"Kids Today think they invented sex!"

Sometimes people who are old enough to perceive young adults as "kids" complain that "Kids Today think they invented sex!"  Which is a really bizarre thing to say!

First of all, think back to when sex first became part of your life.  You didn't think you invented it (literally or metaphorically).  The history of sex was irrelevant to what you were thinking and feeling. You were simply revelling in a new and thrilling life experience (quite possibly the most thrilling life experience you'd had in your entire life so far.)

But on top of that, at least within the cultures with which I'm familiar, young people grow up in an environment where adults (or, at least, non-abusive adults) are trying to keep sex secret from them.

For the first several years of your life, if all goes well you don't know that sex at all.  Then, when you're old enough to wonder how babies get in a lady's tummy, your parents might tell you about procreative sex.

Around middle school and into high school, you start getting sex ed, with a generally vanilla focus and an underlying message that you're not supposed to be doing this yet.  But also around this age, you're starting to become aware of adult popular culture, which frames sex as the ultimate human experience. It's Unimaginable Pleasure, and it's Not For You.

At the same time, you are most likely supervised by parents, school, etc. in a way that's intended to prevent you from having sex, or even from finding out about the details of sex that aren't taught in sex ed. Your adults make rules like you can't bring a person they think you might have sex with into your bedroom, and they try to prevent you from accessing porn, or whatever else Kids Today are using to learn about Weird Sex Stuff.  If they find out you know even about Weird Sex Stuff, you can get in trouble.

And, at the same time, the adults around you are hiding any sex that they might be having. They lock the door, they don't leave their sexual accoutrements out in the open, etc.   Even if they don't object on a theoretical level to you knowing that they have sex, they take measures to prevent you from knowing when and how.  If they are using porn or engaging in Weird Sex Stuff, they actively try to keep this secret from you - even beyond the point where they're not keeping the fact that they have sex secret.

(All of which is the right thing to do, of course.  In our culture, it would be considered abuse for such specifics of their parents' sexuality to be inflicted upon kids.  If your kids don't know about your Weird Sex Stuff, you're doing your job right.)

So basically, the people who say "Kids Today think they invented sex!" are contemptuous of their kids for enjoying the novelty of a new experience that, for as long as they have been aware of it, has been hyped as the ultimate human experience, while also dissing their kids for not assuming they have been doing the very thing that, to do their job as a parent in our culture, they've been trying to conceal from their kids their whole lives.

How self-absorbed is that!