Name: We have turned sex into a dangerous, fraught experience for teenagers
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We have turned sex into a dangerous, fraught experience for teenagers

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I’ve been reading my teenage diaries lately, and they’re pretty darn angsty. I worried I was fat. I worried about whether I’d prepared enough for this or that orchestra audition. I worried about the likelihood of achieving academic success sufficient for a future replete with nice food and great swimming options. And boys. I worried a lot about boys, constantly evaluating my chances of success with this one or that one (always nil), and raging at the seemingly unjust relative success of my peers in matters of romance.One thing that never, ever occurred to me was to be frightened of boys. As far as I could tell, the biggest problem with the opposite sex (and I had plenty of time to observe because I always went to mixed schools) was that they weren’t keen on me. In my diaries, in which I kept careful tabs on the sexual activities of my friends, there is not one mention, or sniff, of any sinister activity. None of my friends, to my knowledge, were victimised, assaulted, or coerced. And there were a lot of after-school parties with booze and pot (only some of which I was invited to).I feel bad for today’s girls, for whom it seems that the lack of sexual attention that upset me so much would be a blessing. As the ongoing schools sex scandal suggests, their interactions with boys are dangerous, fraught and nasty – and very sexual. Instead of the pretty innocent, often deadly dull passage through school that me and my peers took for granted, presage a climate of fear and watchfulness. A culture in which, even if nothing bad has happened to them, girls will be encouraged to be forever vigilant, poised to call out abuse and wrongdoing, and goaded into policing and, as is the way these days, politicising all intimate interactions. I may have been desperate to be kissed, but at least my teenage sexual frustration had a chance to root itself in actual desire&nbsp;rather than being blotted out with fear.It’s not that boys were saintly then and demons now. But something clearly has changed, and as numerous observers have pointed out since the schools scandal broke, it’s likely linked to the fact boys are growing up on the violent excesses of digital porn. In my day, boys were lucky if they managed to cadge a look at Dad’s Playboy.There’s also a schizophrenia today that was lacking the Nineties. Young educated boys are desperate to appear woke, to proclaim themselves ‘allies’ with girls, women and minorities. I have observed this very clearly at Eton, Oxford and Cambridge where I have lectured and debated several times. And yet these same boys seem capable of the most egregious sexual offenses against girls. Such hypocrisy is typical of an age whose moral code has been utterly scrambled by craven, woke ideology.Girls have changed too. Their internet exposure is less porn-focussed, perhaps, but it is utterly sex-obsessed nonetheless. Girls’ sense of self is refracted through a million portals pushing the rewards of a perfected, sexy and man-luring appearance. They enter puberty with the instant feedback loop of Instagram likes for cute bikini selfies, constant inundation by images of dead-eyed, hot-bodied influencers, and adverts for diets and gyms brought right into their beds, where they lie awake flicking through their phones. Being sexy was just one currency girls could pursue in my day. Now it’s the single biggest and most powerful. No wonder the young women coming forward with all these horrendous accounts of boys at school look so vulnerable: they’re too sexy, too slight, too made up. They know too much – partly because they’ve been forced to.Meanwhile, parents and teachers are to blame for transforming teen sexuality into a hostile, overheated political minefield. Regardless of what’s been done to them, girls are being set up to suffer. Instead of letting kids work sexuality out, which they mostly will if left to their own devices, adults are forcing an excessive, politicised sex education on them from a young age. We have seen this to a tragic degree with trans awareness: the number of children seeking puberty-blockers has risen, just as the amount of parental and educational discourse about it, all under the “inclusivity” banner, has too. I for one am incredibly grateful that my friends and I could go through tomboy phases with nobody suggesting we ought to consider sex change surgery.The sexual landscape after #Metoo has been perilous enough for adults. Men are paranoid about consent&nbsp;while women are expected to be constantly on guard. But the climate facing young people is worse, and it’s particularly sad that a whole generation of girls (and, in the wake of the present scandal, boys) are going to head into adult life associating sex with fear, vigilance and sexual acrimony. Reducing kids’ access to influencer-inspired imagery on one hand and . So would adults shutting up about sex, sexuality and sexual identity for a change. If we want our kids to ever have a chance of living lives that aren’t dominated by angsty sex discourse and the spectre of ubiqutous sexual trauma, then we ought to pipe down a bit and remind ourselves, and them, that there’s more to life than sex.&nbsp;You can read every Sunday. Click to read last week's columnRelated TopicsAdvertisementRelated TopicsThe latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher CodesWe rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.Thank you for your support.Need help?Visit ourpage.Close

I’ve been reading my teenage diaries lately, and they’re pretty darn angsty. I worried I was fat. I worried about whether I’d prepared enough for this or that orchestra audition. I worried about the likelihood of achieving academic success sufficient for a future replete with nice food and great swimming options. And boys. I worried a lot about boys, constantly evaluating my chances of success with this one or that one (always nil), and raging at the seemingly unjust relative success of my peers in matters of romance.One thing that never, ever occurred to me was to be frightened of boys. As...

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Zoe Strimpel

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We have turned sex into a dangerous, fraught experience for teenagers

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