Sex ed

Post Reply New Topic

I found an interesting PDF on this subject and immediately thought of this thread. You might find it useful:
https://www.middletownautism.com/fs/doc ... -wlink.pdf

That's probably good advice. Probably excellent advice.

I was really, really lucky-- my mother was a nurse and my father was an Aspie. I had more frank sex-ed talks than most middle school classes ever get. My mother taught me what happened inside my body, where babies come from and how they get there and what's going on when blood comes out the hole. My dad taught me what guys are thinking, how I ought to handle it (as well as how to stay out of those situations), and how to not have babies happen to me ("Buy your own dinner, Boo. Buy your own drinks. Don't let 'em out of your hand. And don't tell them where you live." "Spermicidally lubricated latex condom. First time, every time, all the time."). The only thing I didn't understand until I got there was how you got that mushy dangly little thing to go into the itty-bitty hole.

No matter how many people yell at me about it, or get embarrassed over the terminology my kids use, I give very frank sex-ed talks from the time they are old enough to follow two-step instructions. It starts with, "Keep your penis/vagina clean, keep it to yourself, and don't look at anyone else's." Then it progresses to a discussion of menstruation and erections, usually when they stumble into the bathroom and ask me why there's a bloody rag in my pants. Then how babies grow, how they come out, and how they get in there in the first place. Then (seems like somewhere around 9 or 10), when it's OK to have sex (with a consenting partner in a committed relationship), when people might choose to have sex (say, outside a bar on a Saturday night), and why you can do that if you want to but Mommy doesn't think it's a very good idea.

Which leads right into a discussion of prophylaxis. Condoms (and how many kids I've conceived using them), Plan B (and how we used condoms AND Plan B when we got Number Four), birth control pills (and side effects, and how many kids I know who were conceived on The Pill), implants, shots, IUDs, rings, all the side effects and all the ways they can fail.

I've been criticized by EVERYONE I KNOW. Most of them think I tell them too much, too graphically (I used anatomical terms), too soon. Some people think I'm a prude because I tell them they're best off to keep their pants up/skirts down until they're married (or at least engaged). NOBODY thinks I'm doing it right, except for me, the pediatrician, and the therapist.

Personally, I don't teach abstinence-only, but I do teach abstinence-first. Why?? Because I've conceived a kid on every form of birth control known to man, with the exception of tubal ligation (finally found one that worked!!), DepoProvera, and Norplant (after the hormonal mess The Pill turned me into, I wasn't willing to risk having to live with it for months/years). I KNOW that most people don't use them perfectly, and the failure rate goes through the roof as soon as your use becomes imperfect. Also because I was taught abstinence-only on one side and sex-is-natural-and-expected on the other hand, and I don't think either of them worked. It ended in me having sex before I was really ready to because it was natural and expected, yet still feeling like I'd done something evil and immoral (when in reality I'd done something stupid). So I found something in the middle. And mainly because SEX MESSES WITH YOUR JUDGMENT. It does it for guys, it does it for girls, it does it for everyone. If my kids are going to choose to yoke themselves to another human being, I want them to do it with their eyes open and both feet on the ground, not with their underpants on their heads and their legs in the air.

It's awkward until you've done it two or three dozen times. I was actually surprised at how awkward it was with my first kid, from the very beginning. It was hard to start having the conversations starting about the time she asked me about the blood in my pants.

After you've done it two or three dozen times, it's pretty darn natural. Now we say things like "masturbation" and "mutual masturbation" and "pregnancy test" and "pubic hair" and "vaginal secretions" and "spermicidally lubricated latex condom" and "genital herpes" and "human papilloma virus" pretty much every week. I think my oldest (12, going on 13) wishes we'd shut up. Ain't about to happen.

Last edited by BuyerBeware on 14 May 2014, 12:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

For the record: I grew up in West Virginia.

Sex ed in school was, "Sexual activity is a natural part of human life. You've probably already kissed a boy/girl. You might be thinking about touching each other in private places. That's between you, the guy/girl you're dating, and your parents. This is how to do it. These are the diseases you can get. This is how you get pregnant. This is how to not have those things happen."

Well, I wasn't dating anyone. Hadn't kissed anyone. Hadn't held anyone's hand, hadn't been in a boy's room. Hadn't danced with anyone (or for that matter been to a dance). I wanted to know what I was supposed to do with friends who had been sexually abused and how to tell my father that I thought a 14-year-old girl with no interest whatever in boys probably shouldn't be taking birth control pills. Later, when I was just a little bit older, I wanted to know how to say "NO!" without being mean and without looking like a frigid, prudish weirdo.

I didn't get that information. And I felt pretty sh***y for not being where the health teacher seemed to think I "should" be.