{"id":4752,"date":"2016-04-05T12:33:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T17:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/?p=4752"},"modified":"2016-04-05T12:33:24","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T17:33:24","slug":"sexual-bravado-vs-sexual-maturity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/2016\/04\/sexual-bravado-vs-sexual-maturity\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexual Bravado vs. Sexual Maturity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

My 8th grader was describing an acquaintance of the same age, and I paraphrase:<\/p>\n

Her rallying cry is, \u201cLet\u2019s go f*** some sh** up!\u201d \u00a0She says never posts *full* nudes of herself, so it\u2019s okay. \u00a0She\u2019s obsessed with having a boyfriend, and she keeps asking me what it\u2019s like to actually talk to a boy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the middle school narrative: If you sext, brandish vulgar language, and organize your life around the quest for a boyfriend, you\u2019re the sophisticated one \u2014 even if you\u2019ve never had a real conversation with a boy before.<\/p>\n

An appropriately-mature thirteen-year-old girl is a person who has a wide variety of friendships with girls and boys her own age, as well as those younger and older than herself. \u00a0She\u2019s probably beginning to think about marriage. \u00a0Combine those two facts with a half-decent childhood featuring a responsible, caring father who loves his wife and children, and she\u2019ll quickly come to another conclusion: Young teenage boys are in no way marriage-material.<\/p>\n

Why should they be? \u00a0They\u2019re kids. \u00a0He may be a wonderful young man\u00a0with\u00a0all kinds of potential, but he\u2019s not there yet. If you\u2019d actually talk to him, you\u2019d know that.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In our popular culture, sex-status is the big thing. \u00a0The kids have learned from their parents that the purpose of sex is to gratify one\u2019s desires, and that a girl\u2019s worth is measured in sexiness. \u00a0The kids have adopted that philosophy wholesale.<\/p>\n

The idea of a person simply not having sex<\/a> is so foreign that even certain Catholic bishops can\u2019t get their heads around it. \u00a0Parents, meanwhile, delude themselves into thinking that their boys aren\u2019t using porn<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A junior high school principal said to me recently that she invited a specialist in porn addiction to give a talk at her school about this, but parents balked, saying their kids didn\u2019t even know what that was.<\/p>\n

Fools.<\/p>\n

This is not simply a matter of getting a smartphone out of your kid\u2019s hands. Remember my telling you about the family I know who removed their kids from a school because fifth grade boys in her son\u2019s class were watching hardcore porn on smartphones their parents gave them? The boys were building a pornified culture of boyhood. Fifth graders.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given that the bulk of popular music revolves around the quest for sex, and has for at least a generation, it\u2019s difficult to see how boys\u00a0wouldn\u2019t<\/em> do the thing they keep hearing about on the radio when they ride in the car with mom and dad.<\/p>\n

Girls end up not just harassed for sex by the classmates, but convinced that sexual favors are the path to a deeper relationship<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When asked,\u00a0\u201cHow do you know a guy likes you?,\u201d<\/em> an 8th grade girl replied: \u201cHe still wants to talk to you after you [give him oral sex].\u201d A male high school student said to a girl: \u201cIf you [give me oral sex]\u00a0I\u2019ll give you a kiss.\u201d Girls are expected to provide sex acts for tokens of affection, and are coached through it by porn-taught boys. A 15-year-old girl said she didn\u2019t enjoy sex at all, but that getting it out of the way quickly was the only way her boyfriend would stop pressuring her\u00a0and watch a movie.<\/p>\n

. . .\u00a0As the\u00a0Plan Australia\/Our Watch report\u00a0found, girls are tired of being pressured for images they don\u2019t want to send, but they seem resigned to send them anyways because of how normal the practice has become. Boys then typically use the images as a form of currency, to swap and share with their friends. Often times boys will use the revealing pics to humiliate girls publicly if there is a bad break up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is dark enough, but it goes darker. \u00a0This is from an e-mail I received from Kim Williams, a coach with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, who also works with Lighthouse for Life<\/a>. \u00a0She\u2019s describing what\u2019s happening in the sleepy suburbs of a boring mid-sized city:<\/p>\n

\u00a0True Story 1:<\/strong> A young teenage girl was befriended by a young man on Facebook. One day she expressed anger at her parents in her status\u00a0and he said, \u201cLet\u2019s meet up and talk about it.\u201d \u00a0She went to meet him and he was NOT a teenager. It was three adult men who took this girl to a hotel and abused her endlessly for days. Fortunately \u2013 and against the odds \u2013 she was rescued.<\/p>\n

True Story 2:<\/strong> \u00a0A high school sophomore from the Blythewood area [growing suburb popular with corporate executives] was befriended by some older boys. They gained her trust and invited her to some parties. At one of these parties they drugged her drink. She didn\u2019t know what happened that night but the next day she heard from the guys. They had video of her performing sexual acts and doing drugs. They blackmailed her with this video and trafficked her for MONTHS. She was physically free to come and go from her own home but she was a mental prisoner who snuck out each night to \u201cwork\u201d all while going to school and doing her daily routines. Eventually she went out to \u201cwork\u201d one night and did not return. Weeks later the\u00a0police found her \u2013 again against the odds \u2013 being sold by the hour\u00a0at a local hotel.<\/p>\n

These accounts are horrific to hear but they happened to minors from upper middle class families right here in the Midlands. These girls are not what most would expect to be \u201ctypical\u201d victims of sex trafficking. The reality is nobody is exempt from falling victim to this crime. Education and awareness are the keys to prevention. Please be willing to learn more about the realities of sex trafficking here in South Carolina and help keep our children safe from these predators.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why is there such a market for teenage girls in a sleepy Bible Belt town, to the point that pimps are willing to risk kidnapping charges and worse in order to abduct upper class girls and sell them locally?<\/p>\n

You can almost hear the eighth grade boys scoffing at those pathetic men who have to pay for what they\u00a0can get the girls to give them for free.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

There is no magic remedy that will guarantee your teens will live chastely and stay out of harm\u2019s way. But you can be certain that if your understanding of human sexuality is all about the quest for gratification and sexual status, your children are going to learn that from you.<\/p>\n

\"File:1540<\/p>\n

Artwork: Brothel Scene, 1540,\u00a0Brunswick Monogrammist (fl. between 1525 and 1545) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My 8th grader was describing an acquaintance of the same age, and I paraphrase: Her rallying cry is, \u201cLet\u2019s go f*** some sh** up!\u201d \u00a0She says never posts *full* nudes of herself, so it\u2019s okay. \u00a0She\u2019s obsessed with having a boyfriend, and she keeps asking me what it\u2019s like to actually talk to a boy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,162,216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chastity","category-human-rights","category-its-all-catholic"],"yoast_head":"\nSexual Bravado vs. Sexual Maturity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My 8th grader was describing an acquaintance of the same age, and I paraphrase: Her rallying cry is, "Let's go f*** some sh** up!" \u00a0She says never posts\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/2016\/04\/sexual-bravado-vs-sexual-maturity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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