There is a great deal of envy present in the discussions of sexual behaviour and Schoolies Week. I’m no advocate for getting written off and having unprotected sex you won’t remember with someone you don’t even like, but I think there’s more to the concern over Schoolies than a straightforward desire for harm reduction.
There’s a kind of double bind in our reporting on the issue that is not unlike the double bind many of were given as children and in turn pass on to our own children. As adults we tend to hide our sexuality from children. We censor it in our homes and our art. The new Twilight film is rated MA, despite being marketed to girls, because of sexual content that has been obviously foreshadowed over the last two films. We say look but don’t touch and then we say don’t look at all, but if you do, you’ll have to lie to get in.
The double bind message to young people goes something like this: This is the most sexual time of your life. Don’t do it, but don’t miss it. It will never come again.
Young people need to be protected from exploitation while they experiment. But to do this we would have to understand and condone the need to explore and to find out what you really desire sexually. This requires both courage and freedom. For many of us, sexual pleasure is severely limited either by fear, shame, constraint or a lack of self-knowledge. When we look at the images of Schoolies Week, it’s easy to project our own adult fantasies of uncontained eroticism.
zoekrupka.com 
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