Lifestyle Choices

It’s common for the boy to try again, right away or later. He hopes that the girl was just pretending to be reluctant, so as not to seem too easy. He thinks she is perhaps wanting and expecting him to persist and that she will look down on him as a mouse if he doesn‘t. Her cue is to be as definite at the second try as she was at the first. But she can still be friendly, as if appreciating his attention.

Another common manoeuvre of the male is to begin arguing : ‘But you said you liked me…. What’s the harm?… Don’t you have any feelings? … Isn’t it abnormal not to want to? … All the other girls do…. I don’t want to date a person who doesn‘t like this side of me…. A boy has strong instincts that have to be satisfied….’ There are thousands of arguments that have been used since Adam’s time by which the male tries to put the female on the defensive, tries to make her feel she is obliged to explain her ‘peculiarity’. There’s no point in arguing. Romance and sex are matters of emotions and ideals, not of reasons. From a psychological point of view it is much more persuasive when a girl declines to give reasons, just acts as if she is sure and then changes the subject; for if she can easily be drawn into an argument, it means that underneath she is not at all certain she is right.

A boy who is trying persuade a girl to let him take more liberties than she wants to permit may say frankly that he is not interested in dating a girl who will not give him these pleasures. Or a girl may tell her mother that she must give in to boys, in order to have dates and be popular.

If a girl is reluctant to pet with a boy who mainly wants to use her for his own pleasure, she should tell him to run along. Why should she give away the intimacy that she wants to save for someone she really loves, why should she sacrifice even a small fragment of self-respect, just to be popular with someone of limited appeal? That’s a poor bargain. A girl is mistaken who says that ‘all the boys‘ insist on exploiting girls and that a girl will be totally neglected if she doesn‘t give in. It’s true enough that all boys have some desire to pet for petting’s sake. But many of them in the early teen years are not ready even to try. Others will not do so because of ideals and inhibitions, even when offered the opportunity. To put this more positively, there are just as many boys looking for a girl to respect and idealise as there are girls looking for such boys. I mean that parents who instil ideals in their children have just as many boys as girls. A girl can be sure that any boy who is drawn to her and who’s worth thinking about seriously, far from being angered or disappointed by her unwillingness to pet on slight acquaintance, thinks more of her and wants to know her better.

Of course one reason why a girl may allow herself to be persuaded to give in to loveless petting is that, though part of her wants to save intimacy for a boy she is sure she loves, another conflicting part has physical desire and the urge to experiment and experience—just as the boy does. So she is tempted to use a boy’s threats to go away as a cover for her own desires.

Another reason—let’s face it—why a girl may give in to a boy who is bold and masterful but who only wants petting is that many of the boys with high ideals are hopelessly bashful and awkward in adolescence. Of course many of the girls with high ideals are shy and awkward in adolescence, too. Most of the bashful girls and the bashful boys improve greatly in charm as they get a little older.

What about the insensitive boy who persists in making advances—even forcibly—despite a girl’s sincere resistance? She has to be ready to fight and scream if necessary. But this possibility raises the question whether a girl really has to get into a situation in which she is at the mercy of a boy whose crudeness she was not aware of. The answer generally is no. A girl who isn’t looking for trouble doesn‘t go on dates with or accept rides from boys she doesn‘t know or knows only slightly. (`No, thanks. Someone else is coming for me.’) If she does accept a ride home at night with a boy she knows fairly well and he starts to take a roundabout route, she can immediately explain that she is late already and that they must go by the shortest route.

With a boy she knows only fairly well, she shouldn’t go on a date that will take them away from other people—not until she has come to know him well and trusts his respect for her. The reason there are stuffy conventions about not accepting rides and dates is to keep girls from getting into unpleasant situations, and a girl shouldn’t begin to brush these conventions aside until she’s had a lot of experience. Another way to put it is that boys and men on the prowl take it for granted that a girl who accepts rides from semi-strangers is probably looking for excitement. Another way still is to admit that most girls who are ‘good’ are secretly fascinated with the possibility of being ‘bad’. They need to recognise this side of themselves and to keep it under reasonable control, in order to avoid getting into deeper trouble than they really wish.

I don’t want to emphasise the exploitive side of males so much that girls will think of all of them with fear or distaste. A great majority of boys and men have been brought up well enough so that a girl can learn to deal with them with confidence and pleasure. This means she must remember that the male is designed to be intrusive and to have to prove his boldness up to the limit she sets. She has to know and to show what the limit is. If he weren’t as bold as that limit permits, she‘d find him disappointingly tame.

Some of you may want to hear suggestions for guidelines, not to be bound by but to consider. Many young people will call what I suggest too strict or puritanical for themselves. I wouldn’t argue—standards and tastes vary widely. Some of you who will like these ideas or ideals as you read them now will find later that you don’t always stick to them. This wouldn’t be surprising either; it wouldn’t mean that the suggestions had not been helpful as ideals. (I didn’t always conform to them myself.)

I’ve suggested that it is preferable for teenagers not to go on individual dates until they are sixteen or seventeen. Even then it’s better for them not to spend time petting in secluded places until they have known each other for a year and are confident that a tender, generous love is developing.

I think it’s sensible for a teenager not to go beyond kissing and embracing the person he loves until there is some kind of commitment to marriage, which should preferably take another twelve months—two years of knowing each other well and a minimal age of eighteen years. The touching of breasts and genitals even through the clothes is much more exciting and is likely to carry you beyond the point where you can use judgment.

If I say that this conservative advice is based on tragic cases encountered in medical practice, you may be irritated again at the way older people fall back, in their arguments, on greater experience.

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