Most of my friends are parents; I can count on one hand who among my nearest and dearest are not. This means that for many years my phone was awfully quiet. My girlfriends, who once called me with their relationship problems and would talk my ear off for hours, were now reaching out to their mom-friends instead for bits of advice and lots of child-rearing commiseration.
But now that their children are older I'm being brought back to the fold of girlfriendom. The topic? Sex. Yes, theirs too (and this topic for another day), but mainly that of their teenage children. What do we all think about sex education in schools? What about condom distribution? How do we talk to our children about sexual responsibility and safety?
(Hello girls, I'm baaaack...!)
I'll cut to the chase here: I support sex education in school. Many of those who disagree with me argue that if you talk to kids about sex, then they're going to start thinking about sex -- and then have sex. Preposterous. Trust me: your children are already thinking about sex. They've been thinking about it earlier than we did, even.
They are surrounded -- besieged -- by sexual imagery. There's sex in their television shows, movies, books and magazines, billboards, music videos, and in song lyrics. Their teen idols are sexier than ours ever were. Stores sell our children junior versions of very adult-looking clothes, even sexy underwear. No one can stop this, and there's no going back now.
Today children have access to online porn. At the lingerie store where I work, young female teens and even preteens pick out some of the sexiest little things we offer, walk into the fitting rooms, and take pictures of themselves (yes, we can hear their camera phones clicking away). I can only hope they're not sending them off to boys at their schools, but statistics suggest they probably are.
Your children are probably confused about everything they see and hear and feel, just as we were at their age. If you find it difficult to relate to this now, think about all the information you're bombarded with regarding weight loss -- all the different diet plans, exercise theories and regimes, whether a calorie really is just a calorie -- and ask yourself if you're not the slightest bit confused or unsure about the best way to drop those last 15 pounds. Until you talk to your doctor or nutritionist or certified trainer, you may find yourself falling simply for the latest trend and not what's necessarily good for you.
My friends all know that I started having sex earlier than the average age, at 15, which is about the age their children are now. Thus they hope I have unique personal insight that can help them get into their kids' heads and prevent them from doing the same thing. So what made me do it, they ask?
Mad love for my boyfriend and raging hormones, I answer. I knew nothing about sex; by the time we discussed it in school (it was a short lesson in our "Family Life and Planning" class, where we discussed the lucky sperm finding the egg) I was already buying condoms in the drugstore. In religion classes we learned that premarital sex was a sin, but that just didn't cut it for me. I had no fear of God, or at least a literal kind of fear where I believed I'd go to Hell if I did. By then I'd already had more than 10 years of catechism and Sunday sermons, so it's not like I didn't know the Church's position on this. "No" just wasn't good enough of an answer for me.
I hadn't yet watched a "dirty movie" by then, and I didn't have The Talk with my parents (I don't think they knew how to). By the time I knew I'd have to make a decision as to whether or not to have sex with my boyfriend for the first time I couldn't find any information and I had no one to talk to. The first time I saw his penis was the first time I'd ever seen one; the first time he touched me "down there" I cried.
Fortunately he was planning to become a doctor and didn't want his future derailed by early fatherhood, so we were careful. And even if we were, there were so many things I didn't know -- things I probably should have known. Things that should be discussed in age-appropriate sex education classes in school and conversations at home.
I know for a fact that ignorance will not keep your children innocent. And whether or not you can bear the thought of it, what they're learning about sex now is probably not what you want them to know. I know preteens who have seen images of anal sex, fisting, double penetration, and other things some of my own friends have never seen.
I don't know if The Talk was ever a simple matter, but I know it's more complicated now. It's an ongoing discussion, encompassing not only issues of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, but of responsibility, empowerment, respect and self-respect, understanding one's own body and what happens physically and emotionally during sexual activity (which includes kissing), of love, relationships, maturity, social realities, and if applicable, religious teachings and beliefs. This is certainly not a complete list.
You may believe you're the best person to talk to your children about the topic -- and you are. But with the glut of uncontrolled sexual messages they're exposed to, wouldn't it be a good thing if other responsible, educated, and trained adults helped your children navigate their thoughts and feelings in order to make smart decisions and develop self-confidence?
Some people think instilling fear is the best strategy here. I say, however, that your children are better off not fearing what's inside their hearts and heads, but of trusting they know what's right for themselves. Because they've already sifted through information and found truth, or at least the answers they needed to find.
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