How young would a character have to be for you to consider him/her young to be having sex? I want my character to have lost his virginity at a shockingly young age, but not too shockingly.
I'm talking normal human beings here, by the way, not futuristic psuedo-humans.
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25,194 / 50,000
Mrt 8, 2008 - 14 16
I'm thinking fourteen, maybe thirteen.
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Script Frenzy '08
Working Title: Nate and Dick
Script Type: Stage Play
Genre: Dark Musical Comedy
Page Count: 35
51,435 / 50,000
Mrt 8, 2008 - 17 01
25+ - wallflower, prude.
19-24 - young adult. They were in no rush, waiting for Mr(s) Right.
18 - They waited until it was legal, no more.
15-17 - Slightly spicy, but within "normal" range.
13-14 - Definitely spicey and unusual, but within the range of "willing". The idea will titillate a majority of readers, but they would not admit it.
Preteen - Abusive, abnormal. Nabokov's Lolita was 12, which made Humbert Humbert "beyond the pale", where a teenager might just have been "a bit wrong".
Toddler - Evil.
That might not be the range of reality, but it seems to be the approximate range of most Western literature I've read, and will most likely be understood by most. There are exceptions, of course, even surprisingly mainstream. For instance, Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" implies much younger:
"But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat Fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Heap big woman, you made a bad boy out of me!"
But you'll likely squick at more readers than you titillate if you venture too far below the teens. Unless, that is, you go the hypocritical prudish-titillation route that the popular press does, describing a situation as "terrible", but then giving titillating details of it to their readers, all the while condemning the act that increases their circulation.
My own Nano had genetically engineered creatures with accelerated growth, so that I could play with the innocence and vulnerability aspect at the same time as the massacres and sex. It kinda worked, ish.
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50,501 / 50,000
Mrt 29, 2008 - 23 47
Ah, you mentioned Lolita! :D It's one of my favorite novels, for some reason. ;) I'm just into older guys.
I'd believe that about 13-14 is the age you might be looking for. One of my friends started having sex at 14, and she's been with four/five guys since then. She's almost sixteen now.
51,075 / 50,000
Mei 18, 2008 - 21 11
The shockingly youngest I've heard of was 9 years old. A boy who used to live in my neighborhood lost his virginity to a girl who was about that same age also, all of this planned out by the parents. The parents of the girl wanted their daughter to lose her virginity without the risk of becoming pregnant.
If that's not messed up I don't know what is, but it's a shockingly young age. Maybe a little too shocking, though...
----------NaNoWriMo 2006: A Raven's Song — Miserable failure. We don't talk about it.
NaNoWriMo 2007: Karina — WINNER! (51K)
Writing Blog: http://xxdaqu.blogspot.com
50,571 / 50,000
Jun 3, 2008 - 03 24
If it weren't for shyness and self-loathing, I would have started at 13. In my school some of the 14- and 15-year-old girls were gorgeous, and I was in love with them. All of them.
I've read about a 9-year-old girl losing her virginity to another girl -- her best friend, if I remember right.
----------NaNoWriMo 2006: Black Science
NaNoWriMo 2007: Bad Company
Script Frenzy 2008: Spanner
Project Blog: Spanner's World