Don't know what to call this.

Wondering what the general opinion about this issue is, I am talking about young women under say 20 or there about.

For that age group would you think commitment free sex is empowering or damaging to self esteem, again I am only talking about very young women I do think it is different for women who had a bit of lifer experience.

The way I see it is the early/mid teenage years can have a huge effect on things like confidence, self belief etc., which in turn can have a big effect on the rest of you life.

Another point is young men of that age can often have a lot of issues that they need to sort and that in its self can affect how they interact with women of the same age, issue such as dealing for the first time with powerful emotions such as feeling jealous, or insecurity, or needing the approval of there peers,

I am going to be upfront and say commitment free sex in the mid teenage years is not good ( as I said being older or being in a committed relationship is different ).

Valentina

I would say a lot of people under 20 would not be equipped emotionally to deal with commitment free sex.

When I think back to my own teenage ideas of relationships and sex it really makes me cringe what I thought constituted a responsible adult relationship. :rolleyes:

fro9etb8j5qsl2

mariaalice wrote: »

Wondering what the general opinion about this issue is, I am talking about young women under say 20 or there about.

For that age group would you think commitment free sex is empowering or damaging to self esteem, again I am only talking about very young women I do think it is different for women who had a bit of lifer experience.

The way I see it is the early/mid teenage years can have a huge effect on things like confidence, self belief etc., which in turn can have a big effect on the rest of you life.

Another point is young men of that age can often have a lot of issues that they need to sort and that in its self can affect how they interact with women of the same age, issue such as dealing for the first time with powerful emotions such as feeling jealous, or insecurity, or needing the approval of there peers,

I am going to be upfront and say commitment free sex in the mid teenage years is not good ( as I said being older or being in a committed relationship is different ).

Speaking from my own experience, my first relationship was with a very jealous, possessive and immature lad from the age of 17-19. Lost my virginity to him a few months before my 18th birthday. Didn't really start going out drinking and bollicking about til I had broken up with him (wasn't allowed) when I was almost 20. And then I went out and spent my unspent latter teenage years!! A bit wild for a few years, didn't go totally slapperish but I do believe that if I hadn't gone and tested the waters like I did, I wouldn't be as happy as I am now (getting married and planning kids). Sure jesus, how is anyone to know what a proper ride is unless they try around? And how is anyone to know what a proper relationship is unless they ride around with the same person for a few months??

Ickle Magoo

I left home at 16 and so by 20 had been living completely independently a long way from home for a fifth of my life - I think you are seriously underestimating the capabilities of a lot of young people by slinging them all under the same assumed generalisation of being emotionally immature or rationally incapable of anything just because of their age...

...and let's face it, there are many well outside their twenties who have more self-esteem and relationship issues than most teens which have nothing to do with having had commitment free sex - like most things in life, I don't think age is a particularly good barometer.

WesternNight

Like Ickle said, you're assuming it'll have the same effect on all young women.

It kind of depends on the motivation, I guess. If you've already got self-esteem issues or similar, and are using sex to get some sort of emotional reward from men, then perhaps engaging in casual sex would do further damage when it doesn't yield those rewards. But that's not going to be the case for every young woman. Give them a bit more credit

Young men and women have been having sex for as long as there have been men and women, and most of us haven't been completely adversely affected by it!

iguana

I'm a bit confused by the OP as first off it refers to women just below 20 and at the end says mid-teens. In general 14-16 year olds and 18-19 year olds are world's apart in emotional maturity, world view and experience.

daenerysstormborn3

I don't think it's the same for everybody. I left home a couple of hours after my final leaving cert exam and lived on my own for 5 years. I would say I was a lot more emotionally mature than at least half the people I knew of the same age. I am still that way though, anybody that meets me comments on how mature I am for my age. A lot of my friends are older than me and they say that when they were my age they were still away with the fairies etc so maybe things have just evolved and people are maturing at an earlier stage these days.

--LOS--

I also don't agree with generalising the under 20's, I was in a LTR and starting college at 17. I think it would totally depend on the person.

perhaps I am not making my self clear enough, I dind't mean every teenager but probably the vast majority, this came about after talking to my daughter, she has a long term boyfriend but some of her friends do not and among those not in a relationship drunken sexual encounters seem to be very common ( some of them have NEVER had a relationship of any sort ) The young women are having encounters with young men who both want to have sex with them and at the same time often think the young woman is a slag for sleeping with them.

One of the reasons for this is that teenagers often have very black and white thinking about issues because they don't have the maturity and life experiences that allows you to see the shades of grey.

Of course that sort of behaviour alone dose not effect confidence or self belief but IMO it is a factor.

There is a big difference at that age... between being sexually active in a relationship and having drunken sexual encounters...

Ickle Magoo

mariaalice wrote: »

The young women are having encounters with young men who both want to have sex with them and at the same time often think the young woman is a slag for sleeping with them.

That's not limited to teenagers either so I don't think that's down to teens black and white thinking. Tbh, it sounds more like you are looking for validation and rationale for your already held view of not approving of sex out-with relationships - and ignoring that a relationship does not guarantee healthy or positive experiences in or out of the bedroom.

Sexual behaviour and the linked emotional and mental maturity/state is hugely complex, I don't think it's possible to put a label on it and say sex out-with a relationship is likely to do harm at ages X- X full stop. There are teens who have a very healthy attitude to sex and their self esteem; and likewise those three times their age who are fragile and emotional wrecks &/or so embittered by past relationships they are incapable of having a healthy partnership. I don't think it's as black and white as sex = bad, relationship = good; regardless of age.

As I said earlier, like everything else in life it's very much down to the capabilities of the individual - and obviously that varies immensely between and for all ages and demographics.

The human brain doesn't fully develop until you are in your twenties so in a sense you are a different person when you are a teenager.

I am not talking of approving or disapproving of sleeping around as a young teenager its not for me or anybody to approve or disapprove of any behaviour as long as its legal, what I am talking about is how the behaviour affects personal development.

Ickle Magoo

Actually, the human brain remodels itself continually through-out life, based on the usage it gets. Synapse' continue to be formed and as far as I can remember it's currently up for debate whether neuron production continues at some level through-out adult life as well. We're not the same person at 30 as we were at 25, nor 40 as we were at 30 - dependant on continued plasticity; we don't ever reach a stage where our intellectual, emotional and psychological state is static.

And while teenagers do have a growth spurt of increased brain development, an immature pre-frontal cortex is no guarantee of sex outside a relationship causing negative issues; nor that a relationship won't cause issues. I don't think you can assume one is any more/less damaging long-term than the other until you closely examine the person, the sex and the relationship in question - and then it isn't going to be black-and-white, even with retrospective examination.

Emme

mariaalice wrote: »

Wondering what the general opinion about this issue is, I am talking about young women under say 20 or there about.

For that age group would you think commitment free sex is empowering or damaging to self esteem, again I am only talking about very young women I do think it is different for women who had a bit of lifer experience.

The way I see it is the early/mid teenage years can have a huge effect on things like confidence, self belief etc., which in turn can have a big effect on the rest of you life.

Another point is young men of that age can often have a lot of issues that they need to sort and that in its self can affect how they interact with women of the same age, issue such as dealing for the first time with powerful emotions such as feeling jealous, or insecurity, or needing the approval of there peers,

I am going to be upfront and say commitment free sex in the mid teenage years is not good ( as I said being older or being in a committed relationship is different ).

I think a lot of how teenage girls react to casual sex is down to their peer group and their background. If they were brought up to believe that girls who sleep around are slappers then they're not going to feel good about themselves. If they grew up in a more open atmosphere maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal for them.

I think that commitment free sex affects people differently no matter what age they are. Some are ok with it, some indifferent and some are absolutely not ok with it.

LegacyUser

Mariaalice,

A few weeks I was in a cafe sitting a table near two teenagers. They were discussing crappy sex with various guys. One girl told a very graphic story about drunken sex with a guy who didn't seem too nice or interested and how she taxied away afterwards - they were giggling about it!

For a moment I was horrified - and then I remembered that at 17 I could have had the very same conversation - and giggled and had fun with the stories. I haven't been terribly traumatised by my casual/daft teenage sexual experiences even though I would find undesirable or even shocking today today - simply because I was a teenager then - everything was a learning curve; despite peer issues and the teenage pack mentality, I was instinctively more open and less judgemental of myself and my experiences. Teenagers really are different creatures.

At some point most young women make a decision on what kind of sex their comfortable with. Most don't find casual sex acceptable after they have defined their likes/dislikes. Of course it is scary as a parent. But when I look at the young women I have grown up with (we're all late thirties now), I don't think the ones who were promiscuous when younger are any more screwed up or neurotic - they (we/me) were just young, curious and resilient - not bad things for a kid to be.
However, I have noticed that certain friends who continue into their 30s/40s with regular casual sex with unsuitable partners seem to have issues...

As the above poster said, it only effects kid's self-image if they are outside the normal behaviour for their peers. Of course, everything in moderation! :-)

Storminateacup

If it's safe, your protected, and consentual, and your over the legal age so no crime is being committed, I don't see how its anybody elses business.

I have some 18/19 year old friends who are on a level, ic not more mature than me. A persons sexlife is private to that person, and quite frankly, I think the older generation, sitting at home, tutting at the youth of today, should take a closer look at their own lives before determining what's right/wrong for somebody else.

Worry about yourself and your own children

Storminateacup

And speaking with experience -- i can tell you that personally, an emotionally tiring and Unstable relationship with a guy that both cheated on me and threathened to end his life if I broke up with him had a bigger impact on my emotional health, confidence and self esteem than a random night with a guy that made me feel good. Just sayin.

There is no RIGHT or WRONG in it.

I think someone here put it best, your teenage years are a time for being daft/stupid/ learning from you mistakes/ finding out who you are, something I had not relay taken in to account when starting this thread.

LegacyUser

I think as long as the casual sex is not driven by insecurity and a misguided perception of an emotional connection with a man and that the girl is only sleeping with guys because she genuinely ENJOYS it, then it's not a problem.

I can honestly say that I'm in my twenties and I have yet to work out fully what I enjoy when I'm in bed with a man. I've had a few ONS but it's generally a drunken endeavor and so not going to be successful. I probably have not had enough practise and so don't know how to even show someone else what I want. Maybe more ONS would be advisable but I just don't like the feeling I have the next day...perhaps because I won't have gotten off!!

What I'm trying to say is that in my case - sleeping around to find out what I want/where I don't need anything more from the guy is fine. If I really want to turn it into something else then no