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By David Futrelle
It’s not a secret that incels are obsessed with underage girls and the allegedly pure joys of teenage sex. Now they seem to have collectively decided that any guy who doesn’t manage to have sex in high school has lost out on something so magical that he is essentially scarred for life; he might as well rope, as they like to put it.
In a recent post on the Incels.co forums, an incel called Personalityinkwell declares, in all caps, that
SEX IN HIGH SCHOOL IS EVERYTHING
everything else is pure cope. …
The only thing that matters is having good genes/good parents so you can be a JB [jailbait] slayer, everything else is GIGACOPE.
Other incels expand on this theme. Mylifeistrash declares that
it’s the harshest pill
that you only got one shot in life and your genetics determined it all
no amount of self-improvement cope or money maxxing will ever make up for your teenage years
AmIjustDreaming agrees,
No amount of money or any other cope can make up for missed teen love. I’m almost 26 and the teenpill still gets to me. While I rotted playing video games, everyone else was having their first kiss, sex, teen love. It will fuck you up forever.
“Only teen love can make up for missed teen love,” laments LOLI BREEDING.
“Highschools need to offer euthanasia at the last day of school,” adds _wifebeater_.
The anger, naturally, stokes the incels’ feelings of entitlement.
“Its such a crime that we never got to fuck prime girls,” complains Ropemaxx.
And it’s not long before they start talking about the age of consent in the Phillipines.
Even aside from the pedophilia, an undercurrent in almost all incel discussions of sex, this is all just bullshit. There’s nothing magical about having sex as a teenager; it’s exciting, to be sure, but it can also be awkward and even a bit embarrassing, as no one knows what they’re doing at first. Sex can actually be a lot better for everyone once both partners have had a little more (or a lot more) experience.
And sex isn’t everything; it’s certainly a pleasant part of life, for those who are into it, but you can live without it. And lots of people do, living through “dry spells” than can last years. Not having sex in high school doesn’t make you special; it doesn’t even make you all that unusual, given that the average age at which Americans have sex for the first time at is 17, with the percentage of high schoolers having sex dropping below 50% in recent years.
That’s right: MOST PEOPLE in high school aren’t having sex.
Yes, it sucks to go through high school dateless. But there are worse things in life. And you have the rest of your life to make up for lost time. Move the fuck on, dudes; stop fixating on something you cannot change.
There are some guys whose lives basically peaked in high school who spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture what they felt the day they scored the winning touchdown. And they won’t shut up about it. Incels are doing something similar, only backwards, fixating on their sexual failures in high school and never shutting up about them. I can’t decide which group is more pathetic, but I know that neither the aging jock or the aging incel is going to be happy until they clear the resentment and self-hatred out of their heads and start living in the present.
I wish I could remember where I saw it, but a few years back I saw a video proposing a novel approach to sex ed for young adults: talk about sex as if it were a jam session. A jam session is fun when everybody knows enough about their instrument to make some kind of music, when everybody is enthusiastic about playing together, and when everybody agrees to stop when the fun is over. The instructor pointed out that the model was flexible enough for all genders, orientations, and preferences. I couldn’t argue.
ETA: Found it!
I’m not a teacher and I don’t pretend to know what specific advice to give to LGBTQ teens, other than what the more progressive teachers already give – and I don’t know what that is. (I can only hope teachers don’t make homophobic violence sound like a hazard that can never be stopped.) Besides, even #2 had advice in it for all couples – as did most of my other points.
Yes, teens expect life to mirror at least some of their favorite media. They’re teens. They also tend to turn away from real life when it gets too messy – and it becomes a vicious circle.
On ONS. Again, I don’t believe in making anything seem like forbidden fruit, for obvious reasons, so a general, non-specific approach, as was suggested upthread, is a good idea. But it only makes sense to point out all the hazards, beforehand (if indirectly) of certain types of sex. Example: Some years ago, a man got arrested for statutory rape – the girl was a 14-year-old stranger. Some thought the arrest wasn’t fair. Others pointed out that anyone could get off the hook by claiming that the younger party lied, even if the younger, hypothetical party didn’t actually say anything – and clearly, parents of minors would never allow that, since we’re talking about defendants who are old enough to vote, after all. Another person pointed out that sleeping with strangers can be very hazardous for men OR women – albeit for somewhat different reasons, so it only makes sense to discourage it.
But what’s wrong with ONS between high school students? Well, chances are the person who WANTS it to be a ONS plans to shun, more or less, the second party ever after – and the latter may well feel horribly exploited, since there probably wasn’t any real agreement beforehand. See #9.
And here’s #10. Teachers can say: “If anyone wants to know what safeguards OTHER people have used to make their sex lives relatively non-traumatic and crime-free as possible, you may ask me for copies of a printed list at the end of class, because I’m not going to force a list of dos and don’ts on those who don’t want to hear it.”
(Of course, that includes the safeguard of making sure someone is of legal age. Hint: it’s SORT of a red flag when someone claims to be over 16 but isn’t on Facebook. Google often works pretty well, too.)
Again, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Teens may resent being warned, but they’re even more likely to resent not being warned.
Finally, from what I’ve heard, Peggy Orenstein has been doing a pretty good job minimizing the sex wars of teens, in her recent books. (I trust HER name isn’t completely unfamiliar, here?)
@VP
That’s a good analogy. Another one I saw that I liked was about tea.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8
@Lenona
I don’t see any evidence for this. I know lots of adults who’ve hooked up with people or had FWB situations and didn’t shun each other, and I don’t see why teens couldn’t do the same.
I’m not on FaceBook. I know a lot of adults who have deleted it or were never on it in the first place for a multitude of reasons. And I don’t think many young people are on it anymore.
There’s no right or wrong time to learn that lack of communication leads to problems, and the teenage years are just as good as any other time. I still don’t get why you think teenagers must be coddled and protected from bad feelings. Bad feelings are a way of life, and everyone has to learn how to deal with them sooner or later. You learn by doing. You learn by having bad feelings and sitting with them and crying over them maybe, and wallowing in your feelings until you learn how to self-soothe and make yourself feel better. This does not magically become easier in one’s 20s if one didn’t experience any bad feelings in one’s teen years upon which to learn this skill. In fact, people who are protected from bad feelings by those around them for too long tend to become spoiled assholes who expect the world to revolve around their feelings and the people in it to manage their emotions for them. Letting kids bruise their hearts early is good for them. Warping the universe to protect them from bad feelings is counterproductive and just stupid.
Why are you conflating one night stands and statutory rape? Statutory rape isn’t necessarily (and probably not usually) from a one night stand, but instead the product of grooming. That’s been the case for statutory rape survivors I know anyway.
As far as I can tell, the logic is that teens looking for one-night-stands will obviously go out and find adults to sleep with, and not tell them their age, thereby “tricking” the adults into committing statutory rape.
Which does sound an awful lot like those “well, if we believe survivors then what if someone falsely accuses ME of rape” concerns that sketchy people have.
@Lenona
It is. Your streak of shitty citations remains unbroken. You have yet to make a single cogent point about anything whatsoever, or to own up to your bigoted statements. Do the second, then stop fucking typing, because you’re getting more obnoxious with every post.
@Lenona Your list reads like “sage” advice coming from an aunt or uncle. Might as well put in “a bird in the hand is worth eating cheese on a Tuesday uphill both ways.” What would the lesson plan be like? I don’t think it’s necessary to be a teacher to cook something up, right? We’ve all been students once before.
I’ve always been an advocate for teaching more soft skills in schools in general. This includes issues of consent, dealing with rejection, how to communicate with people from different backgrounds and abilities, etc. Much of the biology is easy and from what I can tell easily forgotten. So, if your point is ultimately that sex is scary and should be applied with many eggshells to tiptoe around, then that doesn’t help anyone to communicate what they personally feel.
Also, as a poly person I’m feeling a bit out in the cold. I guess I’ll have to find (multiple) caring people to warm me up!
“I still don’t get why you think teenagers must be coddled and protected from bad feelings.”
I didn’t say that. Wendy Kaminer (of the ACLU, remember) referred to “considerable heartache,” and I referred to trauma. Those aren’t just “bad feelings.” Of course kids need to learn to deal with regular crushing disappointments on their own – including the ones that MIGHT come from heavy petting or unrequited love. But hooking up for heavy petting very often just isn’t comparable to hooking up for “going al the way,” whatever that translates to. (Especially when you’re lonely and desperate and no one warned you there are no shortcuts to love.)
WWTH, I thought I spelled it out enough, but I was referring to the desire of some young men to hook up with strangers. Not men who want underage teens. The man in question didn’t know she was 14, but the judge was not sympathetic. (Other people got mad at the judge and had the gall to suggest the defendant should sue the girl. Honestly.) As commentator Allison said:
“I have two kids thankfully too young for this stuff yet, but I’ll have to tell them both to be very careful with regards to sex and everything that could lead up to it. If this girl had disappeared and been found 3 months later in a ditch, this would be common news, and a cautionary tale to young women not to hook up with strangers. Well, welcome to the party, guys. Don’t sleep with strangers.”
You know if teenager are just going to mess around with someone it’s probably going to be another teen right? like someone from school? someone from another school, someone from camp. Maybe that other random boy who hangs out in the grave yard. A friend’s friend maybe. Most teens aren’t going to get a fake id and go want to mess around with the 30 something cowboy at the bar.
@lenona
You know when i was a teen i didn’t want love, i wanted to be fucked. Most teens did. Because fucking is fun and it feels good and feelings are messy and to much sometimes. Most teenagers aren’t looking for the soul mate to settle down and have a life long happy marriage full of marital sex, their looking for a good time. If anything your overly complicating this a lot. I’m sorry if you had regrets from your sexual experiences but please stop dumping all of that onto other young people because it’s really creepy.
When the girl who use to have sex in the grave yard is telling you your being creepy, you being creepy.
Also don’t call it petting, no one calls it petting. Super gross.
I checked into this “Peggy Orenstein” person. She’s apparently researching the messages that society sends about sexuality to children and teens, how it affects them, and the disconnect between the messages meant for boys and girls, and then writing books about this. None of what I’ve seen so far is new or radical, and wouldn’t be out of place for a progressive feminist of the 1980s despite being only written and published in recent years. However, it seems marred by out-of-date ideas and heteronormative focus. Perhaps a deeper dive would show that the seeming flaws are minor and easily overlooked, or that it’s actually a bit worse than it appears, but that would require actually reading her books and I have better things to do with my time.
“Considerable heartache” and trauma are different. Having heartache because the other party in a sexual encounter doesn’t want the same relationship you want isn’t somehow easier to handle if the first time you encounter it is when you are 28 compared with 18. It’s the same for someone in their 20s as someone in their teens. It’s the fucking same. You have communication issues, you have heartache, and you fucking deal with it. An 18 year old is not more tender or delicate than a 28 year old with the same amount of sexual experience. Delaying the first sexual experience from 17 to 27 would not magically spare someone heartache. It just delays teaching that person how to deal with heartache.
To call that “trauma” is belittling to people who have real sexual trauma. We can chalk up “belittles sexual trauma” to the list of shitty things you’ve perpetrated here on this thread.
I like how you magnanimously allow teens to engage in heavy petting. What the actual fuck. Do you live your life in a teen drama movie? A soap opera comic strip?
What’s magical about the stroke of midnight on someone’s 20th birthday that makes them able to handle “going all the way,” whereas 20 minutes earlier their tender delicate heart just couldn’t handle it? Come on, spell it out. What is so special about TEENAGERS that they need to be preserved from the MASSIVE TRAUMATIC FEELINGS of bad communication around sex? Why shouldn’t everyone be warned off of the dreaded one-night-stand, since they are a recipe for fucking TRAUMA in your book? Why is it OK to commit ONS trauma on a person in their 30s?
Fucking trauma, for reals.
Snowberry, you don’t have to. She wrote one or more terrific articles for The Atlantic. They’re not that long.
(Would you believe some online female lawyer once sneered that that’s a “women’s magazine”? I didn’t waste my time asking her what she meant. No, I don’t know her name, but she’s something of a conservative.)
Of course, one can also read the professional reviews of any one of her books.
“oh yes Robert, pet my genitalia in a heavy mannor, but lets not go all the way because that will break my precious little virgin heart who is not 20 yet”
Also thank you because the way they are using trauma is really bothering me. Getting rejected or having bad communication is nothing like sexual trauma. Not even close.
I thought most folks had sex in a graveyard at least once. ??? Is that not a common thing? Everyone I know who fooled around as a teenager did it in the cemetery at least once, and so did I.
@Catalpa
I read it as even worse, as suggesting that rape is excusable if a man thinks he was tricked. It’s rape apologia (or sounds like it at least).
@NautaliaC
Is this something your relatives told you? I’m not sure I understand. I recognize the “bird in the hand” bit but not the rest.
@Lenona
Can you please respond in your own words instead of quoting people we’ve never heard of? As any English teacher can tell you, just throwing evidence doesn’t make a good paper.
@Snowberry
Doing some research, it looks like Peggy also digs pretty hard into sex essentialism, which is a red flag.
She’s also got a rather interestingly coincidental name for someone who writes about sex.
Re: heartbreak
Honestly, I think it’s better if people learn to deal with it younger. When you’re 17 and heartbroken you have parents you can lean on and you have time. Less so later on.
@PoM
FWIW I’ve never fucked in a graveyard, but I’m an unusual case.
@Naglfar
Maybe it was a function of where I lived at the time – if you didn’t have the capacity for privacy at the home of either party involved (as is typical for teenagers who want to hide from their parents that they are sexually active), you went to the graveyard. It was quiet, remote, rarely patrolled by the cops, and there was a convenient place to park.
Uh… This doesn’t sound right. Maybe it’s just me being asexual and assigning absolutely no value to sex, but I don’t see how being in a relationship that involves penetration with one’s genitals is somehow incomparable to a relationship where you are merely rubbing each other’s genitals.
I feel like those things are pretty close and neither is on the far side of some vast spiritual gulf that somehow causes trauma when the relationship ends.
@Policy of Madness
God i really hope so. But it was my favorite place to have sex in as a teen. Way better then the creak. To me it wasn’t convinces, it was actually romantic.
Oh, and if one partner blabs all the details on social media the day after, that’s causing heartache AND bullying, especially if others join in. As in quite a few news stories – or the young gay male college student in NYC who jumped off a bridge when he found out he’d been recorded. (I forget if the recording was done by a third party or not.)
Again, I don’t believe in directly saying to teens “don’t do this” unless we’re talking about possible criminal charges. But chances are they won’t be irritated by indirect warnings. Why would they?
@Naglfar
“Uphill both ways” is a standard exaggerated joke about how hard things were in the old days (or in Yorkshire), e.g. “When I was your age we had to walk 20 miles to school, in hip deep snow, uphill both ways!”
@Naglfar
I use to like imagine that there were a bunch of ghost arguing about it like that scene in Mulan with her ancestors.
I actually kind of miss being young and being able to do that. Where i lived if you got caught by some cops or graves keeper while doing that normally a walk of shame home and a call to your parents was the punishment. Now that I’m an adult I’d probably get arrested. Plus i don’t have an excuse to do that much now.
@Lenona
That’s outing someone sexuality in an extremely homophobic world. That is not the same thing as “sex hurts the teens oh no! only heavy gentialia petting allowed!” because like that boy would probably have done the same thing if a picture of him kissing another boy was leaked to the internet. Especially if his home life was abusive towards his sexuality. I have a friend who is 25 who still has not told her parents she is gay because she knows they won’t love her anymore and the rest of the family will shun her. They have made that very clear.