From the book: Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality. By Deborah L. Tolman. Copyright 2002.
"I met Inez, a seventeen-year-old Latina junior in a public high school...One of the first stories she chooses to tell me is about the first time she had sexual intercourse, with a boy with whom she was "in love":"
"The first time I ever had sex, it was something that I least expected it. I didn't actually go to his house and expect something to happen, because it, he was kissing me, and felt like I wasn't there, it was like my body just went limp. It was like, I had went out with him for a year, and I was like, I was like wow, and um, he was just kissing me, and I was like, and all of a sudden like, just, like my body just went limp, and then everything just happened. To me, I feel like I didn't notice anything."
"And so another way to think about Inez's story is as a condoned version: The main theme, that sex "just happened," is an explanation girls frequently offer for how they come to have sex. Having sex "just happen" is one of the few acceptable ways available to adolescent girls for making sense of and describing their sexual experiences...In a world where "good," nice, and normal girls do not have sexual feelings of their own, it is one of the few decent stories that a girl can tell. That is, "it just happened" is a story about desire (Plummer, 1995)."
In a survey on this website, five percent of women, 1 out of 20, report their first experience of sexual intercourse "just happened," meaning Inez is not alone in her experience. In the same survey, seven percent of women acknowledged intense sexual desire or arousal was their primary motive for engaging in sexual intercourse for the first time; a "vaginal ache" was responsible for an additional 2 percent of first experiences. Sexual desire may then account for more than 1 out of 10 first experiences. If "love" has a strong sexual component, and sex "just happens" because of sexual desire, then sexual desire may account for nearly 1 out of 3 (31%) of all first experiences. If sexual desire has the potential to override logic and good intentions for many or all young women, this creates a significant potential for unplanned and unprotected sex, and all the undesired consequences.
The abortion rates presented above potentially indicate sexual intercourse may "just happen" to women of all ages, not just adolescents. When the abortion rate is at its lowest levels, this may merely indicate when unplanned pregnancies are more easily accommodated by the individual and society, rather than being the result of increased rates of successful utilization of birth control and "responsible" behavior. After all, if we become more responsible and more proficient with the use of birth control as we become older, shouldn't the abortion rate steadily decline with increasing age? Yes birth control fails, but in the "moment," is often quickly forgotten, or the short term benefits appear to outweigh the potential risks, just this once. Are all teenage girls and adult women potentially irresponsible, uneducated about the risks, or is there an unrecognized force that results in sex and pregnancy "just happening?" Sexual desire is certainly an unacknowledged force in teenage girls and women that may contribute to these occurrences.
Men I believe, readily admit they are often lead around by their penis, and women often contest to this fact. Women on the other hand are expected to be above such primal and animalistic urges, and prevent sex from just happening. The reality of it is, as I mention in the discussion forum, women may be led around by their clitoris, which may result in them permitting things to just happen.
Note: It is perhaps more accurate to say they are led around by their vagina, as a result of a vaginal ache, a desire to be filled. While their sexual arousal motivates them to seek out a partner, a vaginal ache potentially causes them to seek out an erect penis to fulfill "the need." In a survey on this website, 72% of women report experiencing a vaginal ache, and 86% are aware of a change in their clitoris during sexual arousal, with 53% saying their clitoris throbs or pulses.
The question is, or is it actually an answer, does sexual desire potentially override logic and good intentions, and diminish apparent risk for men AND women? In the end, can we trust a horny heterosexual couple to avoid pregnancy at all cost? I would say the evidence indicates otherwise, even for "good" men and women, those who outside the influence of sexual desire are devout virgins. I propose, at least in intellectual theory, men and women should be buying one of the following, because "we" really can't be trusted.
While this proposed solution is meant to be somewhat amusing, it is also intended to demonstrate the power sexual desire has over all of us, that perhaps only steel may provide a meaningful way of preventing sexual intercourse, if that is our intent. It also demonstrates the risk young couples, and not so young couples, must acknowledge when deciding to hang-out or make-out, especially in private. Our motives may not be as virtuous as we may want to believe, and remembering back to my own youth, I am not sure I ever had a virtuous thought, when it came to women and sex. Do teenage girls truly not understand why teenage boys are so eager to get them alone, do hormones alter the mental perceptions of adolescent girls, or are the girls simply equally motivated to seek out privacy, i.e. sex? Is, "I didn't know," merely a socially accepted, if not expected, cover story for girls acting on their own sexual desires?
Teens and young adults should perhaps be begging mom, dad, and other older adults to act as chaperones, rather than seeking out privacy, or relying on their equally sexually intoxicated peers to reinforce good judgment. One might argue horny teens, which is pretty much all teens, shouldn't be making this decision for themselves, as hormones influence all their decisions. I'm not suggesting teens are irresponsible, only highly motivated to reproduce, and they and society are often only living in denial of that reality. I don't mean to suggest that sexual intercourse is inevitable and unavoidable, just that, wow, sexual desire is extremely powerful.
As the experience I linked to above points out, the first experience(s) of intense sexual desire may prove overwhelming, even for the most virtuous girls of the world, even more so if they are totally unprepared for that possibility, or the only possible cause of the experience is believed to be "love." This sudden onset of intense sexual desire or love has a very good chance of resulting in sexual intercourse and pregnancy, because as in the related experiences, birth control and safe sex are likely the furthest thing from her/their mind at the time. We must also acknowledge the reality that an individual or couple may not experience this overwhelmingly intense sexual desire until they are already engaged in a sexual activity, or in intimate proximity. Sexual desire may be so debilitating for men AND women that it leaves them capable of nothing more than reproducing, penile-vaginal intercourse. Certainly a sobering prospect, and one human ego and society is perhaps unwilling to acknowledge, because it would require us to acknowledge the presence of animalistic desires.
Perhaps one of the major barriers parents face when helping their daughters prevent unplanned sex and conception is the denial of their sexual desire. We are big on lecturing her about bras, periods, and "what boys really want," but not the reality that some day her body will send her chasing after a reproductive mate; the same likely occurs with lesbian teens, even if pregnancy isn't a potential outcome. During adolescence there is seldom discussion of "what girls really want," which contrary to public expectation isn't limited to platonic love. While the presence of developing breasts may attract the attention of boys and men, the presence of pubic hair potentially indicates she is equally motivated to meet them half-way, regardless of age; as mentioned above, thousands of girls age 14 and under become pregnant each year in the U.S. alone. Society and parents need to acknowledge "what girls really want," and prepare adolescent girls for that reality. Parents and society also need to acknowledge the fact that they can't rely on girls to enforce abstinence or responsible sexual behavior to a greater degree than they do boys, and boys and girls are equally likely to be overwhelmed by sexual desire.
Are 'Accidents' Less than Accidental?
Above, I put forth the idea that two individuals may act on their internal sexual desire, and if their paths intersect, engage in sex. I also present the possibility that sexual desire can be initiated by close physical proximity, intimacy, and non-coital sexual activity. This implies there is a certain degree of chance involved, that these two sexually desirous individuals must stumble across one another to fulfill their mutual desires. If a desirous individual pursues someone who is not, the chances of success should be greatly reduced, at least on a reproductive, if not a sexual level.
The individuals aren't suppose to know, short of obvious physical signals, flirting, that the other is ready for and receptive to sex. In the article about sexual desire, I put forth the idea that a woman can stand naked before you, while in a state of sexual desire, and you wouldn't know her sexual state, that even she may not know, but what if this isn't entirely true? What if we are always sending out signals indicating our sexual state, and others respond automatically to them?
For many if not most mammals, males can detect when females are in the mood for sex, are in estrus, based on sight and/or smell. The common presumption is that humans are less than animalistic, having "evolved" beyond such primal sensitivities and urges. Despite common expectation, men may not be so oblivious to female sexual desire after all.
"However, the conventional wisdom holds that human female estrus became uniquely "lost" or "hidden" over evolutionary time...Contrary to this "hidden-estrus" view, recent laboratory based studies show that women near the most fertile point of their cycle (just before ovulation) are more attractive to males, as manifest through more attractive body scent, greater facial attractiveness, increased soft-tissue body symmetry, decreased waist-to-hip ratio, and higher verbal creativity and fluency."
"When women and men interact intimately over the course of several minutes through conversation and body contact, women apparently either "signal" or "leak" cues of their fertility status, and these cues influence the spending patterns by male consumers. The results argue against the view that human estrus evolved to be lost or hidden from males." Source
The circumstance and conclusion presented in the second paragraph are based on a study involving female exotic dancers, who are basically standing naked before their male customers, and the men were perceptive of their fertility, which alters the men's behavior. The men desired to spend longer periods of time with the women when they were fertile, which resulted in the women collecting increased money from them, and/or from a greater number of men. While we may not like the apparent emotional detachment, men are willing to pay to be near a fertile woman. Outside this particular context, isn't it then possible for men to put forth greater effort to be near a woman who is fertile?
If men are aware of when a woman is fertile, perhaps even if she isn't, it seems likely they are motivated to act differently towards her, are willing to go to some expense, not necessarily monetarily, to be near her. What if the money isn't given to the woman directly, but in the form of flowers, dinner, gifts, etc? What if he is simply compelled to romance her, put a little extra effort into pleasing her, arousing her? Maybe he only needs to feel compelled to walk over to her, to elicit or capture her sexual desire and arousal. Are my prior observations of female acquaintances experiencing intense sexual desire not solely the result of keen observation, but signals they were unknowingly sending out to all the men around them? In at least two of the shared experiences, more than one man was pursing the young women, and in one instance, another woman was jealous of the attention being received.
Women act differently while fertile as well:
"At this peak-fertility stage, women are more interested in going to parties and dance clubs, and they dress more attractively (as judged by both men and women). Some women’s attitudes toward their own partners also change, according to research by Dr. Haselton along with a U.C.L.A. colleague, Christina Larson, and Steven Gangestad of the University of New Mexico.
"“Women who are in steady relationships with men who are not very sexually attractive — those who lack the human equivalent of the peacock’s tail — suddenly start to notice other men and flirt,” Dr. Haselton said. “They are also more critical of their steady partners and feel less ‘one’ with them on those few days before ovulation.” But that doesn’t mean they’re planning to walk out.
"“These women don’t show any shifts in feelings of commitment,” Dr. Haselton said. “They don’t want to leave their steady partners. They just want to look around at other men and consider them as alternative sex partners.” Source
We should now ask ourselves if 80% of pregnancies are truly "unplanned" and as a result accidental, for women under the age of twenty, or the result of sexual desire, perhaps uncontrollable yet publicly broadcasted sexual desire? If two people can look at each other, or perhaps unknowingly smell each other from across the room, and "know," doesn't it seem less likely we can keep them separated, or that they can resist their desire? Do we need to wall ourselves off from the opposite sex, if we truly desire to control our sexual interactions? How does this affect teens, who may be impulsive, as a result of their incompletely developed brain?
"Today’s teens may be sexually precocious, but their brains remain immature. The prefrontal cortex, the area that governs decision-making—curbing impulses and weighing long-term consequences—is still under construction during adolescence. “Once the guardrails that stop impulses get moved farther and farther out, kids reason, ‘Why should I bother managing the impulse? It’s what cool people do,’ ” says David Walsh, Ph.D., author of Why Do They Act That Way?: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen." Source
I don't mean to single out or belittle teens, and tweens, but bring reality to the forefront, as after all, the abortion rates presented above allow us to see "adults" are very prone to "accidents" as well. Walling ourselves off from the opposite sex isn't a viable option, in every circumstance, nor an indefinite solution, but then neither is simply allowing nature to follow its course, if we seek to reduce the chances of unintended pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
While parents and adults can be of help, teens must decide what is appropriate for them, and then live with the consequences of those decisions, for better or worse. In regard to tweens, parents may need to wake up to the reality that their "child" may have adult characteristics, that can lead to less than childish consequences; look at the age at which girls are experiencing their first menstrual periods, experiencing sexual intercourse for the first time, and even becoming pregnant. While we may like to blame the child's environment for their behavior, undoubtedly biology plays some part, and perhaps no small part.
