Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

The Body Project is a great book to give you a historical understanding of how American society developed to the point where girls are obsessed with their bodies.

The story begins with how the time-line of reproductive development has changed over many years from the mid-teens to late-childhood.

The Body Project goes on to discuss menstruation, and how it was originally an extremely intimate experience that girls did not talk about. Ideally, however, 150 years ago menstruation was part of an intimate mother-daughter experience and something of a coming-of-age experience in the mid-to-late-teens. Over the years, as diets and lifestyles became healthier and women had fewer children, girls began menstruating earlier and more often (because they were not sick or pregnant as often) and male doctors became involved in the process. As doctors took over, they encouraged girls to use the new, and “cleaner” commercially sold pads rather than the rags their mothers and grandmothers used. Over time, menstruation became something that was talked about comparatively easily in the public square, or at least among girl friends, and is highly commercialized, where the majority of the conversation is about what products girls use - “What brand of pad, tampon, and cramps alever do you use?”

The book goes on to chronicle other body obsessions, including the search for perfect skin and the barbed issues around appropriate public sexuality, lack of sexual activity, and virginity. It’s a great read - and particularly poignant and meaningful for parents of daughters who are about to make the transition into puberty.

Many adults - perhaps all adults? - look back on at least one thing they did in a relationship as a preteen, teenager, or young adult and are embarrassed. They regret their actions and the pain they caused someone they professed to care about.

My regret? I was in 9th grade, and dating a truly lovely young man who lived several hundred miles away. And one day I kissed a local boy. One time. I felt horrible, and immediately admitted to my 14 year old infidelity. (From my description you can tell I am continuing to beg: “Forgive me! I still feel badly about the pain I caused!”) Now I can look back and sigh at the pain I caused, and admire my young boyfriend for his forgiveness and continued friendship until we drifted apart just a few years ago.

However, five years after The Event, my new boyfriend (NB) become good friends with my old boyfriend’s best friend (BF). The BF could not get over my five-years-old kiss. He crucified me, in ways small and large, in front of me and behind my back, to my NB. The BF demanded that I give cause for my actions - answer the question: Why had I cheated?

I don’t really remember how I responded to his question at the time. And now as I think back on that kiss, I still don’t have a clear answer. I was young. I was immature. I was taken by the moment and did not fully appreciate the lovely young man who was my boyfriend.

But is that enough of an answer? It can’t erase, or even explain, the pain I caused.

At the risk of sounding too Sex In The City:

Is immaturity an answer to why we did things when we were young? Can our friends and lovers through the years expect a deeper answer from us?

And to apply that answer (or excuse) to those heroic young people who are currently teenagers: Should they be called upon to answer “Why?” of their social and emotional wrongs?

Or is it perhaps enough to admit wrong-doing, at any age, and to endeavor to learn from it?

What do you think?

Today is Part 4 in this series on sex as a privilege for which there are responsibilities, and I will focus on the social responsibilities. You can read the introduction in part 1, the physical responsibilities in part 2, and the relational responsibilities in part 3.

(As a side note, I am in the process of preparing the syllabus for a graduate course I will be teaching at the University of Texas this summer, and am trying to resist the urge to sound professor like. Please excuse me if I fail.)

Sex in all it’s forms is generally considered a private act. And really, those who prefer sex to be a public act can generally be put aside, because it is often hard enough for a teenager to gather the courage to be sexual in front of their sex partner, much less strangers in a voyeuristic context.

Nevertheless, the sexual relationship that teenagers choose to enter - or choose not to enter - are often critical to their social spheres. And so it is a very delicate balancing act for a teenager between allowing it to be known that they are engaging sexually with someone or not. And while it may seem harmless enough at the time to mention last night’s hook-up to a best friend, the results can spin out of control far more quickly than one might imagine.

What this means is that teenager lovers and sex partners must come to an agreement about who else can know about a sexual relationship. With the understanding that everyone needs someone to talk with outside of a relationship, but that those people must be chosen with attention.

This responsibility can be summed up nicely this way: You have a responsibility to attend to the gossip and social harm that might come to your sexual partners due to your words.

A teenager’s room is like their whole house, squished into a much smaller space.  This is where the teenager does pretty much everything - sleep, work, socialize.

Given how present the room is in a teenager’s life, it is important to let the teenager have ownership of the room.  This often means redecorating - maybe several times over the teen years because of the swiftness with which teenagers develop and evolve.  It’s good to let this happen, within your family’s financial and physical boundaries.

A friend wanted to paint his room an extremely deep purple as a teenager.  His dad said no, but let him put in a very, very purple carpet.

A teenage friend wanted to paint his room black.  Yes, black.  He and his mom agreed to paint it gray to look like a stone wall and putting up a few gargoyles.

These were both good compromises because the teenager was involved.  Another adult friend came home one day as a teenager to find that her parents had completely remodeled her room.  They had done it out of kindness, and she was able to admit years later that she actually preferred the room to her previous one, but at the time she felt like a visitor, a guest in her own room.

Teenagers have ownership of so few spaces - they need to feel ownership in their own room.  It is, in many emotional and physical ways, their cocoon and their sanctuary.  Let them fully own it while they’re living in it!  You’ll get it back eventually.

I recently spoke with a group of parents of second graders. They asked me to come and talk about how/when to talk with their children about sex and the myriad issues associated with it. They also wanted some assistance to help them come together into a cohesive group for the many years of parenting children in the same class (the school is a small private one, and many of these parents expect their children to be together through high school).

Many of the parents have contacted me since the meeting, saying how much they feel they gained from the discussion. Points I have heard from these parents include:

• feeling more connected to the other parents
• feeling more confident in raising the subject of sex with their children
• having a better understanding of an appropriate trajectory of learning about sexuality
• having increased understanding of how current teenagers are tending to engage sexually

However, the most interesting point came from one mother who has talked with me about adolescent sexuality before. She reiterated, in one way or another, all of the comments above, that other parents have said as well. But then she went on to say that through our conversations she has come to understand her own path of learning about sexuality and her own sexual history in more clarity, and she thanked me specifically for helping her along that path.

As parents raise their children, they often come face-to-face with their own paths. This is particularly true of issues of sex and sexuality, because these topics are so personal and often not discussed openly. What this means is that when sexuality does start to become openly discussed - perhaps for the first time when a parent is explaining and teaching their child - strong memories and emotions can surface.

Traversing these pathways can be difficult. If you feel you or your group of parent friends would benefit from me coming and talking you through some of these steps, please do not hesitate to contact me.   I talk with parents of children of all ages, and I would love to support your process of increasing sexuality education in the home.  I can meet with you in person or by phone.

(Written by Guest Blogger Mrs. Y.)

A commenter on yesterday’s post makes some very good comments about adolescence as a social construct.  I couldn’t agree more that people tend to mature when society prepares them to and that teens can indeed take on adult challenges successfully.  Unfortunately, we live in a society that doesn’t seem to give particular value to maturity.  Every age is built around a lowest common denominator of some kind, and ours gives short shrift to delayed gratification.  Teens who grow up in a society where they are expected to do adult work and take on adult responsibilities before they can enjoy adult perogatives mature faster.

But in the world we inhabit right this second, how should parents help adolescents make the leap into adulthood?

In general, I believe that the more clearly the boundaries are defined between childhood and adulthood, the more incentive a teen has to grow up.  Defining the boundaries includes establishing the distinction between child and adult privileges as well as an understanding of which processes a child must undergo to become an adult.  For example, in my parents’ home, it was made clear to me that within a reasonable period after high school graduation I would be expected to either physically move out or begin contributing financially to the household.  I also knew that none of the privileges of adulthood (such as the ability to have a boyfriend sleep over in my room) would be accessible to me in their home.  While many adult perquisites were available to me as I earned them - I earned the right to curse in front of my parents when I assumed responsibility for operating a lawn mower and then entered the part-time workforce, just as I earned the right to set my own hours for homework and sleep when I consistently earned good grades and got myself ready for school on time - I had a very clear sense of what I would have to do to be considered an adult in my parents’ eyes.  The fact that I was sexually active was not a factor in my parents’ thinking about my adolescent rights in their home.  While my mom made clear that they loved me and would help me if I needed it, she also made it clear that the mere fact of me boinking my boyfriend was not itself grounds for considering me an adult.  Adulthood would come when I assumed personal and financial responsibility for my own food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, and not before.

So what’s a parent do?  Well, you should have already given them the basics about puberty and human reproduction.  If you haven’t, do it or get someone you trust to do it.  Get a book.  Rent videos from your church lending library.  WhatEVER, just do it, no matter how much it makes you feel like a bozo.  And then:

• Articulate the distinctions between adolescence and adulthood to your kids.  Make it clear that responsible adult behavior, not aping adult vices, is the path to greater freedom and respect in your household.
• Recognize and reward adult behavior with adult privileges.  Give a later curfew or more access to the car to a teen who assumes greater responsibility for household duties and child or elder care.  Accept your academically self-motivated teen as the prime mover in decisions about selecting and funding his or her higher education.
• Recognize and teach your teen to respect the legal limits to his or her adult privileges.  Make sure the teen understands his or her responsibilities (and your legal responsibilities as the parent of a minor) as they pertain to driving, sexuality, drinking, smoking, drug use, and lottery tickets.
• Accept the fact that your teen has a life apart from you and that you cannot control his or her behavior 24 X 7.  At regular intervals, at least once a year as your teen ages, decide for yourself what you think is important enough to make an issue of and what you will just let go.
• Don’t be afraid to raise value-based questions about your teen’s sexual and social behavior.  If you have life lessons of your own to share, err on the side of giving too much information.  Even if your teen overtly rejects you, your example and your honesty will stay in his or her mind.
• Do not deny your teen food, shelter, clothing, transport, or expressions of love because of his or her sexual behavior.  Draw a clear distinction between your absolute love for your child and your feelings about his or her sexuality. 

Remember: your goal is to raise an adolescent who will make adult choices in your absence, not one who will be so helpless without (or resentful of) adult intervention that s/he does stupid and dangerous things in the wild.  Your goal is to raise an adult with a backbone who is capable of informed self-preservation.  Now go forth and do good.  And if you want more of this kind of advice - or ideas on how to broach sexuality topics with kids - come see me at Stork! Stork!.  Karen, thanks for letting me play with your blog!

(Written by Guest Blogger Mrs. Y.)

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about how parents can help their adolescent spawn establish themselves as adults, including in matters of the heart and, uh, other parts.  But today I want to talk about why I don’t think teenagers are adults.  Obviously I draw a distinction between teens living under the economic protection and supervision of a competent parent/guardian and, say, a 19-year-old soldier or a 16-year old emancipated minor or a 15-year old being raised by wolves - but that’s more in terms of their rights and needs than in terms of the havoc that nature wreaks upon them.

Psychologists don’t agree on all the factors that define adolescence, but three stand out: the increased significance of the peer group to the adolescent, the search for identity, and the development of advanced capacity for abstract thinking, which is frequently outpaced by rapid social and emotional development.  I posit (based on my medical degree from The Mommy Institute and my reading) that life events during this stage rewire more neural pathways than they do in adulthood because the brain is still developing so wildly in teens.

So no matter what happens to you or what you do when you’re an adolescent, these things don’t make you an adult; they simply shape the man or woman you will ultimately become.  Not all adults are good examples of adulthood by this definition - we all know plenty of 30 and 40-somethings in identity crisis, or people who can’t deal outside their own generational cohort, or people with no abstract thinking skills or social and emotional skills like a third grader.  We also know that those adults are lacking, and who wants their kids to be like those guys?

I could expand upon this topic endlessly, but since Karen’s blog is about adolescent sexuality I will confine myself to sexuality.  Adolescent bodies, social instincts, and emotions develop way faster than their ability to envision realistic consequences or incorporate abstractions (like value systems) into their decision-making processes.  Every physical response we take for granted in our adult selves (I will get an erection if I am in close proximity to someone I find attractive, I will want to reach out and touch the boy who looks at me with adoration and desire in his eyes) is a novel experience in adolescence.  Adults learn and can to some degree forecast the impact of these physical gestures and phenomena, but teens are just learning the power of a caress.

Parents of earth: if you confine sex ed to what the school offers or a quick discussion of adolescent effluvia, personal hygiene, and tab a meets slot b, you are just asking for your kids to develop their ideas of appropriate adult sexuality from porn, literature (heaven forfend!), your life mistakes, their friends, and/or (insert name of scary pop culture figure here).  See you tomorrow!

(Written by Guest Blogger Mrs. Y)
Not so long ago - or so it seems to me - I was an adolescent and chock full of sexuality.  Now I am a suburban mom with a full-time day job, and getting my middle-aged freak on seems a lot less important to me in the cosmic scheme of things than it did.  Oh, and I found Jesus.  So I’m probably not a natural fit to guest host Karen’s blog, except for one thing: my conservative parents did a good job of teaching me about the birds and the bees when I was a kid, so I see it as part of my spiritual calling to help other parents do the same for their kids.  Y’all can duke it out with some other blogger about condoms or abstinence ed in schools - all I want personally is that the schools should accurately teach kids anatomy and reproduction facts about humans the way they do (or would if we were getting adequate time for life sciences in schools, but that’s another story) about frogs and guinea pigs.  My point is that parents are just as responsible for their kids’ sex ed as they are for teaching them to brush their teeth and follow the Golden Rule.  Since many parents don’t have a good model for doing that, my goal is to supply one.  That’s my project over at Stork! Stork!, at least when I remember to update it.

My own offspring are very much still kids (ages 10, 8, and 5), but I remember how it felt to come of age.  I don’t mean adolescence - after all, sexual feelings don’t abruptly kick in at puberty out of nowhere. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I personally don’t remember a time when sexuality wasn’t part of my frame of reference.  I always knew it was out there, and I couldn’t wait to be old enough and try it, like the dregs of my mom’s coffee, or the magazines on my dad’s dresser, or their cigarettes and books.  As soon as I hit escape velocity (physical maturity factored with loosening of parental restrictions on where I went and with whom, about 15) I was raring to go.  But my parents still kept fairly tight tabs on my hours and deportment, and I had a demanding academic schedule.  After a couple of long-term relationships with lots of “everything but,” I lost my virginity at almost seventeen with a guy my age who I met at a summer camp.  We went steady for our whole senior year and agreed to split up when we went out separate ways to college.  I went on to a career of serial monogamy (with sexual adventures on the side as a hobby) until my mid-twenties, when I had some life-changing experiences that dramatically changed my perspective on the place of my sexual self-expression in my overall life.  But that’s another story …
 
(I told my mom I was having sex a couple of months into the relationship when I feared I might be pregnant.  She was understanding.  She took me to the doctor.  She paid for my birth control pills.  But the boy still wasn’t allowed into my room unchaperoned, my curfew didn’t change, and when I complained about our lack of privacy, she was like, “What, you want me to get you a hotel room?  Tough!  Adulthood has its privileges, honey.  You will earn them with age.”  Contrast this with my boyfriend’s parents, who never told him word one about sex except to ask him once if we were having sex and recommend that he use latex condoms instead of ones from sheepskin, or something - and that was it.  I kind of wonder what he’s planning to tell his kids about sex.)
 
Adolescent sexuality is the forging ground for adult sexuality.  In the mainstream, secular context most of us inhabit, this leads us to focus on issues like preventing STDs and unwanted pregnancies that can derail a teen’s future, or prevent the development of hang-ups that can keep adults from taking full pleasure in their sex lives.  But helping teens take the final developmental steps into adulthood is more than a matter of teaching them good hygiene - it’s a matter of modeling the virtues that you want them to carry forward into their lives as adults.  That means talking honestly at home about the impact of sexuality and sexual self-expression on others, even in terms of (gulp!) the parents’ own choices as teens and beyond.
 
Tomorrow: You Are So Totally Not Grown-Up Yet

Yesterday I posted the first half of my interview with Sarah Dopp about her gender and sexual identity. We spoke about how she defines herself and how that has developed through her life and within her social networks. Today we talk about family.

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KR: Have you talked with your parents about your gender and sexual identity?

SD: Unfortunately, my dad died from a terminal illness before I was ready to talk to him about this stuff. I still wonder how those conversations would have gone. But my mom is incredible. We’ve talked so much about gender and sexuality, and every time we listen to each other, we both grow. She loves me deeply and she’s made a lot of space for me to be myself.

KR: How have those conversations gone?

SD: Now? They’re wonderful. But I’ll be honest — it’s taken a lot of work to get here. When I was fifteen and I had my first girlfriend, my mother asked me if I was a lesbian. I told her I thought I was bisexual, and she responded, “Bisexuality is bullshit.” That comment hurt me so much deeper than she intended it to. I became convinced that she’d never understand me, and I closed off the conversation for seven years after that. Later, she approached me about it again and started asking questions with openness and acceptance. Our conversations became messy and difficult, but they were always full of love, and we talked ourselves into a more healthy relationship. Her insistence on loving me exactly as I am has made it possible for me to feel comfortable in my skin today. I don’t know where I’d be without her.

KR: What about your extended family? Coming out to parents is often stressful to teenagers and young adults, but coming out to siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc can be much harder or much easier depending on the circumstances. How have those conversations gone for you?

SD: Yeah, that’s a hard one. My extended family is big and scattered. Half of them are liberal and half of them are conservative. But they all love me. Most of them have accepted that I’m ambiguously different and generally prefer not to talk about it. I’ve come out to almost all of them in one way or another — usually in the least confrontational way possible — and I’m giving them space to make sense of it. What matters most to them is who I’m going to bring home for Christmas. If I start seeing a man, then they’ll think of me as straight. If I take a female partner, then they’ll think of me as a lesbian. They just want to be happy, and in their eyes, happiness is a healthy marriage. I might never get married, but I’m not asking them to accept that right now. I’m just grateful to have a family that loves me, and I try not to mess with their heads too much. (It helps that I live on the other side of the country.)

KR: What is the best possible reaction a parent could have when their teenager or young adult child comes out as gay or bisexual? Why?

SD: Trust them to know themselves better than you can know them, and accept whatever they tell you as their truth. Even if it changes, it’s still their truth. Try to think of gender and sexuality as fluid things — they can change and evolve and that’s okay. Try not to get attached to labels. Check in with yourself, and ask yourself honestly if you love and accept your child exactly as they are. If you do, then communicate that to them every time you interact with them, and tell them it’s important to you that they love themselves. But if something about your child’s identity feels wrong or unfortunate or misguided to you, consider the possibility that you’re hearing from some of your own baggage, and that you don’t need to pass that onto your child. Find an LGBT-friendly cognitive-behavioral therapist for yourself (before you find one for your kid), and work through the parts of your reactions that feel blocked. And spend some time getting educated. Read books on the subject, or find someone who specializes in educating parents about adolescent sexuality. I happen to know a great one in Austin.

KR: What is the worst possible reaction a parent could have when their teenager or young adult child comes out as gay or bisexual? Why?

SD: LGBT youth have a frighteningly high suicide rate, so I have a very firm belief on this one: If you withhold love, acceptance, or privileges from your child in ANY WAY as a result of their gender or sexuality, you are putting their life at risk. You DO NOT have the power to change them, but you do have the power to influence their desire to live. It’s a hard and real truth. Take this responsibility very seriously.

KR: Thank you so much, Sarah! I think your insights have much to add to the conversation and to support parents of current questioning teenagers and young adults. Any last words you want to leave us with?

SD: Wow, I ended up going down some pretty serious paths there, didn’t I? That feels strange because my life is usually pretty joyful these days. I think it’s important to remember that there are as many different genders and sexualities as there are people in the world. The labels we use are just a short-hand for describing patterns, and sometimes they don’t cover everything. I believe in the inherent worth of all individuals, and I believe there’s no such thing as “too much love.” And also… when we learn to relax our grip on the categories, I’ve found that life becomes a whole lot more fun.

I recently met the delightful 24-year-old Sarah Dopp. Sarah’s understanding of gender and sexuality has developed over the years into a delicate balancing act between male and female, gay and straight. Sarah generously agreed to an interview to provide some insight into the path of defining sexuality when the standard road maps don’t make sense.

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KR: Sarah, can you introduce yourself a little? What would you say in an internet dating ad?

SD: [chuckles] The title of my most recent dating ad was “Androgynous Queer Girl seeks Androgynous Queer Boy.” Inside, it said, “I’m looking for someone to go on adventures with. Someone who knows how to laugh at the line-painters and make forts out of the boxes with sticks and sheets.” I guess you could say I’m playful.

I’m 5′10″ and I have a shaved head. I’m built like a man from the knees down and the shoulder blades up, but the middle of my body is made up of a woman’s curves. If I’m dressing down, my clothes are gender-neutral. If I’m dressing up, I mix and match feminine and masculine clothes and accessories until I feel like I’ve struck a perfect balance. I happen to be single right now, and my dates cover the spectrum of gender pretty thoroughly — from manly men to feminine women to transgendered people and androgynous folk. There are so many flavors of beauty in the world.

KR: How do you define your gender and your sexuality? Can you explain how that plays out in “real life” terms?

SD: I identify as queer. The word resonates with me and seems to describe both my gender and my sexuality, which are two separate things. I understand that a lot of people are still uncomfortable with that word, though, so I try to be flexible. You can call me bisexual or androgynous, and I’ll believe you understand who I am. If you live in a world where there are only two categories for gender or sexuality, you can put me in whichever one feels most comfortable to you. I usually won’t argue.

How does this play out in real life? It’s interesting. I get called “sir” a lot in public, but everyone who knows me understands that I’m female. Most people assume I’m a lesbian except for the men I date, and they’re often convinced that I’m straight. I’ve learned to stop taking it all personally and to go just go with the flow.

KR: So you’re single now, but have been in relationships with both men and women. Tell me a little bit about how your relationships have gone. Would you say that once you’re in a relationship that it follows a relatively standard path - something that would be familiar to most people?

SD: I’ve had several long-term relationships that were standard enough to make everyone in my family breathe a sigh of relief. There’s a sense that I’ll become more “normal” — or at least fit categories better — if I’m in a stable relationship, because it’s easier for people to understand. But I’ve also been in relationships where we both intentionally agreed to be non-monogamous or nontraditional in some way, and where that turned out to be a healthy arrangement for both of us. Those relationships are much harder to explain to the outside world.

KR: When did you first start feeling different from the standard girl?

SD: My mother has told me she suspected I was gay from the time I was six, but I don’t think I felt different until middle school, when all of a sudden “being pretty” mattered to everyone I knew. That’s when I noticed I was awkward. Really really awkward. That’s all I could understand at the time.

KR: How do feel your teen years were affected by your orientation? Did you acknowledge your difference or not?

SD: My orientation confused the heck out of me. I had crushes on boys, so that meant I wasn’t a lesbian. But sometimes I had crushes on girls, too, and I sort of looked like a lesbian, so that must have meant I wasn’t straight. I wasn’t taught that there were more than two categories for these things, and I really thought I was doomed to feel “invalid” for my entire life. To top it all off, the first boy I had a crush on turned out to be gay, and my first girlfriend later transitioned to male. The most I could really do was acknowledge that I was “weird” and embrace that.

KR: Do you think your peers were aware of the difference? If so, how did they react?

SD: Yep. They knew me as the “weird” kid, too. In middle school, I was the butt of way too many jokes, and I’m still surprised sometimes that I made it out alive. I became so severely depressed that I actually attempted suicide my first year of high school. After that, my life shifted, though. My weirdness morphed into some strange kind of social charisma, and people started to tell me that they envied me. I was different, I knew it, and I embraced it. Turns out, that’s what everyone else in high school wants to do, too.

KR: And what about your peers, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances these days? How do they generally react upon meeting you, and as they get to know you and your gender and sexual identity more intimately?

SD: Well, the whole “shaved head” thing seems to put my queerness out on the table before we have a chance to discuss it. People either make assumptions about me (which are sometimes wrong) or they start asking questions right away. I’m a friendly person who genuinely likes people, so I think people feel at ease around me even if they’ve never talked to a queer person before. When they begin to learn more about me, I find that they can either accept my “middle grounds” or they can’t. If they can’t, it’s because of their belief system, and that has nothing to do with me. They’re usually still polite about it.

KR: Is there anything more you’d like to say about how you define yourself in these terms or how that has impacted your peer or romantic relationships?

SD: In some ways, my queerness makes my world very big — I can shift my appearance to meet people’s expectations, and nearly every friend has the potential to make me fall in love with them. But in other ways, my world is very small. I know there are other people out there like me, and too many of them are hiding in shame.

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Tomorrow Sarah and I continue our interview, with Sarah speaking more directly to her family.