Young Miss Pimp:
Pop Music and Female Teen Promiscuity
Music — By Joe Carter on October 28, 2004 at 9:56 pm “I felt like I was in control,” said Heather, a 16-year-old describing how it felt the time she had sex on the same day with two different boys, neither of which was her boyfriend. “I felt like a player.”
Fourteen-year-old Mia proudly explains how she uses flirting and dating to extract money from multiple boys. “I’ve been pimping,” she says. “I’ve got dudes who give me money every day.”
In 2004, the
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“We can
i don’t see anything about pornography in this post.
Dude, you didn’t even post the really filthy parts of those songs. I honestly can’t believe the things I hear on the radio these days, and I’m no prude.
You really should find the lyrics to Peety Pablo’s “Freekaleek.” They’re nothing if not pornographic.
To be fair, there is some counterprogramming out there, for example, Avril Levigne’s Don’t Tell Me. To be sure, the opposite message is sent far more often, but every once in a while, the right message gets sent.
Still, the biggest problem, as I’ve argued many times before (here and elsewhere) is that teens and young adults have a strong, natural desire for sexual activity, and we don’t allow them any feasible outlets for those desires. We just ask them to ignore it.
Linkology
Gah! There is an abundance of good/interesting/disturbing stuff going on right now. My one-person staff can’t keep up. Or it could be that I’m too lazy to do so. So instead I offer links: The Democrat’s Plea to the Black…
I just have to say something that supports the claims of this particular topic. I have had the wondeful (uh, not really) opportunity of chaperoning several high school dances; the most recent one being a highschool homecoming dance. I was absolutely disgusted to see what takes place at these dances. The girls grind their asses up against the boys, several times bending themselves down to “touch the toes”. It looks EXACTLY like anal sex — but with clothes on. And the boys just stand there behind them thrusting their midsections up against the girls. You can’t tell me these highschool boys aren’t getting off as the girls do their business. It’s sad actually. These girls may think they’re more in control sexually, but they’re not. And yes, I blame the influence of music on this crap.
The girls aren’t in control of anything, least of all themselves. All this “empowerment” and “feminist” and “pro-choice” BS has played right into the hands of promiscuous males. We can have our cake, eat it too, drink the milk without buying the cow, etc., and if the girl turns up pregnant, we write a check for $150 and move on to the next.
Girls are in control, my ass.
“natural desire for sexual activity, and we don’t allow them any feasible outlets for those desires.”
yeah, besides, people have lots of “natural desires” that they don’t usually follow through on anyway. One might have a “natural desire” to kill another.
And yes, I blame the influence of music on this crap.
Or their divorced parents boning down in the next room with the latest “friend.” Fools.
Still, the biggest problem, as I’ve argued many times before (here and elsewhere) is that teens and young adults have a strong, natural desire for sexual activity, and we don’t allow them any feasible outlets for those desires. We just ask them to ignore it.
In a better world, we would be better off if men married around 18 and girls married around 13. Think about it. Men at their sexual peak with a wife with a young, supple body. Both of them filling each other and not poring their ethos in that garbage we call pop music. This is the way it was done in Hebrew culture and worked well. After a year of bliss, the man apprenticed himself or was educated for a number of years, after that he got a job and they had a family. Of course such a couple needs a loving community to support them initially. And they need to be mature. Few are mature today. Usually it happens later. Often much later, if at all. It is always sick to see a sniveling 50 year old fool who is really 10 and only playing at being an adult.
Someone said the way teens dance today “looks EXACTLY like anal sex ” Um forgive me for pointing this out, but just because you hit it from the backside doesn’t mean it’s anal sex. I kno most Christians can’t fathom sex any other way than missionary position, but it is possible to have normal intercourse from behind. I’m just sayin.
I think most Christians know that you can have sex from behind without it being anal sex. Is that your point?
Fine. The kids were simulating doggie-style sex, on the dance floor of a high school homecoming dance. I guess that makes it OK for you?
Weren’t the ancient Jews the only people of their region to screw in “the missionary position” (face to face as equals) instead of “doggie style” (like four-leggers, with the penetrated crouching in submission before the penetrator)?
According to my reading of The Gifts of the Jews, God’s idea behind Torah was to Transcend the Animal. Why abandon that for animal forced-dominance displays?
educater- Did you mean educator? (Is this why Johnny can’t read?)
Welcome Home Little Chickadees
“You a ho and don’t even know it” (c) Betty Wright
Evangelical Outpost has a good piece highlighting the impact of pop culture, especially music, on the increasingly aggressive sexuality among young…
tommythecat wrote: “i don’t see anything about pornography in this post.”
Uhm, that was the point of the post… just becuase it isn’t a picture doesn’t mean it isn’t porn! (‘come on! Aren’t you up to speed on deconstructualism? All media is a “text”, right? :-)
per dictionary.com (bolding emphasis mine):
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pornography
“por
Ken writes
“Weren’t the ancient Jews the only people of their region to screw in “the missionary position” (face to face as equals) instead of “doggie style” (like four-leggers, with the penetrated crouching in submission before the penetrator)?”
I have no idea. But if you can’t tell the difference betwen two people dancing, two humans engaging in consensual rear-entry sex, and “animal forced dominance,” then you’ve got some issues.
At one point in this country’s history, we had an African-American surgeon general named Jocelyn Elders who spoke frankly about teen sexuality. Her career was destroyed by those who want human sexuality to remain a taboo subject and who would prefer that all sexual behavior outside of missionary-style sex between married adults of the opposite sex be equated with playing Russian roulette.
Ken wrote: “Why abandon that for animal forced-dominance displays?”
Because we’re “enlightened” now, and know–just like the “beautiful, mysterious” worship of nature, and the artistic mystique of decorating our bodies with irreversible pigments–all the hip people, who are liberated from the repressive, prudish rules of our society, are returning to the “wisdom” of our pre-Christian ancestors, and having sex like the animals do! Face to face communication, as equals, being a part of sex??? It’s just “take off your clothes and do what’s natural!” Are you just seriously repressed, or what?
/sarcasm off
Hrm, didn’t I read somewhere once that “there is nothing new under the sun…” :-)
Larry Lord wrote: “At one point in this country’s history, we had an African-American surgeon general named Jocelyn Elders who spoke frankly about teen sexuality. Her career was destroyed by those who want human sexuality to remain a taboo subject and who would prefer that all sexual behavior outside of missionary-style sex between married adults of the opposite sex be equated with playing Russian roulette.
*Ahem* Her career was destroyed because her son was selling cocaine, and she not only condoned, but tried to justify it… seems to me the “number one doctor” in the land shouldn’t be advocating ilicit drug use. Or maybe I just don’t fully appreciate the “freedom” of being a drug addict, and spending each day doing nothing but trying to find the next high… or missed the fact that her son’s drug dealing was a conspiracy by the repressed right who wanted sexuality to be a “taboo subject.”
[As an aside: if Dr. Elders' son had simply been an addict who needed help, or had she distanced herself from legalizing addictive substances like cocaine, then it would haven't have come off as such a nepotistic, self-serving thing for her to promote legalization of street drugs and find out a matter of days later that her son was a pusher. As it was, it was almost like having an attorney general who said "Hey, if we legalized organized crime, there wouldn't be so much crime in this country"--only to find out a few weeks later that his/her son was a "errand man" for the Gotti family...]
Apparently Mr. Lord thinks everyone here is young enough that he can be a historical revisionist for something that happened less than 10 years ago… :->
Nathan:
I disagree: those activities build the tension; what’s needed is something to release the tension.
And you have a very skewed take on the Lavigne lyrics.
C Rob writes
“Her career was destroyed because her son was selling cocaine, and she not only condoned”
Okay Rob. The floor is yours. Please enlighten this “historical revisionist” by providing the quote where Joceyln Elders condoned the sale of cocaine by her son. It shouldn’t be too hard for you to find the quote. After all, it happened “less than ten years ago” and I simply can’t believe that you would never ever tell a lie just because it made better sense in your fantasy world than the truth.
Good luck. Remember: the word is “condoned.”
brandon:
Not even close to the same thing. People aren’t naturally, biologically predisposed to kill other people. They are equipped and designed to do so in response to a threat, but it’s not something that hormones cause a typical teen to think about doing several times per day…
“Female empowerment” seems to mean that women can be just as horrible as men. Is the right to be as sexually perverted as men really what feminists are striving for? What is empowering about dipping into that gutter?
>>In a better world, we would be better off if men married around 18 and girls married around 13.
You know, the Amish usually wait until they’re 25 or so to get married. They don’t seem to have too many problems with out of wedlock sex or pregnancy. They go out, get themselves set up, and then find a girl.
They do have a period, before they’re baptized (they believe in adult baptism) where they ‘run around’, and sample what the ‘gentile’ world has to offer. Somehow, I’m sure that for some boys that includes sex. However, they seem to be fairly responsible, espeically after they’re married.
Actually, after reading the lyrics, I don’t see how you come to your conclusions. For the most part, these lyrics are not about women wanting sex.
Whats striking is that the majority of the lyrics are aimed toward young men. They encourage guys to treat and think of women like whores, or just meat. It describes women as money-seeking prostitutes to be used and discarded. The women in these lyrics always “want it”, so if they say “no” they must be either be trying to hold out for more money or are just teasing to be manipulative. And the lyrics toward girls encourage them to use sex in order to manipulate men. This is more about dominance and power and control over each other, not sex. And it certainly sheds light on date-rape, where the guy is always insisting that when she said “no” she really meant “yes”.
You know, Christians like to point to promiscuity among gay men as evidence of our evil and sinful nature, but while we may like sex, very few gay men practice the degradation and lack of respect and sheer cruelty for each other as human beings that these lyrics describe. I think straight people need to pay more attention to their own glass houses before they start throwing stones at ours.
“While they may be able to shake the
“where Joceyln Elders condoned the sale of cocaine”
OK, in the piece of my post that you quoted, I overstated her support of her son’s illegal activity… my apologies to Dr. Elders, her family and supporters. You are right, she never specifically condoned her son’s selling drugs.
However, IMO the temporal proximity of her comments about a “study” of drug legalization to her son’s arrest for drug-related charges is highly suspect–and certainly had something to do with the brevity of her tenure in the position.
The fact remains that if someone in a high ranking government position, speaking as the holder of that position suggests something, be “studied” to see if it should be legalized, it’s at least an implicit condoning of that activity. (It’s not like Dr. Elders made this as an off-hand remark at a party or something… it was during an interview.)
Would a responsible AG ever suggest the government “study” legalizing the mafia’s activity? Would a responsible secretary of the treasury ever suggest we “study decriminalizing” embezzlement and white collar crime? At best it’s reckless; and if that person is found to have a family member engaging in that illegal activity it certainly, and legitimately, raises the question of impropriety. The fact remains that Elders tried to use her position to suggest that having street drugs stay illegal was bad for our country, and didn’t back down from that position, even after her son’s arrest.
Thus, to return to the topic at hand, I believe that my point stands that Dr. Elders’ leaving her post had more to it than just her comments on sexuality. Dr. Elders had a history of making irresponsible comments about other issues, too.
BTW & OT: I must confess that after quite a bit of scouring the internet, I can’t find the exact quote, so the interview comment is from memory… admittedly, it might have been a speech (though I don’t think that changes my argument that it wasn’t just her sexual views that got Elders shooed out the door). If you do have a link, Mr. Lord, I would be interested…
“Not even close to the same thing. People aren’t naturally, biologically predisposed to kill other people. They are equipped and designed to do so in response to a threat, but it’s not something that hormones cause a typical teen to think about doing several times per day…”
Well… I’d argue that the propensity to lash out violently and the propensity to have casual sex each have both biological and cultural factors at play.
Put a teen in a violent society, minimize the oversight by parents and other authority figures (ie: the perceived “chance of getting caught”), and you’ve got a much higher chance that the teen will lash out at a lot less of a “perceived threat” than someone else in a similar environment. But you could also make the same argument for sexuality… put the teen in a sex-saturated society, minimize their perception of a potential consequence, and they are much more likely to act out their eros.
Patrick,
Actually, after reading the lyrics, I don’t see how you come to your conclusions. For the most part, these lyrics are not about women wanting sex.
True, out of the eighteen, only four are by women. But look at how the young women react to these lyrics:
This is more about dominance and power and control over each other, not sex. And it certainly sheds light on date-rape, where the guy is always insisting that when she said “no” she really meant “yes”.
I agree with both points.
You know, Christians like to point to promiscuity among gay men as evidence of
our evil and sinful nature, but while we may like sex, very few gay men practice the degradation and lack of respect and sheer cruelty for each other as human beings that these lyrics describe.
First, let me admit that Christians do frown on promiscuity. In our view it is emotionally and physically destructive whether it is homosexuals or homosexuals that are being promiscuous. Second, while I certainly respect your opinion about the
Good post Joe. In a few short years, my two girls will hit puberty. Our family will get our own little first test of how we prepared for the onslaught of popular culture.
RE: “Still, the biggest problem, as I’ve argued many times before (here and elsewhere) is that teens and young adults have a strong, natural desire for sexual activity, and we don’t allow them any feasible outlets for those desires. We just ask them to ignore it.”
Tgirsch,
Dogs and cats have have a natural desire to poop on carpets when they are made to be indoor pets. Further, there are no feasible outlets for their natural desire…inside the house. However, the outlet provided by the petlover is taking said pet for a walk. What the pet owner does not tolerate is poop on the carpet. And this intolerance is due to the owner’s love of the pet.
Now teens and young adults are similar. A teenager and a young adult both have a stronge desire to participate in sexual intercourse. This desire, as you believe, has no outlet. But I submit it does. It is called marriage.
In the analogy of the pet, when once the pet has learned that it will be ’spanked’ if it poops on the carpet, the pet itself will control it’s desire until it is taken outside. But with sexual intercourse, it is different. There is a desire, yes. But there is not the physical necessity that the dog or cat has. And this is one of the main problems.
Our godless culture has told people that whenever they have any desire, they must fulfill it. And this appeases us very much. But it is false. I enjoy kissing pretty women. This is a natural desire; before I had ever kissed a girl, I wanted this. But if go through the street acting upon that impulse and kissing all the women I see, it is quite likely that my wife or some husband/boyfriend shall break my nose.
Just my take on the subject. Cheers!
Carl
Patrick,
You said:
Actually, to treat a woman like the “image of God” is to put her on a pedestal, and expect her to meet a standard that is impossible for a human being.
You put your G*d on a pedastal? We are all created in the image of G*d be they man, woman, gays, straight, and/or just plain goofy.
And you continued:
A woman in our culture has often been given only two roles to play, that of whore or saint. Neither role accepts a woman simply for herself, as a human being.
Uhm. How about wife or homemaker? Which one is that? And I don’t think “maid until married” is equivalent to “Saint”. I have a more stringent criteria for Sainthood.
And:
For the majority of our history, women have not had the right to say “no”. If they wanted security, safety and children, then they had to become the property of a man. In order for a woman to say “no”, a man would have to respect her decision.
I think your understanding of history is flawed. Take an example from the “way back machine”, Genesis. You think Rebekah had no choice? Had no say in her marriage? Had no power? Was merely property? Heck I say she wore the “pants in that family”. A patristic society is not one in which the women have no rights.
Furthermore now, just as then in order for a woman to say “no” the man has to respect her decision. If he doesn’t, we call it rape? When were things different? You’ve been reading too much feminist historical “re-interpretation” crap.
Finally: Only if you hold animals in such low esteem. Since they are creations of God, I can’t see them in quite that way.
Genesis 1. Creation is placed in a heirarchy. Animals are “below” man in importance.
Actually I’ve never read any feminist revisionist history, but perhaps I should.
I would put to you that in many respects, for the majority of history “rape” as a crime was not recognized as such if it occurred between a husband and wife.
As far as your comments regarding my statement on the roles of women, you are correct, a homemaker is one of those roles. However, my statement was:
Perhaps you should stop reading bad dictionary re-interpretation crap. You seem to mixed up the definition of “often” with that of “never”.
And “often”, the wife was the property of her husband. An object, which is the point I’m making.
Patriarchal societies tend to grant women few if any say in their lives. Look at the most traditional patriarchal societies left today. Saudi Arabia, parts of India, and other mostly Islamic cultures. Their notion of “family” is much closer to what is in the Bible than what is here in America. Are these things what you truly want to imitate? Islam is returning to the 7th century. Do you want to take Christianity there as well? There is a difference between the life of an American wife and that of a Saudi wife don’t you think? And isn’t it a difference for the better?
“Genesis 1. Creation is placed in a hierarchy. Animals are “below” man in importance.”
There is a difference between “below” and without value or unworthy of respect. Humans are animals. And animals can feel pain, fear, loneliness, affection, a sense of community.
People who don’t or can’t recognize that are often the same ones who are prejudiced against members of their own species.
Christians do this in their own way when they deny that gay and lesbian men and women do truly love each other in their relationships. By denying that they are incapable of love for each other, they dehumanize and demonize them, and classify them as “animals” in order to justify their own prejudices.
As an addendum to what I said previously, a high-ranking member of the Catholic Church has just done exactly what I describe above.
In regards to the Spanish government
C Rob:
But you miss the point. Take a teen and separate them completely from all outside stimuli, and they are certain to continue having sexual urges. Would you argue that they would also continue having violent urges with anywhere approaching the same frequency? This is what “biological predisposition” means.
Having sexual urges isn’t analogous to getting angry. It’s analogous to getting hungry. It’s a natural biological urge. Except that when a teen gets hungry, we let them eat.
Carl:
Huh? When you ask your dog to hold it for five frickin years before you let him outside to take a crap, then maybe you’ll be on to something with your analogy. Until then, it’s ridiculous to suggest that marriage is an “outlet.” Unless, of course, we start marrying off our teens right after puberty, around 13-ish.
Mark O:
Why don’t you ask Tamar what she thinks about that…
Tgirsch,
The point was that it is a physical desire not a physical necessity. “Taking a crap” as you put it is imperative to living. Sexual intercourse is not. As such, it is not relevant to the question if there is an immediate outlet.
Carl
Patrick
I am not suggesting a return to a fully patriarchal society. However, I do think our current culture has swung to far the other way, depreciating the traditional female roles.
I think a careful reading of Genesis shows that either much more respect and rights were granted to women than is commonly assumed or Genesis was a revolutionary document for its time granting many more rights to women than they had in the surrounding society. And thus passing these rights on to the incipient Hebrew nation. But, I think the former is more likely.
Yes you said, “often” in listing your “two” female roles of whore or saint. However what I am questioning is what do you mean by “saint”? Peruse Leon Kass’ article on First Things, “The End of Courtship”.
Perhaps where we should take Christianity would be like 12th century Wales, not 7th century Islam.
As for “property”, are “wives” bought, sold, and traded? Sacrificed like cattle? Do you think the “Song of Songs” is all from the guys point of view? Do you think it wasn’t until the 19th century that men didn’t come to love their spouses. I’ll grant that in history, women and men were traded in marriage to build and shatter kingdoms. But at the same time, that was almost exclusively the very rich/powerful (very much not the majority) and often those same alliances were thrown off for romantic reasons. And I’ll grant that divorce rights were often very unequal, which is why I used the example of Wales. But at the same time, I think it was more often than not that a man didn’t come to love his wife and his children.
Tgirsch,
I think you are refering to the wrong “girl” in Genesis. Tamar was not raped. And yes, Tamar had to go to great lengths to obtain her marital rights, w.r.t. the Levirite custom. No rape involved. And this goes to prove my point with Patrick. She had rights. He thinks women were property. Judah ignored them, and then she forced him to admit he was wrong. In fact it is not Joseph’s line that leads Israel but Judah’s (and Tamar’s) that lead the clan.
Dinah was raped. Dinah was revenged, also supporting the “women have rights” hypothesis.
Quote: Still, the biggest problem, as I’ve argued many times before (here and elsewhere) is that teens and young adults have a strong, natural desire for sexual activity, and we don’t allow them any feasible outlets for those desires. We just ask them to ignore it.
Also from tgirsch: disagree: those activities build the tension; what’s needed is something to release the tension
You’re right tgirsch… we should make our children have a special “play time.” Pulls out Huxely’s Brave New World and rereads the Controller’s arguments for “play time.” What do you know they are the same as tgirsch’s “arguments.” *snickers*
Everybody here should read Brave New World to see exactly what kind of people like tgirsch and Larry Lords want to create….and they are doing a good job of it too. In a about 10 years tgirsch will call education programs to encourge “healthy sexual exploration” aka promiscuity. Eventually forced promiscuity will be mandated by the government but by then sex will comcpletely removed from its natural role in reproduction…sex will in effect become asexual. Satan will have stolen another of God’s gifts to humanity…reproduction will be something done by guys in White Coats after all people are just physical machines…the government should regulate the way these potentially dangerous machines are built…it will happen…its only a matter of time…Huxuly said ( paraphasing) of his Brave New World “I had originally though this horror would come upon us in 300 or 400 years…now it seems to likely in about 120 years. He wrote Brave New World in 1931…2051 its closer than you think…
Quote: Not even close to the same thing. People aren’t naturally, biologically predisposed to kill other people. They are equipped and designed to do so in response to a threat, but it’s not something that hormones cause a typical teen to think about doing several times per day…
How many time do I have to shoot down this stupidity? Most people are biologically predisposed to beating the crap out of each other when they get angry (if you don’t believe me please get a job as a bouncer). I guess tgirsch thinks that beating the crap out people is ok then. Also, some people a biologically predisposed to drinking too much alcohol…I guess it okay for them to indulge… Tgirsch, being predisposed to doing something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. Naturalistic fallacy…”is” doesn’t make “ought”…you need to brushup on your David Hume.
Tgirsch is just using the natural arguement to hide his radical view that is a very GOOD thing for 13 year olds to have sex and lots of it.Tgrish, please tell me how would provide sexual release without actually encourging some form of actual sex?
Carl,
Granted that marriage is an ‘outlet’, however, it is by no means the solution to the problem. Personally though, I don’t think the problem is the ‘lack of an outlet.’ Sexual drive is, I believe, part of God’s good creation which is distorted by sin – we can see clearly see this distortion in pop culture. (Take those songs quoted by Joe for example) While there is little we can do about culture as a whole, we can choose what we expose ourselves to. We have the choice of what music we listen to, what TV/movies we watch, and what magazines be buy. I belive what we fill our minds with will have a very direct affect on how we channel these desires. Accountablility plays a key role as well.
Septeus7
re release without …
(for tgirsch)…. “hairy palms”? ;-o
More seriously, I think Andy G is right. We can’t force anything on society as a whole. But by and large, we are a consumer driven capitalist society. Look at Mr Gibson’s movie. Our choices can drive what sells in our society.
That (and our example) is the only rudder we can apply to the larger society…. (besides blogging? HT Mr Hewitt)
tgirsch:
yeah, besides, people have lots of “natural desires” that they don’t usually follow through on anyway. One might have a “natural desire” to kill another.
Not even close to the same thing. People aren’t naturally, biologically predisposed to kill other people. They are equipped and designed to do so in response to a threat, but it’s not something that hormones cause a typical teen to think about doing several times per day…
How is the desire to kill people also not physical? If the desire to have sex is a physical desire, how can the desire to murder not also be physical, as a byproduct of hormones or some complex series of emergent properties of the brain affected by some external input, etc?
On the other hand, if the desire to murder is not physical how can the desire to have sex also be nothing other than nonphysical? Both desires must emanate from the same thing, whether physical or nonphysical. Otherwise the self is fragmented.
I suspect these things are tied closely together with both metaphysical will, habit and physical body. But will trumps the body, and has the ability to move beyond such suggestions. Of course that doesn’t invalidate your point that young people’s wills are bombarded by their body encouraging sexual activity. However, I do believe that most young people are consistently bombarded by their body encouraging murderous activity. What stops them from following through on impulses is that our culture considers murder sufficiently tabboo that their wills are strong enough to resist such pressures.
And round the circle we come. As many have already said: it is the music (among other things) which encourages cultural acceptibility of sexual immorality. It is the puritanical, individualistic, and narcissistic culture which discourages legitimate sexual outlet (marraige) early enough in life to let people fulfill their sexual desires in due course.
As if we needed more proof that women were whores.
Maybe the Ayatollahs and the Taliban knew what women are really like better than we do.
Carl:
As to the point of the physical necessity of crapping versus sex, you have merely pointed out another reason why your analogy was flawed. My point wasn’t about whether or not one can successfully resist the urges, it was simply that it’s incredibly difficult to do so, and to expect everyone to succeed is the height of naivete.
Mark O:
I’m not sure which Tamar you’re referring to, but I’m referring to Tamar in 2 Samuel 13. She, too, was revenged, but only by her brother. There was nothing in the law, that I can tell, to hold Amnon accountable.
Septeus7:
I don’t claim to have a solution to the problem, but that doesn’t mean the problem does not exist. You can laugh all you want and ignore the problem, but that isn’t exactly productive in solving the problem, now is it?
I’m guessing you’re a skinny guy. You must get a lot of exercise jumping to all those conclusions! How else does one get from “teens don’t have any legitimate way to release their natural sexual tensions” to “let’s teach promiscuity?”
Please point out where I said it did. And please dispense with the false comparisons. I’ve already pointed out why the violence comparison isn’t a good one; and really, alcohol? You’re arguing that people who have never even tasted alcohol are “biologically” predisposed to crave it? (What people are sometimes biologically predisposed to is addictive behavior, and it’s not limited to alcohol.) Your insistence upon misrepresenting my arguments to make your points is mind-boggling.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve said all along. Hop to it, 13-year-olds. If you’re not going to engage in intellectually honest debate, go Cheney yourself.
Well, we could start by removing the stigma from masturbation. This provides release without involving any sort of promiscuity. And in fact, it’s how most teens release their sexual tensions, whether their parents and pastors want them to or not. Mark O is right: hairy palms and blindness are a good start. :)
But let me bounce it back into your court. What do you suggest? How do you propose to assist teens in preventing their natural urges from leading to destructive behavior? You’re obviously very well-versed in why my ideas won’t work, so let’s have it: give us the silver bullet. You’ve set the table, now serve the meal!
Brandon:
Frankly, I never said it wasn’t. I merely argued that sexual urges are both stronger and more frequent, and far more likely to arise in the absence of external provocation.
I disagree with this premise. I think that such impulses are both far less frequent and far easier to resist. Certainly social mores have some input, but it goes well beyond that.
Again, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do know that ignoring the underlying problems will not make them go away.
tgirsch,
I’m not sure why you are confused about which Tamar. I told you which book, Genesis, but neglected to mention the chapter which is 38. I didn’t recall the Tamar you mention. I’ll look it up when I get home.
But by “nothing in the Law” do you mean the Torah? I’m not sure where you read in the Torah that rape is permissable. I don’t think the Israelites had any codified laws besides that at the time (but I could be wrong).
The Tamar I thought you were referring to was married to Judah’s sons (two of them). Onan is the one who gets the most “press”, which is oddly appropriate given your discussion with Septeus7.
The point I am trying to make is that women in biblical patriarchal societies had more rights than is “commonly” recognized, especially as seen in Genesis.
Mark O:
What I meant was that whether or not legal recourse against the rapist was allowable, none was taken. Even if law existed, no legal action was apparently taken. Her brother ultimately revenged her, but not until two years later. Justice, if anything, wasn’t particularly swift.
Ken writes
“Maybe the Ayatollahs and the Taliban knew what women are really like better than we do.”
After you’ve been married to a Persian woman for a few years, you’ll understand quite a bit about why Ayatollahs try to suppress them. ;)
tgirsch wrote: “But you miss the point. Take a teen and separate them completely from all outside stimuli, and they are certain to continue having sexual urges. Would you argue that they would also continue having violent urges with anywhere approaching the same frequency? This is what “biological predisposition” means.”
If you took a teen and separated them from all outside stimuli, that teen would likely (a) not know how to communicate (no one to learn how to do so from), (b) go insane (people don’t do so well emotionally if they never interact with other people–why else is ’solidary confinement’ considered so cruel, and that’s for people that have developed/are adults, generally), and (c) die (tasting food is a stimuli, as is drinking water… without these, the teen would be dead in a few weeks, if not a few day).
Maybe this is splitting hairs, but it goes to show it’s impossible to remove the teen from “all stimuli.” Having said that, there are also ways for cultural stimuli for the teen to learn to approach different bioligical tendancies to helpful, productive coping mechanisms, or self- and/or other-desctructive ones. If you teach a teen that every time he/she gets hungry they should go find some rotten logs and eat some grubs, they’d probably survive, but not thrive. Or, more relevant to our society today, if you teach a teen that when they get hungry to reach for the Doritos and Mountain Dew, they will survive, but likely grow up to be obese, get diabetes, and die in their 40’s from heart disease…
Similarly, if you teach a teen to use their sexual “programming” to seek out a lifelong, monogamous mate, they will be more likely to thrive emotionally and physically. Teach them to act on their sexual urges at the drop of a hat with the first willing candidate that happens along, and they’re much more likely to become HIV positive, conceive a child as an unwed teen, or some other outcome that’s less than ideal for their emotional and/or physical well-being.
tgirsch,
Ok, I looked up the 2 Samuel section. I don’t think those verses prove your point very well. Yes she was raped. But, I don’t get your point that she had no rights just because justice was not quickly served. She stated that he was violating her rights (which he ignored). If she had no rights to be violated then she would not have protested the way she did. King David (in hebraic commentary) is seen to be in the wrong because he “was greatly upset” but did nothing to right the wrong done.
As the King David’s son Amnon could get away with breaking the law better than an ordinary person. I don’t see any indication in the text, that what he did was “ok” because she was just property. I imagine that might even happen today … you know a rich or powerful person getting away with something a ordinary person couldn’t.
I’m not how your point about no action connects with the women=property discussion.