This however is about a topic all parents need to be ready to talk about and teach. Not doing so creates one heck of a mess, and most u=of us probably know this from personal experience.
One of the recent science blocks was postponed when we noticed an early visible sign of the early onset of pubescence. So instead of teaching the topic of reversible and irreversible reactions, something he is now enjoying, I was teaching puberty and teenage neurological development of both genders, something he hated but to give him his full due took seriously and enquired about with great interest. I have already told him there will be sex education to follow in a few years when he starts becoming interested in that, right now the idea repulses him so he would shut out the subject. He accepts though doesn't fully understand why this desire will suddenly appear. He figured out for himself that sex is the path to reproduction by watching nature documentaries and is very at home with the fact his origin was his parents copulating, yes it really is as disturbing as you think to have a child of 8 years old, as he was, responding to a program talking about a child being the product of love by stating, 'no it's not it's the product of sex.' When you pick your jaw up from the floor you spend one of the longest half seconds of your life figuring out what to say to this evident truth.
Why is this important?
My version of sex education was if anything worse than learning about puberty. Parents wouldn't cover it at all. My step father when trying to explain what HIV was asked if I knew what a condom was or did, when I said no the conversation was pretty much over. School covered puberty after I had 90+% finished it and I was a very late developer so that was destined to be totally useless. Add in the totally vague content and they may as well not have bothered.
What I did learn by listening to my mother and her friends talking in one room and my step father and the other men talking in the other was the women weren't being satisfied and hadn't been willing to let their men know. the men thought they were doing well because of their partners dishonesty. So I left home thinking men had no chance of pleasing a woman, scared to death to even try and convinced any pleasure I saw would be faked.
This combined with being such a late developer meant I spent a few years taking whatever was offered and doing exactly as I was told, partly from desire to please but almost as much from fear of messing it up. In short if you aren't willing to teach your child about sex you will cause them problems. There are more important lessons and yes this isn't something any of us are looking forward to, but it's better than leaving them to learn by a string of mistakes and neuroses about what should be one of life's pleasures and hopefully a part of a loving relationship.
Keeping dialog open.
This isn't just regarding sex or puberty. We are the constants and have to be there for our children. But it is something many would be too embarrassed to talk with parents about, if the dialog isn't kept open these lessons will be hell on earth and it will have been your own fault. If you have let them close that doesn't excuse you from class it just means you have to work harder in them, no excuses.
Some topics I intend to cover.
Reasons for sex. He already knows one of them and was inquisitive enough to have already learned the anatomical and mechanical act of reproduction in various plants and animals, including humans. He also understands that he will start having a desire for this and I have explained that this is normal. However we live in a world that acts as if this is disgraceful one moment and essential the next. I want him to understand that this is something to be viewed as part of a normal healthy relationship, and that when viewed responsibly something that can be safe, enjoyable and not something to be ashamed of.
Risks and solutions. This one will be fun, while explaining that sex is not a bad thing and can be a pleasant part of a relationship I then need to scare him into being responsible.
Unwanted pregnancies. Too many of us were one and the damage to parents and child is something that needs to be understood. Prevention needs to be realistic, I'm not the Catholic Church so where abstinence is not on the agenda a condom or other contraception will do very nicely.
STDs. Considering there are a number of these that can be transmitted without the part carrying the disease being aware of them and how to avoid or potentially treat them. The serious ones many get taught about but without a whole body latex covering you aren't getting away from the risk of those delightful scabies lice etc.
Rape. One home educator I have a great deal of respect for put up online that she was giving her younger child, her daughter, a talk about how to minimise the risk of being raped, then realised her older son had never had a talk about how to avoid committing it. None of us like to think our child would ever do such a thing, but statistically males are far more likely to commit rape than females, so not having this talk could mean you are part cause to a future rape. This is not a guaranteed result, I didn't have one and the concept of being close to committing rape has scared me to the point where I have stopped and checked the lady was sure several times in my life, choice of cold shower and being unsure, no contest. However burying your head in the sand is not helping. If parents talking to their sons about the realities of rape reduced them 10% it would be worthwhile, and I personally think if every parent did this it would likely reduce them closer to 10% than by it.
I am very cut and dry here, and have had many debate me because of it. The difference is yes or no, yes is consent no is rape, I don't care what stage this is at or how much the person being refused wants it or how much teasing has been done. I have met women who have deliberately tried to get me to this point because I had a reputation for being unnaturally in control, truth is the word no or stop will call a halt every time, I am terrified of hurting someone mentally or physically and this works better than bromide for me.
I don't know exactly how this conversation will go with my son, I have a couple of years to get ready and I know he will control some of the direction.
Techniques. This won't be a practical assessment but there are some basic things that need to be covered, stuff like lubricant not being a substitute for foreplay, (How's this for misusing a photo, and scaring a few homophobes at one go)
being prepared to experiment and receive complaints when this results in his partner being turned off rather than on, etc.Most of us get older and wish we'd had the benefit of experience in our youth, I am not going to get graphic in the lessons but a few simple things covering anatomy etc. are not likely to cause any harm and may mean he is more relaxed when he is confronted with someone wanting him sexually. If he is less scared than I was it will be a step in the right direction.
The main thing I want him to understand is that no-one is likely to expect him to be a sensation in his early days so it's OK to get things wrong and ask what his partner likes. Much as anything else there aren't many guaranteed wins, what works for one person won't for another and this is not a problem. People declaring they have never had any complaints often worry me, at best it means they are lying at worst it means they are afraid to try something new, aren't listening or aren't approachable.
Always a fun topic. I was what many would probably describe as way too keen to learn about sex as a child. I ended up getting pretty good sex ed in terms of health and anatomy, and pretty pathetic sex ed in terms of relational factors.
ReplyDeleteSTI's: Are probably inappropriately named, since, to the best of my memory, every STI can be transmitted without sexual contact. HIV, for example, is transmitted by blood, so performing first aid on someone with HIV could spread HIV to you just as easily as having sex with them could (in fact, it might even be easier to get HIV that way).
Most reliable prevention is don't touch anyone or anything that may transmit an STI to you. More realistic is be discerning about who you get sexually involved with: the more people you have sex with, and the more people they have had sex with (and the more partners their partners have had sex with before them, etc), the greater the chances of getting a complimentary "scratch-and-win" prize. If you are going to have sex with someone, get tested and use protection.
As for the relational side of things, I learned at a very basic level what rape was not long after I learned what sex was, but I didn't understand the problem. I didn't see how it was any worse than repeatedly poking someone in the shoulder: a nuisance, sure, but hardly devastating. The whole relational element of sex was never really explained to me, so the relational parameters all seemed like rather arbitrary rules. I could tell that everyone else thought rape was highly offensive, but it was a long time before I'd start to understand why.
Largely thanks to culture, I generally received the message during my teens that males are supposed to obsess over physical sex and not want any of the emotional intimacy that I now understand to be a big, healthy part of sex. I also received the message that females don't really enjoy sex and just fake it for some reason. And they're supposed to want all the emotional intimacy and not want the sex that I now understand healthily comes with it. Consequently, I spent a solid decade ashamed and not wanting anyone to find out that I actually like girls as people. I spent most of that time not understanding that if I have sex with someone, then I can actually be giving her something that is physically and emotionally valuable and rewarding, rather than just trying to minimise the inconvenience that this must surely be for her. Eventually I even learned that it's normal and healthy for women to want sex and for men to want intimacy.
Tangentially, but relevant since this is where a lot of kids turn to for sex ed (since we're generally doing a bad job), I've really grown to loathe porn as an adult, for a lot of reasons, but my deepest hatred towards it is because it reinforces the cultural view that, for men, sex should be outright physical, without positive relational elements. As a goodie-goodie-two-shoes Christian, this is an area I'd like to feign ignorance on, but my experience with porn is extensive. As someone who struggles with direct social interaction but is very good at reading people (both body language and facial expressions), I could count on one hand the number of times I've seen any pornographic material in which one or more person being filmed displays signs of actually wanting to be in the same room as the other person/s. That had a profound impact on me in my teens, and when I consider the way most of the guys I know who love porn talk about sex, it seems to have affected them in much the same way. Big difference is that I see how harmful it's been to me, and how it's harmed the relationships I've been in (even though I still carry around my V-plates). But they consistently deny that it's a problem.
You brought up a topic I didn't even consider, one becoming a bigger issue with the internet, porn. Which is to sex what Hollywood is to history. I have seen relatively little of it in truth, not angelic just that I developed so late that I had it by the time my mind had switched on to the desire.
DeleteNot sure how I will approach that one in fairness. As you say it shows things in a very negative light in most cases with sex being to gratify males alone and totally devoid of emotion. Unfortunately he will not pick up on the facial expressions and body language as you did so could easily think it is the norm if not advised otherwise.
It also links into another thing I haven't covered and need to think about, masturbation. Statistically more common in women according to surveys, which basically means more women are willing to admit doing so than men. That will be such a fun conversation. How to cover that the desire for relief is natural and acceptable without making it seem so acceptable that it could be a replacement for a genuine relationship. It could however be a good lead in to the fact both genders have sexual desires purely by the fact there are so many devices sold to women for this purpose. I think teaching him about real sex will be easier than this area. Still has to be done.
STI's alternative transmission modes. Will definitely cover this, especially because it will also be coinciding with the time a lot of youngsters start considering experimenting with narcotics and shared works involve shared blood. We have already covered that adolescents are more likely to seek narcotics and that we will look into the positive and negative affects of these closer to the time. I know the negative only scare approach doesn't work having seen so many getting curious as to why people would take these risks when giving this type of education. I want him to be able to do a risk vs. reward analysis and make an informed decision, every time he has been given this option so far he has made good choices.
Scabies can be transmitted by a handshake etc. so if you make contact with another human being you risk this form of infestation. I want to cover this in a way that shows there are risks and how to minimise them. Promiscuity is not an automatic measure either, I have found those more into multiple partners are often more aware of risks and likely to insist on appropriate protection, while those less so can be less inclined to think of themselves as at risk. Of course it is a bit like having more lottery tickets though, the more you have the greater your likelihood of catching something.
Relationships. A constant part of his education and one he struggles with, nothing else to expect from an Asperger's child. He knows that sex is a part of many happy adult relationships now, figured out some of this before puberty lessons, brother in law helped with that in a way he wouldn't appreciate being so obvious to a child like my son.
One ex of mine used to say that there are many things more important than sex in a relationship, but if it's not there you miss it. Which I think is a very good way to state it. There are some perfectly happy plutonic relationships which last decades and physical relationships that don't last, but the most stable generally have a healthy combination of emotional, mental and physical enjoyed by both. Fun part will be putting this across in a way that doesn't mean him being worried about an absence of this part to a relationship without making him too hands off and considered cold.
I spent so long simply being used as a disposable plaything it scared the heck out of me when someone wanted to know more about the person inside. Getting used to this and being able to become emotionally involved is undoubtedly one of the most difficult and rewarding parts of my life so far and why I don't care about the funny looks I get for showing emotion to my son in public, I'd rather he knows how important he is to me than be left guessing.