I’m not the one complaining that this isn’t fun anymore.
I find it fun up until the point it bores me.
Yet you’re still posting.
Did I want to offer some insight into this thread? Sure!
Is that what you call responding to a 4 year old post to defend your pet issue?
Do I want to keep defending my original, misunderstood remarks and try to explain that there is a difference between welcoming a right and pointing out some obvious political passive-aggressive games?
I asked you for some specific expansion on your view of those “games,” which you have repeatedly declined to answer. You could have addressed those, instead you spent about three posts whining about how you didn’t want to play anymore. I can see why you’d get bored. Whining gets old pretty quickly.
Hope springs eternal, so let me try once more to try and keep you interested: You argued in the post that started this that, by promulgating the info in a public database, the newspaper changed it into a “shopping list for criminals.” How, exactly, does the distribution of publicly available information change the nature of that information?
You are going to need data to even remotely convince me that teens consistently use condoms. Because I’d be willing to bet they do not.
Absolutely true. So we agree, then, that because of a lack of quality sex ed, teens probably practice less than perfect use of condoms.
I was referring to having a child as the life changing event. I don’t agree that 1 in 33 (again, best case scenario) is a “very, very low chance” as you first said. That’s, like, 10 fertilizations per high school dance per school or something.
Also I’m going to need the data (just like I requested above) that teenage women are aware and able to go to the pharmacy the morning after and pick up Plan B. I think you are continuing to apply reasonable, prepared, responsible adult actions to teenage behavior without a very convincing foundation.
You brought up the driving age, not me. I simply included additional various areas in which society has agreed that a person must be age X to legally perform action Y. I don’t know that this vaguely passive-aggressive sarcasm is actually contributing to the discussion; it’s certainly not convincing me (whereas the data I requested above probably would).
I guess if we wanted to be more constructive and relevant, then: why is it considered sex with a minor (hence illegal) until age 18? Why can’t anyone get them some 17 year old action? Why not 16? It’s just sex, right? It’s all natural! Everyone’s been doing it for quite awhile! Because 18 is the age at which society (right or wrong) has agreed that a person is able to handle the responsibilities, meaning potentially life-changing events, that come with it.
Again, this is the problem with the Internet. I can’t tell if you’re being a douche asking an obvious question or if you’re being genuine and it’s something we can just hash out in a few seconds. This is why I prefer to just let awkward things die sometimes or take it to PM. I actually typed out a reasonable response but I almost can’t bear to see you post in the thread again.
Okay, well according to Guttmacher, “At most recent sex, 83% of teen females and 91% of teen males used contraceptives. These proportions represent a marked improvement since 1995, when only 71% of teen females and 82% of teen males had used a contraceptive method at last sex.” That’s pretty consistent, especially considering that some of those kids are going to be against contraception for personal reasons. Obviously the remaining kids are being irresponsible by having unsafe sex, but I don’t think that’s a function of their age.
Also, “Nearly one-quarter of teens who used contraceptives the last time they had sex combined two methods, primarily the condom and a hormonal method”, which means that among the teenagers using condoms, the chance of pregnancy with perfect use is actually less than 3%.
The line that caused me to take a jab at you was the one that said girls under 16 shouldn’t have sex. If, in the future, comprehensive sex education becomes accessible to every American sixth grader, would it become okay? Right now it seems like teen pregnancy leads me to say we need sex ed, and leads you to say teens shouldn’t have sex.
Right but the chance of having a kid is much lower than 1 in 33 if the woman wants to get an abortion. She also has to have access to one, of course, which leads me to…
I was wrong on this one, it seems like you need to be 18 to get RU 486 and 17 to get Plan B in the US. So that’s a bummer.
I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic. This happens to me in real life pretty much all the time, too, but I was serious. Learning to drive is part of growing up, something that teenagers look forward to and joke to their friends about and get really, really goddamn nervous about fucking up and then conquer with relative ease. Sometimes a kid will die in a car accident, and that sucks, but the point of a rite of passage is that there’s some danger involved. It’s not like joining the army or smoking or drinking because the risk is much, much lower. It’s also not like smoking or joining the army in that everybody does it, a lot, and most people who do it survive with zero negative effects.
Or because adults are a lot more experienced and powerful than kids and can easily trick them into doing shit they don’t actually want to do. It’s 100% legal for two sixteen year olds to have sex.
I would be happy to see a PM answering my questions. I may be acting like a douche, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also be genuinely curious about your position.
I was referring to having a child as the life changing event. I don’t agree that 1 in 33 (again, best case scenario) is a “very, very low chance” as you first said. That’s, like, 10 fertilizations per high school dance per school or something.
I would like to pint out that the number the WHO gave is the YEARLY pregnancy rate. In other words, if you take 100 kids using condoms correctly, after a year, 3% of them will have gotten pregnant at some point. If that was already understood, disregard.
Estimated pregnancy rates during perfect use of condoms, that is for those who report using the method exactly as it should be used (correctly) and at every act of intercourse (consistently), is 3 percent at 12 months.
As Saiban pointed out, which both you and I glossed over, my numbers referred to the “per year” rate and yours to the “most recent sex act” rate. However, again I must also refer to the portion of the WHO link that indicated 3% was for both consistent and correct usage, aka absolute best case scenario. Without this, the yearly rate can get up to 14% (per woman).
I should also say that the study doesn’t indicate clearly if it is worldwide or developed regions or what. Presumably it’s not just the USA, but I don’t know how wide a net it casts. Your study appeared specific to the USA. I will try and spend some time today finding more apples-to-apples documentation.
Wide cultural changes would be needed before I (personally, in my opinion) would agree that 16 year olds in the aggregate are responsible enough to raise a child. Sex ed is only a small part of that, especially because it’s more about preventing the child-event than it is handling it once it’s on.
Just to clarify, I only said “girls” because in the original context we were speaking about medical records for abortions in the context of the thread; I believe it applies to males as well.
No doubt, man. Big time bummer. Honestly, getting the fetus-worshipping wacko position out of pharmacology and legislation is a much larger part of the cultural change I’d have to see to change my view, as mentioned above. But I digress.
Which is why I believe having sex at some lower-bound age is more comparable to these other things than to driving a car.
Defining “adult” without referring to age may not be easy, and I sumbit to you that there is no sudden impartation of knowledge or strength at one’s 18th birthday either. Furthermore, it’s exactly that word “experience” that I am referring to when I say that a 16-year old isn’t responsible enough to raise a child. You may be referring specifically to experience in sex acts, OK. I’m referring to the whole of life experience: having a job, paying bills, etc. The kind of things that point to whether or not one can be responsible for another human being.
It’s not, and I refer you to the many discussions we have had here or article online where various 16 year old boys are labeled as sex predators for life because they had awkward first-time sex with their 16 year old girlfriends.
The legality of 16 year olds having sex is regulated by state. Some states, 16 is legal, some states not. In California a (under 18) teen having sex with someone who is within 3 years of their age is a misdemeanor.
