Caitlin talks sense about abortion

If you haven't read Caitlin's comment piece in the Times today about girls and abortion, you should. She cuts through the hysteria about the latest statistics on teenage abortion and refocuses the conversation where it belongs - on teenage pregnancies.

Let’s face it, the rise in teenage abortion is not the scandalous statistic here. It is, ultimately, the teenage pregnancies that are the problem. Why are these pregnancies occurring?

Plus she makes this very important point:

Almost exactly half of the cause of teenage pregnancies - teenage boys - rarely, if ever, get mentioned.

If you missed it, check it Caitlin's blog about Why I believe abortion is part of being a good mother and the lively discussion that ensued.

Comments

[Eluned]

I think seeing abortion as some kind of woman's duty to society is a bit.. awful. If a man ever alluded to that I wouldn't think twice before calling him a misogynist bastard.

[Sue]

Delilah: But perhaps the mother of a son asked out by a "slapper" would be wiser to keep her feelings about the girl to herself, and concentrate on setting ground rules that would see the girl off in double-quick time (no nightclubs; no sleepovers; must be back by 11 at the latest in a state of coherent speech; come to Sunday lunch, you can meet BillyBob's granny).

- Good plan! And who knows, maybe the 'slapper' will actually come to realise that being an 'ordinary girl' is really much nicer than being someone that (spme) boys will use, then diss. As ever, I emphasise that it's 'slapper behaviour' not the person, that I object to. I'm sure loads of 'troubled girls' can 'come good', which is an article of faith I think society always has to hold by - not writing people off if they go off the rails, providing they come back on them and stop harming others, and themselves.

[Lucy]

Delilah, well said. It's quite likely, though you don't say it, that a young person on the lookout for boundaries will actually revel in the tedious invitations to Sunday lunch and meeting granny. I think that often young adults only want to feel acknowledged as adults. They don't necessarily want to make challenges. Therefore, parents including them in the boring but intimate family circle could be the best thing possible: it shows that the young person in question is accepted on adult terms, and is required to take on some of the same boring adult responsibilities.

[DELILAH]

Interesting piece in the wall street journal this week - according to a new study parents who are married or happy with their own current and prior sexual relationships are more likely to set dating "limits" (like curfews, minimum ages or out-of-bounds venues for dating and sex) and are less likely to dictate sexual behaviour ("be a gentleman, respect your date, use contraception") than single parents and parents who felt negative about their own sexual relationships.

Make of it what you will. But perhaps the mother of a son asked out by a "slapper" would be wiser to keep her feelings about the girl to herself, and concentrate on setting ground rules that would see the girl off in double-quick time (no nightclubs; no sleepovers; must be back by 11 at the latest in a state of coherent speech; come to Sunday lunch, you can meet BillyBob's granny).

[j]

I agree with D as well. I dont think it does children any favours if you create such a vanilla home that there are no family rules or shared moral values. That doesnt mean I would be heavy or bossy or assume I have to win every time, nor do I personally have a religious code of behaviour that I would expect children to observe, but I certainly dont want Child A thinking that its all a bit vague and he will have to start from scratch to work out what is acceptable at 16.

[Lazy Mummy]

Agree with every word Delilah says (as so often). And I recall that as a teenager in the 80s, oral sex was more widespread than "proper" sex in some circles (certainly some of the church circles I knew) - for the reasons you mentioned earlier.

But two things I want to say.

1) I think teenage girls are getting a worse rap here than they deserve. Of course most girls mature a couple of years earlier than boys and some are therefore sexually predatory towards boys, but there are also many many girls who wish the whole sex thing would go away because they just can't handle being themselves/their new scary bodies etc. and they feel pressure from boys as well as from other girls - general peer pressure from both genders. Same goes for boys.

Oh, and while anon might be OK with her children having sex under her roof, I think there's a lot of value in not officially condoning it. After all, messages get mixed v. easily and condoning could easily be misunderstood to be encouraging. And I don't think we should be encouraging teenagers to have sex (they can do it themselves quite easily without encouragement).

Also, shouldn't a teenage rite of passage be worrying that your parents will barge in at an embarrassing moment?

[DELILAH]

Having said that (ever the verbose double-poster) - I do think that judging one's children's current choice of company too harshly is not helpful. It probably won't stop them seeing each other, but it will make it harder to pick up the pieces afterwards if the opportunity arises. Dialogue and respect are absolutely fundamental, as Anon says. But I think any parent is entitled to enforce rules to protect children from themselves. If they don't like them, they can work hard and get into the college of their choice and away. Interestingly, I've noticed that the most breathtakingly selfish teenagers - and the ones that end up dumping all over their parents, whether with unwanted offspring, addictions, or just refusing to take any time out of their fascinating lives or vile friends to remember the people who are still paying off the cost of feeding and educating them, are the ones who were treated most "sensitively" as children and young adults. They seem to have never experienced the importance of not doing something that they really want to do, because it's not kind, or ultimately self-destructive.

[DELILAH]

Hmmm.. I'm always fascinated by what other people consider normal. Actually, normal just means following the crowd. If your friends all jumped over a cliff, would you go too? I don't really want my kids to go along with the crowd, especially when it comes to rushing into reproduction.

One of my sisters lives on a commune (honestly, I do not make any of this up) and her children had, by their standards, a very "normal" upbringing - lots of access to pot, free love, all-night parties, turning up to school when they felt like it. My neice survived, miraculously unpregnant (actually, my sis panicked and had her fitted with a contraceptive implant); my nephew is scarred for life mentally and medically and will probably never be able to live independently. He was the more sensitive one; and his downward spiral was triggered by a cruel, public humiliation at age 15 by the slightly-older girl that he lost his virginity to about a year beforehand. Even at that age, they are still, to a large part, children. Even my neice says that she wishes her parents had set more boundraries; it would have been easier to avoid the more frightening parties and situations if everyone hadn't known how very tolerant and easygoing my sister and her partner were, and how much they believed in supporting respecting her childrens' "choices". I know that she, too, would have preferred that they stayed "virgins" longer, but that wasn't the "norm". Well, she'll be supporting the consequences of those "choices" for a good deal longer than she perhaps bargained for.

[Sue]

I think our widely differeing experiences demonstrates not only that different experiences can lead to different views (!), but that there is no single, amorphous 'youf' - there are many, many disparate 'youfs' or teen-cultures or call it what you will, just as there are for adults. Lots of adults are heavily into drug culture, for example, or swinging, or divorcing, or all sorts of things, and lots are simply into settling down and having fairly humdrum lives.

So, too, I'm sure there are as many teen cultures as well, and what is 'normal' for one lot (eg, sex at l4) is utterly abnormal for another lot. I remain adamant that, since peer groups ARE so influential, it's vital to try and select (whether by choosing schools, neighbourhoods, friends (as in encouraging/discouraging), activities, for/with our children) those whose influence is likely to be better than others. Those who 'run with a fast crowd' are, yes, likely to 'be fast'.

I'm not particular in favour of 'teen rebelion' being seen as a norm, as, overall, I find it childish. Many children have more important things to worry about than 'defying their parents' over stupid things like what time they have to be home, etc. Hopefully, if you treat and expect your teens as mature, they will respond by behaving in that way. If they want to 'rebel' let them do it about something important to mankind, such as being anti-capitalists, or peaceniks, or something - something worth their aggro! Nor do I see why the normal expectations of politeness, cooperation and pulling your weight/doing your share, should not apply to teens, as part of the social contract that all families/organisations/societies have to apply to themselves.

[Jo]

Just wanted to support Sue's post that not all teens are having sex. I have quite a few friends from school and uni who didn't till they were older or still haven't. They are all pretty and smart and not particularly religious they just haven't met anyone they wanted to have sex with and are happy to wait.

[Sue]

Why are teenagers going to be sexually active? Some are, at some historical/cultural/geographical times, some aren't.

I wasn't, loads aren't. It's not a given which you seem to think it is.

And you know, you are as judgemental as I am on what you consider the 'right' behaviour by teenagers to be and the 'right' response by their parents to be. We just judge things differently, that's all.

I do feel you are simply 'giving in' to current societal pressures and saying 'oh well, they're all up to it you know and nothing anyone can do' which seems very spineless and defeatist to me.

I would suggest that you and I are never going to see eye to eye on this one, and will continue to mutually deplore each other's attitude! I doubt I'll convince you, and I doubt even more that you'll convince me! I think we must simply agree to differ on this one.

Sue, yes I read your posts, and am suitably horrified by your holier than thou, judgemental attitude.

Teenagers are going to be sexually active, you can support them, or alienate them. Of course I would rather mine stayed virgins for a long as possible. But their life is not mine to live. As long as they are not being exploited, I would rather be supportive and involved, rather than alienated and seen as `the enemy`.

Denial, and `moral judgements` are not going to help teenagers, they will make some inferior mothers feel better when faced with loss of control over their childrens thoughts and actions.

You bandy around these perojative words like slapper, wildly `protecting` your boys, who probably dont want to be protected and would never come to you with a problem or for advice because they were scared of your reaction.

[Sue]

Gipsy: So a sexually predating girl might get called a slapper, but then so might a girl who slipped up once and got pregnant. And once you've accorded an acceptance of behaviour and attitude towards a person who's been given a particular label, it then gets used to justify behaviour towards anyone just by throwing that label at them.

- I think this is a very fair point! (BTW - my previous post was beofre I read yours just now.)

[Sue]

Anon - I don't think you're reading my posts, are you? Where have I said I'm going to bring my sons up to be women haters? What I want them to be able to do is distinguish healthy sexual behaviour from unhealthy (ie, as you call it, very rightly, pornographic), and to have very justifiable contempt for those who choose the latter. I would expect them to hold males who exploit women sexually, whether it's by 'scoring' or frequenting brothels and lap-dancing clubs, in absolute contempt - probably more than women whose behaviour supplies those males, because I too, allow that girls currently come under huge societal and peer group pressure to abuse their sexuality by behaving in 'pornographic' ways. I agree that derogatory terms for such women, such as slapper, tart, slut, etc are very hostile - they are supposed to be, BUT I would always distinguish between the person and their behaviour, that is essential. I would also like to see derogatory terms for males being far, far more hostile (and the reason they are not, of course, is that language has been constructed and owned by males throughout our grimly mysoginistic history!).

I do believe that if men were as contemptuous of the abhorrent sexual behaviour of their own gender (eg, frequenting brothels/lap dancing clubs etc) it would help to socially isolate and condemn those males who think it's 'perfectly normal' to end the evening at a strip club/whorehouse. There are a shameful lot of them about.

And as for your claim that sex between teenagers at l4 is perfectly normal - well, your norms are clearly different from mine. Yours are not universal, and they are certainly, in my book, highly inadvisable, as children of that age are far, far from emotionally or psychologically ready for the full implications of an active sex life. Premature sex is damaging and steals childhoods. (And if it's something you are saying from your own history, well, guess I could say you're proof of that, no, in that you think that young teenage sex is perfectly normal!!!)

("Normal" is a dangerous word to use, I think, as one could argue that polygamy is 'normal' in some cultures, as is 'honour killing', 'child brides', 'frequenting brothels' etc etc. Doesn't make them right!)

[Gipsy]

Anon, Sue doesn't have a judgmental and aggressive attitude towards all teenage girls. Her argument is that it isn't labelling or name calling if you refer to someone by their behaviour, if that behaviour is reprehensible. That's not quite the same thing.

Sue, my problem is that the use of such labels or names always starts with the intention of being applied to just one person, just one type of behaviour, but then gets broadened and used against a wider group. So a sexually predating girl might get called a slapper, but then so might a girl who slipped up once and got pregnant. And once you've accorded an acceptance of behaviour and attitude towards a person who's been given a particular label, it then gets used to justify behaviour towards anyone just by throwing that label at them. I'm not saying that your sons would at all, but what if there was a friend of theirs who followed your son's behaviour but wasn't as able to discriminate as they were? Someone who's moral compass wasn't as perfectly aligned?

Anyway, that's the end of the discussion for me. Sorry Sue, I should perhaps have taken this offline with you - I didn't mean to make it drag out like this. I just wasn't comfortable with the word slappers (nor do I like the word scrubber - its implication is of a woman of lower classes ie scrubbing and so therefore is just good for the odd screw behind the coalshed before leaving her to go back to her scrubbing, no need to treat her any better than that).

[M]

How do boys view their first time? Something that has to be got out of he way quickly and secretly, so no-one knows you were inexperienced, or with a romantic ideal? I guess as with girls, it depends on the person.

There still is that sense that one sexual experience changes everything, the end of innocence, for girls. It is hard to see how there is that innocence any more within our culture and yet it is still prized despite all the tawdriness around us. That look in the mirror for any outward change, the sense that there is no return, that one is spoilt, even. It still is possible to be "innocent" after one sexual encounter, despite the efforts of Lolita clothing manufacturers, sex education programmes and cultural stereotyping to destroy it beforehand. I just wonder why that myth is so powerful and why it isn't so for boys. The girls Delilah described yesterday are technically virgins, but very knowing, the girl who has one loving encounter and gets pregnant could still be very innocent and guileless, or maybe not.

I'm just wondering what people will be calling young, nubile girls after the new film Teeth, featuring a girl born vagina dentata,( an old myth reborn), who heads the virginity cult group at her High School. Any ideas, Sue?

Teenagers of 14 plus having sex with similarly aged teenagers is perfectly normal. Class has nothing to do with it.

Parents can either demonise and alienate, or support and educate. My son and daughter will know that they will not be punished for having sex, but they will be expected to always use condoms. I would be happy to supply them with birth control, and talk to them about safe sex and respect.

My son will not be raised to be a woman hater, who calls any female a `slapper` or a derogatory term, to respect others and their lifestyle choices.

To raise women hating young men is disgusting and dangerous.

[DELILAH]

"It really is quite disgusting".

No judgment there, then.

Anon, what do you consider "normal"?

Sue, your judgemental and downright agressive attitude towards normal teenage girls is only going to teach your sons that it is ok to be disrespectful towards women and judgemental of others choices.

It really is quite disgusting

[Gipsy]

>>But if someone chooses repellent behaviour, why not give them a hostile name for them?

Why do you feel the need to name-call these girls? Doesn't their behaviour speak enough? Slapper is demeaning in a way that thug isn't. In fact, all the nasty words that there are for women (and there's an awful awful lot of them, because de-humanising women has been a favourite past time for many centuries now) are demeaning in a way that reduces the woman they're applied to and makes her that little bit less of a human being.

Thug does not do that. Nor does 'dog' or um, I don't know. Can you think of any other examples that are specific to men? The equivalents of bitch, scrubber, slapper, tart, whore? And while c**t is usually applied to men it isn't specific to them and is derived from a female part.

[Lucy]

PS: Sue, I do sort of see where you're coming from, but in my book to call an underage girl a 'slapper' is beyond the pale. Young women are bombarded by soft porn imagery - far more even than a few years ago - and images of WAGs and so on suggest that to by hyper-sexual is not only desirable, but someone almost a duty for a pretty girl. Adult women may well be able to discount this, but how can you expect someone legally deemed too young to be sexually active to make the right decisions about how to behave all of the time? Surely they will all make mistakes, and these MUST be dealt with on an individual basis, as one-offs.

[Lucy]

Debate's moved on a bit, but I just wanted to agree, KlP, you did a very good and brave thing. Meme - could you please consider that telling people that adoption is harder than abortion could sound awfully as if you're suggesting that the person in front of you can't take the 'harder' option and/or shouldn't consider adoption. I've heard that view and deeply wish that adoption had been made more of an option. As it was, it was suggested that nice middle class girls just don't continue with teen pregnancies.

I'd also note that when I was a teenager the more 'working class' someone's mother was, the more likely she or an older sister was to take the teenager to the family planning clinic good and early, so as to be clued up on contraception. Middle class mums, on the other hand, preferred to turn a blind eye to the possibility that their children might be having sex - even if those children were 16, 18, or even in their 20s.

[Sue]

Also, just wanted to comment the earlier post saying that oral and anal sex were popular amongst the silver ringers!!!! This is the same logic as tells a Catholic priest that having sex with children doesn't impinge on his vow of celibacy.....

Oh, the hypocrisy!

[Sue]

BTW - I agree with Delilah that girls' sexual behaviour can be motivated far more by their relationships with other girls (ie, their 'standing' within a peer group) than actually enjoying the sex per se! In a way, they are 'scoring' just as much as the boys - it's about power and personal reptuation amongst peers.

And I definitely agree about the giving a girl an excuse not to 'do it' by saying 'my dad'll kill you, etc' - it's the same logic that makes me approve of randomly testing your teenagers for drugs, because it gives THEM a 'cast iron' excuse for refusing them if their peers offer them. 'Love to man, but my Dad tests me, and he'll go spare if he finds I'm a user', etc.)

[Sue]

Is that what slapper means? Oh dear - I thought it just meant someone behaving tartily etc? I agree labels can be hurtful and damaging, but I'm not sure that where the labels are caused by actual chosen behaviour, rather than by something that person can't help, it is offensive to call someone by that label? For example, to sneer at someone as a 'chav' for having had the misfortune to be born a class lower than yourself, is morally despicable. But if someone chooses repellent behaviour, why not give them a hostile name for them?(eg, bitch, if bitchy is what they are being, or a thug, if thuggish is what they are being, etc.)

However, I agree that what is difficult when it comes to female sexual activity is that we do NOT want a situation in which a sexually active woman is dissed (whether by males or females)simply because she is sexually active - it is the TYPE of sexual activity and the behaviour that goes with it that can be repellent.