Die Musikdownloadplattform von T-Online mit Songs aus allen Genres. Titel sind im geschtzten Windows…

We were told this in Catholic school.

Most men would love it if women came out and said they liked sex for itself. But this is something that women have to do, men can not do it for them.

there’s an additional social factor driving immigrant parents’ insistence on daughterly chastity. Immigrants often live in low-income neighborhoods when they arrive, and often stay there to save enough money to provide more than just food and shelter for their children. The fact of and the consequences of sexual promiscuity among low-income native-born Americans are pretty visible even to the non-acculturated, and it’s very easy to draw the conclusion that following that path in life is a sure road to eternal poverty and dependence. Sexual activity (and promiscuity) among middle- and upper-class American young women (and men) is not nearly so visible, so immigrant parents don’t see that it’s possible to lead an unchaste life before marriage and still be a financial and familial success.

Meanwhile, as the kids acculturate, they see more than the parents do, adding to the pressure, as they know their parents aren’t seeing everything they do.

Another change is also in our parents. My parents’ generation is at the point where they are caring for their parents who are slowly losing their physical and/or mental capabilities, or have already lost their parents to age and/or disease. And there’s a joke/not-joke among many of them that they don’t want their kids to go through what they’re going through, and maybe driving the car off a cliff isn’t such a bad idea. Very often, it’s the women who say this, and it’s often the same women who have been caring for the aged parent in question. I don’t know if this is common among baby boomers, but it may be something that will bear watching in the future. The boomer women, like your students, were the first generation to experience feminism as we know it today (juggling work and family, being “superwoman,” etc., etc.) and it sounds like your students may be starting down that same road. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, other than that need to do everything and care for everyone may lead to some places that society never expected. My apologies if I’ve completely gone off the tracks here; feel free to delete this if it’s too far afield.

And finally, Thalia, gratzi. THe “pass it on to your children” is precisely what my parents always told me about. It’s not for them, it’s for the next geneeration. (Which, of course, can lead to guilt for not following in the parents’ desired footsteps, but that’s an entirely different tangent.)

I think I need to pitch an advice book to publishers — about adolescence, sexuality, feminism, boys, girls.

1) You have to be a good girl anyway because otherwise people will think you are bad and bad girls get hurt.

2)Don’t have sex because no one will want to marry you if you do

3)Sex is something boys like and something girls use. (I shit you not, the actual quote is: “Boys use love to get sex, and girls use sex to get love”).

It just sets girls up for failure because it teaches them that the real reason they shouldn’t have sex is simply that other people don’t want them to do, rather than because of what’s really best for them or because of what they believe. Needless to say, there’s no acknowledgement that standing up to social pressures that are wrong (like bad girls deserve what they get) has value that may be worth a little risk to personal safety. In so many ways your students are the lucky ones because they still have good relationships with their parents and so they still want to please them, and their parents do care for them even if they are overprotective. It’s the girls who have switched from wanting to please parents or parents and friends to just wanting to please friends that really don’t deserve the title that find themselves in really dangerous situtations.

It’s equally maddening that the author paints such a bleak picture of men. He acts as though teen boys are teminally stupid, uncaring, and sex-starved. He talks about how he’s glad he has daughters becuase they’ve taught him that some of that mushy stuff is ok, and a little boy just wouldn’t do that, as if it would be the little boy’s fault rather than his own flaws that would cause that. He blasts teen boys for their willingness to use teen girls for sex, then turns around and uses “sex and teen girls” to sell a book that barely touches on the subject.

But the part that really scares me is that I see this same type of attitude from my some of my aunts and uncles. I already have a cousin who got married to early and then divorced when her husband started to become abusive; there are times when I can’t help but be afraid for my youngest cousins. I was never happier than when one of them ditched the Paris Hilton wannabees and started hanging out with a slightly older crowd that may experiment a little bit more, but does not put pressure on her to join them or to be something she’s not to please others. I think she’s a lot safer with them, quite frankly.

Jendi, I’m joining my prayers with yours. 

Thanks, Amy; knowing something of your family history, you were one of the many people I thought of as I wrote this post.

And Barbara, as I’ve written before, AMEN to moving away!