Did it bother anyone else that the move portrayed minors (13 years old no less) having sex? I get that teens have sex but 13 is a bit young. Maybe it shows how Noodles was morally corrupt from the start. But I'm sure this caused some stir in 1984.
shareNot quite as much a stir as Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby (1978) fully nude....when she was 12 years old
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There has always been thirteen year olds that have sex at that age, it's when the hormones kick in. Not the norm tho, and something that has, is and always will be frowned upon by adults. However, I know pretty normal people who had their first sex experience at that age so this cannot be completely freakish.
shareThey were lower class kids, street kids. It's an essential scene to develop their background. Also notice the other kid, who brings a pastry with whipped cream, ends up eating it himself instead of trading it for a sexual favour. I always see this scene as a way to establish (again) that Noodles, was the oldest member of the original gang, more mature than his friends. (The second kid looks definitely younger, the scene indicating that for him this talk about sex was just big talk, but the suger in the cake lures him in more than the 'sugar' of a girl.)
Anyway , from the late sixties till the nineties society was a lot less prudish than it is now. These days people shout paedophile without even knowing what the word means (not accusing you this, it's just something I noticed in general)
At the beginning of JHS I knew a girl who had already done a menage-e-trois. I also knew quite a few other girls who'd already had sex. It's not unusual nor has it ever been. This is a biological reality of humans.
As for causing a stir in the '84, I find attitudes toward sex by minors were a lot less uptight back in those days and even less so in the 70s.