How to Talk to Your Teens About S-E-X

[eggwards]

Yes, this is totally, actually real. I probably should just link to it, but I'm going to go ahead and give you the actual text so you can feel the ickyness without actually having to touch Focus on the Family's website:

How to Talk to Your Teens About Sex

First, put a paper bag over your head. Then, speak slowly and clearly.

Ah, don't you wish talking to your teens about sex was an easy task? It's not, and there's no use pretending it is. However, it's critical that you do it. Don't believe the fallacies.


Experts say that discussing sexuality on an ongoing basis helps teens have a healthier view of sexuality and postpone sex until marriage.

If you don't talk to your kids, the only information they get will be from their uneducated friends, or the distorted media. So it's up to you to put on that smile and go for it.

WHERE

Not at a restaurant. You'll already feel a bit self-conscious talking to your teen without having any other potential eavesdroppers.

Most teens seem to be more receptive to talking about difficult things at night. Take advantage of this by "tucking" them into bed. Sit on the edge of the bed and begin. The dark room helps you as well.

Curl up on the sofa, pop a bowl of popcorn, fix their favorite beverage and go for it.

Break out the pool cues, the puzzle, the Scrabble game, the Ping-Pong table, the foosball … whatever gets you talking.

Be sure that nothing is planned for early the next day, that the phones are turned off and that there's little chance for interruption.

WHEN

When they start to ask questions. This can be at any age. When a child asks a specific question, answer the specific question. Don't evade it.

When my 4-year-old son asked, "What is a virgin?" (spawned by "round yon virgin" in the carol "Silent Night"), his father said, "I don't know." I told him, "Someone who hasn't had sex." He said, "Okay," and left the room without asking what sex was. Later he told me I was his primary source of sexual information because he knew I would always be straightforward with him.

When they are 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. If your teen hasn't asked you any questions by the time he or she is 14, set a time to talk.

Always. Talk about sex freely, openly and honestly in your home. Be the place where your teen comes for information first, or to check out information they've heard from their friends. Experts say that discussing sexuality on an ongoing basis helps teens have a healthier view of sexuality and postpone sex until marriage.


HOW

Often parents use available material as a way to begin. Some will use a news event, a movie or television show as a discussion starting point. Others might take a book like Just Like Ice Cream to discuss the choices someone else made. There are several good nonfiction books as well that speak frankly on the topic.

Ask your teen to give you written-out questions ahead of time. This will give you an opportunity to prepare.

Answer the questions honestly and forthrightly. However, do not answer personal questions about you and your spouse unless the questions involve concepts rather than specifics.


WHAT

In my research with high school girls, I discovered that sex ed classes taught many girls the functionality of sex but not the responsibility, and vice-versa. Either way, the results were often disastrous. Girls who had healthy affection from their fathers, as well as a balanced education of sexual function and responsibility were far less likely to become sexually involved.

Ask your teens to share with you the new terminology and the definitions. Get their input on how they feel about the new wave of oral sex, "hooking up" and "friends with privileges."

What about sleeping (without sex) with someone of the opposite sex?

What about being nude or partially nude with no intention of being sexual? Do they know of anyone practicing these?

Do they see any repercussions?

— Lissa Halls Johnson

Well, all of those kids are exactly the ones who have been praised in studies lately for taking vows of virginity, but yet still having oral and anal sex because it's a loop hole. They are getting their sexual instruction somewhere, and it certainly isn't Focus on the Family. It seems like their version of abstinence training means abstinence from actually talking about sex itself.

"Dear, being nude is pretty bad, alright dear? Please don't do that with anyone, especially not with someone of the same sex. I'm so glad we could have this little talk, Dear."

More truth through ignorance, and healthy affection from their fathers...yeah!

Still, there's something interesting about getting your child in the suggested darkened room to talk about sex - when followed about this very Christian line from the above - "Curl up on the sofa, pop a bowl of popcorn, fix their favorite beverage and go for it."

Yeah, Go For It!

Comments

[garebear.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that I don't have kids (not that I ever tried)... but then these are the same parents who tell their kids that their penis/vagina is an awful and dirty thing and that they're going to hell if they touch it; the human body is unnatural; that they will spontaneously combust if they have sex and that gay people are evil.

It's a good thing to pop popcorn, break out the Hi-C and have those intimate parent-child discussions. It's too bad that most parents seem to be less educated/misinformed about sex than the info found on the streets... after all, the street info has to come from somewhere.

[neoookami.livejournal.com]

This makes it seem even worse. Here's a highlight.

Boys cannot "stop" at a certain point in sexual activity (petting, oral sex). Once they are sexually aroused, it's very, very difficult for them to stop.

I guess that means it's the girl's fault she gets raped!

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

I've always answered my son's questions honestly and in what I hoped was an age-appropriate manner.

When he was about 5 he asked me "what does 'gay' mean?" So I said a gay man is one who'd rather have a boyfriend to snuggle with than a girlfriend and a gay woman (usually called a lesbian) is one who'd rather snuggle with girls than boys.

His response: Oh cool. Can I have a cookie.

When he was about 11 and reading "It's perfectly normal" he asked me if I'd ever had anal sex. To which I replied that my sexual activity was none of his business and all he needed to know was that on one occasion I'd had sex that had resulted in him.

"Oh so you *have* done anal sex then!" was his reply.....

It's not difficult, as long as you're not fucked up about sex in general and your own sexuality in particular.

[booboobob.livejournal.com]

Focus on the Family makes me sick, in any case.

Idiots, the lot of them.

[bendawg.livejournal.com]

*shrug*
It seems to me that *most* of these ideas could be good for a parent that is shy about talking with their children about sex.

I think a lot of parents are shy about the matter - hell, my mom didn't learn anything from her mother until she was like a senior in high school...

Talking IS important about these kinds of things, but at the same time, parents should discuss intimacy openly too.

That link below is terrible, it really doesn't look at males and females straight-forward. Oy.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're taught that casual sex is a dirty, nasty thing, and shouldn't happen, then how can it be labeled a benefit? A benefit is being able to tithe the money from your incapacitated loved one's trust fund to the church of your choice to further your chances at salvation. Letting someone at your privates is allowing the devil into your groinal area - it's going to make you feel bad, and probably give you crabs.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

The problem is, and some others have mentioned it, is that it takes it from the perspective that the parent is having to talk about something disgusting to their child. Something like having to discuss that the dog died. If the parents feel conflicted and dirty about the subject, that's going to be noticed by the kids. The kids will either see that their parents are squeamish and be even more curious, or they may adopt the same attitude and also have trouble with sex later in life.

If it wasn't so stigmatized by these groups, then talking to your kids about sex would be much more natural, and we wouldn't need groups like this trying to rectify the situations they cause with their own hypocrisy.