The Horrors of Teen Sex

All this talk of sex has left EMILIE FERRIS scarred.

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Everybody’s having sex. You should be having sex. If you’re not, you’re weird. No one will like you. People won’t want to go to the discotheque with you. And you’ll probably die alone.

This is the patronising refrain parroted back to us by endless makers of documentaries surrounding the myths of teen sex. This, apparently, is what all young people think. The presenters of these documentaries interview a few suspicious looking teenagers on various street corners, and hover outside various clubs and bars waiting for people to admit they wouldn’t use a condom, and they all reach the same conclusion: the ungrateful ‘youth of today’ are sexually savvy. Teenagers are sex mad.

Well, maybe everyone else was ‘doing it’ in the school toilets, but I worked hard for my A-levels. I swotted at my desk at home and was in bed by 10.30pm every night. I became breathless with excitement at new grammar tables and verb conjugations, and I was thrilled by the prospect of new and really quite complicated idiomatic phrases. I was genuinely fascinated by the Russian instrumental case. There were definitely no men in my room. At school, I simply had no time for boys.

Of course, that didn’t prevent my parents from being excruciatingly open about sex – a habit echoed by Channel Four. As a result of their medical frankness, paired with an overdose of Shocker: Teens Have Sex!-style documentaries, I have become almost morbidly frigid. Wherever I go, people seem to be talking about sex. I just can’t escape it.

Let’s take a look at my family. My parents and siblings routinely walk around the house naked, because: “the body is a beautiful thing, darling.” Sometimes they neglect to tell guests. Breakfasts the next morning are often awkward.

What’s more, my mother routinely walks into my room at home to gaily scatter condoms on my bed. This activity is usually accompanied by a heavy conspiratorial wink and a: “shall I show you how to use them, sweetie?” This wasn’t as bad as the time she tried to talk my brother into examining his testicles every month, the subject of which was brought up over dinner, after he had just announced his engagement.

Channel Four’s excruciatingly awkward portrayal of teen sex

No one likes to think about their parents ‘doing it’. I used to consider myself immaculately conceived. Sadly, my parents quickly put a stop to that comforting belief by quite bluntly admitting that they have a healthy, rich, and varied (what does that mean?) sex life. And it gets worse. My mother was my school doctor. Not only did she have to see all of my friends semi-naked, and prod and probe their intimate parts, but she had also come to school to talk about boobs to the sixth form every year.

It was horrible enough when I was younger, but when I actually had to sit through her talk, complete with self- demonstrations of how to examine your breasts, my social life was destroyed forever. She even had a catchphrase: “Befriend Your Boobs”. That was everybody’s Facebook status the next day. After introducing herself as “Emily’s mummy”, she told the class (my class) that a good way to exercise and keep your body healthy is: “two to three hours of vigorous sex every week”. My own mother.

Oh, how I wish I lived in a family where no one knew what an Intra-uterine device was, where sex was mentioned stiltedly and in passing with an embarrassed cough when we were ten, and then never spoken of again. I wish I’d grown up without running into miniature Maori fertility gods in the hallway with enormous phalluses. Unfortunately, I did not.

But, I can’t help but think that even if I had grown up in a less sexually-liberated household, I would be fed up of hearing about sex. Every second programme on television is about some spotty teens lol-ing about condoms and boobs. Enough is enough! I firmly believe that my family’s, and our society’s, extreme Glasnost approach to sex has destroyed the image of intercourse in my mind.

I worry that in my most intimate moments, a vision of my mother will appear and shriek: “No, darling, tell him he’s doing it wrong!” And I shall have to say something, lest the voice never leave.

“Er. My mum says…you’re doing it wrong…but thanks…sorry…”