I once kissed a boy I’d only known for fourteen seconds.

I don’t really know why.

Probably because I was at a steamy nightclub and some Rihanna song was encouraging nameless sex while a couple of my friends played tonsil hockey next to me.

And kissing was easier than dancing awkwardly by myself!!

(In my defense, the guy was sexy as hell and talked like Jude Law. And he told me his name. It was Max.)

For me ‘it was like, one time!’, but for many of my peers, random hookups (yes, multiple) are part of a great night out. They are something to aspire to.

Young Generation Y women like myself have grown up in a society that has encouraged sex. We have been taught to believe that great sex is a right, and that is awesome.

But as a result, a new notion has emerged – a belief that having multiple sexual partners or one-night stands is not being promiscuous… it is asserting your independence as a woman and being free.

And I think that’s a dangerous game for teenagers.

Firstly, I’m surprised my friends don’t all have mouth herpes. Cos we’re kissing. A LOT.

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t pashed someone they just met.

Kids as young as 13 are having competitions to see who can kiss the most people in one night.

20 is pretty standard. (Ew!)

Secondly, we aren’t dating. Boys don’t ask girls on dates anymore. Really and truly.

They say these noncommittal things like ‘let’s get coffee’, or ‘I’m having this party, you should come’.  Or they say nothing and miss the opportunity completely.

Yawn. Christ, just man up and ask me for dinner already!! (hint hint?!)

Then there’s oral sex, which I had thought was super intimate until I read this unfortunate study: ‘In a survey conducted by Family Planning NSW, half the women aged 16-25 said they had been pressured to give oral sex, and many reported that young men ”expect” to receive it.

”Most people I know that are having oral sex only do it because everyone else does, and if you don’t, you’re frigid,” one 16-year-old girl told the researchers’.

Really? Frigid? Because you won’t put some guy’s penis in your mouth? That’s dicked (sorry, couldn’t help it!)

When I discussed this a few days ago at dinner with a friend, she casually told me how her fourteen year old sister sometimes went home with eighteen year old boys and gave them blowjobs.

I was horrified.

Apparently, this happened because ALL the girls told their parents they were staying at each other’s houses (when, in reality they were hanging out with older boys in a park and getting drunk) and then they had nowhere to sleep.

‘But…’ I stammered ‘what do you mean? She’s fourteen! Isn’t she supposed to be going to school discos and practicing mascara? Like, OMG. What?!’

And I wanted to scream ‘why are you so bloody ‘meh’ about this??’

I don’t want to be accused of Slut Shaming, because I am not. Nor am I being anti-feminist.

I hate the word slut and it’s sexist nature. It infuriates me that being a ‘player’ is cool, but being a ‘slut’ is bad. I want to yell at people who think it’s okay for boys to sleep around and not girls.

But when girls are downing tequila shots and flashing non-existant underwear as we teeter over on shoes resembling small buildings with studs on, we can’t really talk about feminism.

When we’ve got fake tan and foundation so thick that it can be scraped off with a long, french-tipped talon that looks anything but elegant, we can’t really talk about feminism.

And when we’re in the bushes of a house party, on our knees, with a … well… you know what in you know where… we can’t really talk about feminism.

Because I am not concerned about the awesome, sexually liberated girls who know what they are doing and are happy with their sex lives!

I am talking about the girls who aren’t.

I am talking about the teenage girls of Generation Y who are embracing their sexuality without understanding it

So many of them are having sex for all the wrong reasons… to appear cool, to validate themselves, to impress older boys, or, like my friends sister, because it gives them somewhere to sleep so they don’t get grounded!

Most of them aren’t doing it for their own pleasure, and many of them regret it afterwards.

In a survey I conducted of my Facebook friends, 38% of them admitted to having had a one-night stand. And when I asked how they felt after, they said things like ‘shit’, ‘awkward’, ‘used and dirty’ and ‘horrible, I won’t do it again’.

And that really worries me.

Our young girls, my peers, need to be educated, supported, and ingrained with an understanding of their own value.

They need to realise that men and women aren’t the same, and we aren’t looking for the same things.

They need to appreciate that saying ‘no’ isn’t going to make a guy stop wanting them. It’s going to make him want them all the more!

We need to start talking about this. We need to stop embracing sexuality to the point where liberation becomes destructive (and is just for the sake of being politically correct!!)

Because if Generation Y thinks that having casual sex is about being cool, then Slut Shaming is going to be the least of our problems.