conuly | Look. I'm not opposed to people writing fanfic about adolescents having sex

Perhaps I don't think that real 15 year olds ought to be having sex with other 15 year olds, but, let's face it, real teenagers aren't very interested in my opinion on their sex lives. I just hope they use protection!

But anyway, fictional teenagers are fictional and they can do whatever they want. Sure. Fine. Great, even!

However.

Realistically speaking, your adolescent character has not had that much experience with dating and sex. Also, they're still a teenager. Think back to your own adolescence, or, if you still are an adolescent, think honestly about your life and the way the other people your age act.

Then translate that experience - or, really, that immaturity and lack of experience - into your scene. Because having sex, and talking about sex, these are skills. They have to be learned. Nobody is that suave the first time around, or even the tenth time.

(Now, if only I could get my rants into the eyeballs of the people who actually need to see them rather than all of you. But dropping by to somebody's fic to say "WTF is wrong with you" probably doesn't go over too well.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

siliconshaman

You just did. Two of my characters are that young and are working out how to be girlfriends, somewhat complicated by the fact one of them is a kitsune who is around 80 years old, she just looks 8-10 and emotionally is 14-ish. (kitsune age differently)

Usagi-chan is however 14, and a rabbit girl, so she's had a rather sheltered life. She's shy awkwardness personified! (except for when she isn't.)

From:

conuly

Ah, well, I hope that was more helpful than scathing, then! Though I doubt anything you came up with would've been as mindboggling as the scene I'd just read, where two kids went from wondering about their crush to straightforwardly talking about their likes and dislikes in sex, and I'm just - you kids practically are still using the phrase "he like-likes me" and giggling in health class, can we not.

From:

siliconshaman

Yeah.. Usagi-chan is alternating between dying of embarrassment and squee-ing in delight, and the most they've done is share coffee and cakes with a light peck of a kiss...they haven't even got as far as hand-holding in public.

Shoko (the kitsune) is a rather straight forward and frank however... but she's Inari's grand-daughter so... Looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but can tell a profoundly dirty joke with a straight face, however she's fundamentally innocent in nature. (it's a port town,and she hangs out at the harbour. 'nuff said.)

So far, well they decided to try being girlfriends and went on a coffee date to a cafe, which side-tracked into Shoko posing in the most wholesome way possible for Usagi-chan (who's an aspiring artist)

Still, gave me a few ideas to think about... adorkable shyness is fun to write.

From:

acelightning73

I"m waiting eagerly to see more of Usagi-Chan. (BTW, the habits of rabbits are nothing at all like our own. As with most small mammals, the male chases the female until he corners her so she can't run away, and then has his way with her (by human standards it's almost rape). She runs away and doesn't seem terribly interested. And she doesn't seem to pursue the male in any way.

From:

conuly

Although, to be clear, I say that with a great deal of affection and love. I certainly don't have much experience either writing or having sex, so what do I know?

From:

beach_baby

I feel like this has gotten more common over the years.

From:

siliconshaman

Given there are pre-pubescent kids dating IRL as well as on Tv, yeah.

From:

conuly

Yeah, there have always been kids in elementary saying they're dating. However, saying they're dating does not really translate to what older people would call dating if your transport is limited.

From:

the_siobhan

So I was having sex at 15. My gf at the time was an abuse survivor who had not yet figured out that it was abuse, just thought of herself as sexually experienced.

We were definitely were not capable of talking about it even though we were doing it.

From:

altamira16

Some people were definitely having sex by fifteen, but a lot more people were lying about having sex (making up stories about having more sex than they actually were.)

From:

ysabetwordsmith

It depends entirely on the teen and their culture (and in some fandoms also species).

* If you are writing about a culture where people become adults at puberty, a 15-year-old may well have been married for 3 years and have 2 kids already. This used to be common.

* If you are writing about a culture with good sex ed and relationship education, then the character's knowledge base should be pretty good, even if much or all of it is theoretical. Imagine if tween health classes included "Here are pamphlets about the human clitoris and prostate gland. Here are free vibrators and lube so you can explore totally safe sex with yourself if you want to, and start figuring out what things you like or don't like in case you choose a partner later. Here are addresses for Planned Parenthood and other providers of safer sex supplies and information."

* If you are writing about a character who has been abused, trafficked, etc. then both their knowledge and experience may be way higher than average for their age but is likely to be skewed.

* If you are writing about a culture or subculture wtih tight restrictions on sexual knowledge and activity, and a higher marriage age (e.g. 18 or 21) then a 15-year-old may know nothing.

* If you're writing fanfic, don't forget to extrapolate logical materials that the author may have forgotten or just didn't consider relevant. Harry Potter canon has minimal attention to sex/romance, but the fanfic is full of brilliant spells for those categories.

* If you're writing contemporary characters, do some research for their locale and time period, because what teens do today in a different city may be quite different from what you and your peers did in your time and hometown.

All those things will lead stories in very different directions.

I hit this all the time, because I write about different time periods from prehistory to future, assorted species, characters from very different backgrounds etc. Just did a really interesting piece about a trafficking survivor, after a year of coping classes, who's interested in an older character. That's a very unusual pattern of experience and knowledge for them to navigate.

From:

conuly

* If you are writing about a culture where people become adults at puberty, a 15-year-old may well have been married for 3 years and have 2 kids already. This used to be common.

What is your citation for marriage being common at the age of 12 at any point in human history? Childbirth at that age is extremely risky, and it takes time to put together a dowry or a bride price, even if you've been saving for your child since birth.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Throughout history till the 20th century, child marriages were the norm in most parts of the world. With the average life expectancy during such times being only 40 to 45 years of age, child marriages were the faster way to reproduce. Girls were usually married off as soon as they reached puberty or sometimes even prior to that.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/child-marriage-rationale-historical-views-and-consequences.html

One of many examples. Basically, they did it because they had to, because people didn't live as long back then. You needed as many chances to reproduce as possible, in hopes of maybe getting 2 replacements surviving to adulthood. This did vary by cultures -- some had children betrothed long before puberty, some had marriages typically in the 20s, but most cultures pinned it to puberty. If nothing else, it saves you having to corral horny teenagers. The drawbacks are well known now, but historically, the advantages outweighed them.

If you don't know what people did or why in the past, then you'll trip over it when trying to write it.

From:

conuly

That's life expectancy from birth. People who made it to the age of 15 were likely to live until their 70s. Marrying your children off at 12 and expecting them to consummate at that age, when childbirth is much more dangerous, does not seem like at all a sensible decision to make when you have every reason to expect at that point that they'll live until their 70s.

And while I don't exactly want to doubt world atlas, I'll note they do a lot of explaining and not a lot of citing the evidence that this was widespread - or, at least, widespread among more than the wealthy and powerful.

*reads further*

Actually, no, I do want to doubt them. Look at this:

For example, in India, about 1,000 years back, a series of Muslim invasions resulted in unmarried girls being raped and carried away by the Muslim invaders. This forced the society to adopt the practice of child marriage to protect its girls.

The logic seems to be that Muslim invaders would only rape and carry away unmarried girls, not married ones. This does not seem to make any sense at all.

From:

adrian_turtle

Yeah, this makes no sense whatsoever. Invading armies have never hesitated to make young widows, when they wanted more young women to rape and carry off.

(When I say "young," I'm thinking under 30, not little girls.)

From:

acelightning73

A ceremony might be held to celebrate Lady Gertrude (age 12) being betrothed to Lord Alvin (age 13). And the actual "wedding night" would not take place until after she had reached menarche. So a 15-yea-old girl/woman might have a child of her own, and be mistress of a household and all its servants. And then die in childbirth before she reached 25.

From:

conuly

Yes - for the aristocracy, that seems to have happened pretty often. They're the ones passing lots of land and money back and forth.

Data for the majority of the population of pre-modern Western Europe is harder to track down, but when I have looked into it I've found that the evidence, what there is, suggests that most of the time, in most times and places, people typically married in their late teens and early twenties, with the man usually being slightly but not excessively older than the woman.

People waited to marry until they were able to support themselves as a mostly-independent married couple. That means saving up a dowry, finishing up your apprenticeship. There were exceptions - but there are exceptions today. Every single year, children as young as 12 are married in the USA, and not just among certain groups such as immigrants. But I wouldn't point to a few such cases and say that, therefore, it's common.

From:

larryhammer

This. In England in the middle ages, historians track the relative wealth of different times and places by the age of first marriage of farmers, as men and women would get married once they could finally afford to set up their household. We can do this by correlating baptismal and marriage records. Throughout that period, it was always over 20 for both men and women, being closer to 20 in good times and closer to 30 in bad times.

Aristocracy, betrothals happened in the teens, with earlier happening the higher ranked you were. (Marriages happened a few years later, generally.)

I've not read deeply into this in other parts of Europe and other times, but everything I've read confirms a similar pattern.

From:

conuly

But it's harder to find equal citations outside of Europe, at least when you're googling.

From:

conuly

Off-topic of this, but have you seen this link yet? It looks like something you may want to read, though I haven't read it: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/magazine/birdcast-birding.html?unlocked_article_code=02VXQoli4qJcvIDNkpVMDszH-IZw84NUz5LiJO4ExLHHFaj_wRdLXgQlzQyGmMxfJL6eFq0botQVquL8LI0AaSS0yteTENKVhhXXIj3wL3tTnGVCtVPUqM3O1Zi2msqhEpq-Nel61Sfi0aFEm7H3_L4hDROBwZWL9ZiUJVnGojU4mGqO_c6D-OrnKZYCeL_X26oeL4aw12V4r70AD2LdQngNAjzcpk6lC4d3QLXAzlcrYNhVzC4b80TlsX-iCrCSLV5HIb4W18czeaFdWODuGVLAas9brxypEN4FdAKab54erOTYaOzDfZMTn0P-vKpV-u4rWoWEIvVamdU&giftCopy=3_Independent&smid=url-share

Blah, sorry for the unwieldy URL, it's a gifting link.

From:

acelightning73

Do any of you remember what it was like to be 14 and in lust, and not knowing how to even say "Good morning" to your crush. That feeling of adolescent idiocy, that you are the worst social failure in the history of the human race, and that they KNOW YOU ARE, and won't be interested in you at all. And the next time you get interested in someone else, the same thing happens. You just seemed to have missed the memo on "social graces".

From:

sabotabby

I wasn’t having sex at fifteen but I am sure I’d have been terrible at it.

From:

conuly

Surely we're all terrible when we first do a thing.

From:

silveradept

I can imagine fifteen year-olds trying to stick to a script they've been told or found on the Internet, so that it looks like they're wiser and more experienced than they are. Or, in the rarest of cases, they were raised in a household that actually did have frank talks about these things and are remarkably well-equipped in the consent and discussion spots. But I doubt their partner is, statistically speaking. And for as much as someone can talk a good game, when it comes to the actual stuff, fifteen year-olds seem likely to go off-script almost immediately.

From:

conuly

True. Following a script is very relatable! Though, honestly, it wouldn't really make you sound sophisticated after a few sentences.

From:

silveradept

Indeed. The problem with following a script is that you have to understand what it means and what it does, and most adolescents haven't got a clue about that, or if they do, it's because they've put in enough work to find it on the Internet, and almost certainly have no experience with it in the world outside adult films.

From:

thekumquat

The fanfic I read has the opposite problem - chaps in their 30s and 40s aren't going to talk like awkward teenage girls - though they might be awkward in a different way.

"So, are we, like, dating now?" is not something Sean Bean's 006 would ever say to James Bond...

From:

conuly

It'd be a bit hilarious if he did, though.

From:

thekumquat

And if Bond happened to be channeling Daniel Craig in the vodka advert (do watch if you haven't seen it - the man can act!), then it could work as a wind-up very well.

Sadly it generally just proves the author is 15 and clueless, (and American) and jolts one out of any belief in the story.

From:

conuly

Ah, well, we were all clueless at 15. That's the whole point of my own rant! Hopefully, with enough time and constructive criticism, they improve.

What called that out as American, anyway?

From:

thekumquat

The use of 'dating' is an Americanism.
Brits get together and then are 'going out with' or 'seeing' each other. "Alice is dating Bob" screams the other side of the Atlantic - it always reminds me of Nancy Drew books.

There's subtle differences in the process, and it's why I (partly) blame my American mother for making me polyamorous, as she tried to figure out her daughter's life and teenage me didn't know enough about where she was coming from.

In the UK, a single person meets people. You might decide to have a 'first date' with someone, but that could be someone you already know and the date is to establish the correct sort of compatibility. If you end up kissing or shagging them and express interest in seeing them again, then you are deemed to be going out with them until such time as you break up. Traditionally a couple would get drunk, wake up together, and decide whether they were in a relationship or never doing that again - which was the bit I tried not to tell mum as she grilled me about "does going out mean you're having sex?"
"No!"
"Well, why can't you go out with one man one day and another man another day?"
(15yo me) "You can't do that!"

American dating in the sense of having dates with different people doesn't really have a name here beyond 'meeting people', though I guess when someone says "I'm dating Bob" there's the implication they aren't dating anyone else? If it's still casual, might American Alice say "I'm having a date with Bob"?

My mum tried to explain a difference between dating and 'going steady' but not sure if that still applies, and also mum's hardly representative of 300 million Americans! (She likes to point out that she graduated high school in 1958 just like the Grease characters at Rydell High, but her graduating class was seven kids, two of whom would come to school barefoot in the summer.)