Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-98.235.154.24-20130913002452/@comment-67.208.179.66-20131030202755

Alzrius wrote:

That's a fairly credible line of inductive reasoning. However, that line of reasoning seems to be more focused towards administrative policy rather than the actual issues regarding having teenagers of different sexes living together. In other words, that's probably how the staff of Beacon considers the issue; whether or not that's how things actually are for the students is something else again.

Ruby notwithstanding, the main cast members (e.g. the remaining members of Team RWBY, and all of Team JNPR) are all seventeen years old. Notwithstanding criticisms of causation versus correlation in regards to brain imaging, current studies indicate that while the late teens is when the hypothalamus and front lobe of the cerebral cortex (the areas responsible for self-control, risk analysis, and delayed gratification, among other things) finish most of their complex development, full development does not finish until around age twenty-five. Ergo, the students aren't going to have the same levels of maturity regarding sex that an adult will.

Further, the idea that facing life-or-death situations will encourage greater responsible behavior is misplaced. To the contrary, fear is likely to cause misattribution of arousal instead, actually encouraging greater sexual tension between teammates, rather than discouraging it. While habituation may cause this stimulus to fade after repeated exposure, that still requires repeated exposure that can have strong initial results, for an indeterminate length of time.

Casting further doubt on the idea that the students of Beacon are simply too responsible to have sex is that we can abduce that they've had very little sexual education (which has been found to reduce sexual intercourse in teenagers versus having no sexual education). Remember, seventeen is the starting age for students at Beacon, and that's following a presumed four-year course in a combat school.

The line of reasoning is thus: we can presume that a school devoted to combat would de-emphasize non-martial areas of education. Likewise, even taking into account their use of aura powers and abilities, the graduates of combat schools have insane combat prowess (as demonstrated in the fifth through eighth episodes). A comparison to Olympic athletes is probably the closest probable parallel, and Olympic athletes have heavy training regimens. Ergo, this leaves little time for formal education in other areas (though, to be fair, exercise does increase learning ability in people). The analogy becomes even more persuasive when you note that the Olympic Village for the Games is a hotbed of sex.

This is leaving aside the issue that there's no evidence suggesting that trying to convince teenagers to remain abstinent voluntarily has been effective.

It's therefore not unreasonable to assume that the students of Beacon are having a lot of clandestine sex. Sadly, unless it's part of Beacon's policy to hand out condoms to students, there's also probably more than a few unwanted pregnancies as well, which would disproportionally disenfranchise the female student population (though there's no way to say to what percentage, since that'd require demographic information that we don't have at this point).

Given that, while the staff of Beacon may hope that their students are exercising responsibility and restraint over their libidos, it's far and away more likely that a significant part of the student body is getting it on. Err, okay...sounds great. I just wish you would use words that sound less formal; it's reminding me too much of my long-winded professors. Not to mention it's hard to understand when your brain has been fried and you're going to the RWBY forum to find some relief only to get this scientific hypothesis.