Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

Yesterday I wrote about the Silver Ring Thing. Among other issues with this program, I talked about the Born-Again Virgin process, and how much I dislike it. One of the reasons I dislike it is because I think it teaches teenagers (and pre-teenagers) that sexuality is something you can annul. You can deny it’s existence. And, most importantly, you can deny your own past experiences with it.

This really does the exact opposite of what I think the Silver Ring Thing folks want. By giving teenagers the adult- and religion-sanctioned ability to claim a sexual encounter did not happen, they are dis-honoring the sexual encounter itself.

Now, there are certainly times and places where a sexual experience was just bad, particularly in retrospect. And it is very appealing to think that it can be annulled - rather like a regrettable marriage. But here is a time for working on self-forgiveness, rather than denying the past. This is a time for understanding that mistakes make us, in part, the wiser people we are today. Teenagers need education in self-compassion rather than simple denial.

I remember a friend of mine from high school decided he was a born-again virgin. He had had two stable, loving, monogamous relationships with two good friends of mine. He had sexual intercourse within each of those relationships. Both of the girls were virgins before their relationship with this young man. Neither of the break-ups included much anger or animosity. After the second of these relationships ended, my young male friend decided that he would be a born-again virgin.

To me, that suggested that he was denying the closeness, both physical and emotional, that he had with those two young women. What an extremely hurtful thing to do to a past lover. They both considered that they had had sex with him - but he no longer acknowledged his part in that experience.

From that point forward, when asked, he would say he had not had sex. That was a misrepresentation to potential sex partners. It so happened that he did not have any STIs and had not gotten anyone pregnant, but he certainly had had the opportunity to do both of those things.

Now, had my friend simply said that he was not going to have sex again until marriage - that would have been different. Deciding to be sexually abstinent is a choice that I, essentially, support anyone making for themselves. But this “born again virgin” thing is ridiculous.

Several days ago I received an e-mail with this as the subject line: “Born-again virgin.” Now, I receive lots of e-mails about sex and sexuality, but this one subject line really impacted me. I even waited to read the e-mail until I felt I would be able to respond to the subject matter well.

For those not in the know, “Born Again Virgin” is a phrase that began the Silver Ring Thing movement. Here is what the Silver Ring Thing people say about themselves:

The Silver Ring Thing is a unique para-church youth ministry that promotes the message of abstinence until marriage using two avenues- an intense Live Event and the packaged SRT 434 Program.

Now, while I think that abstinence until marriage is not necessary for a happy, healthy sex life, I also think it’s a fine path for those who choose it. It does rankle me, though, when people suggest it is the only fine path, that it is a necessary path. The Silver Ring Thing people suggest this most strongly, and that’s the first problem I have with them. However, this debate is not new, and I’m sure most of my readers are relatively familiar with my side of the argument, even if they do not agree with it.

The more subtle, and less discussed, issue I have with the Silver Ring Thing program is this “Born Again Virgin” thing. There are a couple of issues here:

1. I believe we must teach teenagers to honor sexuality. And denying that a sexual interaction existed, essentially annulling the experience is not honoring it. Even if the experience comes with regret, I think it is more important to teach teenagers to deal with that regret rather than deny the event’s existence.
2. This rising of sexual intercourse to The Ultimate Act often has the unwanted side effect of okay-ing every other sexual act in the book. By promising not to have sex, far too many teenagers assume it is just fine to have manual, oral, and anal sexual interactions.

These are big, huge issues. And I’ll write in more depth on them both soon.

(Oh, ironically, the e-mail had nothing to do with the Silver Ring Thing or sexuality at all. It was about brand new, or “virgin,” stores. I also get a lot information about the newest, coolest things out that e-mail happened to fall into that category rather than the sex and sexuality category.)

Germans take sex education far more seriously than Americans. That is to say, they go ahead and bite the bullet and do real sex education rather than stuffing their fingers in their ears and humming loudly whenever anyone brings up the issue. This was made loud and clear to me in my recent time in Germany.

I spent the majority of my time on vacation in small, quaint German villages. Here’s a view of one of them from the window of a ruined castle.

And here’s another view that I saw posted everywhere through the same small, quaint village.

The top center means something along the lines of “Safety makes it more fun!,” in the lower right “Make it with it,” and in the lower left “Don’t give AIDS a chance.”

Now, not only do we almost never see condom advertisements in public in the US, we certainly never see them posted all over small towns. I’m delighted by this open conversation, and supported by humor! (I mean, really, condoms are supposed to go on bananas, not lemons, yes?)

And, as a fun side note, I found this image while searching for a good reproduction of the advertisement above and just had to include it. Gotta love that pubic hair!

One of the places I went on vacation was Venice. It was truly amazing. The history was immense and fascinating. Venice survived as a city state for more than a thousand years. Sometimes Venice managed this through its location (great for trade, extremely difficult to attack), sometimes through it’s extreme wealth and penchant for gaudy shows of power, and sometimes Venice managed to stay independent and powerful through ruthless political and wartime acts.

Among the many museums in Venice was my favorite, the Doge’s Palace (or the Duke’s Palace, the ruler of the city). There was much to see and learn about Venetian history inside the palace, including where and how laws were made, how dissidents were routed out, and what kind of conditions prisoners were kept in through the 1930s (they were not good).

The one room (or series of rooms) that was in each museum, but that I did not expect, was the armory rooms. I guess I was just naive - I think of culture, art, and Carnival when I think of Venice. But, of course, all of that thrived because of the rather ruthless army.

And I must say, the armory rooms in the Doge’s Palace were pretty ruthless. They even had a little corner of one room with torture implements in it. Which brings me (in a long-winded manner) to today’s topic: chastity belts.

Now, I’ve written about chastity belts before. But I didn’t see, in person, people’s visceral reaction to what I wrote. In the Doge’s Palace I saw people’s visceral reaction to what was clearly a chastity belt. Here’s what it looked like from a few steps away:

And so, from across the room, people didn’t have much of a reaction. It was when they got close, and really visually centered in on the relevant parts of the belt that the reactions came.

I watched people from all different countries, with many different languages center in on this piece of torture. But they all made essentially the same horrified grunt as they realized what they were seeing.

I wonder whether the grunts from the men and women were coming from different places? Were they imagining life on the two different sides of the belt?

I wonder how many of them were surprised to see that some chastity belts protected against anal as well as vaginal intercourse?

I am also particularly interested that the belt was included in the torture items. Was it really considered a torture item at the time it was used? Or is that a cultural bias that the museum curators have? Does anyone know?

I am delighted to be back home and back at work in this New Year.

Thank you so much to Just Another Teen - I hope everyone enjoyed reading your posts as much as I did!

Later in the week, there are several topics I want to cover from my experiences on vacation (chastity belts in Italy and condom ads in Germany are top on the list!), but for today I want to turn everyone’s attention to a thoughtful Op-ed piece in the New York Times from yesterday.

Caitlin Flanagan wrote a piece called Sex and the Teenage Girl. It begins by discussing Juno and Jamie Lynn Spears, and then segues in this:

Pregnancy robs a teenager of her girlhood. This stark fact is one reason girls used to be so carefully guarded and protected — in a system that at once limited their horizons and safeguarded them from devastating consequences. The feminist historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg has written that “however prudish and ‘uptight’ the Victorians were, our ancestors had a deep commitment to girls.”

We, too, have a deep commitment to girls, and ours centers not on protecting their chastity, but on supporting their ability to compete with boys, to be free — perhaps for the first time in history — from the restraints that kept women from achieving on the same level. Now we have to ask ourselves this question: Does the full enfranchisement of girls depend on their being sexually liberated? And if it does, can we somehow change or diminish among the very young the trauma of pregnancy, the occasional result of even safe sex?

Now, I am not so willing to gloss over the restrictive trends of yesteryear as either Brumberg or Flanagan appear to be in that short statement. (And nor do I think either of them are when the statement is taken in greater context.) But it is interesting to contextualize the historical tendency towards prudish, restrictive morals as caretaking. This suggests that our increasing sexual enfranchisement of girls is hurtful to them because it does not provide them with appropriate protection or care. (I don’t think this is true, but it is critical to remember that simple sexual enfranchisement is not our goal, because it distinctly lacks the guidance and decision-making support that teenagers need.)

So on to Flanagan’s questions: Does the full enfranchisement of girls depend on their being sexually liberated?

And my answer: No. The full enfranchisement of girls depends on them being treated sexually the same as boys. It is the double standard that is the primary issue at hand, with the mixed messages that girls receive as a strong second.

Boys are taught that, well, boys will be boys. They are taught that they are not at fault in their response if a girls is dressed a certain way or acts a certain way. The media, social morals, and religion are all relatively clear about this. (There are, of course, good messages about healthy sexuality out there for boys, but this distinctly unhealthy one is the loudest.)

Girls are taught that they should be sexually attractive (through the media), but that they must be the reigns on boys’ unharnessed sexual drives (through social pressures), or they will suffer horrible consequences (through religion, social pressures, and the media all rolled up in one terrifying message).

These uneven and highly mixed messages can wreak havoc on girls’ sexual choices, perceptions of herself and her body, and relationships with boys.

And to Flanagan’s second question: Can we somehow change or diminish among the very young the trauma of pregnancy, the occasional result of even safe sex?

I say: Of course. But we will have to change the media, social morals and pressures, and religion in order to effectively do so. I’m working on changing the media and social morals myself, and leaving religion to someone more inclined in that direction than myself.

So what do you think? What are your answers to Flanagan’s questions? And how do you think is the best way to go about addressing the problem? (Because I do think that everyone agrees that there is a problem.)

(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.) 

“You seem very open, honest, and liberal, but you depict your parents as fairly rigid and conservative. How much do you think your parents impacted who you are and how did they do that? I like the person you present yourself as and I sense that you like yourself as well. Do your parents like you as you are or do you hide most of what you have shared with us?”

As I mentioned in the response above, I think some of my attitude and outlook on life are simply the opposite of my parents because I saw them every single day and I wanted to be different. For instance, my parents are often late everywhere they go, so therefore I have a tendency to be early for everything. I think my parents impacted me a lot in some ways, mostly because I consciously tried to be different than they are. My parents know somewhat that I am do not hold their values, but not the scale of which I disavow their narrow-minded ideas. For instance, they do not know that I am bi-sexual. They do not fully realize that I have had sex. I did not even tell them I was dating someone for half a year.

“What do you think are the basic criteria for people (teens) to have and be competent at in order to be able to make a healthy decision to be fully sexual? When do you think teens are harmed by sex too early or with the wrong people? Have you seen much of the problems that can be created by inappropriately early sexuality or do you think there is such a thing as inappropriately early sexuality?”

I think that the age of sexual maturity (being able to make the decision to have sex for the right reasons, not just peer pressure or such) depends greatly on the individual person, the way they were raised, and their partner. I think both partners need to understand that although sex feels good on a physical and emotional level, there can be serious consequences no matter what form or forms of protection are used. They need to understand different forms of contraception and be comfortable with each other and themselves. It should not be a spur of the moment thing in my opinion, but something that is discussed with maturity. That said, I doubt very seriously that any teenage couples are really that prepared, myself and my girlfriend included! I think teens can easily be harmed by sex with the wrong person, especially if there is a large age gap or something else that gives one partner authority. That is not to say that a 15 year old and a 17 year old should not be having sex, again it comes back to the individual relationship. As for problems with early sexuality, I think they are often the same for sex at any age: unwanted pregnancy and STIs, etc. Also, I believe younger people in general have a higher risk of being emotionally scarred but when I think about it, and I have no experience with this, it seems like older people (i.e. Over 20) can be scarred as well from bad relationships, sexual or otherwise.

“Your girlfriend’s mom seems to have ‘come around’ and is coping adequately with your relationship. Do you think there is a down side to this arrangement? What would be the parameters you would want to set up today if you were the parent of a teenager yourself?”

If there is a downside, it would be that she sometimes seems overbearing about making sure we have birth control. I am fully capable of getting my own protection so it just gets annoying when she keeps asking if we need condoms, although I think she has realized in the past few months that I am capable of getting my own and has stopped asking. If I were a parent, I would want to be open about all matters of sexuality but also I would understand if they did not tell me when they started having sex or something like that. I would like to know their partners but also understand that this may not always happen. I think a parent of a teenager should be more of an advisor than a dictator, there at all times to talk but not to rule. However, as I get older my views may change but I hope to be a good father (of adopted children) one day.

Again, I really appreciate everyone who sent in questions, I really had to think about my answers! I enjoyed blogging here for the past two weeks and would like to do it sometime in the future if I or someone else can come up with ideas for new posts! Thanks to Karen for allowing me this opportunity, and if anyone still has questions, that e-mail address is still usable!

(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.) 

Although this post was originally supposed to be for Friday, I got so many good questions on Wednesday that I did not feel they would all fit in one post. That said, I am still open to more questions for the rest of today or until about 10 PM Eastern time. If you have questions, email me at justanotherteen@gmail.com.

I did not particularly ask people if they were OK with the use of their name with their question, so I will use caution and assume they wish to remain anonymous.

“I’m interested in your experience, and how you learned about masturbation … whether through self-exploration, or by being taught, either by another person, or from literature / porn.”

I have already said a brief amount about my masturbation experience, but not much, so I will go into more detail here. I started masturbating by rubbing on an old fleece jacket. I didn’t know what I was doing honestly, as I said I was extremely sheltered. Until I found jackinworld.com, I did not know what I was doing or how to “properly” do it, probably because I am circumcised and did not even think about lube. In my experience, I didn’t hear anything about it from others so I had no clue. Although many guys apparently share their knowledge of this pleasurable activity, I suppose I just did not have enough family members or friends close enough in age.

“Do you have any friends who are abstinent despite pressure to be otherwise? If so, why do you think they made that choice?”

As much as I should, I have not really talked to my friends about this matter. I am pretty sure many of them have never had sex but I do not know whether that is because of lack of opportunity or their own desire to abstain. Sorry I don’t have more information on this subject!

“Do you think that being in an all-male residential high school has had an impact on how you learned to relate with girls? Do you think it has been useful, or a hindrance?”

I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I live in an all-male school. In fact my school is open to both girls and guys, in separate monitored dorms. If I were in a single sex school, I would definitely think that would alter my ability to talk to girls. However, having lived the life that I have so far, I often have more female friends than male friends. I am by no means a player or anything, I simply have a strong feminine side in many ways and therefore relate better with females. That is actually one of the reasons I have such a strong relationship with my girlfriend. I am feminine in many of the same ways she is masculine and vice versa.

“So with uncommunicative parents and a rotten teacher at school, where did you get good information and a healthy attitude? What would you recommend to other teenagers in similar position.”

Looking back, it is really hard to tell where my attitude came from. I suppose it was partially because I wanted to be the opposite of my parents but more so because of the actions of my brothers, the Internet, and my life in a residential school. While my school itself is still rather conservative, living in a less supervised setting than at home as well as living with 300 other teenagers can lead to a large melting pot of ideas and values. The Internet also helped me learn about sex and masturbation before I arrived at school and likely laid the foundation for my current attitude. As for what I would recommend to other teenagers, remember to keep an open mind. Although the internet had laid the groundwork, I remember being shocked upon arrival at my school that they allowed an openly gay guy to be in a leadership position. My how my attitude has changed! I am now a member of our gay-straight alliance and I am wearing a new rainbow belt as I type this!

I apologize if this post does not seem as well put together as some others, but I only had about an hour to write this as opposed to more than a week for the rest! Thanks to everyone for the questions and comments/compliments. I have really enjoyed blogging here and love having an instant audience without having to build it myself!

(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.) 

As many great teachers as my school may have, there is one that I absolutely cannot stand. I was supposed to take Health Education in my sophomore year and I really wish I had. Unfortunately it would not fit in my schedule till my junior year. The coach that left at the end of my sophomore was a relative legend with the students. Despite being 70 years old, he had great relationships with students and was a very good coach. His version of teaching sex education as part of his class, according to other students, included having a table full of different contraceptive options on display and he would teach about all of them. Purportedly he sprayed spermicide all over the room on accident one day, and this was a room with carpet! Our next coach was not so open. In fact, he was quite the opposite. When it came time for reproductive health, it was clear that he was not at all comfortable with the subject despite having taught the material before at another school. He misspelled and butchered no less than five anatomical words, created a new hormone called proestrogen (progesterone), thought cervix was spelled cervex, and thought boys had a vas difernes (vas deferens), just to name a few. In addition to not being able to even say or spell the terms correctly, he refused to teach anything about contraceptives, saying that state law didn’t allow him to even give statistics. This didn’t sit well with me and I looked it up and printed an article that actually said the state requires contraceptive statistics to be taught. He blew this off in our class but I noticed he had made a poster with statistics on it for the next term of classes. Although I personally know enough about contraceptives to not be too worried about his refusal to teach us, I do worry for the others in the class that may have needed to know this information. As much as I think schools should be responsible for educating young teens about contraceptives, we know that some will not and totally ignore the fact. Even if you are not comfortable with the subject, I suggest finding some good information online and printing it for your son or daughter. It may be awkward, but it is far less so that finding out you are going to be a grandparent in a few months!

(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.) 

My father is a minister and has been since he was 17. I will not name the denomination but it is obviously a Christian one and saying my parents are conservative is like saying the galaxy is big. Therefore, you can probably guess about the extent of sex ed I got from my parents: not much. My family could never openly talk about sex. Ever.

My older brothers are 5 and 7 years older than me so they were almost out of the house before I was a teen, but I did realize they had sex before marriage, in fact my oldest brother has three children from two different mothers, but that is a side story. My parents decided it would be a good idea to use the “True Love Waits” program with my brothers. I am not sure if anyone else remembers it or is familiar with it, but basically it is a card that teens sign that is basically a “contract between them and God.” They then took my brothers out to a really expensive dinner when they turned 16 and gave them a TLW ring. This was their visual sign that they were set apart, blah blah, blah. Well, as I have already told you, they both broke these vows within two years.

As for my personal experiences with talking about sex and my parents, they were fairly non-existent. Their idea of a puberty talk was giving me a book. I was to young at that point to care so I chunked it in my closet. A year or two later I found it and read it all in one night because I was intensely curious about those matters finally. I had started masturbating but thought I was the only one on the planet who did such a thing. The book said nothing about it and I did not even know the term for it until I stumbled across a website called jackinworld.com. It let me know that what I was doing was perfectly normal and gave me tips to help along with a plethora of other articles. Unfortunately my parents found out I had been surfing on this website and put very strict parental filters on the computer. They had a talk with me about masturbation and said it was OK but they didn’t agree with a lot of stuff on that website. They didn’t offer to get me tissues or lotion or anything of the sort, they just said it was OK as long as my “mind was clean while doing it.”

After this incident, it was awhile before the subject of sex came up again. I was a bit of a late bloomer as I have previously discussed and did not get my first girlfriend until I was 17. Since I lived at school and with my brother a good bit of the year, and because I didn’t want to be lectured about the virtues of waiting for marriage, I neglected to tell my parents I had a girlfriend for 7 months. They still do not realize how serious we are and that we have been having sex for over a year and a half now. I find it sad that I cannot openly talk to my parents about things of this sort. If I did, there would be lots of crying and screaming involved. I already do not live with them so they cannot kick me out, but I imagine they may try if I was.

Please try to have a more open and accepting relationship with your children. Regardless of whether or not you agree with their decisions, they are not yours to make and your teenager will generally listen more if you don’t shove your morals down their throat.

P.S. I have only gotten one question for my post on Friday. I would really like to respond to more than one question with an entire post! If you have anything to ask about teen sexuality e-mail me at justanotherteen@gmail.com.

Thanks!

(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.) 

My girlfriend and I had been having sex for at least three months when finally we got caught. I was just about to go take a nice warm bath after we were done but we cuddled for a bit too long and her mom came in before she was dressed. This is where things broke down. She asked her why I was seeing her naked. Then she just started yelling, threatening to take her out of our school, threatening to do lots of things for no reason. Talking about how she couldn’t trust us anymore. Although it took awhile she eventually calmed down. Although she was not happy with it, she eventually realized that there was no way to really stop us and practically gave us her blessing. Why she had to yell and throw a fit in the first place is something I may never understand. Now she gives us space and privacy when we are together (which is not as often as I would like as she is at college four hours away). We are now allowed to sleep in the same bed at night and generally do whatever we wish to do as long as we are not to loud. I really appreciate how open her mom has become now and I think all parents should be that way. I do wish more parents would stop and think about their reaction if they catch their son or daughter. Yelling at us only put up a wall between us and her mom, and if anything would have made us more determined to get away with it without her permission had she persisted. Had she stopped to think instead of jumping all over us, we could have talked about it like rational adults.

Also remember that next Friday I will be answering any questions you have about teenagers and sex. So please e-mail me your questions! justanotherteen@gmail.com