Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

As you may remember, I’ve been writing my book this week. With my nose stuck deep into my computer keyboard for hours every day, I have found myself having fun with metaphors. And then suddenly I worried that I’m the only one who has any idea what I’m even saying. So I’d love for you to play a game with me: Does this metaphor even work?

————————-

The only way your teenager will stop start listening to you is if you stop talking.

There are a couple of common down-falls that parents make around this point. Some parents just get discouraged from lack of feedback. Other parents get overzealous and talk louder and longer, hoping that will help. Really, neither of these are good approaches. In order to fully maximize the influence your words and opinions have with your teenager, you need to minimize them.

Imagine a point you wish to make with your teenager as a balloon, the kind you find filled with helium at birthday parties. This is the point you want to make with your teenager. Imagine filling it up with helium  until and watching it bobs around nicely on the ceiling. You’re rather proud of your balloon-point. You think it is succinct and wise.

Now imagine the same event from the perspective of a teenager. Your parent has brought in this huge hot air balloon, and is rapidly blowing it up. It fills the entire room, and you’re pushed into your chair, and your chair is pushed up against the wall. The enormity of your parent’s balloon has overwhelmed you, and you’re not fully able to either grasp all of it or respond to something so enormous.

This illustrates the difference in perspective that I often see in teenagers and their parents about the same conversation. As a parent, you have to use your words and your thoughts very, very sparingly. Each single sentence that you say burrows down inside your teenager and wiggles around, bumping up against your teenager’s private thoughts and feelings. Use that power wisely and you fill find it has great effect.

————————-

And then, of course, regardless of whether it works, is it useful?

Last week I wrote about a book for pregnant teens, and said I wish I had something iron clad to recommend instead. I’ve thought about that over the ensuing week, and realized that while I don’t have one single book to recommend, I do have several that when put together I think might cover all the bases. Here they are, in no particular order:

You Look Too Young to be a Mom Edited by Deborah Davis. I’ve briefly recommended this one before, but it will always bear repeating. Frankly, I’m surprised looking back over my past entries that I haven’t yet devoted an entire post to this fabulous book. But never fear, Gentle Reader, that post will be forth-coming! The second line of the title really says it all: Teen Mothers Speak Out on Love, Learning, and Success. It’s a must-read for a young mama just starting her journey.

The Essential Hip Mama: writing from the cutting edge of parenting Edited by Ariel Gore and Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers Edited by Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender. These are both good follow-ups to Deborah Davis’s book, and cover much of the same ground. But teen mothers just can’t get enough real-life, supporting images of young mothers.

The Hip Mama Survival Guide by Ariel Gore. This one is a bit dated (it was published in 1998), but it’s still got some good punch to it. It’s really just a fabulously supportive guide for young parenting. It doesn’t cover all of the physical basics - like whether an infant having a fever of 101 is a problem or not - but it does a fabulous job of addressing the emotional hurdles that young mothers run into.

You might be able to tell that I like Ariel Gore’s stuff. Her fabulous, 15-year-old zine can be found here. And I loved this book - cried as I read it the first time because it resonated so strongly with me- called The Mother Trip: Hip Mama’s Guide to Staying Sane in the Chaos of Motherhood She also has a book about parenting teenagers which I found good, if not as fabulously grand as her parenting books for young parents.

After this, you need to move on to books for new parents regardless of their age. Here are some parenting books I really like and think should be staples on any parent’s bookshelf when their children are young:

You Are Your Child’s First Teacher by Rahima Baldwin Dancy. This is a fabulous book that talks about child development and how parents can ideally support it from birth through age six.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Arlene Hathaway, Sandee E. Murkoff, and Heidi Eisenberg. This is just a basic book for when a young mama has questions. If she likes it, there’s a whole series that’s decent. There are many others that will do in it’s place if this one doesn’t appeal. For example, The Pregnancy Book: A Month-by-Month Guide by William and Martha Sears will also provide quite nicely.

And then, because most of these books are written with the mother in mind, my favorite book to recommend to soon-to-be-Papas is The Expectant Father by Armin A. Brott and Jennifer Ash. This fabulous book goes into the details of how to become a daddy and a fabulous support for the soon-t0-be-mama. It’s the only book I take it upon myself to give to every soon-to-be father I know.

Hopefully this list will get you started on providing a fabulous library of parenting books for your favorite fabulous pregnant or parenting teen!

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.

Take a deep breath, folks, because I’m about to tell you about a book that is not going to shock or amaze you with the horrors of raising children or teenagers in today’s world. Rather, I am going to tell you about a book that endeavors to calm the frenzy that the media has whipped up and counters the hype with real information.

I am impressed with Rev. Haffner’s research-based approach to talking about what’s really going on with current teenagers’ sexual involvement. Rather than being sensationalistic, Rev. Haffner does a lovely job of taking relatively obtuse statistical information and breaking it down into meaningful chunks of information that non-statistician parents can easily understand.

After taking stock of the sexual activities teenagers are currently engaging in, Rev. Haffner puts those activities into a historical perspective. She suggests that not only are teenagers not sexually engaging to the degree that the media hype implies, but they are actually just doing what generations have done: shocking their elders by doing essentially the same things those same elders were doing when they were young. In other words, “Take a deep breath! You and your kids will probably be just fine.”

Finally, Rev. Haffner provides meaningful, respectful advice on how parents can move forward to engage their teenagers in a continuing conversation and parent-child relationship.

So I highly recommend What Every 21st-Century Parent Needs to Know. It will provide context and steps to move forward for most parents who are finding their relationships with their pre-teens and teenagers faultering.

This is a great book. The full title is actually: s.e.x.: the all-you-need-to-know progressive sexuality guide to get you through high school and college. That’s a pretty long title, but long book titles seem to be trendy these days. The title also sets up a pretty big goal for itself. Corinna goes most of the way towards meeting her goal. This is particularly notable because it’s hard for many adults to write for teenagers in a respectful, supportive, and on-task way.

The content of s.e.x. is informative and covers a pretty wide range of information relatively well. As a reader, you at least get an idea of whether you’re interested in finding out more and generally where you can go if you do want more. The book has much the same feel as Corinna’s extensive website, Scarleteen.com, which is currently celebrating it’s 10th anniversary.

The similarity between Scarleteen and s.e.x. actually underlines the only potential criticism that I have about either the book or the website: they aren’t terrible fun or engaging beyond the inherent nature of the subject matter. This is not necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of teenagers out there who just want information, and they don’t necessarily need or want it packaged in a fun or candy-coated wrapper. On the other hand, there are plenty of teenagers who don’t have the attention span to research or delve into a relatively informative (i.e., potentially dry) book or extensive website to find the piece of information they need. Rather, these teenagers want to browse through YouTube or sexetc.org and look at all the funny and sexy videos and are fine if they learn something on the side. Neither Corinna’s book nor her website will appeal to this group of teenagers.

So while Corinna’s s.e.x. isn’t for everyone, it can fulfill a fabulous need for many teenagers. And it is a great resource for parents to keep on the shelf at all times in case the teenagers in your house suddenly have a burning question about a particular sex-related topic. Hopefully it will keep them from simply googling “female ejaculation” because there are plenty of results from that search you probably wouldn’t want them delving into.

Rachel Brignoni set out to write a book to help pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers think through what they want in life and then go out and get it. And she stayed true to that goal throughout this little blue-covered book.

I really like Brignoni’s premise, her goal. Pregnant and parening teenagers need all the help they can get in finding their own footing in this very anti-pregnant-and-parenting-teens society of ours. I was a young mother, although not a teenage mother, and felt some of the public disapproval and negativity that actual teenage mothers feel at very high levels. I feel for these young women, and I am absolutely compelled to cheer on anyone who works to help them gain self-confidence and self-efficacy in their parenting abilities. And so, in that vein, I am absolutely delighted by Brignoni’s book. She’s done a great job of encouraging young women to trust themselves to be good parents and to go out and create a good life for themselves and their children.

Nevertheless (and you just had to know that was coming, didn’t you?), I am concerned the book won’t speak to many teenagers who actually get knocked up and decide to keep the baby. It’s a good book - it really is - but it doesn’t speak a language that most pregnant teenagers have ever heard before. So I worry that there aren’t many pregnant teenagers who will spend enough of their very limited time to get past Brignoni’s language in order to internalize her message.

For example, Brignoni includes a CD with the book that has a very heartfelt, very sweet, soft rock tribute to teenage mothers. And, of course, teenagers’ music taste varies widely, so it would be hard to find one song to reach them all. But these songs sound more like a generic Celine Dion than anything currently popular (like Lil Wayne, for example).

This is the problem throughout Brignoni’s book. While she is always looking to engage teenage mothers in deep conversation that will allow them to see themselves and their goals more clearly, she does so with a marked inability to reach out to teenagers where many of them are.

So for a teenager who can relate to the language found in adult self-help books, I recommend Brignoni’s Hope…Joy (and a Few Little Thoughts) for Pregnant Teens. And indeed, this may be the best option out there right now to help and support a pregnant teenager in getting a grip on her life and moving forward in a positive way. I just wish I had another option to suggest that spoke a bit more directly and productively to today’s pregnant teens.

This week is a week of books.  During the rest of the week I will review four very different books that have been sitting on my desk over the past few months.

I’m starting the week off Tuesday with Hope…Joy and a Few Little Thoughts for Pregnant Teens by Rachel Brignoni.  This is a book written to help pregnant teenagers take charge of their lives and move forward in their new role as mothers.

On Wednesday I’m going to review Heather Corinna’s book S.E.X.: The all-you-need-to-know progressive sexuality guide to get you through high school and college.  The title (or rather the very long subtitle) really says all the introduction you need here.

On Thursday I’ll review What Every 21st Century Parent Needs to Know: Facing Today’s Challenges with Wisdom and Heart by Rev. Debra W. Haffner.  Rev. Haffner is, among other qualifications, a UU minister and the author of one of my favorite blogs.  I’m looking forward to introducing you to her most recent parenting book.

On Friday I’m going to review the classic The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg.  This book is, indeed, a classic and ranks right up there with the Ophelia Project and The Women’s Room in terms of great feminist books to read.  But what does it have to say to parents?  Well, that’s what I’m going to tell you about.

Ready to be appalled?

The big story that’s been making the rounds on lots of blogs this week is about a new book coming out that explains mom’s upcoming plastic surgery to kids in much the same way that other books explain going to the dentist or non-standard family organization. You can find more about the book here.

There are so many things that are wrong with this book it’s hard for me to know where to begin.

Let’s start with women’s poor self-esteem that they feel their bodies must look pre-children even post-children. Our bodies change with the birth of our children, often irrevocably. But women feel that they have to stay “young” and “attractive” within a very narrow definition, and so they have plastic surgery. This is a dreadful psychological game to play, and can have serious side effects (up-to-and-including death, because plastic surgery can be a serious operation).

Let’s move on to the permanent distortion of a child’s self-image and understanding of beauty that comes with deciding to (for example, as the book explains) re-shape your body to fit into your clothes rather than get new clothes to shape your body. Or let’s take the phrase “Not just different - prettier!” that describes what the mother will look like after a tummy tuck, a nose job, and breast implants. The body image issues that this book plants deep inside young girls’ heads are outrageous!
One person Newsweek interviewed suggested that rather than basing the surgery on the need to augment the mother’s physical beauty, the storybook mama should have said something along the lines of “It’s silly, but I want to do it anyway, so I’m going to.” At least that’s slightly more honest.

Because what I am working always to teach children and teenager is that one can have a tummy bulge and saggy breasts and still be beautiful. Expanding our culture’s image of beauty is where our focus with our children needs to be - not justifying the lack of balance and understanding.

So while I have not actually read the entirety of My Beautiful Mommy by Dr. Michael Salzhauer (just the excerpts from the Newsweek website), I feel absolutely confident in saying it’s a book that should never be read to actual children.

Of course, I wish that there were no children who had need to know why their mothers are going in for surgery and will look different (maybe prettier, maybe not) afterwards. But when mothers give up on their own, natural physical beauty and buy into the customized, unified, stereotypical version and get plastic surgery, I’m with Elizabeth Berger, the child psychiatrist who suggests that mothers just own up to wanting something silly and presenting it to their children in such a light.

Okay, I am diverging from this week’s regularly scheduled blog posts again. I’ll have to return to them next week.

Last night rumors swirled around a community of adults about one young woman’s theoretical, or rumored, sexual activities.

It’s unclear how the rumors got started, or whether there is any truth to them. No one knows if any of this young woman’s peers have any knowledge of the rumor. No one wants to continue to spread the rumor by asking any of her peers. No one wants to make things worse by asking the young woman herself.

The only thing that is really crystal clear to me right now is that there is one rather freaked out mom who is now mentally going over every conversation and nuance from the past three months.

I am so disappointed by all of this. All of the people who I have talked with are basically good people. They certainly don’t want to be spreading rumors, they want to be stopping rumors. But there is good reason to believe that by trying to stop the rumor, it is being spread.

Rumors about sexuality can have serious, long-term repercussions for preteen and teenage girls. Leora Tanenbaum’s book Slut! Growing up female with a bad reputation catalogues this experience thoroughly.

Almost everyone knew a “slut” in middle school or high school. Some of you may have been labeled that yourself. Others may have been saddled with other sexual labels that held little truth to them (dyke, fag, etc.). But the point that really stuck with me in Tanenbaum’s book was that many, many young women who are labeled a “slut” have had very little sexual experience - often less than their peers.

I tell other adults that young women labeled a slut often are not, and they rarely believe me. They say, “Well, that might be true for some girls, but the slut in my high school…well…you wouldn’t believe what she did!” Often these adults, long out of high school, suddenly catch themselves at this point. They wonder aloud if that girl actually did have sex with the entire football team in one night. They realize that, in fact, she probably didn’t, because anyone having sex with that many people in one night by choice is highly unlikely. They suddenly wonder about their own unintentional part in continuing false and painful rumors about an unaware and awkward teenager.

Now I wonder about the adults who are talking about the young woman I mentioned earlier. I wonder if they have examined their unintentional part in extending this rumor. There is a salaciousness in talking about adolescent sexuality, both as an adolescent and as a parent, but for different reasons. I like this young woman. She’s strong, she’s interesting, and she’s fun to be around. I hope the rumor ends without her peers hearing about it. I hope that this young woman is blessed by passing into young adulthood with no other sexual rumors marring her experience.

But if I am being honest, I have very little faith that she will be so blessed. Very few women are.

This seems to be a book-centered week, so I’m giving into the flow and review another book (or a series of books, actually) that I really like and use often. Greg Friedler is a photographer who created these three books. He has two pictures of each person in his books: one fully clothed in street clothes, the other fully naked. The person’s age and their career are the only personal information provided. This is a really stunning series, and provides huge insights into bodies. I highly recommend it for teenagers and pre-teenagers who are curious about naked bodies. (You can see some of the pictures from the series on Friedler’s website.)

In the introduction to Naked New York, Friedler says:

I am often asked why people participated in this project. This is a valid question in a project where the participants show up with the knowledge that they are going to take off their clothes and be photographed by a complete stranger without receiving any monetary compensation. I believe they participate for a number of reasons. I think that a lot of people in New York (and elsewhere) are starving for attention. The people in this project enjoy the fact that they have my full attention and that I am attempting to connect with them on some level.

I really like the books partially because I feel like I am connecting with the people Friedler photographed. Seeing someone naked is intensely personal, and being able to spend some time noticing the little differences between how people hold themselves clothed and naked is an intriguing way to spend an afternoon.

All of the teenagers who I have shown this book have been fascinated by it. They have serious questions about what people look like naked - both of their own gender and the other gender. There are not many places where these serious questions can find serious answers that are not too arty (that can put teenagers off) and are not too sexual (that’s not the point of their questions, generally). The people in these pages have a wide variety of body types, are of all different ages, and many walks of life. It’s just perfect for the purpose.

I have found that these books are really must-haves for sexuality education classes. I think they should be must-haves for homes with pre-teens and teenagers as well.