Too young for Jung?

At the beginning of the 20th Century sexual intercourse was legal for British girls aged 13 and over.  In the odd southern state of the USA it's still legal for a girl to have sex, and if she wishes, get married at that age - indeed Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin and many others have done likewise - our own British aristocracy among them.  In parts of the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia and Africa it's common for both girls and boys to marry in their early teens and sometimes before that.  These teenagers weren't and aren't irreparably harmed by engaging in sexual activity.  Their lives aren't forever ruined.  They don't suffer psychological trauma.  Their health isn't undermined.  Their childhood isn't 'stolen' from them.  They don't need years of therapy and support groups.

 

It's normal for youngsters to want to see what the fuss is all about, after all, adolescence is a physical change that is all about sex, about changing from a 'sexless' prepubertal child into a fully formed sexually mature adult.  It's also, in our western culture, a time when young people take on adult roles and responsibilities, when they 'try their wings' and nothing is more normal than for them to want to engage in this forbidden and thus doubly exciting activity, to want to do what adults do - in the same way that 13 year olds may try cigarettes or a swig of lager or wine, or using obscenities in a public place, staying up til the small hours, reading unsuitable books, watching Cert 18+ films - engaging in sexual activity is one of those signs of being independant, of making your own decisions, using your own discretion. 

Who can blame adolescents for wanting to make their own decisions about their own bodies?  And, as long as they don't produce any offspring until they actually are responsible independant adults or get some dreadful std, what damage can sex of itself do to them? 

 

In my opinion, what harms them most is the titillated professional 'shock' tone of media reports and the general condemnatory community reaction where one sexual partner is over 16 and the other under 16, coupled with the exaggerated language used to describe the awfulness of their experience, the doleful prognostications of their ruined lives and desolate futures.  The laying on of shame like some vile unshakable miasma on them and their families is what, in my opinion, does the most harm and the most lasting damage. 

Those who react to the revelation of such sexual behaviour by a witch hunt, by taking it as read that the youngster has been 'abused', by insisting that the outcome is ruin, wreckage, damage, harm, ill health, pyschological trauma - they are the ones who by their reaction bring about these very results.