This is one of a long line of common phrases in sex education and sexuality messaging people, including people I think of us allies, use that I deeply dislike, like "preventing teen pregnancy." Let me explain why, working backwards.

"You should wait for sex, but if you can't..."

That's usually followed by "then you should have sex using safer sex and contraception." Or -- and usually addressing both those things -- "then you should at least be responsible."

In some respect, that's fine. Now, not everyone needs contraception, either because they don't have a partner with a radically different reproductive system than them or they're not having the kinds of sex that can create a pregnancy, so that doesn't always make sense. But for people choosing to have any kind of sex, we're 100% on board with the sentiment that all of us -- no matter our age -- should be engaging in sexual practices supportive of safeguarding everyone's best health, and in alignment with whether we do or don't want or are or are not ready for a pregnancy. This statement often tacitly or inadvertently defining all sex as opposite-sexed or as intercourse isn't okay, but overall, on the safer sex and contraception bit? I'm right there with you.

The "if you can't?" Not cool. We all can elect not to have any kind of consensual sex, sparing masturbation we may unknowingly do in our sleep, something that happens sometimes. Some people also do have earnest impulse control disorders, but those are disorders, and do not occur in the vast majority of people of any age.

If we have consensual sex it is completely within our control, whether we're 13, 26 or 63. There is no "can't wait" when it comes to consensual sex. To suggest there is is not only incorrect, as we have free will, it can also be rape enabling. It backs up those who excuse rape by saying they (or rapists) couldn't control themselves, that just they couldn't help it, that when they feel sexual they cannot stop themselves and every kind of garbage of that ilk that is an absolute, and highly convenient, fiction. People always can hold off on sex or decline sex unless someone is being sexually assaulted or abused, in which case the person doing the abusing is in control of what is happening, but the person being victimized is not because the other person or group has also taken control of that person in some way. If we are choosing to have sex, that choice in and of itself is one of responsibility, and if we're bearing our own and our partner's consent in mind, one is already being responsible.

Some folks say "don't" instead of can't. That's far better. There most certainly is a "don't want to wait," but there isn't a can't. Nearly everyone can. It's just that not everyone always wants to. Not only is that a more truthful framing, it's one which makes clear that active consent and decision-making, and owning your choices, is of great import.

This "can't" stuff also plays into the way people often misrepresent teen sexuality: something out of one's control or will, as about "raging hormones" (hormones with apparent superpowers that can compel the body to move against one's own will); as a burly, untamable, and usually masculine beastie that picks young folks up by the feet and shakes them until they don't have two pennies of sense left to rub together. I'm not about to argue that when sexual feelings first start to develop and flourish that they don't often feel heady, even unwieldy: they sure can. But that doesn't make them unmanageable or make any actions one may take stemming from them out of a person's control.

I will also argue this is somewhat situational -- not about people only of a given age, gender or marital status -- and that we know older adults also experience strong sexual feelings. In addition, I hear from a lot of young people worried something is wrong with them because their sexual feelings are not at the mega-hormone-madness level people say teenage sexual feelings are. Heck, maybe it's both a misrepresentation of young adult sexuality AND older adult sexuality. All the same, young people are capable managing their sexuality well, and also tend to do a better job with it in cultures that don't present teen sexuality like this. And if young people hear adults suggesting or implying that sexual feelings are not something in everyone's control, they also are more likely to a) fall for partners who coerce them by suggesting as much, and b) won't recognize or report sexual abuse when that's what's going on.

There's another big flaw with the general message here: "You should wait for sex, but if you can't, be responsible." Huh? If there's something we should do, and we're not doing it, we're probably not being responsible already: by definition and context, the term "should" here implies an obligation. If we are NOT making and owning our own active sexual choices, or if we "can't" have the ability to own our choices at all, and thus, are irresponsible by default, we are absolutely not being responsible. So, "If you can't be responsible... be responsible?" That's -1 + 1, which equals zero. It's null.

"You should wait for sex..."

...until? Until you're married? Until you're in a committed relationship? Until you're older? How much older? By whose standards or what criteria? And why: what will one, three, five or ten years automatically provide just by having a birthday each year? (Or "until I can or want to deal with you being sexual, because I'd just rather not?")

Many people do have down that the "until you're married" part isn't sound. Not all of us have the legal right to get married to people we love, at any age. Some of us don't want to get married, or don't want to enter into marriages without a sense of whether or not we have a compatible sexual relationship with a given person first. Some of us are in all of those camps. Too, marriage does not mean a lack of STIs, a lack of unwanted pregnancies, a healthy relationship or a stellar sex life (even far-right folks even know this part, they just vociferously avoid admitting it). It never has. It doesn't still. And as we mentioned just the other day, through history, even for those who did/do marry, most people have had sex before marriage, especially if of people who marry, both were not very young teens when they did. Saving sex for marriage was never a realistic standard for most young adults, nor a common practice.

Long-term committed relationships have more positive outcomes for some people. Some people also have positive outcomes in casual or shorter-term relationships. For most of us, it's not a simple either/or, because it depends on the specific relationship or scenario and on what that person wants and feels best about at a given time in their lives.

Wait until you're older? How much older? Until it's legal? Think whatever we do about age of consent laws, that's pretty sound. But even in states where the age of consent is, say, 16 or 18, there are almost always allowances for same-age sexual relationships for those under that age. If it's not about the law, at what age does everyone, unilaterally, acquire the skills, resources and the right relationships and scenarios to assure, or at least strongly suggest, sex will be either devoid of unwanted outcomes or bear less risk of them, or be a positive? If, in reading this, you're not silent and have that one magical age handy for me, I need to assure you that I can't think of one single age, talking to people of many ages about sex, I have not had people report negative or unwanted outcomes with. I also have never seen evidence or data via study to show such an age exists.

We have do sound study that tells us things like that younger teens' expectations of sex often are very unrealistic, and that the youngest teens also report unwanted outcomes from sex or unhappy experiences more frequently than older teens do. We also have good data that shows us that for the youngest teens, sex more often is not consensual sex, but is rape, via either force or coercion. Data like that is critically important, and is good to share with young people when we're talking with them about sex, especially if they seem to specifically fit the picture of any of that data. However, there will always be exceptions, and often those exceptions are not about a few teens, but about a few million. Age-in-years also isn't all that's going on in those pictures.

Here's where both I, and Scarleteen as an organization, stand on this.

What we want is for everyone to only have any kind of sex -- be it intercourse or any other physically enacted expression of sexuality with oneself or a partner -- when it is what everyone involved in a sexual scenario: strongly wants, can and does actively consent to, feels prepared for and has the knowledge and capacity to have sex in a way that is physically and emotionally safe. We want this for everyone the first time they have any kind of sex, and then every time thereafter.

If "you should wait" means until all of THAT, then you betcha, we're on board. This is our goal for people of every age, and we don't think it's fair or reasonable to hold young people to different standards on this than we hold, or anyone else holds, older people (especially if you're going to say young people are less capable of meeting the standard than older people, but older people don't need to meet it once they are capable).

The kinds of things we know ARE likely to create positive sexual outcomes -- areas we can clearly see are where those positive outcomes most often occur -- are things like having an earnest and shared desire for sex with the person you're having it with, having knowledge about and access to sexual healthcare, safer sex tools and contraception; having the full legal right to and a sense of ownership of your own body (be that about the right to give nonconsent and consent or reproductive rights), having emotional support and acceptance from your community and culture, not feeling shame or fear about sex or sexuality; having a strong sense of self as well as a real care for others and feeling prepared for and at least somewhat skilled with the kinds of things sex requires, like communication, vulnerability, creativity, compassion, discovery and boundary-setting. There are people who are teens and who have all of those things sometimes: there are plenty who do not. There are people who are 20, 30 or 50 who do not: there are also plenty who do. While age and life experience can absolutely hone any and all of those things, a) it clearly doesn't for all people (if only) and b) some of those things can sometimes be easier for younger people than older people, especially if they haven't unlearned any of their intuitive skills with them yet

I know that there is no one broad group which people can be a member of that guarantees unilaterally positive sexual experiences or relationships with either unilaterally positive outcomes, or a lack of any negative outcomes. Everyone who works in sexuality knows this. Marriage doesn't do that, and it never has. Being of a certain gender doesn't do that, nor of a certain race or economic class. Being of a certain age doesn't do that, either, and also never has. Setting aside both the implicit falsehood of these kinds of statements, and the audacity of making them to members of a group which we are not members of ourselves, if we give young people the idea that getting married, having a partner for X-months or X-years or reaching some magical-age-or-other will immediately imbue them with all of the above resources, skills or scenarios, we aren't helping them any. At best, we potentially set them up for disappointment, but at worst, we may put them right in harm's way -- since those things alone do NOT protect them -- the very thing I think most people do want to prevent.

The other thing "wait until" can say as a message, intentionally or not, is that once anyone chooses to have sex, it's a Pandora's Box they have opened and can't shut evermore. Sexual choices are not just important or meaningful the first time we make them: those choices are always meaningful, we consider if sex is something that is right for us every time we do or don't choose to engage in it, and we all always have the right to change our minds and decline sex, even if we had it before. But a lot of young people don't know or feel that, especially with the other messages they get about how their valuation as people changes based on whether or not they have had sex or do have sex. I know, for certain, our allies don't want to enable that message to young people, but I worry some do because this messaging dovetails with that kind all too easily.

"You should..."

Shoulds are tricky when we're talking about sexuality, especially when making opening or general statements, rather than responding to someone's specifically expressed wants and/or needs. Given a rare few of us have been reared without pervasive shoulds when it comes to sex, or have been totally uninfluenced by a world which is rife with them, it's really easy to slip into saying "should" and we all usually have to work hard to avoid it. But I think we need to try.

When it comes to things like what kind of sex someone enjoys or wants, or to when sex will most likely be right for them (especially in a given situation when you don't even know what their unique situation is), "you should" usually means something more like, "I wouldn't," "I didn't," "I don't think you should because I didn't like that," "That didn't work out so well for me, so it probably won't for you" "I'd prefer if you didn't because what I want is..." "My personal values dictate..." or "Some person or idea who has more authority than you do says no."

This is a particularly problematic issue when adults are talking to young people, and all the more so when they're saying "shoulds" about nothing but age-in-years and personal projections. So often, adults have the idea that because they were once a young person of 13 or 19 or 22, they know all of how it is for young people of that same age. Even adults who once knew how full of baloney that was when they were teens.

For sure, those of us who are older were once younger. We were, however, our own younger selves, not the younger person we are talking with and about right now. We were also not our younger selves in the same time they are their younger selves. While some parts of a given experience they had may be much like one we had, they may experience that thing very differently, or have different outcomes than we did. For sure, age and hindsight gives us perspectives, and those truly are often valuable, especially if we're mindful people. But the idea that we know so much more than a younger person about their experiences, or what may be their experiences, just because of our experiences or our age isn't kosher. It is, in fact, is one of the ways that adults are often adultist. On top of that, we have adults who DID wait past X-age to be sexual with partners, and felt that was best for them: but not having had the other experience, they can't know what that would have been like for them. Then we have adults who had sex younger than they feel would have been best for them: they have a bit more information than the former group, but still can't know what starting sex at a different age would have been like. Having experience with something doesn't give us experience with not-something-else.

Nearly of my own consensual sexual experiences and relationships as a teen, including those when I was a young teen, were positive, enjoyable and loving and I didn't have the unwanted outcomes we've always heard will fall upon the heads of teens who have sex (likely because I did very well with safer sex and contraception when it was needed), save a broken heart a few times. No more achy-breaky than heartbreak I experienced from nonsexual relationships, though (actually, I think those heartbreaks were sometimes worse for me). I've heard from more than my fair share of adults my age or older who both don't manage their sex lives NOW as well as I did as a teenager and who are less pleased with their sex lives as adults than I was with mine as a teen. However, because my experience was like that at a given age does not mean I'm going to assume every other 15-year-old female-bodied person out there, at this point in time or any other, will have or will have had the same experiences I did. I think most people, including people whose politics are radically different than mine, would agree it would be grossly irresponsible for me to project my own experiences and outcomes unto any other young person just because they're the same age I was, doing the same things. And if that's so, those folks should also agree the same would be true had I had very negative experiences and unwanted outcomes.

My own experiences, like yours, may provide me perspectives (and also potential biases) I may not have had I had very different experiences. But it's my job to manage them and put them in greater perspective, to recognize they are individual, not universal, to avoid projecting and to figure that for any given teen out there who might have been just like me, there's one out there who is radically different, and for whom my choices at a given age would be a terrible fit, with very different outcomes.

If being older really makes us wiser, why do adults have such a hard time seeing when we're projecting this stuff unto young people, or recognizing it's often disrespectful? Many times that "should" comes from the I-did-this-I had-bad-things-happen place. I completely understand adults -- especially those who are parents or are mentors, teachers or other allies, rather than folks who don't have any real emotional investment in a teen or teens lives -- wanting to do what they can, within reason and with care, to help young people avoid harm or hurt. I think that's laudable and loving. However, a negative outcome happening from something we do at one age doesn't mean it'll happen to all people that age doing that same thing. We all need to think more deeply than this and present teens with thoughts of more depth.

I took a one-block walk to the park to play when I was seven, climbed on what looked like a jungle gym in an alley to me (it so wasn't) and I wound up slicing off half my hand, which left me with a permanent disability. Does that mean that it's a bad idea for seven-year-olds to go take a walk, and we can be sure of that because of what happened to me when I was seven? If I have had both positive and negatives with both serious and casual relationships, does that mean all must be good for everyone...or that none are?

Maybe you had intercourse with your boyfriend when you were 15. You didn't use birth control and became unwantedly pregnant, or a condom wasn't used and you got an STI. You didn't come into the relationship with knowledge about either of these things, nor sound negotiation skills or a real sense of self-esteem. You hid your sexual activity because per your religion, you were breaking the rules and sinning. Your relationship was also crappy, and the guy wound up leaving you, on top of everything. So, if you had had intercourse at 20, but all those other conditions were exactly the same, do you think the outcome would have been different? Doubtful. Just like if that guy had a mustache, things would not have been different with all the same conditions at the same age with a partner sans mustache. The problem most likely was not being 15. It was all the conditions of that equation.

There's often some coulda-woulda-shoulda going on here, too. A lot of people come of age with ideas of what "perfect sex" or "perfect lover" or "perfect first time" is. Many people have the idea that if they had just done X-thing differently, they would have had that perfect first time instead of the less-than-stellar experience they had. Certainly, we don't always all make the best choices and some different choices very much may have resulted in different outcomes -- because no, someone who had no sex at all would not have become pregnant, and someone who didn't choose a sex partner they knew was a jerk would have been less likely to wind up with a jerk-in-bed. But as someone who hears a WHOLE lot about that "perfect first time," including from people who followed all the given "rules" about what promises to make that so? I gotta tell you: if you didn't have it, one reason why was that, in large part, that "perfect" first time isn't real. It, like perfect lovers and perfect sex, is a fable; a fantasy. That's why it's so sparkly and shiny. Too, we can't ever know what outcome switching up one thing differently would have had, or what THAT change may have created. We hear a similar tactic in reproductive justice a lot, when people who are antichoice and regret an abortion they had say that they should have done adoption, that would have been so much less painful. Not only do they have no way of knowing that, that ignores the endless scores of women who HAVE surrendered a child and found it very painful. Grass, greener, other side: you know this one.

"Should" is a word that also has something to do with control. When we say "should" to someone -- especially without context, such as where someone tells us they want to have sex without a pregnancy, so we say they should then consider using contraception -- we suggest someone is obligated to make a certain choice. That's not helpful messaging if some of our intent is truly to empower people to make their own best choices, rather than to try and get them to make the choices we want them to for our own benefit or personal agenda (which can certainly include trying to rewrite or correct our own sexual histories). The phraseology here also suggests that responsibility is more about someone doing their duty, being a good citizen or a "good person," than just caring for themselves and caring for others: it's the latter motivation that's more likely to help people create and nurture positive sexual lives and relationships. Plus, messages of duty and/or obligation in regard to sex are particularly noxious for women, for whom much of the whole cultural history of sexuality has been about sex as a duty and obligation.

I would be so delighted if we could start to broadly hear a change in this messaging, especially from individuals or organizations I know or think truly want what is best for young people, which certainly includes, ideally, a reduction of negative or unwanted outcomes from sex, and also -- pretty please? -- some address of consent; which I also hope includes nurturing positive, wanted outcomes, like feeling good about one's sexuality, having a satisfying, beneficial sexual life -- one that includes pleasure and fun, not just not-pregnancy or not-STIs -- like feeling able to express yourself and your feelings with someone else authentically, like feeling alive in your body and feeling capable and respected.

I don't think we can't present sex positively and treat young people as capable while still sending strong messages about health and public health: in fact, I think without the former the latter will often be ineffective or have its own set of negative consequences, like fear, shame or feeling disempowered. If the messages we send young people about sex don't treat them with respect, aren't honest, don't address consent or make it sound impossible or inconsequential, don't treat the individual as an individual and shortcut complex issues, expecting them to approach sexuality any differently seems a strange expectation, indeed.

Here a few different alternatives to try on for size:

• "If you want to have sex and feel ready, please care for yourself and others by taking care of your bodies, hearts and minds, including consent, safer sex and contraception."
• "If you are going to choose to have sex, and want to do all you can to assure positive outcomes for yourself and others, on top of assuring desire and consent, please manage any infection or pregnancy risks with safer sex and/or contraception."
• "If you and your partner feel emotionally ready for sex, and both want to be sexual together, please make sure you are also practically ready when it comes to safer sex and contraception."
• "If you want sex to be positive, you'll want to wait until sex is something you and yours both want and feel ready for, including the use of safer sex and contraception."
• Or, if you earnestly feel you either didn't wait but should have, or did wait, and that means it's best, and want to speak from your own experience, how about "From my perspective, I think you should wait until [whatever this criteria is is] because [insert what your sound reason is here]. But if you decide that isn't what's best for you, and you want to choose to have sex, then I would like you to be sure mutual consent, safer sex and contraception are all in the picture."

Of course, my favorite approach is avoiding generalized statements like this at all and instead having conversations where I can simply first ASK (or be told) if someone does or does not want to have sex right now, then give more information, and ask more questions, then tailoring what I am saying to what they state their needs and wants to be: if we start there, and work from their answer, it's pretty easy to sidestep all of the problems with these kinds of phrasings. I think it also makes it easier for us to focus as much on what we should be doing as we're focusing on what teens should.