When I was 11

[Lyeta]

Quoting Bitterandtwisted from 20:07, 12th May 2006
At the risk of derailing the thread, what makes the rhythm method acceptable to Catholics? I thought condoms were held to be wrong because sex was only for procreation, not recreation. If that's the case, it surely doesn't matter whether the contracepion is natural or artificial; the intention is still sex for pleasure.

Have you been reading The Week? (sorry for hijacking thread)

[Bitterandtwisted]

Quoting Lyeta from 20:15, 12th May 2006


Have you been reading The Week? (sorry for hijacking thread)

No, what's that?

[hr]

Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness. Throw yourself into the road, darling - you haven't got a chance.

[Lyeta]

Quoting Bitterandtwisted from 20:19, 12th May 2006

Quoting Lyeta from 20:15, 12th May 2006


Have you been reading The Week? (sorry for hijacking thread)

No, what's that?

Oh its a weekly current affairs magazine...an easier to understand version of the Economist. Today's had a piece on exactly what you just said almost word for word so I thought maybe you'd read it.

[Thalia]

In schools they teach you in a very black and white manner that sex under the age of 16 is wrong - there should have been no moral ambiguities in the boy's mind when he decided to have sex with the girl. He must have known it was illegal, regardless of whether he had her consent.
(And yes, when i was younger i knew that my consent was meaningless because i knew that it was something i wasn't allowed to do.)

How reprehensible it is would depend on knowing exactly how well the girl understood what she was doing. It's all very well for an 11 year old to say that they understand sex and that they know the consequences but that doesn't necessarily mean that they do.

The girl was 11 - the fact is that she will have been given basic sex education. So, even if we were to argue that her early puberty indicated further cognitive development than in some children her age, the most she would have been taught is the biology behind it. The reason she didn't know that she could get pregnant the first time was that she didn't actually know that much about it. She wouldn't have known *anything* about the emotional/ psychological side of losing her virginity because she wasn't at the stage of being taught about it. The most she probably knew about sex was that it was something she could do with a boy and if they used a condom there would be no repercussions (of course that went out the window when she was drunk, or perhaps because she didn't actually know she could get pregnant).

Thus, even if we could argue that she was old enough to be taught and understand about sex and its psychological/ emotional and physical repercussions, there's no reason at all to think that, at 11 years old, she had actually *been* taught about it. So how can she have made an informed decision to consent when she most likely wasn't informed?

Unless you think her mother sat her down and taught her all about sex while she was encouraging her to drink and smoke herself to an early death.

[hr]

The shadow proves the sunshine...

[motorhead]

that was a game of doctors and nurses gone wrong

[Smith]

nobody has yet pointed out the fact that this guy may not have known she was 11 years old.

If she's gone through puberty to the point of being able to conceive, presumably this girl already has womanly features.

It makes no mention of this in the article either, so it's another issue that makes me curious about underage sex: is it really fair to prosecute someone with rape if the person that consented to sex with them lies about their age?

Actually, this is something that's bothered me for a long time, especially when I was in a club in Dundee one time and a girl I was talking to quite openly admitted she was 14.

[hr]

Cake, and fine wine.

[Bitterandtwisted]

Quoting Smith from 20:58, 12th May 2006



Actually, this is something that's bothered me for a long time, especially when I was in a club in Dundee one time and a girl I was talking to quite openly admitted she was 14.

[hr]

Cake, and fine wine.

A la Trainspotting? I remember I was at a friends 21st a while ago and was chatting up a very hot girl whom I thought was 18/19. My friend tapped me on the shoulder and informed me she was a piece of 15yo jailbait. Beware these treacherous female creatures.

[hr]

Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness. Throw yourself into the road, darling - you haven't got a chance.

[Icarus]

Well walking into minefields is always an adventure, so I'll venture my opinion on the whole matter.

The girl was for one thing obviously raised very badly. Any parents who lets their 11 year old child smoke, and go to Edinburgh unsupervised to eventually get hammered and get laid are either negligent or downright foolish.

But it's definitely one case where there's plenty of blame to go around. Reading between the lines, the girl does not sound entirely respectible. In fact, she sounds like the most cliched ned one could imagine. The same goes for the boy. Neither of the kids should have been having sex with anyone at that age, and I don't think many reasonable people would support the notion of kids of that age being allowed to have sex. Their bodies may be maturing, but they are definitely not. The real question that sprung to my mind when I read the story is why they did it. Society's fault perhaps? Are kids trying to grow up too early? Are parents wrong for letting them? Speaking purely as someone who has a younger sister, I don't like the culture for young kids I see today. But then again, as an older brother I am naturally very over-protective of my little sis.

[Lyeta]

Maybe she 1) isn't actually 11 and is just after selling her story to the Scottish Sun 2) wants a council house or 3) is just uneducated/has bad parents/stupid

[Thalia]

Just because she has started having periods and is able to conceive a child, in no way means that she will have 'womanly features'. It can take girls years after having their first period before their bodies start to really mature.

I just looked at the article on the scotsman website which has a longer interview with the girl. Comments such as:
"I didn't think about getting pregnant. I wasn't bothered at the time"

"I can give up smoking at any time, but I don't find it affects my pregnancy" (ffs, what kind of sign does she expect that the smoking *is* affecting her pregnancy? a miscarriage?)

"I like feeling the baby kicking, but the first time it moved I got a massive fright. I didn't know what was happening till my mum explained it to me."

None of these comments, to me, really indicate that the girl is/was mature enough to understand sex well enough to have given informed consent.

Plus the fact that her mum thinks that looking after her little brothers gives her the experience to be a mother herself is just laughable. I helped a lot with my little sister when i was ten because my mum had really badly damaged her arm but that doesn't mean that i would have been ready to go off and have a child of my own :-/

[hr]

The shadow proves the sunshine...

[BeccaLydia]

Along the theme of the guy not necessarily knowing she was only 11, I haven't changed at all, figure-wise, since I was 12. So, it's entirely possible. It's the girl's responsibility to tell the guy her age, but also the guy's to find it out before things go too far.

Still think that her predicament is the result of bad parenting. His is a stupid mistake or if he knew, then just plain stupid. Maybe while schools are teaching sex-ed they should make both guys and girls aware that they need to check ages!

[hr]

http://facebook.com/p.php?id=37100244&l

[Colleen]

My sex education took place in my RE classes. I was told the following things:

1. Sex before marriage is wrong.
2. Abortion is wrong.
3. Contraceptives are very very wrong.
4. If, in a healthy marriage, you would like to prevent having children, here is how the rhythm method works...


I never got anything past that until my Mum realised that I was sixteen, about to go to college, and still only had a vague idea of what a condom looked like. Shame of shame, my MOTHER (who is admittingly a nurse) had to tell my how contraception workd in precise detail.

Because, you see, I went to a Catholic school, and they are legally freed from having to teach sex ed. Fortunately, I was a bright sort of girl and more importantly a shy sort of girl so had no need for it, but I had a friend pregnant at 15 simply because she thought that the rhythm method was 100% effective.

Good system, that.

Kids need to be taught this kind of stuff, kids need somewhere better to grow up in, and kids need to be taught that this kind of behaviour - drinking, smoking and having sex - at 11 is a BLOODY BAD IDEA.

[Lodestone]

Oh please. You're taking the worst possible look at my post. I don't want sex to be made taboo, i want UNDER AGE SEX to be made taboo. WHICH IT FUCKING SHOULD BE.

It already is--nothing in legitimises it in any way. But you're not calling for more sex education, which is the one thing which has been shown to work in other countries. No, instead you're demonising and pigeon-holing a whole demographic, offering no possible solution.

Sorry, but she IS a little slut. I don't care if it's upbringing or anything, if she wasn't, she'd have stayed at home and played with her barbie dolls like most little girls.

Parents, society, or the little slut? The man is not an option here, clearly.

at NO POINT has the girl in question accused the 15 year old of raping her. So, she had sex voluntarily. Yeah, it's wrong for a 15 year old to have sex with a 15 year old - he's wrong to have done it but he's not at fault. If she'd said no, he'd either not have done it, or raped her. and if he had raped her, we'd know about it.

I have absolutely no idea how to respond to this. Will you all please look at what dunqn is saying here. I mean, I've heard of people saying things like this before, but never actually come across it in real life.

He is specifically saying that the girl is to blame for the sex taking place. Not the man. It's not his fault, says dunqn. Not in any way, he says. The onus is on her to say no, he says, not on him not to do it in the first place.

It's even more disgustingly insane in this case, when the girl is 11, and thus both psychologically and legally incapable of understanding the full repurcussions of her actions, and the boy is 15, on the cusp of adulthood.

I'm aware i'm embracing stereotypes here, but please don't paint this little stain on society as an angel, because she isn't.

I'm not painting her as anything, as you well know. I have specifically avoided making any assumptions about her life, because I've nothing to go on.

And Lodestone; Why not pick apart my arguments, rather than have goes directly at me?

You don't have arguments: you've done nothing but present prejudices and stereotypes. And I have provided you with arguments: in favour of better sex education. And I've been pointing out the sheer insanity behind your view of "who's to blame" for this sex. And I've been trying to explain that society, about sex, is in a far better condition than it ever has been before.

--

This is the nastiest shit I have ever seen on any messageboard anywhere.

[Smith]

I agree with flarewearer, when I was 11, the last thing I was thinking about was going out and getting drunk in a city.
I'm pretty sure all the 11 year old girls were the same.

But, there has to be something going wrong here for a parent to allow this to happen.

11 year olds that smoke 20 cigarettes a day and go out drinking in the city?
It doesn't sound right to me, I thought we were in a more advanced society than that, one where we protect our children from that sort of thing.

[hr]

Cake, and fine wine.

[Al]

"I have specifically avoided making any assumptions about her life, because I've nothing to go on."

But you are making assumptions about the boy. All you know is that he is 15. You know nothing about him beyond that. He may be on the "cusp of adulthood" legally (although I'd suggest that 3 years is a fairly large cusp) but what about mentally or emotionally?

[Thalia]

Well since he's Scottish he'll be an adult at 16 so it's 1 year.

And you would think that at 15, however emotionally and mentally mature he is, he would still have been educated enough regarding sex to know that he was too young to be having it, particularly with a drunken girl (whether he knew her real age or not).

[hr]

The shadow proves the sunshine...

[Steveo]

So, are Scottish people 2 years more mature by default?

[hr]

Set your goals way too high so I can laugh when you fail.

[Happy-Go-Lucky]

You know, (and this is not making a point, but merely an intweeging fact) when my parents were young, people (well, women anyway) were not allowed to be given The Pill unless they were married, because the understanding was that non-married people shouldn't/wouldn't have sex.

My mother tells me that dating seemed much easier and safer in her youth, because people really didn't sleep with each other until they were married. A good fondle and snog was the most a couple would really get up to, whereas now everybody seems to expect to go all the way, and if you don't want to, you're a freak. She says she's glad she doesn't have to cope with today's dating with that uncertainty of how far things might/should go and where to draw the line. In her day, dating would involve the girl just kinda putting-up with the boys doing a bit of touchy-feely under their tops and that was about it. Oh how I wish it was still like that. It would certainly take off the pressure, and make dating more safe and simple.

[Al]

Quoting Thalia from 00:10, 13th May 2006
Well since he's Scottish he'll be an adult at 16 so it's 1 year.

And you would think that at 15, however emotionally and mentally mature he is, he would still have been educated enough regarding sex to know that he was too young to be having it, particularly with a drunken girl (whether he knew her real age or not).

True. I had forgotten the different Scottish age of majority.

However, the point I was trying to make was that Lodestone appears to be perfectly comfortable making assumptions about the baby's father while castigating dunqn for having an opinion about the mother.

[Senethro]

Quoting dunqn from 00:23, 13th May 2006

Quoting Lodestone from 23:45, 12th May 2006
This is the nastiest shit I have ever seen on any messageboard anywhere.

Oh for fuck's sake, stop being such a pansy bleeding heart liberal wanker. It's hardly "nasty shit" - ever read StormFront? I'm merely throwing blatantly over-the-top suggestions for a rise out of easily provoked individuals such as yourself. Christ, man.

duncan u r such a troll