Hey!  I’ve read all these posts about marriage and these young girls – but no one has mentioned SEX!!!!!

What about teaching sex education to these young girls in school!  What does a 12 year old TURKISH girl know about sex – the actual consummation of a marriage?   Can you imagine the incredible fear and pain that those poor girls experience when on their first day as a wife –they have this much older man do strange things to them?  - and worse yet,  knowing that this experience will happen for the rest of their lives…! ( I wonder what he suicide rate is...)

Let me explain, I’m not talking porn flicks, I’m talking about the fundamental knowledge of the female body and the explanation of why they experience changes and what is “normal.’ It simply explains (medically) basic sex, sexual identity, relationships and intimacy.

Here in the US sexual education is core to overcoming the sometimes stupid, but mostly horrific thoughts young people have about their sexual growth. C’mon – everyone talks about it; everyone does it…even dogs n cats.  So let’s grow up. Let’s teach these girls that sex is OK and this is part if growing up.   If they can’t have the luxury of falling in love, desiring another human being or even enjoying the bliss of a romantic honeymoon  - let’s at least give them the decency to talk to them about what they are expected to do and how sex should feel.   Anything less is closer to rape than intimacy.

Doriss, I can appreciate your thougths on this but in many parts of the world where this is taking place, many young girls do not get even a basic education.  Sex is very much a taboo in these societies and viewed as a means of procreation not as something pleasurable (at least not for a woman). 

 Doriss.....Good suggestion, I agree, sex education is very very important....but why only for girls? Both males and females need to be educated.

That really is sad that some Turkish women cannot choose who to marry.

But maybe they will fall in love by coerce of a man, I´m not sure. If I was having to get married to a man I didn´t want to get married to, I would make the best out of the situation by acting like a slave for that´s what forced women are to men. What would you do if you were these women, being forced into marriage?

 Lemon, I think he means education in the more classic sense..

"....the word education is derived from educare (Latin) "bring up", which is related to educere "bring out", "bring forth what is within", "bring out potential" and ducere, "to lead"." 

 instead of....

"In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another."

....although where would we be without that transmission of knowledge? How long would it take us to figure out how to use simple tools?

....although in most cases, the latter I would call training rather than education.

If it´s the latter, I agree with you 100%, I have met too many well educated fools. They are rather like dogs that have been educated to hunt for their masters.

Then....one will get educated, like it or not, by just living....

 Ahhh....the H....are you always running to that other field where the grass is greener?  Do you ever look at the beautiful roses in your own garden?  What is new is not always good....think DDT, asbestos, Frankenfish, terminator seeds....what is new, and unknown, needs to be examined for safety and effectiveness, before being adopted.

Given there are at least 100,000 years of modern homo sapien, it has taken us a long time to slowly learn and adapt new technologies. I shudder to think of the invention of the atom bomb....so quick to use the new technology....I cringe at the use of depleted uranium....agent orange....artificial hormons injected into our food supplies....

Sometimes going slow is not such a bad idea. Humans have a sad tendency to throw out the baby with the wash water.

Maybe there was something useful in those traditions....I would rather examine them than throw them out.

Cool down buddy. Give me a break. I already have enough problems zigzagging in my "against seat" on the thin ice of the limbo called Turkish Class. 

You think criminals and terrorists are all uneducated people??  

For the attention of Lemon, Scalpel, Alameda and Adam25:

Doris - do you think anyone who pimps their 12-year-old daughter to a 40-year-old paedophile cares about how the girls feel about sex? Barkindo explained the cause very well - the family would rather get rid of the girl than risk her developing an opinion on their own, which might result in her having sex against the barbaric laws, and end up dead. Of course that doesn´t justify the parents, they just do what they have been taught to do by their parents. I suppose some might call it tradition, especially that it is rooted in their simple belief in their prophet, who by today´s definition, would be considered paedophile.

Busyb - yeah, it´s really entertaining to observe women being humiliated, forced to be slaves and deprived of human rights. What an interesting difference!

Yilgun - you couldn´t be more wrong. Education doesn´t give you compassion or emphaty, it gives you knowledge only. I can´t speak about all kinds of crimes, but according to Wikipedia, murder rates are actually going down, not up in most countries...it´s the accessibility to news that actually make you think things are worse.

Barkindo - I couldn´t agree more about whose responsibility it is to introduce change. I´d add politicians there as well. Some illogical opinions go that this is the matter that should be tackled with by the politicians from that region. How, I ask? How can you expect somebody who impersonates all the backwardness to promote a lifestyle where he no longer is the king of the jungle? Do you think progressive eastern politicians are actually elected there? By conservative communities? It´s the progressive politicians from the west who should show the east what they do is barbaric.

Alameda - do go back on your post, you can do it, can´t you? Then you´ll find your words promoting what I call backwardness. No reason to be rude and tell people who are right to, as you put it, "shut the ***** up" - just remember all our discussiona about burkas, women´s obedience to men in Islam, arranged marriages being better than "romantic" ones, logic between men having the right to have more than one wife, but not vice versa - all of these ideas, girls growing up faster in other parts of the world, which makes it not hideous for men to have sex with them, so widely discussed by us on this site are backwards to me. Backwards in my understanding of the world - there are derogatory to women. Unless you changed your mind and agree with me, this is the opinion I´ll continue to have. If, to you these ideas do not seem backwards, but modern or right - it´s your opinion and you´re entitled to think so, just like I´m entitled to think my way. I don´t understand your anger, it´s you who stated these things over the years, not me. The archive proves it.

 Awww don´t get upset. I wasn´t upset about what you said, it was very subtle though...you have a way like that which, I admire. I do the same thing, or try to, and am too often misunderstood.