I am amazed when I hear that young teenagers and children, at increasingly younger ages, are feeling a high degree of social pressure to become more involved with alcohol, sex, pornography and ‘sexting’ – from one night stands to binge drinking. However, when I stop to look at our society, the role that our media provides, and the male and female role models that our children and we as adults aspire to, I sense an understanding of how this has become the ‘norm’ – even though it is far from normal behaviour. The way it’s been for me growing up is testimony to this. My first experience of sex was when I was 16; a lot older than many and perhaps still younger than some. It was with my first boyfriend of six weeks. We had been to a party and had a couple of drinks when we went back to his house. I had planned to spend the night but I didn’t think too much about having sex. I felt unsure if this was what I wanted to do but I seemed to be oblivious that for him it was a definite part of the plan. I recall he ...