There's the common claim that "kids grow up faster these days", probably even faster today than when your youngest was that age just a few years ago. But much of it is that the artificial barriers that society (especially USA in the mid-20th) put up to delay adulthood are no longer holding up. Of course, some of those delays were well-justified, reaction often pushes the pendulum far in the opposite direction, and many of the ways kids "grow up fast" have nothing to do with actual maturity (like your example).

That's my analysis for today. (heh heh heh, he wrote anal-ysis...)

See, the thing is, I wasn't aware of anything remotely sexual until grade 10 (I'm now in grade 12). I could grasp the jokes by grade 8 and 9, but my world was largely devoid of anything NC-17. It was Neopets and (harmless) manga scanlations for me!

The claim that kids are supposedly growing up too fast kind of scares me... Because in grade 6, I was worried about whether or not misspelling something on the spelling bee would make my crush think less of me, not how to give head...

We (including I) often need to be reminded that, in spite of the Intarweb and all that Hollywood Marketing, Your Cultural Mileage May Vary. A lot. I was a relative "late-bloomer" in my teens in the 1970s myself. So don't worry Phire, it doesn't necessarily make you weird. (Although it made me very weird)

I think moving around had a lot to do with it. Grade 6 was my first year in an English-speaking country, so I was more concerned about understanding the locals and less about the innuendo. I distinctly an embarrassing occasion in grade 8, however, where I was eating lunch with two girls I don't usually hang out with because my friend was home sick and their third friend was likewise.

Keep in mind I was the bookworm scoring top marks and adored by the teacher, while one of the girls used to complain to me that she was tired of being known as 'So-and-So's girlfriend with the big tits' and the other girl was generally looked down upon in the class as being, well, trashy and a bit of a bitch. (She was generally nice to me though, no idea why.)

At any rate, at one point in time I dropped out of the conversation and just listened, so it took a bit of a nefarious turn...

Girl #2: In my culture, you're not allowed to swallow.
Girl #1: God, that's weird.
Me: What do you mean you're not allowed to swallow? *completely unaware of any connotations of the word and confused about the survivability of someone not allowed to eat*
Both: *stare at me* *crack up laughing*
Girl #2: Oh [Phire], you're so cute.
Me: *everything suddenly clicks* *blushes*

And I'll blame that, thank you, for my current guttermind. :P

Gutterminds are welcome here, Phire. I remember "health" class, and a student was handing back tests on sex education. Mine had "100" on it, and she smirked at me. "Little Miss Know it All" she hissed. Fast forward to the year after graduation - we were walking toward each other downtown. She is very pregnant, very unmarried. She avoided looking at me. Maybe she should have studied sex ed better.

And that bunny looks like a llama.

*snigger* She said llama.

Everything is cyclical. At some time in the not-so-distant past (yeah, history isn't my strong point), it was not unusual for people to marry at 16 or so (or even younger) and the "facts of life" were pretty much common knowledge by much earlier. Somewhere along the line, we decided that sex is dirty and started shielding kids from any knowledge of if. The cycle is just on an upswing now, that's all - before you know it, kids will be totally ignorant of all matters sexual until their wedding night, just like they were in Victorian times.