Negotiations during sex ...lol

Sure to cool fires of passion at any age. Perhaps Nina is on track to curb excessive teenage bonking ....

I think some commentators are missing common sense.

"Force" as in physical domination or threat of is a BIG NONO.
"Coercion" as in pressure - if a blanket ban were applied, virtually all sales reps, teachers, public servants and politicians would be unemployed. Use your head, exercise your choices!

Seriously folks. We are talking teenagers?
Immature 'adults' full of hormones, curiousity and in these 'enlightened' times commonly a) exposed to adult images and concepts from early ages b)self absorbed c) aware of their 'rights' and that unacceptable, even criminal behaviour is likely to have few repercussions due to being 'underage' d) lacking self control and life experience e)lacking insight into likely consequences of some behaviours f)at risk of undue influence by peers and g) suspicious of most advice meted out by people over 25.

If kids are raised in a stable moral environment where values are taught and reinforced through parental example and discipline, there's a good chance of getting them through adolesence without too many tragedies. Pity the ones who haven't.

Teenagers must be taught about personal relationships. They need their sense of 'selfworthiness' cultivated to help cope with peer pressure. Both sexes need instruction about love and sex, the joys and sorrows, reponsibilities and possible repercussions. This firstly from home then reinforced in life education classes.

I don't buy into the 'girl is always 100% innocent' thing. It is her responsibility to set limits on sexual activity, to remain sober enough to resist breaches and to not give strong verbal or non-verbal messages indicating a willingness she doesn't have. His responsibility is to accept her limits. If she says 'No', doesn't mean he can't try to 'renegotiate' but he must know when to stop. It might also mean being true to what he considers his own limits.

I've reared sons and a daughter thus and none have disappointed me yet. Luck has also been on my side :-)

Nina I don't know if you follow other OLO threads or not but a discussion elsewhere has highlighted different perceptions about discussion of sexual wants.

I recall a few disussions I had with women while I was using RSVP some time back about their experiences with dating and one ongoing theme was men who chose to introduce heavy sexual content into early communications. Something which generally seemed to really creep the women out but anecdotally common enough that it's probably not just a few odd men doing so. On the other hand people looking for a relationship have some legitimate reasons for finding out early if there are shared sexual interests with a prospective partner.

Any thoughts on the ethics around those discussions?

R0bert

'introduce heavy sexual content into early communications. Something which generally seemed to really creep the women out '

So that's rape now too? What about when men get 'creeped out' by women talking about marriage on the first date. Is that rape?:-)

Yeah I know that's just silly, but every discussion like this is 100% committed to pandering to every ideal a woman may have of a romantic encounter, and 0% committed to a man's possible ideal.

I think the only way some people like nina would be happy would be if every woman was 100% happy with every aspect of every sexual encounter, without having any responsibility to express her needs without prompting questions from the male at every step of the way. Anything less is sexual assault.

'Unfortunatly I speak with hundreds of young women who have had unwanted sex. '

Nina,

Do you ever speak to men who have unwanted sex, or is every sexual encounter wanted by men? If it isn't wanted, what responsibility do women have to ask if their partner really wants to have sex when he has given no verbal objection? How often do you think a woman ask? Yeah, exactly.

"What about when men get 'creeped out' by women talking about marriage on the first date" - come on Houellebecq you've been informed elsewhere that marriage is about men owning and controlling women (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3005#70080). Do you get bothered by women desperate to be owned by you? ;)

I do get your point though but I'd still like to get some other perspectives around some of that stuff. What you have said is relevant to that discussion.

R0bert

I agree completely that both participants, or whatever number that are involved in the activity at the time, must provide consent as a bare minimum, but I also think that consent falls fall short of the ideal.

Consent has little to do with ethics. Consent is, as Nina points out, a legal concept, which is in many ways fluid. Not too many years ago it was impossible for males to legally consent to homosexual activity.

The Spanner case in England (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner ) also demonstrates the fluidity of consent.

Ethics is something else again. There are few laws against acting unethically. There is no law against a guy having sex with his girlfriend's mother, so long as they are unrelated and are both able to give informed consent to the act, but the ethics involved may be quite questionable. A married member of parliament may not be breaking the law if he (or she) has sex with someone considerably younger who is not their spouse, but who is also able to give informed consent, but once again the action really can be questioned from the point of view of ethics.

I would contend that consent be taught in schools, but it is up to the wider society to instill ethics: whether this is by the example of adults, the media, faith groups and the like.

I remember 20 years ago talking with a fellow member of a football team in a change room before a game. I was 32, he was 20, and was describing the 'fuss' that a girl had made at a party the night before when she woke from a drunken stupor to find a guy having sex with her. When I told this guy that his mate had raped the girl, and I showed condenmation towards him and his mate, he refused to accept this, and this was a fellow from a good home, attending university and otherwise intelligent.

I hope that things have changed, but I fear that they haven't. It is up to all of us to try to instill ethics.