Teen Sex

And no, it isn’t about porn spam! I’m try­ing to talk about this with­out embar­rass­ing shad­owkatt.

I had some­thing of a melt­down recent­ly upon real­iz­ing that:
1) shad­owkatt’s beau is local now
2) He has a dri­ver’s license.

I had, in all hon­esty, been avoid­ing any real thoughts about, “She’s 13. I was in 9th grade and learn­ing all about band camp and so on at that age. She’s WAY more beau­ti­ful than I have ever been or ever hope to be. OHMYGOD!”

Okay—in all fair­ness, the girl has a damned good head on her shoul­ders. We have a pret­ty good rela­tion­ship (at least I think so), and I know our com­mu­ni­ca­tion is far bet­ter than what I had with my par­ents. I’ve been talk­ing to her about sex just like any oth­er top­ic through­out her life, giv­ing her as much infor­ma­tion as she want­ed at dif­fer­ent stages and try­ing to share what I’ve learned (with­in the bounds of good taste) in hopes that she can avoid first-hand expe­ri­ence with some of the hard­er lessons.

The sum total of the sex ed I got from my par­ents was:
Mom: I asked what “fuck” meant when I was 7, after hav­ing heard it on a school bus. I got a major spank­ing and my mouth was washed out with soap. I STILL want­ed to know what it meant. Moth­er said, “It’s when a man hurts a girl’s bottom.”
Dad: In high school, I had to find rides to band prac­tice, as it hap­pened sev­er­al nights a week dur­ing march­ing sea­son and we lived 16 miles from the school. There were two oth­er band mem­bers in our neigh­bor­hood who had their dri­ver’s licens­es and were will­ing to car­pool in exchange for gas mon­ey. I had absolute­ly no con­trol over whether band prac­tice ran late (as fre­quent­ly hap­pened), or whether the dri­ver want­ed to hang out after­ward rather than head­ing straight home. If I arrived more than 5 min­utes after Dad­dy thought I should be home, and Dad­dy had been drink­ing, I got knocked around while Dad­dy yelled at me about what a whore I was. I once tried say­ing, “We were just 5 min­utes late!” and he said, “It only TAKES 5 minutes!”

Was I going to talk to my par­ents about sex? HELL NO! Much less let them know when I did become sex­u­al­ly active. Nope!

Oth­er­wise, they just made it clear that sex was bad and not to be thought about, much less engaged in. Ever. Peri­od. After that first inci­dent, I’d head­ed to the library and read every­thing I could get my hands on, which made me one of the best-edu­cat­ed 7‑year-olds on earth as far as sex went. I con­tin­ued to keep an eye on the top­ic as I got old­er. (Note: This was before the advent of the stu­pid “parental per­mis­sion only” shelves in the library for books on such “con­tro­ver­sial subjects.”

I tried to tell my par­ents about the sex­u­al abuse—I CLEARLY remem­ber try­ing to talk to my moth­er about the sec­ond abuser when I was 7 (before the research peri­od). I did­n’t have the right words (all things cov­ered by panties were just referred to as “down there”), and she stead­fast­ly did­n’t hear me.

I’ve always been sure that a lack of vocab­u­lary and oth­er good infor­ma­tion makes chil­dren more vul­ner­a­ble to abuse.

As a result, I’ve real­ly tried to be sure my daugh­ter has access to good infor­ma­tion and feels free to talk to me and oth­er trust­ed adults about sex or any­thing else. I’d rather know than not know. As hard as it is, it is her body and she has a right to make deci­sions about her sex­u­al­i­ty. I just want her to make informed, con­scious, respon­si­ble choic­es. I want her to be safe. If that means tak­ing her to the doc­tor and get­ting an implant or BC pills or what­ev­er, we’ll do so. Sam and I agreed long ago that as a gen­er­al house­hold pol­i­cy we’ll have bar­ri­er con­tra­cep­tives avail­able dis­creet­ly, no ques­tions asked.

So why am I post­ing about this? I’m get­ting to it. Really.

This was in one of today’s newsletters:
Emer­gency Con­tra­cep­tion at Home OK for Teens
Emer­gency Con­tra­cep­tives Don’t Increase Unpro­tect­ed Sex Among Teens

Inter­est­ing. I had­n’t thought about hav­ing emer­gency con­tra­cep­tives avail­able at home, but it seems a damned good idea for any­one who is sex­u­al­ly active and isn’t try­ing to conceive.

And that trig­gered a search on Web­MD about teen sexuality.

Con­dom access does­n’t boost teen sex

From What Should I Tell my Kids?

First of all, focus on the facts. Con­sid­er using the fol­low­ing list of top­ics as an outline:

* Expla­na­tion of anato­my and repro­duc­tion in males and females
* Sex­u­al inter­course and pregnancy
* Fer­til­i­ty and birth control
* Oth­er forms of sex­u­al behav­ior, includ­ing oral sex, mas­tur­ba­tion, and petting
* Sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, includ­ing het­ero­sex­u­al­i­ty, homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, and bisexuality
* The phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al aspects of sex, includ­ing the dif­fer­ences between males and females
* Self-image and peer pressure
* Sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted diseases
* Rape and date rape, includ­ing how being intox­i­cat­ed (drunk or high), or accept­ing rides/going to pri­vate places with strangers or acquain­tances puts you at risk
* How choice of cloth­ing and the way you present your­self sends mes­sages to oth­ers about your inter­est in sex­u­al behavior 

Teen Sex­u­al Rights

When talk­ing with your teen, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing teen sex­u­al rights, which were devel­oped by the Sex­u­al­i­ty Infor­ma­tion and Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil of the Unit­ed States (SIECUS):

* The right to accu­rate infor­ma­tion about sex­u­al­i­ty and HIV/AIDS
* The right to stop being phys­i­cal or sex­u­al with a part­ner at any point
* The right to say no to an unwant­ed touch of any kind
* The right to make deci­sions about sex­u­al­i­ty, in your own time
* The right to express your sex­u­al­i­ty safe­ly, with­out risk of preg­nan­cy, or STDs includ­ing HIV/AIDS
* The right not to be pres­sured into being phys­i­cal or sexual
* The right not to express your sex­u­al­i­ty unless you want to

Het­eroflex­i­ble — or Fauxmosexual?
Par­ents and teens alike are explor­ing sex­u­al iden­ti­ty issues

Talk­ing to Your Kids About Sex

I spent some time brows­ing at Scar­leteen today. It’s been a while since I vis­it­ed. They rock! 

From 10 Things You Can Do for Your Sex­u­al Self:

1. Be your own your first part­ner, before any­one else.
2. Learn to talk open­ly about sex.
3. Be hon­est. For real.
4. Ditch the drama.
5. Use your best judgment.
6. Respect your body and yourself.
7. Hon­or your feel­ings, even when it sucks.
8. Be your whole self, not just your sex­u­al self.
9. Fur­ther your sex­u­al education.
10. Enjoy your­self and your sexuality. 

Good reads for all ages:
Sex­u­al Nego­ti­a­tion for the Long Haul: a rela­tion­ship itinerary
Safer Sex…For Your Heart

A few links for teens:
It’s Your Sex Life spon­sored by MTV and the Kaiser Fam­i­ly Foundation
I Wan­na Know is spon­sored by the Amer­i­can Social Health Association

For par­ents: Teen­Wire, from Planned Par­ent­hood, is “meant to help par­ents ini­ti­ate the sex talk in cre­ative ways. For instance, par­ents can find com­mon ground by first learn­ing the lan­guage teens are cur­rent­ly using to talk about sex.”

And some books I intend to investigate:

A Fam­i­ly Book About Sex­u­al­i­ty by M.S. Calderone

Chang­ing Bod­ies, Chang­ing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex and Rela­tion­ships by Ruth Bell

The Teenage Body Book

The Under­ground Guide to Teenage Sex­u­al­i­ty: An Essen­tial Hand­book for Today’s Teens and Par­ents by Michael J. Basso

I was­n’t going to post about this, but then I decid­ed that some of the mate­r­i­al might be of use to others.