Eliza,

Yes, there is a certain pressure for children to dress "sexily" at inappropriate ages, but from my own experience, that's largely down to parents colluding with the idea of peer pressure. People who bring their kids up not to "follow the herd" usually have significantly fewer problems.

However,as the Leveller, I find your description of what young girls were like in the 60s unrecogniseable. My first proper girlfriend was *just* 16 when we met, and hadn't been sexually active beyond a bit of snogging and fumbling before that, but both of her 2 best friends had lost their virginity at 15. All 3 were at an academically selective ("Grammar" in the UK sense) school. Several of the girls in my class at a (different but equally highly regarded) Grammar school had lost their virginity at 15. We even lost one from the "L" (for Latin, hence the most academic stream) Form at 14 when she became pregnant. Things were much less restrained at the Secondary Modern down the road!