Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
The so-called sex recession has been discussed both here and on the two old subreddits extensively, and a consensus seems to have formed for a good reason (I think) that it's not actually a sex recession per se but instead a socialization/community recession, a recession of social interaction. That is, it's not only sexual activity that is declining but also every form of socializing and all traditional social circles (churches, clubs, associations etc.), and the sex recession is just one consequence of that.
There are three related phenomena that I remember being occasionally addressed on the subreddits, namely:
(These two started to take place largely around the turn of the millennium and were exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis, and can be explained by a combination of social and technological trends but that's not the point here.)
The long-term effects of the federal enforcement of 21 as the drinking age, as a phenomenon peculiar to the USA. This meant that people over 21 and under 21 have no venues or social circles left where they can interact, and teenagers who graduate from high school and subsequently lose that place as a venue for socializing basically find no replacement for that, because every conceivable venue that could fill that role caters to people over 21.
The proportion of 18-year-olds with driver's licenses has apparently also declined massively, which appears to be a phenomenon tied to the ones above; anyway, I don't remember it ever being discussed here in detail.
All in all, the obvious combined effect of all of this is the massive loss of what sociologists call third places for teenagers in particular. And all this happened before the proliferation and normalization of smartphone/tablet use, which had its own great consequences, of course.
So, to get to my question: have there been studies about this particular phenomenon and its effect on the sex recession or the social lives of teenagers / 20-somethings? Because there must have been one. Was it ever even discussed in mainstream media?
When I was young, I wondered if I'd stop caring about this one once I was well beyond the age that it was directly relevant to me, but no, the further I get from it, the dumber it seems. The arguments are so cliche that we've already all heard them a million times - these people are old enough to vote, old enough to fight in the military, but not old enough for a beer? Self-evidently ridiculous! We can even easily visit other countries with lower drinking ages and observe that nothing much happens differently without these dopey laws. Worse still, the effect isn't just on the underage, it's in pointless enforcement up and down the age spectrum. Nearing 40, I still need an ID to buy beer at a grocery store. Everyone involved has to pretend as though this isn't a completely retarded ritual, we all agree that there's really nothing to be done about it, the federal government decided that you need to card everyone and the company dutifully implemented a system where it's not even possible to sell a beverage without doing so. A small thing, really, but a constant reminder of how much I despise the petty, authoritarian weasels of the American federal government.
I suppose the social milieu was such that adults got spooked by the horrific specter of 18-20-year-old boys getting into car accidents, fistfights, having unprotected sex etc. and this measure was seen as a good idea. People generally don't consider long-term consequences in such situations.
In other words, "teenage boys" [and to a lesser extent, men in general- the young men just get it worse as a consequence of how men accumulate sociofinancial value] became the new "niggers" (started in the early 1900s, and would become progressively truer each decade, with a quick pause around 1960 for the economic golden age where they became economically useful again). The prohibitions that were imposed for the latter group would transfer to the former; they'd be charged as adults for crimes committed before that time (for things that wouldn't be crimes if they were adults, even), be prevented from working, intentionally segregated, consistently demonized in the media because
melaninhormones, get the phrenology treatment ('lack of brain development') for a justification for making the paper-bag test analogue stricter, etc.I failed to stop Noticing this one once I was well beyond the age for whom a change in that cultural attitude would have been wholly selfish. Perhaps that's a side-effect of not actually having particularly identifiable "stupid kids" in class but "this is net-negative for at least 50% of the population" is a pretty damning condemnation ignoring that. We are already willing to accept 12/52-type consequences that result by giving rights to every other group and the fact we don't extend that downwards in the age range is... interesting, to say the least. I think it's socioeconomic in origin, for the same reasons other groups gain or lose the right to be considered human over time in industrialized societies (unindustrialized societies consider adulthood to be around 13-14, which strongly suggests that's when it actually happens, but it's not like they have any other choice in the matter; not that Western societies that delay it are being explicitly malicious when they do that, but if we accept that we also accept a lack of malice about race/sex discrimination more generally [assuming and to the extent that our scientific ageism is false], so...).
I agree; I think forcing them out of any cultural milieu or circumstance that they'd grow up in (growing up is an inherently dangerous activity) may not have been the best of ideas. This is part of why the Amish have rumspringa- you're leaving as a child, and if you choose to come back, you're doing so as an adult.
This isn't true. Teenaged boys in agrarian societies might be expected to do adult levels of work, but they don't get adult levels of say in society(and of course they don't have freedom, because in undeveloped poor agrarian societies no one does) and coming of age rites in agrarian societies for male full adulthood are usually higher than the 18-21 common in the industrialized world.
Now teenaged girls in agrarian societies are commonly married off to much older men and subsequently treated as adult women, but that's not what you're talking about.
My level of reference is "what was it possible for a 14 year old to do in 1900" compared to "what are they allowed to do today"?
Off the top of my head I can think of "get any entry-level factory job that doesn't require advanced education, support or start a family, get laid, move across the country, buy a weapon, have a beer after work" in 1900. At 15-16, provided you could had reached full adult height and weren't cursed with babyface, you could join the military. Even in the 1930s 14 year olds doing menial tasks like waiting tables was normal enough; evidenced by the youngest Hindenburg staff member that survived that incident being that age.
Today they're... allowed to play on the computer, I guess.
In 1900 the US and Western Europe were industrialized societies with on paper modern laws about the ages you could do things, with the exception of child labor. Sloppy record keeping meant there were lots of high school aged boys in the military, sure, but they lied about their age and got away with it because public records were spotty. And the idea that any appreciable group of people had more sexual freedom at any point prior to 1960 is risible, although I suppose the frequency of prostitution might count as a point in favor of our 14 year old in 1900.
Actually agrarian societies tended to be rather harshly restrictive of teenaged boys and marry the girls off. And that’s still how subsistence farmers behave today.
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