I have loved redo stories since "A Fresh Start" was being posted during the week new. One thing that has struck me however is how different author's have vastly different levels of maturity and in some cases memory's of the past life. Ranging from completely adult in a teenager body to a teenager with vague memory's of being an adult. I'm curious to hear from author's who have written these stories why you chose the level of maturity and memory retention you did, and would you change it now?
No, I would not change it. (TECHNICALLY "A Charmed Life" is NOT a re-do story, but I get your point...)
Number 1, my muse has run away screaming, so my drive to write is just about gone these days.
Number 2, back in the early 80s, when I was in high school (yeah, I know I'm old), relationships like the ones depicted (especially the sexual ones) were frequently seen. (People losing their virginity (male and female) while they were teenagers.)
Don't even get me started on how the FB Reel videos bleep out swear words, kill, hell, etc, these days...
And, for the person who suggested my main character in Knox #3 (Sabrina) would be better as an LBGTQ+ character, that didn't even EXIST when I started writing, or even when that part of the story takes place... Not happening...
And (Grammar Nazi in the room...), "memories" is the correct spelling, not "memory's." And, "author's" is possessive, not plural... "AUTHORS"
(Yeah, at my age, I've already got the "angry old man" thing down pat...)
(People losing their virginity (male and female) while they were teenagers.)
...
And, for the person who suggested my main character in Knox #3 (Sabrina) would be better as an LBGTQ+ character, that didn't even EXIST when I started writing, or even when that part of the story takes place... Not happening...
I've had similar comments for my stories which start in the mid-70s or very early 80s. People don't get it. I've had people tell me, expressly, that there was no way teens were having that much sex. All I can say is, they sure were in my HS in the late 70s and very early 80s.
And people were NOT freaking out about it, either. It was considered normal, even if discouraged by fathers with shotguns.
Don't forget the people who didn't care about others riding WITHOUT SEATBELTS in the back of pickups or station wagons. Then, there's Star Wars on 8-track...
Then, there's Star Wars on 8-track...
My dad had an 8-track player in our Winnebago Chieftan (the 27' one). Listened to dozens of tapes ranging from Johnny Cash to Herb Alpert to the Carpenters while we traveled the entire western US plus western Canada and northern Mexico during the summer of '72.
Still a fan of Cash and Herb Alpert to this day.
Oh, and we never wore seatbelts in the motor home. :-)
I was in high school in the 1950s. The risk of getting pregnant was high. Kids still managed to have sex, especially in the back seats of cars, which at that time were all bench seats. That all changed on May 11, 1960, when the FDA approved the use of "the pill" and birth control without using a condom became practical. The AIDS scare was still a couple of decades in the future.
Yep. I was most of the way through college before AIDS was enough of a concern, and married in '86.
Yep, I'm not sure of when my brother died (it's been a long time since he did) yet I'm sure it was around 1989? Long after he become a national advocate for the gay movement after being kicked out of the American Navy for 'suspected' activity with no actual evidence (though it was in fact true, but the homophobic never cared about actual evidence. As living in NYC, 'stomping', laying someone face on the concrete curb and then stomping the heads was an incredibly common occurrence, even a liberal, open community as Manhattan was in those days.
Long after he become a national advocate for the gay movement after being kicked out of the American Navy for 'suspected' activity with no actual evidence (though it was in fact true, but the homophobic never cared about actual evidence.
I was given a 'Good Conduct' discharge since they had no evidence at all, but one of their shrinks in Orlando was absolutely convinced I was gay. He tried to trap me into admitting it multiple times, but it wasn't true, so it didn't work. See my pen name — soft spoken, gentle, etc..., that's all it took to convince him that I was gay.
(Just got back from the local Pride festival in support of my friends who are gay — what a kick! All those people able, at least for a little bit, to tell the world who and what they are, loudly, while feeling safe.)
I joined the EMS about the time when they started using actual gloves on calls. The latex ones were nice to shoot across a trauma room to a biohazard trash bin. White talc doesn't mix with black uniform pants...
"Ryan White" was a real thing we learned the important way...
Tell me about it, my brother was one of the original success of the first successful Aids treatments, until he then died of the side effects of those treatment. As they say, the great always die young, burning so hot and pure, they are quickly consumed by it. I've seen it time and again, for most of my life and for a long time before that too.
Never been fond of Cash, too much old-time country before blues and jazz finally gained widespread public attention (I've always listened to the classics though, as they are truly the only original national music form, as classical was always European and Country was mostly limited to the deep, deep south, where I unfortunately lived as young child, until rock and roll first exposed the black rhythms to the white public, who then claimed it as exclusively theirs. Dumbasses!
Again, it's difficult to see anything when you even refuse to look or merely admit what you see all around you.
Clearly, I'm not referring to you Michael, only the general racist American public. The Europeans of the time were always accepting of black musicians, as they weren't raised to be so openly racist. Thus they could merely pretend to be accepting.
By the way, I'm about as white as they come, though my family isn't (wife and kids), but I was attracted to black culture long before then. I've always been open to new perspectives and I've long associated with the black's oppression (again, based mostly on those same older black folk traditions).
100% agree! I was in my teens in the mid 70's-early 80's and EVERYONE was boinking EVERYONE! Everywhere and anywhere! In cars, trucks n vans, at parties often even if others were nearby. It was definitely NORMAL!
SunSeeker
Don't tell them about cigarette machines with no age checks and a pack cost 50¢ or less (and far less if you bought them at the gas station).
Or riding bikes without helmets. Or going out at 9:00am as a pre-teen and being told to come home in time for dinner.
Their heads will explode.
During my preteen years in the late 70's. I remember walking a few blocks to the corner convenience store. I would purchase a loaf of bread or milk and a pack of Kool cigarettes for my father without even being questioned by the clerk.
And don't forget the condoms availing in any men's room across the country. And don't get me started on the sexual liberation days. Now that was an exciting time to be alive.
I remember the first sex clubs, though I was too young to enter at that time. But later I visited several, though I was never partial to meaningless sex, yet those who were openly performing for everyone were truly an intriguing site!
and the coin operated condom dispensers in the men's room of the bowling alley, gas stations and convenience stores. I wrote about that, too.
Or riding bikes without helmets.
Oh, I remember riding bikes without a helmet. I even remember the last time I did it in 1978 — not so much the ride as waking up with a concussion. I don't recommend that experience to anyone.
I've crashed harder several times since, but never had my bell rung.
I tired break-checking my sister as we rode our bikes (I was trying to be funny - even back then, what I *thought* was funny, really wasn't…) and she slammed into my left pedal, causing both of us to crash, when I thought she'd go sailing by me…
No injuries for either of us, thankfully…
As always, the worst thing you can do is to tense up, as if you don't, you'll merely bounce and roll, unless it's a catastrophic injury, and then nothing will save your sorry ass. ;)
Yep, bell-ringing was a natural part of being a kid back in the day. If you didn't, no one would ever respect you for ANYTHING you did. It was literally a 'rite of passage' in those days.
Hell, my brothers and my sister would routinely ride behind the pesticide spay trucks when we were young. Yet, while incredibly stupid, it never affected our heath directly. Luck of the dump mayhaps?
As we've discussed, my story in set in the same period, from summer 1979 to spring 1980. I deliberately chose to make the amount of sex realistic, but at the same time, lots of teenagers were doing it back then, and I also make a point to show (like "Perks of a Being a Wallflower" did) that 16-21 was our main social group, and any outliers were usually on the low end, with the occasional girl from 11 or 12 up to 15 at parties, getting drunk, and sometimes getting laid or giving BJs. I've seen young teen girls at house parties for mixed college/adult, and wrote it in.
Young people were having more sex in the 70s and early 80s than now. Much of that came to a halt in the early 80s when HIV/AIDS came onto the scene. People today have a hard time understanding the (justifiable) fear that caused at the time, not only in the gay community.
An example, my wife worked in NYC at the time. The business she worked had a high proportion of gay men but also a lot of young heterosexual people of both sexes. For a few years it seemed that there was a funeral every month - gays were the majority, but a large proportion of straight men and women.
Young people were having more sex in the 70s and early 80s than now. Much of that came to a halt in the early 80s when HIV/AIDS came onto the scene.
That absolutely had an effect, an a big one, but equally big (and more so in the long run) was the moral panic over 'stranger danger' and the attendant helicopter parenting and the idea that it was unsafe to be ANYWHERE or do ANYTHING until you were an adult (i.e. 18). Lies were told about kidnapping and abuse statistics (and later recidivism statistics) to scare the public.
All one need do is look at the general reaction to a sixteen-year-old guy willingly and happily having sex with a female teacher.
• 60s/70s/early 80s — "Great job, kid!"
• 90s and onward — "My son's childhood was stolen by a predator! (and make her wear virtual a Scarlet A)"
I'm not talking about right or wrong, but about the typical response. Both of the above responses are wrong, but the second one is wronger (to coin a term).
Sorry, are you saying that people being upset about a teacher grooming a student and coercing them into a sexual relationship is a moral panic
At my school the student groomed the teacher. In this case it was a gay kid who quickly worked out he could turn his science teacher into his personal piggy bank and chauffeur. The students all knew about it and felt sorry for the teacher.
The school bike was an otherwise nice girl who couldn't say no and was used by the football team. She took up with the coach, who at least kept the boys away from her, which was a minor improvement in her circumstances as she had a real girlfriend-boyfriend experience instead of being used. The coach was a first year teacher so the age gap was minimal.
Teens have agency. Neither teacher should have been involved with a student under their care, it was a betrayal of the parents trust. It was not a betrayal of the students, they made their decisions and enjoyed the results, with a mature 'boyfriend until graduation'.
Moral panics are used to manipulate society. Any scare campaign along a given theme across time and multiple forms of media is probably deliberate and even if it has an element of truth it will not be nuanced.
Teens have agency. Neither teacher should have been involved with a student under their care, it was a betrayal of the parents trust. It was not a betrayal of the students, they made their decisions and enjoyed the results, with a mature 'boyfriend until graduation'.
Teenagers absolutely have agency, but they also have a tendency to make really bad decisions and do dumb things. It's part and parcel of being a teenager.
Teachers are charged with the instruction and protection of students in their care; guiding them away from bad decisions is their literal job. A failure to execute that role effectively is one hundred percent a betrayal of the student, not only the student in question but also the other students who looked up to a role model that took advantage of their trust.
Teenagers absolutely have agency, but they also have a tendency to make really bad decisions and do dumb things. It's part and parcel of being a teenager.
That's pretty much the point of my book here.
My personal opinion is that no sex should be legal until puberty, but between then and moving out of the home, the parents should be the primary police of their children's activity.
And when teenagers start acting any differently will likely never occur. It's basically baked into our DNA, and it makes sense having someone who can shelter and protect you, rather than sleeping with whoever happens to romance you, as romantic rape has always been the most common form of rape for multiple millennia.
And when teenagers start acting any differently will likely never occur. It's basically baked into our DNA, and it makes sense having someone who can shelter and protect you, rather than sleeping with whoever happens to romance you, as romantic rape has always been the most common form of rape for multiple millennia.
You didn't quote, so I'm not sure which of my comments you were replying to.
As I was catching up on the comments, I was thinking of my own that when the risk of pregnancy was high, girls tended to be careful to have sex with those they would consider as a spouse, someone to take care of that child. Conversely, with the rise of the welfare state, contraception and abortion, the fear of pregnancy (in guys and girls) waned and the choice of partners became more indiscriminate.
Sorry, are you saying that people being upset about a teacher grooming a student and coercing them into a sexual relationship is a moral panic
No. The moral panic changed the popular thinking about those kinds of relationships.
It's also the case the the idea that a boy was 'groomed' into having sex with an older woman is a 21st century notion nobody would have even thought about in the 70s. Ditto if it were a girl and a teacher.
Don't Stand So Close to Me made sense to people because the notions were changing.
My point is, as I said, both attitudes are wrong, but the 'stole their childhood' notion is so over the top as to be literally insane. All of my friends were screwing in our mid-teens and nobody had a fit about it except for one dad with a shotgun and my psycho mom.
Yeah man those psycho moms and shotgun dads getting mad about adults in positions of power having sexual relationships with children entrusted to their care, what a wacky way to react, don't they know that teens are going to have sex anyways and their partners are going to have absolutely zero impact on the teenager's development and growth?
Yeah man those psycho moms and shotgun dads getting mad about adults in positions of power having sexual relationships with children entrusted to their care, what a wacky way to react, don't they know that teens are going to have sex anyways and their partners are going to have absolutely zero impact on the teenager's development and growth?
That is an INTENTIONAL MISREADING of what I wrote.
That was a about teens having sex with EACH OTHER.
Quit mischaracterizing my statements.
You mentioned teachers having sex with students ("stole their childhood") in the preceding sentence and did absolutely nothing to clarify. That's not an intentional misreading, that's just a normal reading.
edit: Ha, I came back to this at a time other than "immediately after waking up" and it's even stupider than I realized. You're getting mad at me for drawing a connection between the first sentence and the last sentence of a paragraph that's only got two sentences in it. If that's not the sentiment you were trying to express when you wrote the words, that's more like an intentional miswriting - don't get mad at me for reading the words you wrote and assuming they were intended to express a coherent thought.
All of my friends were screwing in our mid-teens and nobody had a fit about it except for one dad with a shotgun and my psycho mom.
"All of my friends were screwing" means they were having sex. It says nothing about their partners. Your inference is a leap of illogic.
The first sentence of the paragraph is quite explicitly referencing attitudes and reactions towards teacher-student sexual relationships, you are literally quoting yourself in it. It's not a leap to connect the very next sentence, the only other sentence in the paragraph, to the idea referenced in the previous sentence. That's the point of putting sentences next to each other in a paragraph. If you want me to start assuming that everything you write is a one-sentence island adrift from the ideas surrounding it, i can do that but I promise you won't enjoy it.
If you want me to start assuming that everything you write is a one-sentence island adrift from the ideas surrounding it, i can do that but I promise you won't enjoy it.
Context is everything. You read into what I wrote, not what I wrote. If you cannot understand that, I cannot help you.
Where should i be looking for context because I got it from "the other words you wrote in the paragraph" and it seems like you're saying that was the wrong move?
Edit: Because you're being such a goofball, let's lay this out.
No. The moral panic changed the popular thinking about those kinds of relationships.
It's also the case the the idea that a boy was 'groomed' into having sex with an older woman is a 21st century notion nobody would have even thought about in the 70s. Ditto if it were a girl and a teacher.
Don't Stand So Close to Me made sense to people because the notions were changing.
My point is, as I said, both attitudes are wrong, but the 'stole their childhood' notion is so over the top as to be literally insane.
The post is in response to a discussion of teacher-student sexual relationships. Every single sentence I've quoted there is very explicitly about teacher-student sexual relationships, and society's response to them. And the quote ends in the middle of a paragraph.
All of my friends were screwing in our mid-teens and nobody had a fit about it except for one dad with a shotgun and my psycho mom.
And you're trying to tell me that contextually, this one sentence at the very end of the paragraph that started out referencing student-teacher sexual relationships, at the very end of a post that has done literally nothing except discussion of student-teacher sexual relationships, is about teenagers having sex with other teenagers?
In the words of one @Michael Loucks, "Context is everything". The context of the post is what you wrote, dude, don't get mad at me for reading it.
In the words of one @Michael Loucks, "Context is everything". The context of the post is what you wrote, dude, don't get mad at me for reading it.
Given this is not an academic forum, one has to be careful reading. You were not. That is not my problem.
Next you'll be critiquing punctuation and grammar.
That seems unfair of you to say, considering that so far all I've done is read the words you wrote, in the order in which you wrote them, and connect the ideas of sequential sentences within the same paragraph to each other. If you want to tell me that you completely changed the subject at the last moment with zero indication that's fine, but you don't have to act like i'm nitpicking you here by trusting that you were good enough at communicating to coherently express an idea without arbitrarily and unexpectedly changing the subject to something new and unrelated.
Excuse me, but this debate has long abandoned any logical basis, as typically in Forums, one people merely launches attack at whoever dare to object to their openly hateful responses.
Open Forums have NEVER never been logical or rationally-based discussions. And every time I even dare venture to discuss a point, I walked away with NO desire to ever resume the utterly pointless rants.
Luckily, there are much freer discussion sites, as again, forums are the pits, every time.
Sadly, that's always been the norm on the SOL forum, as they rather attack you personally than actually defend their positions, which they literally have no defense for. And you continually find that in ANY public forum.
Again, it's why I rarely ever use my actual name in these forums, as it's just not worth the abuse you receive. The ideal use for a pseudonym.
Yeah, it's a bummer that Michael is resorting to attacking me (saying that i'm going to start nitpicking punctuation? Really?) instead of addressing the meat of my posts, where I read the exact words he wrote and reply to them, but so it goes. He's been better than that in other discussions, but I guess he got defensive in this one and would rather double down than admit he made a mistake.
Again, in those days and even today, it's always better being protected in a truly loving and caring relationship, where someone will actively help shelter you from harm. As that is especially true in the gay and bi- communities, where sex is often viewed as a mutual beneficial relationship, without the risk of unintended pregnancies, even among lesbians.
Again, I've seen it throughout my life, and it was often very public, as those behaviors are incredibly hard to hide. And again, it's always been similar in the Ancient Egyptians, the Ancient Greeks and Romans (where the idea was the marriage was merely for begetting children, while both men and women slept with whoever they cared to.
There were some truly great life-long, cherished marriages, yet those were hardly the norm back in those days, as it was usually done to allow the men to sleep with men or prostitutes, while the women with no legal rights of any kind and were merely considered 'chattel', literally OWNED by their husbands.
In fact the number of women and wives literally beaten to death by their spouses/partners was an epidemic worldwide, just read a few Norwegian Epics. Where they openly describe in public documents to taking an axe to their partners heads.
So, in those days, you were always better off with you own sex, than being married to anyone as men typically fly off the handle at the least provocation. We have laws against that now, back then there were NONE!
As a long time history fan, mostly focused on the non-recorded histories by historians, you learn a lot about what human nature actually IS and has always been!
Ditto if it were a girl and a teacher.
Don't Stand So Close to Me made sense to people because the notions were changing.
Not sure I agree. At least where I grew up, male teacher/female student was always viewed as a 'violation' of the female student, no matter who initiated it and no matter how capable of consent she was. A lot of that is definitely wrapped up in 'female purity' and the double-standard between boys and girls (boys get points for 'nailing' girls, girls lose points for being 'nailed'). And that goes back a long time.
On the other hand, notions were changing, and maybe that's what you mean. The notion of 'female purity' was getting undermined in that time period. And the song certainly doesn't paint the teacher as 'grooming.'
But one could argue that it plays into the notion that we need ever more oversight to save kids from themselves.
I don't consider the 'stole their childhood' notion to be over the top, in and of itself. It's not over the top in the case where there really is 'grooming' or something nonconsensual (out and out blackmail, for instance). If a person in a position of authority intentionally sets out to get a child into bed, and that child would never have done so, there's an argument there.
For instance, many church-related sex abuse scandals really do fit that mold. It's beside the point that they might have been screwing - they weren't screwing (or, more to the point, being screwed by) adult authority figures, and who you're involved with matters.
Something truly consensual, though - and I would agree that there are a significant number of under-18s who have the capacity to meaningfully consent, even in the case of 'authority figures' (if the authority figure isn't intentionally misusing their authority, anyway) - isn't a 'stolen childhood,' by itself.
Not sure I agree. At least where I grew up, male teacher/female student was always viewed as a 'violation' of the female student, no matter who initiated it and no matter how capable of consent she was.
My point of referencing Don't Stand So Close to Me was the line 'Young teacher, the subject of schoolgirl fantasy'.
The topic of teenage girls and older men was a common thread of songs in the 70s and 80s. Those relationships (including student-teacher relationships) were a feature of stories, TV shows, music, etc. They were tittivating, not scandalous.
Cf, among others, Your Love by The Outfield ("you know I like my girls a little bit older, I just wanna use your love tonight"); Does Your Mother Know by ABBA ("You seem kinda young to be searching for that kind of fun; maybe I'm not the one); Jailbait by Ted Nugent; Stray Cat Blues by the Rolling Stones ("I can see that you're fifteen years old; No, I don't want your I.D"); Jodie Foster in The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane and Taxi Driver; Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby; Lolita Vladimir Nabakov and Stanley Kubrick; Little Darlings, etc.
Then there were David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Bill Wyman, Iggy Pop, and other rock stars who had relationships with underage girls.
And let's not forget Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Charlie Chaplin, and others who married teenage girls.
My point is, as it has been for this thread, attitudes have changed significantly. Things that were OK (or at least tolerated) no longer are.
While I agree we have gone a bit to far in moral panic these days, in the 1300's French noble women were married at 12 to late 20 to 30 year old men according to records. With first child coming shortly after. Now there were pressures not present now for that state of affairs, but almost everyone today would condem this practice.
While I agree we have gone a bit to far in moral panic these days, in the 1300's French noble women were married at 12 to late 20 to 30 year old men according to records. With first child coming shortly after. Now there were pressures not present now for that state of affairs, but almost everyone today would condem this practice.
Historically (that is, before the 19th century), the age of consent (if there was one) was generally set at puberty. As I noted in another post in this thread, the age of consent in a number of European countries is 14.
The royal and noble marriages (for political purposes, mainly) involved even older men with girls who had passed puberty, which, on average, was a year or two later than now (13-14, rather than 12-13). Sadly, researching this topic is much more difficult these days because of the reactions people have (due to the historian's fallacy or due to presentism/the nunc pro tunc fallacy).
The situation we are in is a side effect of the Progressive movement of the early 20th Century (not modern-day, so-called progressives) in their quest to end child labor. Their goal was, in the main, focused on those under 15. This led, in effect, to the creation of what we would call 'teenagers' post WWII. 15+ were consider 'young adults' not 'children'. The moral panics of the 80s expanded the 'children' thinking to 18-year-olds (and now, some are using it for college-age kids and objecting to them doing 'adult' things).
We have, in the US, groups advocating for 16-year-olds to vote, but who also think those young adults are too young to have sex. The mind boggles.
We have, in the US, groups advocating for 16-year-olds to vote, but who also think those young adults are too young to have sex. The mind boggles.
What's worse is some of the same groups that think that young adults are too immature to be able to consent to have sex, are mature enough to decide to amputate parts of their bodies.
The topic of teenage girls and older men was a common thread of songs in the 70s and 80s. Those relationships (including student-teacher relationships) were a feature of stories, TV shows, music, etc. They were tittivating, not scandalous.
Yes, attitudes have changed in the majority of people about heterosexual relationship. Even the "wholesome" shows like The Waltons regularly had young girls and older guys. Mary Ellen lied about her age to date an older guy and we laughed. Erin was 14 when she had her 1st kiss with a 20 year old guy and we were titillated, as she had grown so much those first couple years, and Elizabeth pined for the new pastor, which was prevented, but recognized as things girls do and no one blamed her.
In that, you're preaching to the choir, as few would actually object to that. However, reality is always different than public perceptions, which is usually entirely emotionally based, as we all 'react' rather than merely honestly openly debating any topic.
Luckily, I've long assumed that nearly everyone WILL take exception to anything I utter, so I have literally no reason who hold back, is no one is likely to support my views anyway. In an odd way, it quite freeing to be utterly hated by nearly everyone. As I'm much more popular on alternative discussion sites than I ever had on SOL. Though even there, the 'autobot' are specifically programed to generate debates by being openly offensive and extremely caustic.
Yesterday on Twitter Peter Schiff said Epstein wasn't a pedo because he didn't chase prepubescent girls, and stating that when he himself was in college he had sex with high school girls. Oh, the outrage in the responses! Honestly, I don't give a shit if a college guy is banging high school girls. It would be an issue if he was 40 or 50 or 60. But their attitude is "It's illegal, so he's a pedo" which would apply in California but in no country in Europe or the majority of US states.
Yesterday on Twitter Peter Schiff said Epstein wasn't a pedo because he didn't chase prepubescent girls, a
An accurate statement based on the technical definition of the word. But as I've said elsewhere, word usage changes, and being 'technically correct' means you are going to be misunderstood, as the 'vulgar' usage is different.
So, yeah, technically, but that's not how people are using the word (and that usage has expanded to sweep in girls who are above the age of consent).
As for age of consent, there ARE European countries with an age of consent of 18 — Turkey and Vatican City. On the other end, 14 in Germany, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and others.
In the US, it's still legal to marry at 16 in many states, but God help you if you tried.
Speaking of married young, in 2005 when I was in "A" school in the navy this happened. We had just restarted class after a holiday break when a 17 year old classmate broke the chain of command by stating,"I need help getting legal custody of my new wife so she can finish her junior year of high school."
Speaking of married young, in 2005 when I was in "A" school in the navy this happened. We had just restarted class after a holiday break when a 17 year old classmate broke the chain of command by stating,"I need help getting legal custody of my new wife so she can finish her junior year of high school."
I bet! I would also wager many people don't know you can enlist at 17 with parental consent. They'd likely freak out the same way they would at a 17-year-old marrying with parental consent.
I'm pretty sure the UCMJ sets the age of consent at 16, but I know there are very specific rules with which I'm not familiar.
Two kids who served as nucs — one aboard USS Nimitz and one aboard USS Albany (fast-attack sub).
Guy in bootcamp shipped on his 17th birthday in my division. Would not shut up about it.
"I need help getting legal custody of my new wife so she can finish her junior year of high school."
You mean having her as a wife wasn't sufficient enough legal custody?
As for age of consent, there ARE European countries with an age of consent of 18 — Turkey and Vatican City.
I don't consider Turkey to be in Europe, and is there any sex in Vatican City?
I don't consider Turkey to be in Europe, and is there any sex in Vatican City?
Turkey is, at a minimum, a member of NATO (1952), the Council of Europe (1949), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE], and they have been an EU Candidate since 1987.
Sounds like Europe to me.
As for Vatican City, I'll leave that to a Roman Catholic (or a critic to answer).
Trust me, I've lived in those states, and it's still a common practice with few other than bitter old crows raising any objections, as there it's merely the 'cultural norm' rather than outrage of power and objectification. Thus, there's a reason why those individual state laws have prevailed for all these laws.
As they say, you've 'slept' with anyone any of your partners have, as the consequences can be deadly as a result.
back in the early 80s, when I was in high school (yeah, I know I'm old),
You are not old, sir, maybe middle-aged. I graduated from high school in 1962.
You're hardly alone, as I graduated from HS in 1976 and graduated from college in 1980. After a certain age, we're ALL ancient relics of the past, as it's a generational thing.
I chose to portray Jeff as an adult in a kids body because that's what I was interested in — using his maturity and knowledge to avoid a mistake. There's more to it than that, but you'll need to read the story to understand since I don't want to give away a plot twist.
I also played the character straight up — no augmented memories or abilities, just what an adult with certain proclivities (desire for love/companionship, minimal interest in money, etc...) would have at their fingertips.
No, I wouldn't change that part now if I rewrote it.
Several things in no particular order. I was born in 1985 and spent childhood on a bike in my town and was simply told to be home at dark. In high school teen pregnancy was so common that when they started construction on the new school the summer after I graduated, they included a daycare for students babies. The last is to simply say I have a Traumatic Brain Injury and proper grammar is sometimes very difficult.
There did appear to be a rise of teen pregnancies, although back in the day the girls were doing it, but were picking enough to only be doing it with guys they considered marrying, and when they did become pregnant, they married the guy. Like my mom and my mother-in-law did. I graduated HS in '77 and only remember two girls getting pregnant and both were considered before then to be very loose. There were more who got married while still in school. One guy went to Vietnam and brought home a 15 year old bride who enrolled in 10th grade at my HS (a couple years before me)
Today, the girls get pregnant but many more don't marry while also attempting to finish school.
Yep, I actively encouraged my kids to do the same, while we were living my Manhattan at the time. Thus they'd either bike, walk to take the bus to Central Park, and that started when they were merely preteens. Neither my wife nor I were ever into helicopter parenting, realizing our kids are only ours for a few short years, as we actively encouraged them to be independent thinkers and thus 'trusting' their instincts after we'd trained them to be. And while they've had their problems (mostly mental health based or actively choosing their own sex—which my wife abhorred for women but readily accepted for gays—as she'd been actively hit on by far to many women. While I'd always simply shrug and say "Sorry, I just don't 'swing' that way and we'd often become fast friends for years that way. Acceptance is much better than short-term sex, any and every time.
As that means you can literally discuss anything at that point, including things they'd never discuss with their romantic partners.
Different people, widely different personal responses. Which again, makes us all that much more unique than if we all did the same thing in every situation. We all have to be who we truly are in the end.
For me, it's somewhat 'all of a piece.' One of the themes in my story is the idea of the do-over as a way to 'fix' things that went wrong. Tied into that is the idea of the first life being, on balance, a learning experience but not something to try to regain. Both to make that work, and to make it plausible, I needed maturity and reasonably detailed memories of what happened.
On the other hand, I've tried to apply the same standard to memories. If a character is decades away from the events of their current year, some things will still be vividly memorable, but other things are vague in various ways. They might well remember, say, that Chernobyl happened, and how, but when? On the other hand, remembering when Challenger happened (to a close approximation) is much easier.
For things like sports betting, business, etc, it's the same standard. I'm not writing a walking sports almanac, but many people remember a modest number of standout events from that age. Nor am I writing someone who memorized the stock market as a whole, but major events and big names may stand out enough to have 'future knowledge.'
I definitely wouldn't change a thing in that regard. It works for me and for the story I'm telling, and doing something else wouldn't.
The rest gets more and more 'off topic' - but relevant to the larger discussion.
I will definitely agree with the way childhood was in the 1980s. There were limits, at least in my experience - most parents would frown greatly on a couple going into a room and closing the door, for instance. Necessity is the mother of invention, and plenty of sex was happening, but there were constraints. On the other hand, 'I'm going to the mall - back tonight!' wasn't uncommon, and 'the mall' might well have meant 'the mall, three other stores, the park, the library, a friend's house, and a restaurant,' and the parent would have no idea (nor would they feel the kid had lied, even by omission).
For high school in the 1980s, though - and in my experience - teen pregnancy was very uncommon. When it did happen, it was hushed up. Perhaps the girl, or the whole family, 'moved away,' or perhaps there was an abortion.
Nowadays, there are daycares in all of the nearby high schools and many middle schools. Back then? Anyone admitting they were or had been pregnant would have been a complete pariah.
It's easy to tie the rise of cell phones to the decline in 'just be home by dark.' There's some truth to that, but it's much more complicated than that, I think. In theory, cell phones make it easier, not harder - you can track your kids and make contact on a whim.
It's much more an overall rise in risk-averse parenting. More than once I've mentioned an article I remember reading in Time decades ago (late 1990s, almost certainly). The author was in some sort of medicine and their thesis was 'There has been a huge drop in the number of kids with broken bones. This is a bad thing.'
The argument was that the decline was because parents forbade things like climbing trees, playing on pavement, and other behaviors that sometimes result in broken bones. The author believed (and I generally agree) that the short-term payoff in 'safety' was being achieved at the expense of kids developing risk-management skills. If you never put yourself at risk, you don't learn to assess it, you just reflexively avoid it.
I've also personally witnessed a parent charging across a playground screaming and scooping up their kid because there was roughly a 1% chance that another kid on a swing might possibly have bumped into their kid, then giving their kid a lecture. Or parents running to the aid of their kid with a very minor cut or abrasion and treating it nearly as a medical emergency.
A friend was telling me that his 14 year old granddaughter just graduated from 8th grade. He said that there were 27 pregnancies/abortions between the 6th, 7th, & 8th grades last year with an enrollment of about 225 per class.
Which is precisely why I consider all six of your 'books' to be much better than anything else on SOL, because it IS so mature and balanced than most everything else (less kink and more well-balanced story). And when it works, why screw up perfection?
Since this thread has already drifted, I have to wonder how the personality and memories of an adult can be fitted into a child's brain. Surely, the very act would make the brain an adult brain and therefore the child would be subject to adult-type memory lapses and reduced learning capacity.
AJ
Given our limited understanding of cognition, memory, and thought processes, I'm not sure that would be the case.
Given such an overlay is well beyond our understanding and ability, I think we're safe in saying 'we have no idea how that would work'. :-)
Plus, in the case of Gray Wolf's work, it's about a 50-year-old becoming a precious older teen, so at least that one is a better fit, since he's essentially a young-adult, rather than merely a wee lad. Thus it's a wholly different class of stories.
Since this thread has already drifted, I have to wonder how the personality and memories of an adult can be fitted into a child's brain. Surely, the very act would make the brain an adult brain and therefore the child would be subject to adult-type memory lapses and reduced learning capacity.
Those memory lapses don't come along until old age. And adults can learn as well or better than kids. Less distractions.
As for fitting adult personality into a kid's brain - haven't you ever known a child who some people would describe as being "an old soul"?
Those memory lapses don't come along until old age.
I believe they increase from the moment the brain matures. Medically they're classed as normal. They're not usually symptomatic of brain health deterioration.
And adults can learn as well or better than kids.
It takes adults longer to learn a new language or to play a new instrument or to become proficient at a new sport.
AJ
I believe they increase from the moment the brain matures. Medically they're classed as normal. They're not usually symptomatic of brain health deterioration.
It seems as if you believe memory loss has a single cause. I believe there are two types of memory lapses: temporary and permanent.
Temporary memory lapse seems to be related to the brains ability to retrieve a memory. Typically, the memory is retrieved, which infers that damage is to the memory retrieval system, and that type of damage is repairable. This is the type of memory problems that are typical of young people.
Permanent memory lapse seems to be related to death of brain cells that store the memory. When the brain cells containing the memory die, the memory is lost and there is nothing left to retrieve. This type of memory loss is permanent and it is common in older adults.
Brain health deterioration is related to the death of brain cells, regardless of the cause of brain cell death. I believe temporary and permanent loss of memory is related to the death of brain cells, but the dead brain cells are in different parts of the brain.
It seems as if you believe memory loss has a single cause. I believe there are two types of memory lapses: temporary and permanent.
Temporary memory lapse seems to be related to the brains ability to retrieve a memory.
I'm thinking of temporary memory lapses, like going into a room and not remembering why you did so. (Until you leave the room, and suddenly your mind remembers.)
I understand it's due to short-term memory becoming over-cluttered.
AJ
I understand it's due to short-term memory becoming over-cluttered.
I don't think anyone, even doctors, understands the brain and how it functions. All you have to do is review all the different conflicting theories that the medical researchers seem to generate.
I understand it's due to short-term memory becoming over-cluttered.
I don't think anyone, even doctors, understands the brain and how it functions. All you have to do is review all the different conflicting theories that the medical researchers seem to generate.
I've seen claims that we never genuinely forget anything, but rather our brains lose track of what's where in it's storage.
People with total recall just have better indexing.
I'm increasingly drawn to the opinion our long term memory functions much more like the current generative "AI" models anyone wants to admit.
In short, we reconstruct the memories from a schematic and promt of basic concepts up every time we recall it, rather than retrieving it whole like a video or something such. What's stored is a relation link map between the concepts. That graph can tolerate minor damage in most cases, but loss of a major node breaks the chain and thus disintegrate the memory. Minor damage is "repaired" by basically making a plausible guess, making up the missing details on the go.
Memories are mutable. Every time we recall something, we do a reinterpretation of the structure graph in actual context, and populate it with current values of the concepts required by it. Concepts that may have undergone complex overhaul since. Then optimize it all so it made sense again, again in current context and conditions, and actualized opinions we now hold as true. Then we store away the recreation, overwriting the original, just to repeat it again the next time. Frequently recalled memories become narratives, stories, legends we tell ourselves over and over, subtly editing each time, without knowing.
Memories get packed and merged, and unified as categories of a general scheme, sacrificing accuracy for capacity, more concise promts against a better qvantizied model of concepts. As the model evolve, old promts become inaccurate and inefficient and ultimately produce nonsense, then discarded -- or not.
That makes sense and is similar to what I just described for myself. I was good at remembering things verbatim and having a good mental image, while my wife remembers her interpretation of what people said, rather than what they actually said.
There are people and events from when I was 2 or 3 years old that I can remember not remembering, even as a child. Even in elementary school, my parents would tell stories of when Mom and I went to visit Dad when his reserve unit got called up, and even then had no clue, but I have several other memories from that time, even to this day. I used to be able to multitask, doing five things at once. Now, if my wife wants more than two things from the grocery, I need a list. I need them at work because if I have to do several things in sequence I'll always forget one or two of them, thinking I've done them when I haven't. I remember being 30 and for the first time forgetting something I knew. All my life there've been some memories off-loaded to behind the curtain, that can be recalled perfectly once I'm reminded, but now, in my 60's, it's harder for things to stick. I can read or hear something and a minute later it's gone forever. So...some I think are indexing problems, memories that aren't properly indexed or have lost their link, and now some things that never make their way into memory. The window was shut when the event arrived.
Yeah, I've actually studied this, as it's not the memories, it's the new memory linkages. As that's what suffers most as we age, yet developing all new linkages to the older memories is the best for keeping our brains young, as those newer links develop all new growth in those area of the brain, meaning those memories are also younger and much more vital.
And for those like me, that's pretty much the only thing keeping going! Which is why you always want to keep leaning new things, as it'll keep your brain vital well into your old age.
Which is precisely Lupus Dei's earlier response
I don't think anyone, even doctors, understands the brain and how it functions. All you have to do is review all the different conflicting theories that the medical researchers seem to generate.
Agreed, it all seems very anecdotal.
AJ
I'm thinking of temporary memory lapses, like going into a room and not remembering why you did so.
Don't you know it is the door causing that?
Yeah, their brains aren't nearly as adaptable as young children's, yet memory degradation is a whole different category, as it develops much later and progressing more rapidly the longer you have it. It's all about mental capabilities.
There was a comedian who mentioned: Now that I'm getting older.. I find myself thinking about the 'here after' a lot more.... like.. every time I enter a room, I'm like "Now what am I here after?"
Consider this:
After many hours per day, usually 5 days a week, for 12 years in public school, 19% of high school graduates in the US can't read.
https://www.abtaba.com/blog/us-literacy-statistics
Yet a completely illiterate adult can be taught to read in about 100 days.
https://www.academia.edu/3441595/Literacy_for_All_in_100_Days_A_research_based_strategy_for_fast_progress_in_low_income_countries
Who learns faster?