I’m reading your comments on “Helena’s testimony” and among many others, a major question arises:
- “How can a 16-17 y.o. adolescent know the difference between love, infatuation or physical attraction? Is it easy to distinguish them at this age?
- Do men and women perceive these distinctions in the same way?
I would like to have your opinion!
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10 comments:
Those are interesting questions! They deserve careful thinking. Firstly, in the meaning we try to understand love in this blogue, that is love envolved in sexual relationship, it's normal that love is associated with physical attraction. If somebody is 16-17 y.o., it's normal to have powerful physical attraction... that's why the situation is problematic. If persons don't have that strong feeling, they could handle the situation in a simple way. But, because the feeling is so strong, it is a problem, because it can drive persons to make stupid choices. That's why it is very important to do sexual education... that's why we are in this project.
Reading your own words, Jorge:
"because the feeling is so strong, it is a problem, because it can drive persons to make stupid choices",
I remembered a student of mine asking me: "Why is it wrong to have sex at our age?". I replied: "I am not saying that is right or wrong. I am asking you instead, Do you feel mature enough to make the right choice of partner? It's not a question of biological maturity but of emotional maturity."
Yes, Maria! You are right. I'd like our students entering this discussion. I hope they can do so, even if they have a lot of written tests to prepare in these days.
I disagree, people grow psychologically faster than you think, I know it from myself. By the way, in Brasil and in arabe countries (marriage since childhood- maybe at 12-15years) psychological grow
th is even more faster that in conservative countries like Portugal.
Maybe we can discuss what does it mean to be "psychologically adult"?
our opinion ( Diogo Valerio,Inês Pereira, Jessica Gomes, Mariana Freitas):
We believe that all teens have a way of think.Everybody thinks that know what love means, but we fall in mistake, cause each one of us has a diferent way of see abstracts things.
''love is a disease where we think see our cure'' We believe that this sentence is the closer definition for love.
our point of view:
some teens aren't mature enougth for love, and they can't distinguish love of infatuation of physical attraction.
Even some of us make of others prizes.
Some realationships can be true, but the others are based in sex, dirty feelings or even just fetiche. we think that is not fair!
About distinguish between men and women:
like girls mature first than boys, we believe that they have an emotional reason more discharged that boys, and feelings are deeper.
Hello Demosfen, hello Diogo, Inês, Jéssica and Mariana. It is a big pleasure to see you in our blogue. I hope you like to discuss this subjects of sexuality in orther to be more reasonable in choices everyone have to do in his life. In fact, I am proud being your teacher - it is very good to see teenagers trying to be more ilustrated day by day. That is it what we can see in your comments.
Demosfen, you are right when you say we should discuss meaning of «psychologilly adult». As you say, it is not the samething in different societies and with different persons. Anyway, in a complex society like ours (you called it «conservative»... maybe we also should discuss it!), teens must be mature enough so that they do not get hurt. What I mean speaking in get hurt is to get emotional disorders that will affect her/his way of feeling in after life.
For Demosfen:
Marriage is a legal way to have sex, acceptable in some societies by very young ages. Do you think that these 12 y.o. girls decide on their own about having sexual life at this age? Because in these cases, we are only talking about girls, that are forced to marry older, much older men.
Maturity has to do with life experiences and responsible behavior. Adolescence is a stage from childhood to adulthood that lacks of experiences. We don't blame adolescents for being immature. It's a natural stage. But in order to protect adolescents from making fatal mistakes, we try to make them think deeply before acting. That's our purpose.
Dear Demosfen, I like students that disagree! They give us the chance to discuss issues deeply. Thank you for your contribution. Keep it up! I am waiting for your next disagreement!
Each teenager decide to have a sexual relationship or not and by the maturity and life expericence of each other, by doing diferent steps on their life. If you don't know what to do you better not do anything, because you may do something wrong that could broke your relationship and also can cause bad things in your life.
And that is when it apear the sexual education, to help teenagers what to do in these kinds of situations.
Try searching for a adult, teacher or a especialist to answer those questions, then you will feel your mind much cleaner and released from those problems.
I think that everyone probably thinks that you only should do any progress in any relationship by thinking a lot first and then react and do that step, try to have a «mature mind» before you do it.
Opinion from João Marcelino
In our opinion, a teenager who is 16-17 y.o. can never really tell the diference between love, infatuation and physical attraction. He might not know the difference between love and infatuation especially because they are feelings so deep that no one knows for real their meaning; it can be different from teenager to teenager and even from person to person. he also knows the difference between love and attraction, we mean, sometimes he knows that love is deeper and attraction might be something momentaneous; nevertheless, one attraction can lead to a feeling of love. Not every teenager have the same mentalitie or stand on the same way on life so they interpret the challenges life puts ahead of us differently, that's why the notions of love, infatuation and physical attraction are so mixed in our heads. On this age, it's not easy to tell apart these three concepts because all of them are rooted to one feeling: despite having different meanings, they have that point in common. It's easier to tell them apart with age because we begin to know better the reality of life, realizing the presence of these feelings and and from there starting to know how to separate love from infatuation, love from attraction and infatuation from attraction.
A man and a woman don't think the same way like teenagers in their 16-17 years. Men and women think in a conscient way, they lived already a big part of their life, they have been through for some of the moments teenagers are going for right now. They know how to tell love from infatuation and from physical attraction. Despite people give different meaning to these concepts, love means for every one a feeling of desire, affection; infatuation means a platonic love for someone who might not be given back, is a rush someone feels that moment; and physical attraction is something only physical, a desire purely physical to have the other person, but it can me only sudden, it might only happen during a short period of time. We think this is the meaning these more mature people give to these concepts after living life so fulfilling and passionately.
Ana Marta Carmona and Maryline Matos, 11.º B
Ana Marta, Maryline and Joao, your words are wise. I hope you to be hapy in your decisions concerning sexual behavior. Having a mature thinking helps, even if it is only part of the question of sexual atitude.
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