I somehow stumbled today from reading Autostraddle's NSFW Sunday to reading an advice article for mums who are trying to have "the talk" with their daughters
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This is an interesting topic. I think I had The Talk with my parents at a very young age because I don't remember it but my mom says that when I was young I asked about babies and she straight up told me. This made it extremely awkward for me when we finally got sex education in whatever grade in elementary school (maybe grade 5?) because it seemed like every girl was making 'EWWWWW' noises at demonstrations of tampons and whatnot. And I had gotten my period at 10, in grade 4 and this was part of my daily life. It got even more awkward in high school when in grade 9 sex ed the teacher was talking about vaginas and whatnot and the girls were STILL grossed out. Like they had absolutely NO working knowledge of their own anatomy and constantly made loud, disruptive noises about how they found their own vaginas gross and didn't know what was going on there.
I have never wanted to smack parents and children alike more in my life.
My parents are very sex-positive too, being really encouraging about talking about sex and never hiding their active sex life from us. My brother and I were at least on our way out of our teens when we had sex for the first time. Although, come to think of it, I've never asked when Jeremy had sex for the first time but my guess is that it's with his current girlfriend because he was very emotionally young and never went out before that. My mom's got two bottles of lube and some edible sex paint on her bedside table and doesn't care about that, since everyone is always in her room watching DVDs. I even suggested that she stock up on a scentless lube that was on sale at the grocery store and she responded that she had plenty because the strawberry scented/tasting stuff made her feel nauseous in the morning. My mom and I talk to each other when we're in the bath, and when we're naked and it doesn't bother me at all. And according to other people this is not very common because they talk about their parents having sex like it's the grossest thing in the world and my cousins berate their father for going around in cut-off jeans because they think they're too short. Whereas everyone in my family is always in their underwear and mooning each other to be silly.
I definitely think that mentality helps me relax a lot about sex. My brother and I talk about it all the time in reference to television and relationships and such. It makes me feel very free because it doesn't bother them that I'm gay or that I have an extremely high sex drive or anything. I think because of this I'd end up being the hippy dippy sexually open parent if I ever end up with kids.
All this is what made me believe that school boards should be teaching some form of sex education in every single grade of school. Because maybe it should be your parents telling you but clearly it's not. Someone needs to tell kids that sex is awesome and should feel amazing but you should never feel guilty about or obligated to have sex or pressured or anything. Kids should know every option and know every detail of every kind of birth control to the point that there is absolutely no shame about asking for it from a doctor or asking to use it with a partner. I want schools to talk about rape, how it's rape if someone is drunk or passed out, if either partner says no or a million other ways. My personal feeling is that the way my parents treated sex and sex education made me more confident as a woman, much more able to see the internalized misogyny girls are being taught every day and I honestly wish more people could feel that way.
I think that's an awesome attitude towards sex ed that your family has, and it's such a healthy one as well. I don't think that anything makes kids feel like there is something wrong with sex and sexuality more than their own parents completely ignoring the fact that eventually their children will be teenagers and adults and have the wants and needs of them.
I had a lot of friends in high school would would flat out not even be around us when we had a conversation about sex. I've always had a crazy high sex drive and no qualms about sex. The only real problem that I have is a lack of body confidence, which I'm well on my way to sorting out.
I'd really like to be able to start that kind of dialogue with my mum, because the older I get the closer we get, but I haven't come out to her yet, and because she grew up in a very Catholic house, she is very much of the mind that sex stays in the bedroom between two people. I do, however, have that kind of relationship with my godmother and we're both really open with each other about everything.
I want there to be 500x more education on LGBT safer sex. I'd been having girl sex for 2 years before anyone told me that chicks should have safe sex to. And maybe that was a lot of naive teenage behaviour on my part, but it needs to be taught.
I think it's a pretty awesome attitude, yeah. It's actually really funny because my mom and her sister are basically the same person who spend every day together yet my cousins have no body or sex confidence at all. And we were all raised together. Apparently your body image and self-esteem is tied to your father so there's that. In my personal journey I found that the people who love you are going to continue to love you no matter what you look like and potential partners are going to get crushes based on you not your body too.
I hear that a lot about people with parents with Catholic upbringing, that there's a very conservative, compartmentalized mentality towards sex. And a reticence to broach the sex and, specifically, gay sex topics. (I went to school in a backwater place where everyone was very, very French Catholic)
Oh man, how much do I wish there was more LGBT education in general. I think there's a greater chance of pigs flying then that being taught in school which is a rather depressing thought. :/
I've always found it weird that while I'm not particularly body confident, I am sex-confident. Although it's a whole different story when you get drunk and try to lose your virginity, only to be thrown out of the guys room because you didn't want to blow him. 17 year old me was so great :S
The only way that I got any kind of LGBT sex ed was because I actively saught out an LBGT youth group and part of what they do is actual proper sex ed for LGBT teens. I mean, I knew all about condoms and the pill and the morning-after pill, and I knew that gay guys needed to have safe sex because they were at a higher risk of aids, but I pretty much just thought in my teen stupidity that girls who had sex with other girls didn't have to worry about any of that stuff, and by the time I found out I was sexually active with other girls.
Oh. There is the cute gay manager at work who isn't a douche. But I had an almost argument with one of the other shift managers today about evolution and the bible, of all things. I said something about Adam and Eve and he goes, yeah, but it wasn't Adam and Steve and I just went 'dude. you do not even want to go there with me. do not.'
You're suddenly making me feel very glad that my brother and his friends are all really gay friendly. I don't think I could take it if his bros weren't like that.
I just can't associate with those people. I'm not a good people person in general but I used to have to be civil to people who worked for the Knights of Columbus for work and that almost killed me.
I have never wanted to smack parents and children alike more in my life.
My parents are very sex-positive too, being really encouraging about talking about sex and never hiding their active sex life from us. My brother and I were at least on our way out of our teens when we had sex for the first time. Although, come to think of it, I've never asked when Jeremy had sex for the first time but my guess is that it's with his current girlfriend because he was very emotionally young and never went out before that. My mom's got two bottles of lube and some edible sex paint on her bedside table and doesn't care about that, since everyone is always in her room watching DVDs. I even suggested that she stock up on a scentless lube that was on sale at the grocery store and she responded that she had plenty because the strawberry scented/tasting stuff made her feel nauseous in the morning. My mom and I talk to each other when we're in the bath, and when we're naked and it doesn't bother me at all. And according to other people this is not very common because they talk about their parents having sex like it's the grossest thing in the world and my cousins berate their father for going around in cut-off jeans because they think they're too short. Whereas everyone in my family is always in their underwear and mooning each other to be silly.
I definitely think that mentality helps me relax a lot about sex. My brother and I talk about it all the time in reference to television and relationships and such. It makes me feel very free because it doesn't bother them that I'm gay or that I have an extremely high sex drive or anything. I think because of this I'd end up being the hippy dippy sexually open parent if I ever end up with kids.
All this is what made me believe that school boards should be teaching some form of sex education in every single grade of school. Because maybe it should be your parents telling you but clearly it's not. Someone needs to tell kids that sex is awesome and should feel amazing but you should never feel guilty about or obligated to have sex or pressured or anything. Kids should know every option and know every detail of every kind of birth control to the point that there is absolutely no shame about asking for it from a doctor or asking to use it with a partner. I want schools to talk about rape, how it's rape if someone is drunk or passed out, if either partner says no or a million other ways. My personal feeling is that the way my parents treated sex and sex education made me more confident as a woman, much more able to see the internalized misogyny girls are being taught every day and I honestly wish more people could feel that way.
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I had a lot of friends in high school would would flat out not even be around us when we had a conversation about sex. I've always had a crazy high sex drive and no qualms about sex. The only real problem that I have is a lack of body confidence, which I'm well on my way to sorting out.
I'd really like to be able to start that kind of dialogue with my mum, because the older I get the closer we get, but I haven't come out to her yet, and because she grew up in a very Catholic house, she is very much of the mind that sex stays in the bedroom between two people. I do, however, have that kind of relationship with my godmother and we're both really open with each other about everything.
I want there to be 500x more education on LGBT safer sex. I'd been having girl sex for 2 years before anyone told me that chicks should have safe sex to. And maybe that was a lot of naive teenage behaviour on my part, but it needs to be taught.
Reply
I hear that a lot about people with parents with Catholic upbringing, that there's a very conservative, compartmentalized mentality towards sex. And a reticence to broach the sex and, specifically, gay sex topics. (I went to school in a backwater place where everyone was very, very French Catholic)
Oh man, how much do I wish there was more LGBT education in general. I think there's a greater chance of pigs flying then that being taught in school which is a rather depressing thought. :/
Reply
The only way that I got any kind of LGBT sex ed was because I actively saught out an LBGT youth group and part of what they do is actual proper sex ed for LGBT teens. I mean, I knew all about condoms and the pill and the morning-after pill, and I knew that gay guys needed to have safe sex because they were at a higher risk of aids, but I pretty much just thought in my teen stupidity that girls who had sex with other girls didn't have to worry about any of that stuff, and by the time I found out I was sexually active with other girls.
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I just can't associate with those people. I'm not a good people person in general but I used to have to be civil to people who worked for the Knights of Columbus for work and that almost killed me.
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