that can stop a 16 year old from having sex is - themselves.
You teach them, you train them, you instaill the right values in them, at some point you have to let them make their own decisions.
I would consider 16 about the right age for that.

[Rudder]

Teen-age girls are having sex. So why do they do it?

Because they don't act like the responsible adults they aren't.

[Tax-chick]

That said, the only person that can stop a 16 year old from having sex is - themselves.

Very true.

[familyop]

Well, there’s what we want to do (culture, identity, pride, materialism, and the like), and there’s what we’re supposed to do. One side of our nature tells us to teach kids to continue being kids into adulthood, work for a long time toward getting rich, buy pretty mates, one after another, etc. All of that doesn’t work out for most, so most families are violated.

The other tells us to teach our bigger kids to be good adults and to do the right things. They become adults, choose good mates, get married and have kids. They more often resist urges to violate the family (adultery—not illegal for most but “abhorrent” just the same). They would have their chances to get rich, too, if so many weren’t so unwilling to hire goodness.

People will eventually have to stop beating around the bush with extraneous issues and doing things our way (the way of yet again making the first choice) and make the wiser choice between the two.

We’re a very spoiled generation. Things will change for the better.

[goldstategop]

They think being easy on a boy will him love them. How little do they understand the male mind.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Don Corleone]

Abstinence...it works every time its tried!

[adopt4Christ]

excellent article - thanks for posting.

[kinoxi]

That's why the scourge of teen sex will always be among us until we inspire dads to be intimately involved in the raising of their children, and raise boys to respect and cherish women as their equals rather than as a means to their more selfish ends.

How's the saying go?
It takes two to tango.

[mtbopfuyn]

Sex, just like drugs, fast driving, and other dangerously hairbrained behaviors, all parents can do is teach them to do right and hope for the best.

[sourcery]

“Silly Rabbi, sex is for...”

[Omedalus]

Of course, if you don't have sex when you're 16, you're more likely to develop sexual dysfunction (and related psychological difficulties) later in life. Especially if you're a girl.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Sex/story?id=3932047&page=1

[Popman]

Mothers cannot be as effective in protecting their daughters from men simply because they are not men, and therefore do not know how the male mind works. That's why fathers must be actively involved in their daughters lives in order both to provide a level of immunity to their daughters from being desperate for a boy's attention, and to give their daughters a noble standard by which to judge the men who want to date them.

Bears repeating

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Our results do not allow for causal interpretations," the study authors write.

Did you miss this line from the article you linked to?

It's not at all "proved" that a later initiatiation of sexual behavior will result in dysfunctions. In fact, it seems to me more probable that

• [A]males who are physically immature, depressed, anxious, gender-ambivalent or otherwise sexually troubled, will both
• [B]delay sexual experience for years, and
• [C]experinece difficulties when they do.

In other words, it's not B tends to cause C, it's A tends to cause both B and C.

I do think that we tend to get married at too late an age in our society. I didn't marry util I was 37 and my husband 38. That's not ideal: I wish we had met when we were 10 - 15 years younger. But I still am convinced that at whatever age, the most healthy thing, physically, socially, emotionally, and spiritual, is to abstain from intercourse until marriage.

[Yaelle]

How little do they understand the male mind.

LOL! How true is this?? I have some other friends who also have sons (I have 3). We talk about how we were at 15, 16: lying on our girlfriends' beds, talking for HOURS about what such boy meant when he said "Hi" that day, going over his inflections, body language, smile, you name it, AD NAUSEUM! Now that we have been raising little men of our own, we know the answer: THEY WERE THINKING NOTHING!!! Nothing they said or did EVER had hidden meanings!!

Young girls actually do not yet know that boys do not think like they do! I had to have three little guys before it became clear to me.

G-d love you males; you are mostly so straightforward! I kind of feel sorry for you for putting up with all of us, but then... we're the spice that can light up your lives, when we aren't driving you crazy.

[silentreignofheroes]

Come on in boy sit on down
And tell me about yourself
So you like my daughter do you now?
Yeah we think she’s something else
She’s her daddy’s girl
Her momma’s world
She deserves respect
That’s what she’ll get
Ain’t it son?
Hey y’all run along and have some fun
I’ll see you when you get back
Bet I’ll be up all night
Still cleanin’ this gun

Raised a daughter::ain’t that hard..