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Girls just want to have sex?

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March 6, 2012
Be Smart
17 Comments

This is a a photo of me when I was 12. Almost 13.

We were coming near to the end of a five-month stay in the UK in 1980. My hair looks awful but I’d rebelliously grown it out from the short cropped style I’d had forced on me for the 12 years prior.

I swear my mum (who was back home in Australia) used to get a three-for-one deal at Stefans. Every couple of months my brothers and I would be trotted in there, only to come out an hour or so later all looking the same.

That’s one of my brothers standing next to me (note his hair is almost as long as mine). I’m carrying my newborn cousin Russel.

My brother probably wanted to have a hold of Russel but I doubt that I even gave him a chance. I LOVED babies. Couldn’t get enough of them. Love cuddling them, loved playing with them, loved dressing them up.

My 12-year-old self was more interested in carrying around an actual “live” Baby Alive doll than giving any thought to possibly making an actual live one of my own.

Which is why I did a hang-on-a-minute-is-this-really-going-on-kind-of-reaction when I first read this in the Australian Women’s Weekly:

Dolly magazine’s 2011 Youth Monitor found 56 per cent of teens first had sex between 13 and 15 years old, a figure backed up by an Australian study that found the age of girls’ first sexual experience ranged from 11 to 17 years, with a median age of 14.

I want you to read those stats again.

Yes, some girls are having their first “sexual experience” at 11. More than half have had sex by the time their 15.

I’m no wowzer but REALLY?

Wow.

I look at the girl in the photo above and I see just that. A little girl.

A girl still playing with “dolls” but buying clear lipgloss with her pocket money.

A girl who got back from the UK mid-way through Year 8 (first year of high school) to find all her friends had indeed grown up and that birthday parties no longer included fairy bread. Instead they were held at night time under people’s houses with a record player, disco lights and a separate room for pashing contests for those “lucky” enough to have a boyfriend. The rest of us danced a side-step dance in a circle to Video Killed the Radio Star or Echo Beach.

Yes, in high school we grew up fast. But seemingly not as fast as young girls today (insert shakey grandma voice here).

Apparently we should not judge today’s fast growing-up girls. The reason they’re having sex so young is that they’re under incredible pressure to do so.

They know, or think they know, a few other things, too. That oral sex doesn’t count as sex. That sending nude pictures via text or Facebook is the new flirting. That boys their age watch porn regularly and demand from their girlfriends the sexual menu they see online — hairless, surgically enhanced bodies, “girl-on-girl action” and much, much more.

That oral sex that doesn’t count as sex? According to parenting expert Michael Grosse, it’s so common it’s happening at school. Turns out that smoking in the toilets or down the back oval is SO 1984.

Now, before you think I’m riding some sanctimonious white horse that involved waiting to have sex until I got married, let me confess my skanky ho teenage ways.

The FIRST TIME was when I was almost 17 (sounds vaguely better than 16, doesn’t it?) and in Year 12. Did I feel forced into it? Not on the specific occasion in question. Just in general.

Did I think I’d be with my boyfriend forever? Of course, I did. I was in LURRVVE.

Did it last? Of course it didn’t (as an aside he’s now happily married to my best friend from uni … but that’s another blog post!).

Fast forward 28 years later and I’m now the mother of a 15-year-old daughter. She is smart, beautiful and I want to protect her from all of the boyfriend-girlfriend expectation and heartache.

But I know I can’t.

What I can do is foster a loving respect for herself and her body.  And maybe plaster to her bedroom mirror these very wise words from fellow Justb-er Pip Lincolne:

Bodies are not amusement parks. They are temples.

Can you remember your first time? Tell me, did anyone actually have a good first time? Is that even possible? Do you have a tween-age or teenage daughter? Have things changed since you were their age?

 

  • Petra @ JustB

    Oh my GOD Nikki I am BEYOND disturbed about this! I didn’t even have my first proper kiss until I was 14 – anything beyond that was completely out of the question. My nephew is about to turn 3 and thinking of him being so adult in just 8 years scares the hell out of me. :(

    • http://www.justbaustralia.com.au/ Nikki @ Justb.

      It’s pretty freaky Petra … most freaky is what can become and is considered “the norm”.

  • Kate

    I’m not sure girls are having sex that much younger (women were married at 15 once upon a time). And an average age would have been brought down by those who have done it very young. I’m 24, and although there was pressure among friends at high school to have sex, it wasn’t out of control. And I don’t think regular boys request what they see in porn; boys that age are just nervous and exc ited to see a girl their clothes off. I had sex a few days after my 17th birthday, and it was nice, and it was with a boy I was with for another five years. As for oral sex, well it isn’t sex in the traditional sense, and I probably did that for the first time at like 14. But it didn’t feel wrong and I wasn’t coerced. I don’t think teenagers change that much from generation to generation; our perception of them changes as we age.

    • http://www.justbaustralia.com.au/ Nikki @ Justb.

      I agree Kate … our perception does change. As a mum of two teens, I try to remember what I was like at their age before judging or adding any of my own thoughts into the equation.

  • SifDal

    My first time was when I was 12 (in 1984, actually). He was also twelve. It was both our first time and we were both keen particpants… Funny thing, I didn’t have my first alcoholic drink until I was 18. I didn’t experiment with any kind of drug until I was 22, and then only pot and only over the period of a month while living in a share house where everyone was doiing it around the clock… i moved out after a month because I found the lifestyle ridiculous… So, having sex wasn’t part of a wider rebellious streak. My eldest is the same age I was for my ‘first time’ and he seems so much younger than me at that age!

    • http://www.justbaustralia.com.au/ Nikki @ Justb.

      SifDal, what I love about Justb. is that everyone has a story – and we own them. And just goes to show that a first time experience can be mutual even at such a young age.

  • Kat

    This freaks me out. My first time was 3 weeks short of my 18th birthday. I was never pressured in highschool to ‘do it’ but I certainly didn’t want everyone knowing I was a virgin! I think I just ‘acted my age’ – in the sense that I still acted silly and naive and wasn’t always trying to be a grown up or cool, which I think is what these young girls today are trying to do. It doesn’t help that all the music videos and clothes are highly sexualised. Just look at the current fashion trend of ultra short jean shorts (or as I like to call “jean undies” – they don’t even cover the bum!).

    • http://www.justbaustralia.com.au/ Nikki @ Justb.

      Jundies! The fashion and music industry is highly sexualised, yes. But I think it was when I was young too. So much of it went over my head though ;)

  • renae

     Its not the issue of when they had oral sex that bothers me , but the lack of likely reciprocity for girls.

    • http://www.justbaustralia.com.au/ Nikki @ Justb.

      Good point, Renae … my guess is that not much of that is going on!

  • Mrs Woog

    17 here. With my boyfriend. I made him wait 12 months. Would not change a thing x PS Also not a wowswer but shocking x

    • http://www.justbaustralia.com.au/ Nikki @ Justb.

      It’s the whole currency of the sex bit that scares me … when girls (and boys) are SO young.

  • Reannonhope

    I was just past 15 when I first had sex. My boyfriend was 18 & I remember at the time thinking ” that’s it???”. It felt like no big deal & a big all at the same time.

    I look at 15 year old girls now & think ” wait! Your too young!”, not just for sex but for lots of the things they do- drinking, drugs, babies, brazilians!!!

    At 15 you don’t realise you have your WHOLE life to be a grown up & do grown up things. You think it all has to be done NOW! I guess you hope they make good decisions, that they are smart enough to say no & know that doesn’t make them any less of a person.

    • http://www.justbaustralia.com.au/ Nikki @ Justb.

      Yes, too young for Brazilians … seriously there will be whole hairless generation. I remember those Where Did I Come From books and the very hairy down there pics … will they have to be re-done?!!

  • edenland

    WOW. Those stats just blew me away.

    I was nineteen, drunk, pretending I wasn’t a virgin. It was terrible.

    Awesome post, Nikki. Also … STEFAN HAIR STUDIOS OMFG!!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1599503946 Sylvia Davey

    i was 18, i promised myself i would wait until after high school and i am glad i waited.

  • Jackwafabwa

    I was 16 myself, and thank my lucky stars that my teenage binge drinking ways didn’t get me there any earlier. It scares me half to death to think of whatn my own daughter might do. i knew of a girl in primary school (year 6) who had lost her virginity. I’ve seen snippets of one of those high-school girl on girl sleepovers. Its frightening. I guess the best we can do as mothers is bring our girls up to be strong willed girls who don’t follow the pact, and who respect their bodies.