Germany 1942
Germany 2006
Posted on 12/15/2006 6:32:58 AM PST by Atlantic Bridge
German kids like their sex. A survey of European teen sex habits has found that only pubescents from Iceland are quicker to jump in the sack. But when it comes to safety, the Dutch are tops.
The casual observer in Germany might be forgiven for thinking the Germans are oversexed. Pornographic cinemas and blush-inducing sex shops are a familiar part of the urban landscape, while exposed breasts are a common sight on advertising billboards and magazine covers.
With all that stimulating material around, it's not surprising that young Germans apparently have sex on the brain. A newly-released World Health Organization (WHO) report on sexual habits among teenagers in 26 European countries reveals that German teens are quick off the mark when it comes to losing their cherry; the average age at which Germans -- both boys and girls -- first have sex is 16.2.
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(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
And you included me in your post because?
The point was that if people follow the higher standard, the problems mentioned are reduced.
Higher numbers in the US just mean that we aren't practicing what we preach. Doesn't mean that it isn't a goal to strive for.
It's true, and more to our shame. At least we, merciful God, have Mexicans. What are you going to do in a couple of years when a big chunk of your 18-year-old military conscripts are Muslims?
Click on his name, and then look to see which of the flags he is flying on his home page.
I know. It's sad. The Germans as well as the others are being absorbed into the Euro-man mentality, and thus losing for future generations the meaning of being German or Italian, or even, ugh, French.........
"Or, alternatively, that sex and/or the human body are not seen as sacred or signficant in Germany."
Judging form the attitudes developing towards killing the old and infirm in Europe I would say you have a good point.
You're right, some of my forefathers were transported prisoners, fought on the losing side of one of Europe's civil wars. However, most of my forefathers made the choice for a variety of reasons. Some were lured by economic opportunity, while others left Europe to get away from the state religions of the nations they left.
All of my ancestors left Europe before the twentieth century, with the latest leaving different German states. Several left Prussia in the mid-nineteenth century & if you know your nation's history, you'd know the move was probably done by them for economic reasons. Wars have an immediate economic impact on the population. It took a couple of decades before the ones from Bavaria, Hanover & Berlin all did the same, probably due to the draw of economic opportunity.
The Norwegian & Swedish ancestors also left Europe in the mid-nineteenth century for economic reasons.
Can you imagine that Europe was more developed than America even in the early last century, and that living in New York was almost as bad as living in New Delhi or Bombay is today?
Living in European cities was no picnic at the beginning of the Twentieth century either, unless you were among the upper class.
No, America got its advantage through Europe´s bad luck of having had two world wars on its soil.
It almost sounds like you think Europe's constant, ongoing wars had no European origins. The wars weren't caused by "bad luck", just as the development after the second world war didn't come about through "good luck". The Marshall Plan after WWII, as opposed to the old European style settlement after WWI seems to have worked. America's European children are acting much like any typical teen, smugly smarter than their parents. We learned from our European history & chose a new path. Europe, an older civilization stayed with their older template longer, which is how her children became her parents.
No wonder the best skilled people of Europe chose to escape from this place.
We took in a whole lot more of Europe's cast offs than her "best skilled people".
Don´t be proud of your forefathers decisions, you cannot be proud of that! You can just be proud for what you´ve accomplished and achieved in your lives.
I can and am proud of both.
What are you going to say to people who had not the luck to live in such nice countries we live in?
Most of my ancestors came here with almost nothing, rolled up their sleeves & helped to build this nation. Most of them made their own "luck". They helped build communities, where there had previously been none. They build homes, schools, churches & businesses, literally.
I don't begrudge anything to those who came over later, cuz they came to build upon everything my ancestors had built. America assumes society is a win/win proposition (other than the American left). Much of Europe assumes society is always a win/lose proposition, which is why it puts a lot of energy & resources towards the big old "safety net".
That they cannot be proud of their lives?
They no longer can, cuz they're dead. :o)
Your thoughts seem strange to me.
Course they do, because you're probably somewhere in that win/lose mentality that I mentioned. You think more about the strength of the safety net & less about building the "impossible".
Starting at the age of twenty-one, I began trying to help build the impossible. The American government mostly stayed out of the way. I think if we had tried to do the same in Europe, we would have failed, cuz we would have gotten tangled up & dragged down by the safety net.
"I.e. I do not like homesexuals either but I do not care about their way of living as long as they do not affect my own sphere."
There is no such thing...nothing is every kept locked away, it always spreads. In America there is at least a resistence to the black plague sweeping our free societies out of exsistence. Any ignoble human behavior will draw down the society that tolerates it- to the point of destruction.
I really don't care if you like to hear that or not.
"in Germany, persistent Roman Catholic-inspired anti-choice opposition creates a difficult climate in which to implement sexuality education curricula."
Unless their sexuality education curriculum is based solely on anti-abortion propaganda, why is there a problem? Why should an anti-"choice" (pro-life) stance affect other aspects of a sexuality curriculum? They don't mention other aspects that Catholics might object to (such as contraception); just the anti-choice aspect. However, there's a lot of other material that could be covered without any objections. If they're just focusing on teaching them about abortions, then I can see the problem.
Your post makes me glad I am a conservative American rather than a "conservative" European!
Ed
You said it. The world would be much happier if sex were seen only as being given us by God to draw two married people closer together, and improper outside of marriage.
Ed
The reason there weren't as many Indian dead as European dead in the World Wars is because there weren't as many Indians. The Cherokee Trail of Tears was genocide, pure and simple. It was an intentional death march, carried out by the United States Army, under the orders of the President of the United States, in the dead of winter, with the foreknowledge of the conditions and callous disregard (at BEST) for the certitude of a massive death toll among children, the ill and the ages. There were only a few thousands of Cherokee, so the 50% plus death rate does not rank in numbers with with what happened in Europe, but the malevolent, vicious and murderous intent of the national government was every bit as present in both places. The Cherokee were intentionally murdered, en masse, by being marched to death in the winter, by the President of the United States and the Army of the United States. The difference in scale was only due to the smaller overall numbers of Cherokee versus Jews in Europe. The barbarity of the US government in the act stands for what it was: genocidal.
Slavery was a legacy of the colonial past, which the US was perfectly willing to accept and exploit for four score and nine years, and then to maintain apartheid for another hundred. THAT was not the fault of the British. It was homegrown American evil, pur et dur.
Find the right partner (husband or wife). Sex gets better the better you know one another.
You wrote: "Some of us would say that sex outside of marriage makes liars out of people; in fact, some of us would say that the act itself is a lie."
And those who say that would be absolutely correct.
In fact, those who are married and who have lustful thoughts about a woman who walks by are adulterers, according to Jesus anyway, and have something to confess.
Nobody is without the crimson stain of sins, no, not one.
Fortunately, God is a forgiving and patient God.
Still, sanctimony about sex is Pharisaic. The lessons need to be practical:
Sex outside of marriage of whatever sort (including masturbation) and lustful thoughts within marriage, are all bad because they are sins and offend God. They must be confessed and atoned for. That is true.
And, sexual contact with others outside of marriage, although it is not MORALLY worse than masturbation or lustful thoughts, carries the addition risks of terminal and disfiguring diseases, and of unwanted pregnancies, which then carry the temptation to commit murder within them.
So, the best thing to do is to maintain a pure and holy mind and abstain from sex, including with yourself, or sexual thoughts, until marriage.
If you can't manage that, the second best thing to do is to commit the sin of lustful thoughts and masturbation, keep it to yourself and confess it to God, over and over and over again, if that's what it takes. Unrepented, it will send you to hell just like murder - it is an abomination - but at least you're just taking YOURSELF down and not taking anybody else down with you. And God is very, very forgiving, so long as you admit you're wrong and sinful and ASK him to forgive you.
But what happens if you fall prey to lust and you're not married. Well, then the third best thing to do is to be a monogamous fornicator and GET married to fix the problem. However, once you cross this threshold, not only is there the mortal sin (we crossed that threshold with lustful thoughts alone, or with reaching out to just our own persons), but there is the double-barrelled problem of taking OTHERS into mortal sin, AND risking illness AND risking pregnancy. The sin is the sin, and the single sexual sin is mortal, but once another person becomes intimately involved in it, the sins multiply and the potential opens up for physical damage in the here and now, and not only spiruital damage to the relationship with God which God will forgive if you ask him.
God forgives the soul of the masturbator and the serial sodomite fornicator, if either asks Him sincerely and contritely. BUT God doesn't clean out the body when He cleanses the soul, so the masturbator may be able to walk free of ill effects once he has forgiven, but the person with AIDS still has AIDS, and will still die of it. The sin is repented, but the flesh still is burnt by it and suffers.
Our MORAL disapprobation of sexual sin should not exceed that of God: it's all uniformly bad. But the PRACTICAL aspects of threats to life from sexual sins with others are much more dramatic than solitary sins.
Given the overwhelming pressure to sin that this thorn in the flesh, this sex drive with its enormous appetites places within us, there is spiritual damage, which is between us and God - and that's where it ends with solitary sins. Include others in the sin, whatever their gender or number, and the potential for expanding waves of harm and death become greater. There's no such thing as a MORE mortal sin. Mortal sin is mortal sin. One act of unforgiven masturbation will kill the soul just as dead as a lifetime as a serial homosexual prostitute. But the former can be expunged by forgiveness of God, as can the latter...but God doesn't kill the AIDS even when he forgives the sin.
The sin isn't worth with another, but the practical knock on effects in the physical world certainly are. We need to teach both consequences. We need clarity. And we must not lie to children and tell themnthings that are not true. It is not a WORSE sin to sleep with another than to play with yourself, and it is a sin, a MORTAL sin, to play with yourself. God is forgiving, but AIDS isn't, and neither is la lifetime of guilt over killing a child in the womb. God may well forgive, if you ask and mean it, but AIDS won't, and you won't forgive yourself either.
The honest truth is pretty bad as it is.
God is the nicest part of it, because HE will forgive.
AIDS won't.
Ping. They may be having sex early, but they ain't having enough children to sustain their economic systems. Old Europe is going Muslim.
Trust me, it is not due to our Puritanical origins, the most common explanation for the difference. The areas of the nation where the Puritans had the most influence have very few conservatives.
Conservative Europeans like me (I am married and father of 3 kids) are usually amazed about the amount of emotions that conservative Americans invest into the issue.
American conservatives & Europeans have different expectations, based on the two different directions the Enlightenment took. French Enlightenment went in the direction of the common good, while English Enlightenment was based more on individual rights, with the responsibilities that came with them.
You need to recognize the difference between powers of the state versus powers of the community to see where I'm coming from. As the American state becomes stronger, it has worked to disable powers of the community. What you're seeing among conservative Americans is frustration caused by things we see as state intrusions. As the state works to force a European type attitude about sexuality on the population, the choice to raise our children as we see fit is getting undermined.
I.e. I do not like homesexuals either but I do not care about their way of living as long as they do not affect my own sphere.
This is one of the areas where our government has been intrusive. Our "sphere" in this area is no longer our own, because government actors feel it necessary to teach our children to have a "politically correct" attitude about homosexuality. When your children have been taught you are a bigot to have the attitude expressed in your statement, you might exhibit a certain amount of emotion about it too.
Although I also do not want my kids to have sex with 14, the efforts in America in challenging teenagers and college students to make a commitment to sexual abstinence (purity pledge, Chastity rings, the so called "second chance pledge" etc.) until marriage are rather funny to me.
How would you react to your 14 year old learning that sex at 14 is a matter of personal choice & none of your (parents) business in school? Abstinence instruction is a counter to what our kids are already learning in school.
I would have never ever signed such a notice of intention as a teen, since my classmates probably would have seen me as the most strange and crazy lunatic you can think of.
Your parent's authority probably wasn't undermined by your school.
Furthermore I do not want my kids to sign such stuff since I do not understand why the public is interested into such really private decisions.
The "public" is already interested here & it is giving our children the green light.
Not the sex between young people is a scandal for me but the voyeuristic lust in public confessions that some people obviously must have.
Voyeuristic lust? LOL
I (and many other Europeans) have the impression that the social pressure that is carried out in this field by some groups is just another form of sick perversion.
It's not a sick perversion. Our children are taught ways to get around parental objections, where school counselors will offer strategies to get birth control & abortions if the birth control has failed. Doctors & schools cannot legally tell parents if their minor child is sexually active. Instruction about sexuality is delivered sans morality, unless you include telling kids things to help them have a positive attitude about sex.
Do not get me wrong. I don't want to provoke anybody here, but I feel the widening gap between European and American values and behaviour. Anyway this issue could make a interesting discussion.
I agree, interesting discussion.
This "sacredness" thing may not strike us immediately, because we (Westerners) have jettisoned any sense of the sacramentality of created things. Even our churches are threadbare and feeble when it comes to beauty, ceremony, awe.
Maybe there are pagans who understand this better. Say you were from a tribe that honored a special Sacred Drum. You wouldn't let your dog pee on it or your kids bang on it; you wouldn't use it off-season as a table or a door-stop; when the Day of the Drum came up, you might beat that drum with enthusiasm and even a divine wildness and abandon, but under no circumstances would you let the unpurified touch it or even hear it.
I'm not promoting the High Church of Drummery here, I'm just using this as an example for something that is universal about how humans express sacredness. When you use something sacred, you use it after having been discipled, instructed, and purified. Otherwise, you almost instinctively avert your eyes or draw back your hands. You respect it. You don't mess it with it.
You use it sacredly, or you leave it alone.
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