If it were mountain climbing etc. and not sex would novice teens be allowed to do it?

I think the answer is in your details: We know teens are going to have sex because there is no effective deterrent to stop them.

I don’t think there is much more that we can do: there are laws forbidding under-age sex, there is sex education in the schools and there is the birds and the bees talk – plus condoms.

I don’t think you can compare sex between consulting teens, hopefully intelligent and informed, condom using teens, to flying a jet without training, or playing with explosives. The former is inevitable, and though at times has disastrous ramifications, is also quite reversable (most of the time; I repeat, most of the time). The latter, well, a truck sized explosion will kill you – as will flying a jet without training.

@zen_ Weeeeeell….....we don’t now but there are ways to sour the milk it is just this society do not have the stomach to do it.

If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit. I would advise my child to be careful during any dangerous activity, whether it be sex or mountain climbing.

No matter what age you start having sex, you’d still be a novice. If you’re never to have sex as a novice, you’d never have sex at all. You’ve got to start sometime, and the teenage years are usually that time. I wouldn’t consider teenagers uninformed. They have sex ed at school, and if the parents are doing their jobs, that’s followed up by many discussions in the home.

Every time some kid in here asks about having sex, I always answer by saying you must be ready for the consequences, meaning pregnancy, because there is NO method of birth control that is 100% effective. I think that fact should be stressed a lot more than it is. I also think it should be stressed to boys that these days DNA can tell exactly who the father is and if it is you, then you are going to have consequences to face as well, financially at the very least. The idea that boys who have sex indiscriminately are studs must be changed. It must be stressed that a child is a 20 year commitment, in this day and age often a 40 year commitment. Looking at it from that perspective makes it a little less attractive

@augustlan is right. It’s a human biological imperative to have sex. It just is. Conversely, it’s not a biological imperative to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Nature impels teens to have sex because the DNA must be replicated. The best we can do is prepare kids for the inevitable. Sex for the vast majority of people is inevitable. And the only reason why teen pregnancy is a consequence is because our current society is not set up to bring teens into the workforce or enable them to start families much before 18–21. Nor do we have entire families in one home, like The Waltons, that could support a teen’s new family.

To expect a kid to abstain from sex for 5 or 6 years after nature says GO! to their bodies is a bit incredible. Possible, yes, but damn. Very, very hard.

Dangerous, ice covered peaks? No.

I would not encourage my son to do anything he wasn’t educated about. Once he gets a little older, he will get a more in depth talk about sex. If the talk goes my way, he will see pictures of STDs and get a lot of information about STDs and pregnancy. My husband doesn’t like that idea and he has another plan for the talk. We are still deciding which talk our son will get. My husband wants to give him the same talk his dad gave him (which worked well for him). Either way, this will happen before our son has sex (hopefully).

For any of the other situations you mentioned, if it was something my son was passionate about and he really wanted to do. I would encourage him to have the proper training first and I would do my best to help him get that training.

We generally train teens before we let them do any of those other things. Why not train them for sex, too?

Sex is more accessible than Mt. Kilimanjaro and is more likely to happen. A parent has to explain to their teens about the dangers and the positives associated with sex but our children will make their own decisions.

@Hypocrisy_Central I challenge myself and try to answer your questions despite the many typos, errors and contradictions, but I really do not understand this: Weeeeeell….....we don’t now but there are ways to sour the milk it is just this society do not have the stomach to do it.

I swear, I just can’t wrap my brain around it.

We all want (need) to mate.

@zen_ Hey, dude, it’s really not that hard: if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.

zen_ Weeeeeell….....we don’t now but there are ways to sour the milk it is just this society do not have the stomach to do it.
I swear, I just can’t wrap my brain around it.

That is about the main reason that the US has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in all the industrialized nations and I am sure giving most 3rd world nations a run for their money too. Because the gate keepers love it so much they can’t phantom not allowing it until a person is ready or at least more reasonable to handle it….oh, it is tongue in cheekly, something called the age of consent which apparently is a quite toothless document for the most part.

aprilsimnel _ It’s a human biological imperative to have sex. It just is. Human beings are hard wired to be a lot of things but we as a society don’t say _”well, that is logical and natural, so whatever”. Humans might be more disposed to be narcissistic, selfish, egotistical, arrogant, etc but most don’t just put up with it even though it is legal or quite natural; people are trained to be nice, compassionate, and humble, or at least civil.

To expect a kid to abstain from sex for 5 or 6 years after nature says GO! to their bodies is a bit incredible. That is why consent laws –as well as a lot of labor laws— are feckless, they only deal with a very small band of teen sexuality –and is not really for the benefit of the teen in a greater sense. Going just by nature a person between 14–16 is a young adult able to start a family of their own, so logically trying to stave off young adulthood until society feels they want to loosen up is not the greatest move I would agree. If you are going to play it that way play it that way with heart; don’t be namby pamby about it.

rooeytoo Every time some kid in here asks about having sex, I always answer by saying you must be ready for the consequences, meaning pregnancy, because there is NO method of birth control that is 100% effective. To be ready for the consequences is to acquiesce that they are going to do it. A kid playing a jet flying game can figure because the video game was so real he can actually fly a jet but no one will say “You can try that but you can crash and burn, just so you know the consequences, if you have to just try to remember where and how to use your egress system”. Most people will say no way are you even attempting to fly that jet until you are older and trained. Which is the point, sex is not looked upon as life damaging as even choking on a piece of meat.