Controversial topic — is having sex at a young age (12 or older) harmful or not?
Interesting podcast with Diana Fleischman. She talks about a study that looked at minors (12 or older) having their first sexual experience and whether there was any correlation between the age gap between the partners and the idea that they were adversely affected by the experience. The results? There was no correlation between the age gap between the partners and the bad first time, but the biggest predictor of whether the minor had a bad first time was if the minor was female.
There’s also an iatrogenic factor in the idea of sexual abuse. If you tell minors, “If you have sex with an adult, that is abusive, and it will harm you psychologically,” the minor is primed to have bad psychological effects from the experience. But if you tell them, “You may or may not have bad psychological effects,” they’re less likely to suffer ill effects.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | June 6, 2025 8:39 AM
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When I was in junior high, stuff was going on. I can't imagine; barely through puberty and having sex? Why would you feel the need to pursue this before your body is even developed? Or your brain?
I wonder how many secret abortions occurred?
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | June 6, 2025 8:00 AM
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Mental harm coming mostly from societal shame is probably right, but that’s how life works for a lot of stuff. You're either in the group out of the group, sometimes for arbitrary reasons. I always thought AoC was more of an image/goal, like "We (wealthy Christians) want society to look a certain way; so we'll use this knob to purposely dial that in, simply because we believe it is good." And that’s probably how most of human society was built. I can’t imagine there’s ever going to be much science behind what amounts to a social policy based on “feels”. Not to say it's a bad thing, but it’s just never been a science thing. Even scientifically sound generalizations like BMI are less useful in specific cases, but still helpful for broad societal guidelines.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | June 6, 2025 8:39 AM
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