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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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because what the hell culture are you coming out of when you're young enough to think admitting to being a virgin at 12 is shameful?

For a boy? All of them.
Literally all of them.

All of them are watching porn at this point (or at the very least, aware of why one would want to watch it), all of them are making sex jokes, and all of them are masturbating. The ones who say they aren't are either intentionally resisting, usually for various religious reasons, or they're lying because they're embarrassed about it.

This is something most adults tend to forget about, for the exact same reasons- either they're intentionally forgetting, usually for various religious reasons, or they're embarrassed about it. Or they're too close to the problem; after all, their generation invented sex, they had to wait a long time to get it, and it'll be a cold day in hell before those twerps lay their hands on it.

I do find it very difficult to think that 10-12 year old boys are having sex

Well, they are objectively the most unattractive cohort of, from a biological standpoint (puberty), grown men- no achievements, money, or other family-raising stability to their name. It's like belonging to a network of premium clothing shops and some penniless unshowered vagrant walks in and asks for a price on the bag in the window- absolutely disgusting.

For reference, this is how the average man thinks about it.

In contrast to some of the other commenters, I first stumbled upon porn at age 10 (decades ago). While I didn’t know what it was at first, I still got an erection and proceeded to take care of business (albeit with some false starts and a significant amount of uncertainty about exactly what was happening).

My age group was aware of sex at that time, but in a more theoretical way. It was something obviously cool to do, even if we were fuzzy on the details, and if you didn’t want it then you were obviously gay, or so we thought, and that was bad.

Notably, despite years of porn and masturbation, I didn’t actually become genuinely romantically attracted to women for a number of years after that (14-16, maybe?).

So my experience suggests the physicality can be there early, and some will be curious and have the opportunity.

For a boy? All of them. Literally all of them.

The average 12 year old boy is so early on in puberty to still be a kid.

Hyperbolic use of "literally" when the context doesn't make it obvious leaves me feeling like I must correct the record, lest someone take it exactly as literally as written.

When I was 12, 13, and 3/4 of 14, I:

  • Had gone through puberty.
  • Had gone through (pathetic and nearly useless) sex ed.
  • Had never encountered, searched for, or meaningfully considered searching for porn.
  • To the extent that I had any awareness of shame/pride cultures surrounding sexuality, it was less about signalling experience, and more about signalling heterosexuality, under threat of being called gay. I hated this and refused to participate as expected, and thus perished my social life (what little there was, anyway).
  • Was annoyed by how much my peers (many of whom seemed to get to puberty 2 or 3 years later than me) took to making everything about sex.
  • Did not masturbate. TBH, I misunderstood what the word meant, and thought it was specifically referring to autofelatio. (Yes, the physical functionality was there. First nocturnal emission was around 2.5-3 months after 12th birthday. I remember when, event-wise, but not the precise date.)
  • Actually obtaining sex or sexual release was not actually on my mind much? I'm not sure if I can clerify this one without getting more detailed than I'd like.
  • To be clear, no, my lack of masturbating at this time did not fall into the exceptions listed in the OP. I wasn't "resisting"; it just straight-up wasn't something in possibility space, so far as "things to do when bored and alone" were concerned.

I can see how that "have I mentioned I'm heterosexual today, and that y're totally a gay skank?" culture seems explanation enough for why middle school boys would over-report sexual experience, "literally all of them"? Did I misinterpret this?

Literally all of them.

that is going far too far

for start, that fails when it is blatantly false and everyone knows that: in such case silly lying is not even improving your standing

And " Literally all of them." includes literally all of them, including turbonerds, avowed asexuals and ones with not as rapid sexual maturation as you claim.

For a boy? All of them. Literally all of them.

You're overselling it. 12 is when you start going through puberty and thinking about sex, but there's a long road from there to feeling like a failure because you're still a virgin.

All of them are watching porn at this point

You might be making her point for her, re: "what the hell culture are you coming out of "