Do As You’re Told — Or Not
by Guest Blogger
I read many blogs, some of which are written by mothers who talk about their parenting methods. So naturally I reflect on how my parents raised me, and how I feel about the role of a parent when I read such entries. In retrospect, I’m more or less satisfied with how my parents did because I think I came out “all right” despite some shortcomings on their part. That doesn’t mean I can’t be critical because there are glaring mistakes and/or omissions in what they taught me, consciously and subconsciously.
In fact, they seemingly “forgot” to inform me about sexuality or sex in general. Ahem. My friends, this is big. Sexuality is an essential part of us, and it’s so important that we know about it, lest we become perverted pedophilic demons (Extreme? Maybe). But really, as an adult now, I’m looking at the way my parents treated the topic with increasing suspicions. I’m pointing to specific instances with dismay, “Dad, now…now it probably wasn’t the best way to approach the topic of sex when you randomly blurted out ‘No pre-marital sex!’ at the dinner table.” You know?
It’s when I look back at those AOL instant message conversations that started out innocently enough that went awry when nasty men asked me, age 11 at the time, if I “spit or swallowed,” darling. Now you might say that I should have known better than to join chat rooms at such a young age, better yet, that I should have known better than to keep going to those chat rooms. But what’s a curious kid to do in that situation? I personally didn’t have any clue what I was getting myself into, especially since my parents weren’t at all aware of how those perverts could possibly communicate with their innocent little daughter. Nor could they even say the word ‘sex’ without blushing. Seriously, we lived like the Victorians. Hello sexual suppression?!
Of course parents are, whether we like it or not, humans who make many mistakes—our own always seem to have made the most. But can that be an excuse? Should we just shrug our shoulders at the countless kids who are being jaded by the minute, or are completely shell-shocked when they get to college and say, ‘Sorry kid, deal’? Pretty depressing wouldn’t you say? But what do we do? Have family sex-ed classes? I’d feel kind of, no, really fucking uncomfortable in that situation. But I’ve had friends who talk with their parents about their sex lives—no problem.
For instance, the girl I went on a date with last night told me how her hippie dad gave her a “sex positions encyclopedia for lesbians” last Christmas and said “Have fun!” Now that’s awesome. So that got me thinking about how I’m going to deal with this whole sex thing when I have my own kids. I mean kids are sexual beings and I know I don’t want to suppress any natural actions they take, but almost everyone in the world has a different standard for what’s healthy sexual behavior, mental or physical. While my mom probably views sex as ‘pleasurable with your fiancé until you have sex to have a baby, at which point you stop having sex, period’ and my dad, ‘No pre-marital sex!’, according to friends, many parents engage in fetish-inspired sexual acts. So then how can a parent help their child find their own sexuality by guiding them through the hoops of fire so that the child will come out of adolescence thinking, “Hey, I came out all right”?
Well, clearly I’m no expert in this and you probably sensed that a long time ago. So I’ll turn the tables on you—what do you think your parents did right in terms of sex-ed? What did they do wrong? And while you’re pondering, read this funny (and frustrating) story about my mom.
I was 17 at the time and had been dating a boy I lusted for about a couple of weeks or so. Due to said lust, we were at third base by then (eating each other out, blah blah blah) and so my mom’s question “So, have you two kissed yet?” was both cute and embarrassing. Thinking naively that she wanted our relationship to evolve into the hip and progressive, “mother and daughter—best friends for life, we share everything we each other,” I said, “Yes!” with a few giggles. Boy was I surprised when her eyes slanted upward, and she spit out fire as she admonished me that “Hina, you’re still too young!”
She tricked me! She SO tricked me! Well, I simply cannot believe her recent complaints, “Hina, you haven’t told me about your love life in a while,” after such a trick. Imagine how she would react if I told her that I’m seeing a girl right now? Oh baby. That’s a fun one to think about.
So tell me about your parents. Are they flawless? Did they scold you in front of you and your naked partner? Do they have raunchy sex that you can hear through the walls? If you were to have kids/if you have kids/when you have kids, how would you deal with sex-ed?
- Hina
I actually just posted about this topic yesterday as it pertains to what we talk about in schools. We, as a culture, cannot figure out our common sensibilities about sexuality and, as a result, we have a very wide range of what our youth grow up understanding. My son is 4, and hasn’t asked many of these questions yet, but I’ll answer them pretty honestly. A friend told me last year that her daughter was the only one in her first grade class who authentically understood and could articulate how babies are made and where they come from. If parents can’t talk to their 6 year olds about how they were created, how could they talk to their 12 years (many of whom are sexually active) about sex?
What seems odd to me is that so many things these days are put on schools. It feels like there’s a portion of parents who think “oh, I don’t have to talk to my kid about __________ (math, reasoning, art, books, critical thinking, etc. etc. etc.) because that’s what school is for!” This blows me away, but on the other hand, parents clearly don’t want to talk to their kids about sex, but they often don’t want schools to do that either. Which seems to leave those sketchy men you reference from online sources….. yeach.
My post yesterday on the of talking about sex: http://blog.peterherrick.com/?p=83
Another recent post with statistics on how many kids are sexually active and in what ways: http://blog.peterherrick.com/?p=45
My parents are definitely not flawless. Close. But definitely not flawless. (kidding?) Even though they tried to preach no pre-marital sex, they’re realists and eventually started to tell me to just be safe. My dad told me to use condoms after dating a boy for a week, and my dad’s best friend told me he’d buy me condoms a week after I’d started dating my current boyfriend. Awkward.
I’ve never been scolded naked in front of my partner (I’ve never been caught in the act), but my mom bluntly asked if I’d had sex. So, I bluntly replied, yes. It was really awkward (then and now), and I can tell she’s nervous about my choice. She had some “issues” regarding sex back in the day that she doesn’t want me to experience. But after I told her I have sex, she told me about her sexcapades when she was my age. It made me feel less of a let down. Because for years they preached “no pre-marital sex”, even though when they were my age they were far more “experienced” than me.
And yea. My parents have sex, but I tell people I’m here because of immaculate conception. I first realized my parents had sex when I was 16. My mom opened this huge box of multi-colored condoms in front of me. My dad had them sent to the house, and we weren’t expecting to see red and purple and black condoms to fly out of a box and scatter across the kitchen counter. There were over 100 in the box. Over the years (or maybe because I told my mom that I have sex) she’s become more open with her sex life. I kind of don’t want to hear it, but at least she doesn’t treat the topic like it’s some kind of taboo, and I really appreciate it.
I have no idea how I’m going to treat the topic of sex if I have kids. It’s not like sex was ever a huge topic of discussion growing up. I had to close my eyes through the sex scenes. I never really had a “sex talk” just an “OMG! What the fuck happened to my underwear” talk. Again, my parents tried to preach no pre-marital sex, but in the end turned out to be realists and recognized me as a sexual being.
I wasn’t exactly afraid of sex growing up. I knew masturbation was fun. I just had no interest having sex. I didn’t even like boys until my senior year of high school (as a result of not liking boys, my mom constantly asked me if I was a lesbian. On the plus side, she would have been supportive.) And, when I finally decided to have sex, my boyfriend was WAY more freaked out than I was. Actually, I wasn’t freaked out at all.
I wanna do whatever my parents did when it comes to sex education. I just have yet to figure out what they did.
When I was 16 my Mother said, “whenever you are ready, you can go on birth control.” She told me all about sex and whatever questions I had. It was really great.
Today I talk to her about how I am so anti-child, anti-marriage and anti-relationship because of bad lovers and relationships. She is fine with this and lets me be single and asexual. I actually think sex is pretty disgusting and that romantic relationships are really weird. I don’t want children, ever. I am happy on my own and have been happy being single most of my life. I don’t seek out relationships because whats out there has proven to me to be no good. Its all about continually tending to my own garden.
When I was about 10, my older brother was given one of Those Books. I snuck it out of his room and read it every single day for months. I was fascinated.
So, my parents never really spoke to me about sex. There was never any “no pre-marital sex” sort of talk. It was mostly just “wait till you’re older”, although I didn’t. And they knew it…during which time my dad sort of ignored me so he wouldn’t have to think about it I guess.
When I was 16 I asked my mum if I could go on the pill. After that I think she was relieved to know that I didn’t need any educating on the subject, and that I was being safe, so things eased up around the house after that.
Now I sometimes chat with my mum about sex and it’s still awkward but I kind of think she enjoys having someone to talk about it with because I don’t think she’s ever had that before.
As for how I want to teach my future offspring about sex? I’m hoping I’m able to be extremely open and forward about it – and mostly focus on the fact that you have sex with someone you care about, and it’s an act that two (or three!) people share, which is something I only figured out for myself recently.
Great post for discussion by the way!
My parents were really open, we had kid-friendly books on where babies come from around the house when we were little, and then when we were older there was books on puberty. I remember being about 7 and one of my friends at school thought she was pregnant, I had the feeling that wasn’t possible, but I didn’t know for certain.
My parents are christians and pro-saving yourself for marriage, however I believe they went about this in a realistic manner by saying that if I was going to have sex then I needed to be safe. I talk to my dad about all sorts of things, often sex. He is really open about the reasons he thinks I shouldn’t have sex before marriage, but also says that it is more important that I don’t get STIs or pregnant if I do decide to have sex. In my opinion this was a good approach on account of there was nothing really for me to rebel against, and I also wasn’t completely ignorant.
Sort of related, my parents were aware that kids can be taken advantage of, and they told me that if anyone (including uncles or other relatives) made me feel uncomfortable, I was to come to them and they would believe me.
When I was about 6 or 7 my mother sat me down and explained (in detail) what sex was. Later, when I was older she told me masturbation is normal and healthy. I have a pretty open relationship with both my parents and both know now that I am sexually active, but it’s the one thing we don’t talk about. I know about my mother’s sex life (past and present) but she is not comfortable hearing about mine. I’m okay with that.
When I was 15 I lost my virginity but I kept it a secret from my mother for 4 years. I got the pill myself at Planned Parenthood and got myself tested regularly and even got a pap smear on my own. It was terrifying to do it all alone at 15 but I wanted to be responsible. In a perfect world I would have had someone to go to the clinic with, but if my mom had known she would have forbid me to see my boyfriend. While she’s totally okay with sex before marriage, she wanted wanted to protect me from harm as long as possible.
It’s tough to be a parent I imagine. Especially after seeing the mischief I got up to, I can see myself wanting to protect my children and monitor their every move. However, thanks to my mother I knew how to handle myself when I did lose my virginity and I’ve never gotten pregnant or gotten an STD, so that paid off. So, when I have children I will educate them about sex & try to protect them…but when it comes down to it, it’s their life and they should be able to lead it however they want (after a certain age, anyway).
As for sexuality, when I was young my mother told me my uncle was gay (and explained what that was) and told me it’s fine to like people of the same sex. So I grew up with tolerant attitudes towards homosexuality. I’d like to pass that onto my children as well.
@ Peter H:
I completely agree with you! Our society sends too many mixed messages and sexuality is one of those topics that you just want to keep the facts straight with. Your friend’s daughter was the only one in her first grade class who could explain how babies are made?!! Damn… my friend was telling me how she felt bad about the jaded kids these days who are having sex from the 6th grade but it was the same way 10 years ago! So whether that’s okay or not, you’re right on about the fact that sex education shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of schools. Most strict parents probably had pre-marital sex anyways (is this a terrible generalization?) so why don’t they make sure their kid(s) don’t feel sexually ignorant, yet feel safe. Actually, you put it perfectly in your post: “Where is the line here between allowing youth to be sexual as human beings and protecting youth from being victimized by our culture?”
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on the post!
@ Jackie:
Mmh, realists! That’s certainly a step in the right direction. But damn Jackie, I can’t even imagine my dad’s best friend telling me that he’d buy me condoms! Bahhhhh!
Oh how I love hearing these awkward stories….haha “my mom bluntly asked if I’d had sex. So, I bluntly replied, yes.” And the multi-colored condoms. Hahaha! I guess we can laugh at the stories now but I bet it was ridiculous at the time.
Oh and that’s the other thing–”she’s become more open with her sex life. I kind of don’t want to hear it”–I guess you can never win :P But it seems like you’re in a pretty good place now!
Thanks for commenting.
@ Cecelia:
Are you serious?! You are so very lucky!! Actually, I’d be interested in hearing why you think romantic relationships are weird. Would you say that it’s entirely because of “bad lovers and relationships” as you mentioned?
I hope I can be like your mom when I have kids though, really, that’s great!
@ Tash:
Oy! “Those Books.” And of course it was given to the son, and not the daughter. I find it fascinating that things eased up around the house after your parents knew you were being safe without them teaching you anything. I love it how some parents expect sex ed to suddenly enter their kids’ heads as if they could telepathically teach them.
Hahahaaaaa “it’s an act that two (or three!) people share”…. haven’t tried that one yet :P
@ groovyjoss:
So what do “kid-friendly books on where babies come from” entail? Are they picture books? Do they talk about sex? If so, that’s so progressive and wonderful!
That’s so responsible of your parents to talk to you about sex, properly, even though they’re socially conservative. Especially the last part about if you ever felt uncomfortable and that they’d believe you! Wow.
Hina – I guess its *my stuff* and I feel that romantic relationships are weird for me. I have just had very very bad luck. Some relationships work for people but I am very disenchanted with partnerships/relationships. So I choose to be alone and tend my own garden. I don’t really like intimacy for the fact that I am very vulnerable on so many levels. I guess I was hurt very bad the last time and have chosen to stay away for awhile. The recession does also not help with bonding with people on an intimate level either! I have felt very low self esteem at times because of my economic situation.
Yeah my Mom was great to tell me that. She is truly a liberal Catholic! Pro choice, pro love and pro gay marriage!
Man, I’m jealous of some of the other commenters, and the way their parents handled sex education. While my mom sketched a diagram of the uterus et al. to explain how ovulation and menstruation occurs before I ever asked, on the night before an overnight trip in 5th grade, I never was sat down for a discussion about sex in any way by either of my parents.
One of my only parent-child discussions was forced by a 11th grade health class assignment, where we were supposed to ask one of our parents what they would do if we got pregnant. My mom told me straight out if that happened, I was on my own, and even thought that it was a way of bringing up the fact that I was. (I should note that this was an unlikely scenerio back then. I only had 2 boyfriends in high school, one of whom was basically long-distance, and I had already determined that I wasn’t having vaginal intercourse until I was 18 so that I had full legal control if necessary).
The only other things she’s ever said was to berate my sister and I for using birth control. With me, she said I was full of shit for using acne as an excuse to be prescribed birth control when I was a sophomore in college (actually, I already discovered that it helped before I talked to the dermatologist about it, because by then I could get it without her ever knowing). My sister started on it to regulate her period only. She hasn’t had a boyfriend, and if she’s been sexually active I don’t think it’s been frequent or gone very far (it’s not her personality), yet my mother has managed to bitch at her, too. She even told my sister that the birth control pills are to blame for the ovarian cyst her gyno thinks she might have.
Basically, my parents tend to use the Old-World style of parenting, so I grew up being afraid to come to them about anything and expect to get an angry reaction to a lot. Hell, that’s still the case (I was even afraid to tell them that I was getting engaged to the boyfriend I live with because I thought they might react badly). I know they’ve generally meant well, and I ended up being a pretty responsible person I think, but It’s not quite the approach I plan to use. I plan on being a lot more open with my kids when it comes to sex, even if it embarrasses them a bit.
I’m a little envious of all of you who had fine, enlightened parents. I learned about the mechanics of sex by cobbling together wisdom from whatever books/magazines I could get my hands on. I don’t think my father ever mentioned anything remotely to do with sex (mercifully). My mom was very religious so counted on sunday school to do the ‘no pre-marital sex’ brainwashing.
Unfortunately, that was all I ever got. No-one ever talked about when or why you *should* have sex and as a result I spent a lot of years doing it for the wrong reasons: for attention, affection, to please a partner, etc etc. I am still trying to overcome that, and to make sex a positive, joyful thing in my life, rather than a source of anxiety.
If/when I have children, especially girls, my number one priority will be teaching them to ignore society’s garbled messages about sex and only do what is pleasurable and life-affirming for *them*, when and how they want to; to practice sex that is both phsyical and emotional ‘safe’.
okay my parents explained the scientific knowledge of sex at age 8. i pretty much wanted to claw my eyes out after being forced to look through the animated pages of a “happy” sperm crawling to a fat and “happy” egg waiting patiently in a womb. the process of how the sperm gets there was never discussed until age 12, when i got my period.
i asked why i was bleeding, and that’s when i learned that i was ovulating, and could have a baby. i remember i cried myself to sleep the whole week – worrying that i’d be raped and have a million babies. (i don’t know why that ever even crossed my mind, but i was all hormonal and scared of my body)
i wasn’t told that sex was enjoyable. that is was recreational or even something people do when they are in love. i was told it was for making a baby – nothing else.
clearly, that doesn’t stop a hormonal 13 yr. old girl from finding out about how to “do it”. i got my first boyfriend that year, and within a couple months we were discovering the secret areas that are designed for baby making alone.
my lack of knowledge in a sense made me vulnerable. i knew my parents didn’t tell me the whole truth. partly because i knew they had sex and weren’t trying to make babies… but then also i mean i wasn’t stupid, ok!
willing to believe anything, and VERY curious i found out on my own at age 14 when i lost my virginity.
sex became very casual and non-committal to me. it became fun – probably the opposite of what my parents wanted.
and sexuality! well it was probably discussed more than sex was. i remember being about 10 and my sister and i had heard the phrase “that’s so gay” at school. we thought we were cool when we said it, and it became a frequent part of our vocabulary. one day my father introduced me to a man named michael who was a business colleague at the time. michael said something silly and i responded “that’s so gay”. to my horror, my dad then pinched my side, pulled me away from the group and scolded me in the other room. “No, shelby, gay is not a casual play word. People are gay. Micahel in fact is gay, and that could be offensive. You’ll never say that again”. Ok dad – lesson learned. It became serious to me, unlike sex, and i viewed gay sexuality as a sort of worshiped secret.
perhaps it could have been a subconscious curiosity again, but years later i did explore my own sexuality, and what do you i’m bisexual.
in ways i blame my parents for not telling me “the whole story” and in other ways i’m really glad they didn’t. it forced me to grow up and figure things out of my own. parents should guide afterall… not program you. and i feel that if EVERYTHING was explained and open for discussion, i may have turned out like a clone, and not like myself.
SUPER thought provoking post. thank you for sharing this!!!
and sorry if my comment is too long. (blushes)
I don’t remember ever being told about sex. It doesn’t feel like it was on purpose, it’s just something we never talked about.
I learned about periods when I was about 11 at school, and that really freaked me out. I had no idea that that sort of thing happened.
The rest I must have figured out on my own through friends and movies. In some ways I wish I had had things explained to me earlier, but I managed to figure it out on my own and take control of my own sexuality so it’s not so bad.
When I was 15 I had my first truly serious relationship and mum took me to the doctor to be put on the pill before I had even started having sex. I’ve always been grateful for that.
Im 23 now and mum and I have a great relationship, we talk about everything except sex, I don’t want to hear about mums sex life. I don’t really discuss my sex life with anyone, which I don’t feel great about, but I wouldn’t know how to talk about sex openly.
This is the sum total of conversations I had with my mum when I was teenager about anything remotely sexual.
Age 13, about 3 months after I got my period while throwing a packet of pads on my bed
“Umm, I guess you’ll need these sooner or later” (rushes out f the room)
Age 2 days before I turned 16
“Umm, I guess you’d better go on the pill now.”
That’s it. And the sum total with my dad was when he found out I was pregnant and told me he hoped I didn’t expect him to pay to fix the mistake. It took me about 4 years to realise he was talking about paying for the abortion.
Mum and I dance around our sex lives now, we’re fairly open now that she has become a lesbian and I’m fairly good friends with her partner. I’m just a bit sad that it took until I was 24 to get to this point. Was it really that hard to be honest and open about what is really a natural function of the human body? Sometimes I wonder how much of my sexual hang ups relate back to the fact that I didn’t actually know what sex really was until I was about 12 and didn’t know what foreplay was for until I was 15.
But I suppose there isn’t a class to teach parents how to teach kids about sex, so everyone just does the best they can. Sometimes, their best just isn’t enough.
@ Dollface:
I didn’t know your mom sat you down at age 6-7 and explained in detail what sex was. Damnnn :P I still remember how we quibbled about Planned Parenthood and the pill and whatever else we had to go through on our own. But now that I think about it, we had each other ;)
About our gay uncle though… I asked my mom why she hadn’t told me when I was younger..and she said it was because she wanted me to love him without any pretense and that she didn’t want me to see him any differently… although she totally could have talked about how “it’s fine to like people of the same sex” as your mom told you. Thought it was an interesting reason nonetheless. Wouldn’t you say?
@ Cecelia:
I see….I’m sorry to hear that! Intimacy certainly puts a person in a vulnerable position. I know what you’re talking about. The recession? I guess while ideally our economic situations shouldn’t affect our daily actions and love life, it gets the best of us. I hope you discover that material possessions are ultimately unimportant in light of human connections and feelings.
@ feedmec00kies:
What a fascinating story… Did anything end up happening on the overnight trip in the 5th grade? Also we never had parent-child discussions assigned to us in high school sex-ed! That’s pretty great but I guess it was shocking that your mom said you’d be on your own if you got pregnant.
Your story about your mom yelling at you and your sister about birth control reminded me of my mom skeptically talking about my cousin who was 20 and was using birth control to “make sure she wouldn’t be on her period on her vacation.” *sigh*
Anyways, thanks for commenting!
P.S. Love your username.
@ zooeyibz:
“I don’t think my father ever mentioned anything remotely to do with sex (mercifully).”
hahaha…. I kind of feel the same way some times. Imagining my dad talking to me about sex makes me queasy. Did Sunday school talk about “no pre-marital sex”?
You bring up really good points. I think it’s so important to let a person know why you *should* have sex.
@ mermaid:
Oh gosh, that sounds torturous. “Worrying that I’d be raped and have a million babies.” I can only imagine how scared you were at the time but that’s such a funny thought now >..<
I wonder what it is about “becoming queer” that makes a person more open. I wonder if it’s because your mom couldn’t hide the fact that she was having sex with her partner…like, gay relationships have been exploited by the media to be inherently sexual. As opposed to heterosexual relationships that can “feign” to be celibate.
But yeah, it’s a little too late I guess :P And sometimes their best really Isn’t Enough.
Thanks for commenting!
I remember talking about “eggs” and “sperm” when I was in second grade, but I really had no idea of what was involved to get the egg and sperm together. Then, when I was ten years old, I got my period during school (and thought somebody kept leaving red paint on my chair–kind of hilarious to think about now). I think around that time my mom gave me one of those “facts of life” books. I NEVER talked about sex EVER with my father, which I actually think is a little weird now. It’s like there’s some kind of assumed Oedipus complex which makes it not okay… but I think it’s important if we’re going to de-stigmatize sex between heterosexuals.
Anyways… coming from a Christian family, I picked up on messages from my teen Bibles that masturbating was wrong and I should be ashamed of it–but I never really stopped. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I didn’t bother to have sex. Didn’t seem really necessary after I had my first orgasm. That didn’t mean I didn’t WANT a boyfriend or that I never wanted to have sex (I always wondered if it could be *better* than masturbating), but as I came to read/hear more people’s stories about the real awkwardness/messiness to it, I didn’t really care for more. (I always assumed I was heterosexual because of our heterocentrist society; I question my sexuality now)
I think, in all honesty, when I had questions about sex, I went to the Internet for answers. I used to be one of those pervy fangirls that read lemon fanfiction. Video porn answered A LOT of questions, lol. But I think I also had a lot of problems with porn and literotica because I saw so many limitations on how my sexuality, as a woman, could be expressed. The problem then came when I went to my mom to ask questions, and she was appalled that I was looking at sites “like that.”
I think if I ever have kids (which, I don’t think I really will) I would want to be totally open with them about sex. It’s so healthy, it’s so natural, yet our culture does a lot to warp it–whether it’s the religious right or the porn industry geared toward heterosexual male desire. While the Internet is awesome in a lot of ways, I don’t think it should be a teen’s oceanic resource for sex knowledge. School sex-based education programs are creepy and weird I think (at least in my experience), but parents have to lose the squeamishness–lest they continue a tradition of sex as squeamishness.
@Hina
The books we had around the house were ‘Where did I come From?’ and ‘What’s happening to me?’ both by Peter Mayle. They are still available on Amazon. They had big font and explanatory drawings. From ‘What’s happening to me?’ I recall a page that had progressive pictures of what one can expect to happen to both young women and men as they go through puberty. So you can look and go “I’m at that stage, this is what is coming next”.
@Hina
I grew up around the kid-friendly books as well. I remember one in particular, it had detailed pictures and text-explanations on the whole thing. It was a story about how a couple became pregnant, and among other things there were a drawn picture of the intercourse (good old missionary style) with close up on the sperm and the egg and I remember the text: “Peter puts his penis in Pia’s vagina and they move together. When it’s nicest to Peter little sperms come put his penis. They travel inside Pia up to the egg. One of them, the fastest, penetrates the eggs’ membrane” and so forth. I think this book is among my earliest memories, so I’ve always known about what sex is and how children is made. I even think the book had information on contraception (Pia had to stop using the pill/they didn’t wear the condoms after deciding to have one more kid).
Besides that, I don’t think I ever really had conversations with my mother about sex when I was younger. But I never really missed it either. I had my good girlfriends to talk to (they were more experienced than me, I had sex the first time when I was 17, close to 18) and I’ve always felt uncomfortable talking to her about it (but I was a shy and awkward kid, didn’t like to talk about births either. The word ‘birth’ made me flush – don’t know why!)). But again – never missed any information, always known about contraception (we had sex ed from… 6th grade I guess, featuring info on menstruation, protection, how to put on condoms, changes in hormone levels and to the body (beard, voice changes, breast and that it hurts to grow them) the female and male genitalia and so forth – but not female masturbation, as I recall).
I’m very inspired by the stories by some commenters here – about tolerance towards homosexuality (and preferably also talking about relationships as equally possible with both same sex and opposite sex partners, no hetero-nomativity here!) and about telling your kid that you will believe it if it tells you, that someone makes it feel uncomfortable – even if it’s family members. I love that. That could possibly prevent so much harm.
But I really think that good, organized sex education is vital. It’s a fact that many parents don’t know how to or do not feel comfortable talking to and informing their children about sex and about the body, its functions and developments. And even if it would be very good if they did, they don’t. So sexual education is vital for young people and kids, their safety and their comfortability with their bodies. I really believe people (kids and young adults primarily, since they don’t necessarily have the abilities to find information on their own) shouldn’t be kept in the dark about how their own body works, how it’s built and so forth.
And with regard to the sexual act, informed choices are always better than no choices at all. Young people of today are constantly confronted with sex, in pop culture, the media, everywhere. They know something’s there and they are curious – even if they’re told that they shouldn’t have sex (and that’s all the info on “sex” they get). But I doubt any of you here think there shouldn’t be sex ed in the schools? I know a lot people in the US are against it, though.
@ Dolly:
Awww, your period story is so adorable! But you must have been so perturbed at the time! I hear you about the Oedipus complex…. in fact after I read Oedipus I became even more self-conscious.
I’m curious to know what the messages were in the teen Bibles that said masturbating wasn’t okay. It was never explicit right?
The internet! Yes it’s a new generation… almost all answers can be found on the almighty internet. heh. While some of the sites out there are beneficial, others are shoddy and worthless attempts to entertain that I can’t believe young kids can access. As always, thanks for the comment Dolly.
@ groovyjoss:
Wow, those all sound pretty awesome! Thanks for the list!
@ Cecilie V:
Damn, I wish my parents had those books around too! Lol Peter and Pia!!!!
Also, yeah you bring up a really good point. Even if there IS a lack of sex ed coming from your parents, a closely knit and curious group of friends can be a comfortable environment to explore and talk about sex.
I totally understand your qualms with the word “birth”…. if my dad ever mentioned menstruation I would close my eyes in discomfort. ha.
Organized sex ed would be very ideal indeed!
And Americans need to face the fact that “Abstinence is the best form of birth control” won’t stop kids from having sex! *sigh*
Thanks for taking the time to comment–I enjoyed reading it!
South Asian parents are exactly like this – it’s definitely cultural, at least for me. Being a South Asian-American, I know for a fact that attitudes re: sex in India (where my parents are from) are mostly along the lines of “NO TABOO BAD OMG J00 WILL DIE FROM TEH SEXXXX!!111″ If I were, in fact, able to get any at the tender age of 17, I wouldn’t bother talking to them about it. I would buy a pack of condoms and pray. It’s unfortunate, but true.