Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

The Dinah Project recently had a post about how to carry a condom, and ended the post with a good argument for why girls should carry their own condoms. It’s a good post. Straightforward, interesting, and educational. You should forward it on to the teenagers you know, so they’ll be one step closer to using condoms correctly.

Here’s a few excerpts from the post:

To this day, carrying condoms in wallets and back pockets are common choices for men. It needs to be said that fantasies aside, your luck with shine through so much better when your contraceptive is intact. There is something to be said for not having to fumble around for a condom when the time comes, but pulling out a shabby, old prophylactic isn’t going to impress a soul.

…

Besides all this logic and practicality, sharing the condom load between the sexes inspires other creative benefits. For example, it can be the ultimately cool way to overcome the awkwardness of covering the bill in these times when having him pay up just doesn’t always feel right. Dinner is on him, condoms are on you. Well, sort of.

So go read the whole post! You might learn something, and you can pass that knowledge on to so many people in so many places!

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.

Conventional wisdom suggests that teenage boys have one thing on their minds. And it’s not history class. Statistics that support this theory abound: Teenage boys have testosterone surges multiple times a day. Teenage boys think about sex an average of every 28 seconds. The theories go on.

A study was recently published in the Journal of Adolescence called “I wanted to get to know her better”: Adolescent boy’s dating motives, masculinity ideology, and sexual behavior. (The first thing this proves, of course, is academics’ inability to create a short and snappy title.) The results from this study suggested that, while teen boys are not dis-interested in the physical, they are at least as interested, if not more interested, in building a good relationship with someone they really liked.

I like this study. I like it when researchers try to get past the conventional, stereotypical assumptions that inhabit most of our world and find out what’s really going on. I like it that they tried to create a study that actually got to know teenage boys rather than pigeonhole them.

Do I put substantial weight on the results of the study? Honestly, as a researcher and a statistician, I’m not sure.

Why did this study come up with different results from so many others? Can the results be replicated? What’s the researcher biased? Were the questions slanted? Is there a peer-group effect going on here? Basically, I want the differences between this research and past research and conventional wisdom explained before I jump excitedly on-board and start singing the results from the rooftops.

However, as a parent and a sex educator, I absolutely put substantial weight on the results of this study. I choose to believe that all people have the best possible motivations for their actions, including teenage boys.

It is critical that we interact with teenage boys with the assumption that they want high quality, mutually satisfying, and emotionally supportive romantic relationships.

Teenage boys are much more likely to live up to our assumptions and expectations of them than to put their own personal expectations far higher than those we set. This is really true of most people in most situations.

As parents of teenage girls this does not mean, of course, that we let every boy who comes over stay the night in our daughter’s bedroom because he probably means well. But it does mean that we treat him and his relationship with our daughter with respect and approval.

Teach teenage boys how to engage respectfully by respecting them. Assume the best of them so that they can assume the best of you. Get to know the teenage boys in your life so that they will want to get to know you.

Forget the statistics about teenage boys when you meet an actual teenage boy. Because when you do, there will be one individual standing in front of you. Maybe he is average. Maybe he is not. Regardless, the only way to know for sure is to get to know him.

Last week, the New York Times posted two stories I think are interesting enough to share with you.

The first: You’re 16, You’re Beautiful and You’re a Voter is about the enfranchisement of teenagers. The basic gist is that teenagers do better when their rights and privileges are gained slowly over time. This has, for example, well with drivers’ licenses in many places. The author is suggesting we do something similar with other rights, primarily with voting. Those younger than 18 would be able to gain the right to vote by completing a course in civics - while maintaining the principle that anyone older than 18 could vote. I like the idea. I like stair-stepping rights and privileges, and I like the idea of enfranchising young people earlier, as they show they are ready and able.

The second: The Vanishing Point is about a recent trend - say the last 5 years? - in male models going from a grown 6 foot man packing some good muscles to a relative waif with absolutely no fat and essentially no body tone. These male models now look far more like their female counterparts - they look like a thin veneer of skin hanging on a bone frame. These male models are now starving themselves, actively loosing muscle, in the same way that female models have done for many years. I find the perspective in the article repugnant - that male models are just going where female models have been for some time now (to the androgynous rail) and that there’s just not much to be done about it.

Yesterday I spoke to a group of therapists at a residential treatment center for teenagers with substance abuse issues, the Phoenix House.

One of the teenagers who was doing really well in the program gave me a tour of the facilities.  She told me, among other things, that most of the people were there voluntarily, but some were court ordered.

After my presentation about adolescent sexual development, the treatment providers and I talked about sexual abuse, and it’s prevalence among their young clientele.  One treatment provider suggested that sexual abuse might be as high as 70% among teenagers who end up there.  Others thought it was probably lower - maybe 45%.  Either way, these are very high percentages.

One of the reasons there seemed to be disagreement among the staff was because they said most boys do not want to admit to sexual abuse.  One therapist suggested that sexual abuse was “take it to your grave kind of stuff.”  Another suggested boys tended to gloss over any memory of sexual abuse - say it didn’t affect them, and so decide it’s not even worth talking about.

There were many intense topics discussed in our meeting.  (There were also lots of jokes - it’s hard not to laugh at the many unintended puns when you’re talking about sex.)  But this thing about boys glossing over sexual abuse has stayed with me through the night.  I’m glad to know there are good people at the Phoenix House and other places, trying to reach these boys and help them through the pain they have experienced.  So much of sexual abuse public awareness and counseling is focused on girls - we need to be sure and not forget about the boys.

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 it’s 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 1930’s (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?

(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!