All My Children

I don’t think that the recent trend to earliness in dating and in going steady and in sexual intimacy means a readiness to share love, in a great majority of cases. In past generations in America, as well as in other Western societies like ours which are committed to advanced education, a great majority of young teenagers with aspirations were satisfied for a couple of years to be in love from a distance most of the time, with only occasional encounters; they did not become heavily involved until their late teens. The new trend has been primarily a style, I think I’m raising doubts about it because I think that these recent customs give young people who are not yet ready to make choices that last or to love deeply the impression that sexual—romantic love is essentially physical in nature. And when thirteen-, fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds go on regular dates in which they can have privacy, the temptation to fill the gaps in the conversation with exploratory, physical sexuality will be great and will increase from date to date.

When going steady has become the custom among a majority of young people in a community, the custom in itself puts pressure on the rest to do likewise, in order to conform. Having a steady boy-friend to take her to all parties provides a girl with great security; it makes her one of the successful girls and she is never embarrassed by being stranded in public. These social advantages have often caused girls, they tell their teachers and doctors, to give in to the demands of boys for more physical intimacy than the girls would otherwise have granted.

When I say that few young teenagers are yet ready for deep relationships, I don’t mean that they don’t have strong emotions. The feeling of love for someone may be over-powering, just as intense as anything felt at an older age. But usually the emotion proves not to be based on mutual knowledge and affection but on the appealing appearance of the other person and fantasies about what he is really like. The one who is infatuated often has no idea whether the other will reciprocate, whether the two have common interests, whether they can mean anything to each other and give anything to each other. This is why so many young loves blaze brightly and then burn out in a few weeks or months. The absence of a solid foundation for such a relationship has given rise to the expression ‘They were in love with love.’

Sometimes a physical intimacy has begun to develop during the initial infatuation. Then as the romantic aspect of the infatuation begins to subside because of the lack of substance behind it, the young couple may substitute an increasing physical intimacy, to conceal from themselves for a while the failure of love to develop.

Dehumanisation of Love in America

An American medical student I knew who had spent a year in a European university after graduating from a college in the United States told me that he had been immediately struck by the different attitude of late adolescents and young adults he knew in the European country towards dating and romance: when a young man there becomes seriously interested in a girl, he acts visibly excited, elated, ‘in love‘. Lovers when separated are obviously thinking of each other, anticipating reunion. While on their dates, they look joyful and worshipful. They may bring flowers or simple presents for each other and write poetry if they are able.

This full acceptance and expression of tender and romantic love made the American realise for the first time how much this aspect is omitted in his country, how much of dating is given over to physical sexuality—and also to endless talk about how far to go, as if the couple were impersonally discussing hygiene or psychology in a classroom.

This is of course an unfair exaggeration, for there are many young Americans who are romantic about their beloved, and lovingly respectful of each other’s bodies. But the medical student’s observation supports my view that the encouragement of early dating before young people are mature enough to know what their ideals in life are, before they are able to think in terms of each other’s emotional needs rather than their own desires, before they have a tender love to offer, has a tendency to dehumanise love and is a poor preparation for marriage.

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