Hmmm…. recurring phenomenon throughout America?
I found this secret on Postsecret.com and it struck a chord with me, particularly because I am familiar with a number of people who initiate sex in an effort to find love. I believe this happens more often than not anymore, with all the phone hookup lines, the web-based dating, and sex-sites that have popped up over the last ten or more years.
The lines have blurred. On television, we tell our children it’s okay to go out and party it up and take home a random stray, and possibly start a relationship based on that. We hammer into their heads that a hookup is cool through the music they listen to and the images we give them in magazines, television, internet, and any other media outlet you can imagine.
I’m not above all this. I’ve met individuals on the computer before and I’ve made friends with some of them. They may know intimate details of my life without ever having laid eyes on me. Do I give them my social security number and home address? No, but I have had conversations with them, which could or could not have lead to any other kinds of interactions. Scary thought, isn’t it? This is the world our children are growing up with. There are dangers very different than what we were exposed to as children growing up in the ’80s and ’90s.
The idea of love and a happy ever after is taught to us as children. In all the story books, there’s a princess and her prince, whisking her off to a wonderful life of grandeur and babies for ever and ever, the end. They are already receiving mixed signals. They see the family they are growing up with, which could include one or both parents, alcoholism, drug abuse, physical abuse, negativity, molestation, or any number of maladaptive behaviors, but we tell them that one day they, too, could live happily ever after.
No wonder they start off having sex and take it from there. No wonder most of us do the same thing. There are few role models who can show you that: 1- they never had sex before marriage, 2- this strategy still works, 3- the family can stay together through thick and thin. It’s just not a very good bet for young people today.
The confusion between sex and love is so widespread, you have to wonder if it’s truly a way of life any more. It is difficult to get to know people on an intimate level, and when you do, the sex invariably follows. Self-restraint is really not emphasized, though they do push abstinence in schools.
I guess all I can do is remember to give my daughter lots of hugs and kisses, and remind her that she doesn’t need to have sex with somebody to be considered a wonderful human being. She needs to honestly feel that for herself, though, and I can only hope to give her the tools with which to realize it. Hopefully I will have more power over that than the television and music videos.
