Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Sex and teenagers

Hey I think Lindsay Lohan and Sharapova are hot as hell. Still think that 17 thing is wrong. We all have examples of teenage promoted sexiness (all of MTV) that we quite don't like. (Hey Lohan's 18 now!!!)

The Legion started with teenagers and later when they got "sexy" with guys like Grell and Cockrum they sure looked older (though were still called teenagers).

Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl got married and had a kid in the postboot? Sure if they are 18 it's not a big deal....but what if they are 14 to 17?

Ultra Boy makes a remark to Light Lass in #1?

Trust me I am no censorship freak...heck when they start college they should give them all a year supply of condoms and tell them to make like bunnies.

Just suprised DC makes teenagers so sexy?

Jorge

And please, no one give the "14 year olds are considered grown ups in the 31st century" argument. It's tired, and assumes that we live with 31st century morality, which we don't. We've had this discussion long ago on the DC boards--I'm curious how it's going to shake out here...And even more curious as to what age the Legion will be this time around.

don't forget the lube! (people so often forget to give lube with the condoms -- and lube shows true love)

lol

from what i gather of Barry's participation here & Waid's comments in interviews, this Legion will have a more diverse range of characters than before, including sex lives ... which i hope they keep in mind as the series progresses and more Legionnaires get to the spotlight

in past Legions, there's been a tendency to make them all the same in terms of age & sex practices ... Levitz pushed towards more definite differences amongst the legionnaires as he went into his run

oh, yeah, and in response to the 14 yr old question? sexy 14 year old?

YUCK!

This doesn't seem to be the case in WaK Legion (and I'm not sure it was universal preboot - it may have just been Braal). Remember, Lyla was supposed to have that genelock (or whatever) until he's 18.

Still, Americans like to think their own morality is universal when it isn't. Even in the US, there are many states with ages of consent _lower_ than 18, and many countries that are the same.

Here we get into a bit of socio-cultural debate if we're not too careful. The 20th century western concepts of childhood, adolescence and adulthood are vastly different from the views of our ancestors.
In America we have a lengthy legally enforced childhood based on numerical age that has little to do with actual maturity. The human body matures long before the mind does. Other cultures through history have focused on a different definition of maturation than the number of candles on a birthday cake.
It's not like being 18 is a magical moment when suddenly everything is ok and it's time to throw the birdlngs out of the nest. Rather being 18 is considered the age of maturity due to legal obligations, percieved military readiness and educational milestones.
I think it's obvious every time I step out of the front door that the young people are restless because of it. The young men and women are ready to take on tasks, to be challenged, to work for a cause, to make money, to be independant and to make their own way in the world without the restrictions imposed by a faux-Victorian society.

See what I mean?

I don't see a problem with mature individuals making up their own minds about their sexuality. If they can fight for peace they're certainly capable of knowing when and when NOT to keep their pants on.

...IMHO...

The removal/absence of parental control might have something to do with it, along with the uncertainty about the age mix. Are these "kids" off on their own or are some still living at home? I'd agree that if they can fight for peace they can certainly make their own decisions about sex. They're independent, daring, idealistic and probably not likely to either give in to peer pressure or fear reprisals from Mom & Dad.

What are the downsides? We'll trust that STDs and unwanted pregnancies are truly a thing of the past by the 31st century! That will just leave the emotional complications, which they could suffer as much at 14 as 24 years.

Personally I just think making 18 college age rebels suits DC better than 14 to 18 year olds.

YK, i see what you mean and agree with some of it. There is magical number but the number is there for a reason. I disagree with teenagers being ready...about 5 times overs. Teenagers aren't ready for anything.

I'm not on a crusade here...I was a teenager once...heck I got a 17 year old girl pregnant when I was 19. I rose to the challenge as a father but I don't necessarily think it was a good thing. I should've waited about 10 more years.

Just wondering how much "sex" is going into this Legion...and why they insist on making them younger...when college age issues are just as relevant as high school age issues. Infact college age atleast the kids get some credit versus high school age they are usually easily dismissed. If comments like Ultra Boy's are going to be used I rather have that...magical number.

The simple fact is children do have sex.

I'm certainly not saying it should be shown in a comic but if we want to read about semi-realistic characters then we have to accept that it is a very normal part of growing up. A rite of passage if you like.

Personally I'd rather not read about 14 year olds, for instance, but it's something I've seen happen too often (not literally but certainly the after affects - teenage pregnancy, emotional fallout etc). There is a growing feeling amongst the kids I see that they must lose their virginity before they are 16, just to fit in! I've had quite a few frank discussions about it with pupils in the past - always very scary/ embarrassing to do and I always take the line that the risk of cervical cancer in later life is greatly increased if they do indulge before their bodies are fully matured and being a young mum is not easy or fun or fashionable - despite what they may see or read or hear. Nasty to scare kids, worse to see them drop out because they are single mums in a poverty trap. As I was a single mum for nearly ten years I can tell them exactly how difficult it can be - and I was 28 when I had Oliver! I hate to think how awful it would have been at 16 - and the UK's support network for kids in this situation is getting grimmer and grimmer. Probably most Western countries are the same.

The culture bashing route may have to be brought into it though as even in this day and age on this one planet there are many differences of official opinion of when a 'child' is allowed/ expected to become an 'adult'.

Armsfalloffboy said - And please, no one give the "14 year olds are considered grown ups in the 31st century" argument. It's tired, and assumes that we live with 31st century morality, which we don't. - IMO we are reading about a different culture (like any history/fantasy/socio-political peice of literature), it's the reader who puts their own morality onto the story, not vice versa.

This is a great topic BTW, as it's such a difficult subject to talk about and it does need to be addressed.

Here's a question thats related to this topic, at what age did you become sexually active and how old was you partner? I was 17 & the girl was 15.

Do we know that _any_ sex is going in this Legion? Just because Ayla has dated a couple Legionnaires in the past doesn't mean she made that step. But your concerns are related more to the postboot Jo and Tinya, aren't they? Do we even know how old they were? Jo certainly looked like an adult.

I was 21 and I have no idea how old the guy was. But finding a guy partner as a teenager wasn't the easiest thing to do - especially when you don't really understand your sexuality.

True, but 19th and 20th century American definitions for adulthood ARE the anomoly.

Most civilizations have placed 13-14ish as the age of adulthood. Bar mitzvahs and similar rituals were celebrating coming of age, manhood, not teenhood. Part of teenage frustration is being treated more like 3-year-olds than adults.

That being said, it IS true that teens are GENERALLY not as mature as older people, but there are always exceptions on both side of the ailse. But, like a gifted student stuck in a remedial classroom, the way to deal with bored frustration is to begin increasing levels of challenge -and/or responsibility.

While my rant here mostly deals with other areas of life, it does come full circle to sex. A teen/young adult with experience dealing with other types of responsibilities (and taught how to think, not what to think, but that's a separate rant) will be better able to make decisions.

But we're not there, and may never be. I think DC (and pop culture as a whole) is better served taking a 70s-ish approach, if they deal with LSH sex lives: leave it vague as to how old they actually are.

I have no illusions that teens are going to read LSH (or any other comic) and decide solely on that decide to start having sex, but Belinda has a strong point - it's far too easy to assist in glamourization while in today's society, teen pregnancy and STDs are extremely serious.

AND...
Even if you don't care what consenting teens do, there are plenty of right-wing pseudoChristian pseudomoralists as it is who would love to find extra fodder for their crusades.

I had a point once, but it wandered off while I was refinishing my soapbox.

Having been looking through Silvr Age covers lately I notice that there were a lot of stories that deal with romance and even marriage but not with sex or sexuality. We're left to assume whetever we like concerning any physical relationship but it was a common plot device of the day to be concerned with emotional connections, with dating, with who might be paired up with whom but sex was practically never mentioned at all.

Yes we notice that Ayla has dated at least two of the male Legionnaires but the depth of their relationships are (at this point) unknown and possibly might remain that way for some time.

Our children are just as curious and experimental as we were and they're definitely going to explore the minefield of the heart. Kent has it right, they need to know how to think rationally and not dogmatically.

I dearly hope Mark Waid feels the same way.

Joining in...

I'd rather not read about 14 years olds having sex. But I'd also rather not read about 14 year olds AT ALL.

My preference overall for the Legion is that they are AT LEAST 16.

That said, I know when I was 16 my comments about sex were a hell of a lot more frequent and graphic than anything we're likely to see in a Legion comic book. And I wasn't running around with a bunch of body-beautiful types in skin tight or revealing outfits.

Anyway - I'm not troubled by implied sexuality among the Legion, provided there is a diversity among the team. Which is pretty much my take on EVERYTHING about the Legion.

"Most civilizations have placed 13-14ish as the age of adulthood. Bar mitzvahs and similar rituals were celebrating coming of age, manhood, not teenhood. Part of teenage frustration is being treated more like 3-year-olds than adults."


This is something I've become increasingly aware of in recent months as I've read more on the subject, and become fed up with all the hysteria related to "protecting the children!!". I can't really go into detail, but it seems Sigmund Freud and some of his "theories" have been responsible for more HARM than any help he may have intended. (I was right! All my life I mistrusted psychiatrists as not having the slightest idea what they were doing...) My question of late has been, if you "protect" young people from "everything" until they turn 18, how, when they reach 18, are they suddenly expected to be able to know how to DEAL with "anything"-- at all?

Freud's stuff is pretty much hogwash. The only reason he's even taught anymore is because a lot of other [sounder] theories were launched off of his ideas.

As for the protection issue...don't even get me started. The problems here are both psychological (how dare you blame MY child for failing your class!) to physical (full body armor in case a kid falls off his bike). Blech! I survived growing up just fine without all these protections.

To bring this back to the Legion, it seems like the team is rebelling against just this sort of thing.

BAH! I'd take Gwen Stefani-- age 35 and NOVA-hot-- over every single tarted-up teen singer out there.

Never mind the argument that "14 and 15 year olds are considered grown-ups in the 31st century"...they are now. I'm only 39, but I see teens/people in their early 20's that are a whole lot more mature than I was at that age. They even look older.

I think that society (and the climate of the new world order with terrorism at it's near peak)has foreced people to grow up faster. I've always believed that kids in the south and mid-west grew up faster than kids in the north-east. Maybe we (north-easterners)are less innocent because we are exposed to more. But kids in other parts of the country tend to leave home at an earlier age because of differences in the cost of living. It's not uncommon to see a 25-30 something still living at home in New York. While a kid in some town in Illinois might be on his own from the time he leaves High School at 17 or 18.

My thinking is that 31st century kids are forced to become responsible at an earlier age, much like kids in parts of our 21st century nation.

I'm not saying that this should be used as an excuse to see all Legionnaires sexual active, but they are young adults who are responsible for themselves...to an extent. Realistically, when when you have young people co-habitating with no adult supervision, relationships (on all levels) will develop.

Exactly. You put two teens together in a close relationship, such as the Legion has, things are going to happen. Now I am not saying I get off on reading about teens doing it, I think, if handled properly, makes for good characterization.

Couple of points for clarity:

1. As an 8th grade teacher at an inner-city school, I am painfully aware that children are having sex. I have two fourteen year old students with babies (they miss school all the time). This does not, however, mean that I think fourteen year olds having sex should be in a comic book.

2. Yes, I understand that our culture is not the template by which all others should be measured. However, I think we would all agree that relationships between grown men and fourteen year old boys are not appropriate, even though other cultures have accepted them.

3. Yes, I understand that our favorite book deals with a future culture. But without sounding like William Bennett, the Legion is written for a 21st century audience, many of whom are young.

I know that it may seem that I'm taking this a little seriously, but I am very disturbed by the trend in our society to sexualize younger and younger people--from tweens to Britney Spears to youth size thongs. I would very much prefer not to see it in the Legion. If you would like to read or write about sexually active people, make them young adults, not minors. If you want to write about fifteen year olds in a comic book, leave the sex out.

I'm also a teacher and deal with 12 to 18 year olds - like you I've seen a fair few unfortunate 'accidents' lead to kids stopping their education before they even have a single GCSE.

I totally agree with you about the increasing sexualisation of children. It's a very disturbing trend that only seems to be accelerating. That said I don't think it is a subject that should be brushed under the carpet and ignored. A storyline dealing with teenage pregnancy would be great if dealt with responsibly (just tell them about the bloody stretch marks if you want to scare them off!!)

I guess we'll have to wait and see what Barry and Mark have in store, though I doubt it will involve 14 year olds being that active!

I agree that people (most) don't want to think about 14 year olds having sex. But at the same time, pretending it's not happening doesn't make it so. I agree that if we're going to deal with young characters (if they must be THAT young) co-habitating with one another, then we must deal with the reality of what's really occurring. Maybe as stated above, we should tactfully deal with a story about teen pregnancy and show the negative impacts...especially for the benefit of the much youger readers. But that may be a mistake. The younger Legionnaires having sex may be interpreted as some sort of glorification of the issue. Personally, I think the Legionnaires should be at least 17 or 18 in these sorts of story lines. In any case whether we choose to deal with it or not, it's going to happen when you put 2 or 3 dozen teens unsupervised together.

There could be a lot of interesting relationship stories without getting into overt sex - especially in an all-ages book. With different cultures, there should be different customs ... you could have one society which views marriage as a purely business proposition, and a member from that culture scouting out the other legionnaires for the likeliest merger candidate. A society which is one-mate-for-life, or another which favours open relationships - the stories could present the dilemmas and friction which could develop from these clashing cultures alone, and let the reader infer whether anyone's in the sack together or not, as one prefers.

I can think of only a few instances - outside of the adult 5YL Legion - which have shown legionnaires in bed together - Dreamy & Atmos, Jo & Tinya (by inference, since they shared quarters and had Cub) and DnA's Imra & Garth, in Imra's dream.

But it's also important that those 21st century young people see something they recognize as authentic, and not sanitized.

Please understand, I'm right there with you in opposition to sexualizing kids. But I also recognize there are sexually active young people.

Part of the problem is the word "kids" or even "young" which can mean 10 year old, 18 year olds and everything in between.