Scarleteen

What is it with the taboo surrounding sex in America? On the one hand, sex is glamorized a lot in the media since the phrase "sex sells", but on the other hand, I feel like people don't like to talk about sex IRL. I know it's personal, but I mean in the context of sex being seen as "bad" especially among younger people. That they shouldn't be having sex, they're "sluts" for having sex (this really only applies to women), that sex makes you "impure" (again, with women), that sex is bad until you're a certain age, etc. I just don't get it. Teenagers don't always feel comfortable talking to their parents about sex and parents don't always feel comfortable talking to their teens about sex, even though studies show that families discussing sex lead to teens making better decisions for themselves about sex. There's nothing wrong with sex. So why do we act like there is?

There are a ton of possible reasons why the U.S has the culture around sexuality that it does, but two that come to mind for me are how we've decided to view young people and how enmeshed religious values are. If you look at places like the Netherlands, which have a very different approach to sexuality, those places also tend to view young people as capable of having deep emotions and the ability to make complex choices. And religious values, especially Christian ones of a certain flavor, aren't as mixed in to policy decisions as they are in the U.S. That's not to say those places don't have issues around sexuality of their own, but they tend to be more relaxed about it.

Yeah, now I remember looking back in history about the whole "chasisty" and "purity" surrounding some more conservative Christian sects. And there is a lot of those religious thoughts embedded in American culture. I just wish it weren't that way, but I guess it is up to us as individuals not to internalize other thoughts and opinions that we personally disagree with, especially realizing that nothing is "wrong" or "right" about sex or in fact, most things in life.