Virgo Posted December 27, 2006 Share Posted December 27, 2006 Sooo... I'm a younger asexual who kind of wandered onto this board to see what the "older" asexuals talked about, and it got me wondering... As a 17 year-old, there's been a reasonably strong emphasis on sex as I've grown up. And there certainly is today. Is that different from when you grew up? Is it the same? (I'm such a nut for sociology, it isn't even funny. :roll:) Link to post Share on other sites
PollyB Posted December 27, 2006 Share Posted December 27, 2006 Hi Virgo - well, all the responses you get will be deeply personal and different from each other, because we are, but a fair few of us are "baby boomers"* (hate that phrase but it's useful here). I'm 54. In my 1950s childhood there was a lot of secrecy around sex, and I wasn't formally told about it till I was 12, and given the impression only married people should "do it" even then. But by my later teens (I was 17 in 1969) it felt like the whole world was rebelling against that, and talk of sex or "free love" was bursting out everywhere, so I feel like I witnessed that changeover, or a version of it. A lot of it was just talk - most young women I knew were still very nervous about losing virginity or becoming pregnant, and didn't know how to get hold of contraception (and I already had enough sense that I was a lesbian that I didn't particularly try, though I eventually gave sex with a couple of men a try, when I was 19). By the time I was a student (very early 1970s) I was sort of blase about sexual talk, but grateful that feminism and the gay rights movement had kicked in, which felt like another part of the break from 1950s secrecy as well as part of the wider blossoming of alternative politics, and I plunged myself into those.[/i] Link to post Share on other sites
Kelly Posted December 27, 2006 Share Posted December 27, 2006 Hello, Virgo. I too am a boomer. As with Wordwitch, there was a lot of secrecy about sex. I had no idea of what intercourse actually was until I was 12. And the eew! I could hardly believe it, but the physics seemed to make sense. I grew up rather ignorant of the whole thing. Link to post Share on other sites
cijay Posted December 27, 2006 Share Posted December 27, 2006 Hi Virgo I'm a bit younger, VERY end of the boom. I think the boom ended in 1964 and I was born in '62. By the time I was old enough to understand what they were talking about, sex was always out there but not in ads, on TV and movies with actual sex (other than fading to black and closing the bedroom door) were very restricted adult. I don't know when the first one was. Things were just coming alive for women, it was the era where she was discovering that SHE could make the first move, HER orgasm was important, she didn't have to be there at his beckoned call yadda yadda so it was very much in focus. My teen years were in the mid-late 70s and that was when the raunch was in full bloom so I really made a conscious effort to withdraw from it. Then AIDS started becoming well known and I don't know if it curbed anyone (probably did but I didn't move in that circle anyway) but people started to take it seriously. So I'd say that in a lot of ways, it's pretty much the same as it was with the exception that is was more discrete as far as advertising and such. Link to post Share on other sites
thylacine Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 When I was a kid, if a girl was promiscuous, she was talked about, and called a slut. Nowadays... I guess a girl gets talked about if she's not a slut... oh well. Link to post Share on other sites
Virgo Posted December 30, 2006 Author Share Posted December 30, 2006 Interesting. having lived through the "free love" 60s (I love your avatar, Wordwitch!), do you feel like our contemporary culture is more sexualized or more promiscuous than it was then? Typing this question, it occurs to me that I don't really know which was more emphasized in the 60s: physical love or emotional love. Perhaps you could elucidate that for me, too? Link to post Share on other sites
cijay Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 Typing this question, it occurs to me that I don't really know which was more emphasized in the 60s: physical love or emotional love. Perhaps you could elucidate that for me, too? I don't know if they separated the two as much as they do now. It seemed more like the focus was on 'you don't have to love one person' - but their method of expressing love was STILL tied to sex. Link to post Share on other sites
Tanwen Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 The 'permissive society' sort of passed me by. My (eventually) husband refused to believe that at 28 I was still a virgin. So I suppose I was something of an oddity even then. *My sex education at school consisted of being told how rabbits did it and being ex[ected to translate that into human terms. Older friends actually explained how it 'worked' with humans and I remember seeing a pregnant woman following this and thinking to myself "Yes, well, I know what you've been up to."* Link to post Share on other sites
annie71 Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 hi virgo i'm a gen-x'er, which kinda sounds TO ME like i should be able to turn into some kinda of bad ass ninja super hero, but all it really means is i'm 35 i can't speak for others of my age range because my life was so f*ed up at that point in time, i mean by whatever, 17ish or so? by your age i was already a practicing alcoholic and did drugs at least 3 or 4 times per week, and hung out with a bad crowd (not the bad kids at school per se... more like a bunch of smart kids who knew how to get drugs and alcohol and hated the world LOL) so anyway, there was no secrecy about sex - my mom never really told me about it, but all my friends "knew" about it and did it, it was just "one of those things" that we all did - kinda sickening, but that's another reason i say do whatever you can to make sure your kid doesn't grow up as a latch key kid! hahaha i mean seriously tho. anyhoo... that's my 2 cents. Link to post Share on other sites
Ziffler Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 Another Boomer here. 54. The topic of sex during my childhood was contradictory to say the least. My mom was open for discussions about anything, but the problem was, I didn't know the questions? From about 12 onward my dad jokingly teased me about "greasing the wick". I had absolutely no Idea what he was talking about. I knew it was dirty. I knew it had something to do with sex. But I had no clue as to what? In the 50's early 60's tv was heavily censored. Pajamas and seperate beds. No underwear ever. Not even in commercials. So, I was totally ignorant about sex. Sex Education in school was just becoming part of the cirriculum. For me, it was 9th grade. The class was about 2 months late. The summer before starting the 9th grade, Just before my 14th birthday, I had my first solo ejaculation and it scared me to death. I was totally ignorant about what happened and scared that I broke something inside me and was afraid to tell anyone what I had done. For 2 months I lived in fear that I was going to die because of what I had done. One of the first things taught in my sex education class was Nocturnal Emissions and masturbation. What a relief it was for me to find out it was normal. Sex education class was a segregated class. Only males in my class. I remember that the highlight of the class was a black and white film they showed. It actually had a naked boy in the film taking a shower. This was to show us what our bodies looked like and the different parts and that basically they are alike. First time I ever saw a naked person on film. That was 1966. Looking back, I see my lack of knowledge about sex as strange because that was the age of free love and free sex. Yet all the boys talked about sex. About doing it with this girl or that girl. Everytime more than 2 of us boys got together sooner or later the subject of sex would come up. I would always melt into the background during those conversations. Last thing I wanted to happen was being discovered that I was a virgin. I would have been teased unmercifully. But I bet that most boys at that time were virgins. So, yes there was an emphasis on sex, and at the same time there was a huge ignorance about sex. It wasn't something talked about around the dinner table, but it was talked about during bragging sessions and adult male teasings of us teens. Like I said, it was a wierd time to grow up. Link to post Share on other sites
roddy9uk Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 OK so I beat you for age Ziffler (I am a '49er..makes me 57). I had no sex-education lessons at school. I had a Father who told me, when he thought the time right (which was bEFORE I reached puberty) about the necessary mechanisms. I don't recall him specifically mentioning wet dreams mind you. They just happened and didn't bother me. I tended to assume that if it happened to me then it must happen to every boy. Later on I read about the details somewhere or other (I went to a catholic boarding school so the available material was sparse to say the least.). Perhaps my parents casually left reading material lying around. I really cannot remember. The general details about "sex" including such things as condoms filtered through by some form of osmosis. Like you though Ziffler I tended to stay in the background where I heard a lot and learnt a lot without having to display my own lack of experience. Sex was something (in the 60's) that was hinted at, alluded to, referred to, but never openly discussed. Yet when I saw my first "blue film" at the tender age of 20 there were no great surprises there for me (except perhaps how they managed to persuade that dog to do THAT...). The only thing that DID surprise me was that I clearly did not respond to the company of women (or men) as others did. It did not then worry me unduly. I just noted it as yet another fact. roddy Link to post Share on other sites
free spirit Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 I don,t want to sound rude,but because we did,nt have sex education and noone talked about sex or periods, we had to figure things out for our selves. When I was 8 in 1970 I was told by another 8 year old that when we grew up we have stick a poker there to make us bleed and all the girls in my class believed it. I was shocked but felt safe as I had a few more years to go. Once we all went swimming and a lady came out of the toilet and did,nt flush properly and saw blood and thought she was dying. Also a vicar in his swim suit who was skinny with a massive belly to us we thought he was pregnant. You might think this thick of us. But as I said there was taboo about taliking about sex and things. And at that age and younger I was told I was born under a gooseberry bush. I might of known the truth but I had a good try at figuring things out even if it was wrong at the age of 8 Link to post Share on other sites
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