Teenagers, sex and culture

[Ebony]

No: HPFGUIDX 8127

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "naama " <naama_gat at h...> wrote:

I'd like to point out that American teenagers are quite likely to be 
different from teenagers from other cultures. The fact that they are 
all going through a similar biological change doesn't make *them* 
necessarily similar. The culture you grow up in determines to a great 
measure the way you view this biological change. And cultures vary 
enormously in the view they inculcate of body, sex, puberty. It 
seems to me that in American culture (which filters over here via TV 
and movies) body-sex-puberty is something different than in British 
culture. 

The fact that for (some) American teenagers sex-romance is of 
such central importance that they can't imagine it being otherwise, 
doesn't mean that we have to accept this as a universal truth. Sexual 
urges can be dealt with and thought about very differently. In the 
Middle Ages, for instance, sexual urges were viewed as so alien to 
the self that they were sometimes demonised (incubus, succubus). So, 
the fact that the biological process is the same, doesn't at all 
guarantee that the responses to it are the same. I think that 
this tendency to flatten a person to his/her "hormones" is a) very 
demeaning and b) is itself a cultural construct.
-------------------------

Interesting assessment, Naama.  I gritted my teeth while reading part 
of it--everyone here knows that I'm overly defensive of American 
kids.  They're not nearly as brutish as some seem to think.  It 
annoys me when people write them and their opinions off.

The United States itself *is* a very unique cultural construct--I'm 
not sure that it can be compared effectively with anything else in 
world history.  It's also a relatively young country... as John 
noted, one of the UK schools he attended is older than this country.  
I'll give you that our cultural youth may influence our collective 
thinking in some fashion.

However, I used the above argument already with the kids... before I 
mentioned the fact that magical kids had to control their emotions, 
etc. I *did* say that the UK is emphatically *not* the US.  "These 
aren't American kids in an American book, you guys!  They don't think 
like you!  Give them a break!"  

If I recall correctly, this is when the space alien comment was made.

--Ebony