Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

Is it awkward to whip out a banana or a cucumber (or even better, a penis model) and tell your teenager you’re going to show her the steps on how to put on a condom? Yep, no doubt. But there’s really no other good place for your teenager to learn how - except for trial-and-error, which really no one wants.

So here are the steps:

1. Check the expiration date on the condom package. Even brand new condoms can be expired.
2. Open the package with your fingers. Teeth or scissors can tear the latex and you won’t necessarily realize it.
3. Figure out which way the condom rolls down. Put it on the head of the penis correctly.
4. Pinch the reservoir tip to squeeze the air out. This ensures that there’s space for the sperm to go in.
5. Roll the condom all the way down the penis.

And here’s the second half of the lesson that regrettably sometimes gets missed:

1. After the male orgasms, he needs to hold the condom on to the base of his penis and withdraw his penis before it becomes flaccid.  This makes sure that the condom doesn’t slip off when the penis becomes smaller.
2. Slip the condom off the penis while still holding it at the base so that the sperm isn’t spilled.
3. Tie off the open end of the condom.
4. Throw the condom in the trash.  (Not in the toilet or on the ground.  That’s just gross.)

These few moments spent together may have the effect of horribly embarrassing both the parent and the teenager.  But it may also have the effect of improving the teenager’s effective use of a condom.  And as a parent, it’s completely worth it.  Because you never want to hear the words “Ummm…because we didn’t know where the condom was when we were…you know…finished.”
And if you just can’t make yourself do it, here’s your out: YouTube, Planned Parenthood, or Our Whole Lives sexuality classes all also teach teenagers how to properly use condoms. So you’ve covered your bases if you’ve made sure that your teenager got the information from somewhere.

Okay, so to be more specific, there are two Austin teenagers who are my personal heroes. I don’t know their names, or the names of any of their 20-odd friends who
stood around and watched while they changed my tire in a parking lot at 2am late Sunday night. But I do know that there could not have been a more Heavenly-clad Angel than those two young men.

So let’s back up a bit. Here’s the lead-up to the event late Sunday night:

Last week I spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday preparing and filming for a documentary (which will probably be released in March 2009, but I’ll be sure and let you know more when it comes about). Then on Thursday I drove to Dallas to participate in a training with the First Unitarian Universalist Church to become a trained Our Whole Lives: Sexuality and Our Faith educator for Middle and High School students. In addition to partaking in this rigorous and exhausting training, I stayed up late with my 18-year-old brother. My brother and I haven’t had much chance to chill without my children metaphorically pulling his hair and stepping on his toes, so I was happy to take the chance that presented itself. Sunday night at 6pm, my brother graduated from High School (something we weren’t sure would happen until Friday afternoon) and I didn’t get on the road home until 9:30 at night.

So I was tired. I was really, really, really tired in a deep, emotional way. But more than sleep, I wanted to get home to snuggle with my kids. So home I came.

I was maybe fifteen miles from home, at 1:30am, and my tire exploded. On a highway. On a bridge. Over a lake. I cried. Literally.

And then I drove my car as slowly as I could down the highway (terrified as cars whipped around me at six or seven times the speed I was going) to the next exit and pulled in to a 24-hour pancake shop.

Embarrassingly, I have no idea how to change a tire.

So I’m sitting in the parking lot, looking at my torn-up tire, when approximately 30,000 cars come screaming in - and one of them (a blue sports car) almost runs me over. 100,000 teenagers jump out of the cars, much like circus clowns, and start swarming towards the promise of pancakes. I am devastated because my last hope before waiting 45 minutes for a tow truck was to ask the pancake host to change my tire, and there was no way that was going to happen any more.

Until two of the teenagers start rummaging through my open trunk without looking at me or speaking to me.

So here’s where someones gut reaction to teenagers becomes crystal clear. Do you trust them or not? Do you think, as a group, they are good people, or out to bother you? Do you:

(1) start screaming at the inconsiderate teenagers for trying to steal your stuff in front of you?

or

(2) start crying and thanking them for changing your tire?

If you chose option (1), you might still be at that pancake shop waiting for a tow truck. These two youth were quick and effective tire-changers, and something of elaborate showmen as well.

These two youth were, in fact, heroes. Angels. My saviors.

So look at teenagers next time you’re out. They probably don’t look any different from the kind and generous teenagers who changed my tire so unexpectedly. Really, they probably don’t. Really, really and truly, regardless of how outrageously or thuggishly dressed or adorned they look, they look no more so than my heroes.

Here is my challenge to you: Be as kind and open and non-judgemental to each and every teenager you see on the street as this group was to me. Look them in the eye. Smile. Say hi. If you can provide them any service, then do it! And let me know how it goes - or how it has gone in the past if you’re already bridging that generational gap.

“But,” you complain upon reading the title, “it’s not even application season yet! Doesn’t that start in the fall?”

“Nevertheless,” I respond with a sigh, “next year’s seniors are already obsessing about them.”

It seems that these baby boomer’s children, who are so many in number and so high-performing, have crammed all they can into the high school years. In many high schools, the number of required credits has risen dramatically in the past ten years, to say nothing of the optional and test-out credits that driven high school students rack up. And then there are the numerous extra-curricular activities: sports, theater, band, music, volunteer, church, jobs, internships, etc. Nothing else is left. For these top-performing high school students, there are no more hours into which to cram resume padding activities in those four short years. (Notice we’ve even started calling them “resumes” rather than “college applications.”)

The craziness abounds. And even still, because the children of the baby-boomers who are trying to get into college are so numerous, even with these extremes of early achievement and perfect 4.0’s (and even higher for the majority who take AP courses) and perfect SAT and ACT scores, there are plenty of very qualified and deserving students not getting into the colleges of their choice. There has been plenty written about this over the past few years. So I am going to assume that you, Gentle Reader, need no more introduction to the craziness that is the college applications process as it currently stands.

Rather, I am going to propose a solution for you crazed families out there.

Stop.

It seems simple, but it is deceptively hard. And what I am suggesting is actually somewhat more complicated. I am suggesting that your teenager take the year following high school off. Not to sit around and chill and play computer games, but to learn about the world from a new perspective: that of a non-student. Volunteer full-time at charities. Travel if funds allow in order to learn another language. Do some theater at the local theater rather than high school theater. Intern in DC or your state capitol for a Senator or a Representative. In short, take part in the real adult world rather than the contrived world of high school.

But most importantly, make sure that what seemed like a good idea as a career path in high school still seems like a good career path when you’re actually doing it. Far too often an idealistic 17 year old will decide on a college major based on a favorite high school course. And it is common for high school students to be drawn to their favorite courses not because the topic inherently resonates with them, but because the teacher was particularly good at reaching them.

So take a year off. Breathe deeply of the real world, where both the privileges and the responsibilities are higher and more rewarding than they are in high school. You’ll be prepared to return to the mecca of possibility that is higher education and truly take advantage of all it has to offer.

(Plus, for those of you who are having a hard time looking beyond getting into the college of your choice, this process will set you apart in the application stacks.  Trust me.)

I am working with a production company from France to create a documentary about human development from birth through the beginnings of puberty and sexual interest. My conversation, of course, will come primarily at the end of the film. In addition to an interview piece, they asked that I gather a group of 12 - 14 year olds together so they could film a sex ed class. It took some time and some doing, but I think I’ve finally managed it. But I was surprised by the path and the conversations I had along the way.

I spoke exclusively with parents I knew and who I had talked with about their children’s budding sexuality in one way or another. It seemed to me that it would be a big leap of trust for these parents to allow someone to film their young teenagers talking about sex. I extensively outlined what we would be doing in the class, remaining open to input and concerns and expressed a willingness to be flexible according to what the parents were comfortable with. These parents were uncomfortable with the idea - some only a little, some quite a lot. I got a few tentative positive responses, but no one was thrilled.

So I moved on, looking further afield for youth to be involved.

In the last week, I have found an amazing group of parents who are comfortable with their children being filmed in a sex ed class I will teach - even though they don’t know me personally and they haven’t seen a play-by-play of what will be included in the class. What I have seen in these parents is that rather than talking to me about the potential filming, they have been talking with their young teenagers. They have sat down as a family, with my short and to-the-point e-mail introduction (which I figured would be followed by many more) and talked together about the potential positives and negatives of being involved. They made a family decision, the parents and the youth, about whether to move forward. Some decided yes, some decided no. But the point is that they felt very little need for extensive conversation with me.

So where does the difference between these two groups of parents lay?

I think the first group of parents wanted to know - to KNOW - that they could trust me. Ultimately, they were torn because even if they did trust me, they weren’t SURE they could trust the film company.

The second group of parents, on the other hand, weren’t very concerned with trust of me or the film company - they had enough basic information to know that we were basically doing something good and interesting. Rather, these parents decided to trust their young teenagers to make good decisions and to be able to weigh the potential outcomes with the parents’ guidance.

So what can you learn from this little story?

Ultimately, it’s far more productive to work towards trusting your children and your teenagers than to try to trust every single adult who comes into contact with them.

So I’m taking the day off. However, please feel free to fill my comment box with well wishes.

So in place of a more in-depth post this morning, please download and read my recent interview with Karen Kreps in this month’s Good Life Magazine about teenagers learning about sex on-line.

See you tomorrow, folks.

Karen: Hi Tina, and thank you for meeting to talk with me about your work. First, can you tell me a bit about Jane’s Due Process Legal Hot-line?

Tina: Jane’s Due Process was formed after the state legislature passed a parental consent law for minors to obtain abortions. So Jane’s Due Process provides minors with access to judicial by-pass of parental consent if they’re unable to find or consult with their parents about their decision to have an abortion. In Texas you have to be 18 to be considered emancipated and make the decision to have an abortion. However, minors can go to health clinics and obtain substance abuse counseling, STD testing, family planning counseling, and birth control without their parents being notified.

K: Sounds like a great organization, Tina. What role do you play there?

T: I am the part-time hot-line coordinator. I answer the phones and screen the minors and talk to them about the judicial by-pass process and recruit mostly law students to answer the phone on the weekends and in the evenings. Although to volunteer, you don’t have to be a law student, you can be social worker or a lawyer, although really you just have to have an interest and be able to be non-judgmental with the youth. The volunteers go through a day-long training before they answer the phones.

K: And how to minors hear about Jane’s Due Process?

T: About 60% of the minors hear about us from the clinics. They call the clinics and try to make an appointment for an abortion and find out they can’t without their parent’s permission, and the clinics tell them about us. Others find us from the Internet.

K: Where do pregnant girls need to go to get a judicial by-pass of parental consent?

T: Well, the go to a judge. But they don’t have to go to a judge in the county where they live, but rather the county where they will be getting the abortion. In fact, there are some counties that don’t provide the bypass paperwork.

K: Why would a county not provide the paperwork?

T: Some judges are afraid of providing a bypass because of political repercussions. Others are just unfamiliar with the process because they don’t have a large population and so it doesn’t come up that often. But it’s a real problem for girls in rural areas because (1) there’s not an abortion provider in the county in which they reside and (2) they have to go to a different county to even get the judicial by-pass. So once again, the rural women have the hardest time getting access to the services they need.

K: Are the girls who call you generally still in the process of making the decision of whether or not to have an abortion, or do they generally already have their minds made up?

T: It varies between callers. Some calls I get from minors, I feel like they’re being coerced into having an abortion. Sometimes the call is not even from the girl, it’s from her boyfriend. I tell the boyfriends that they have to have their girlfriends call me. So then I ask her a series of questions to be clear that it’s her who wants the abortion. Sometimes they say “But my mom or my boyfriend is trying to make me have it.” And so I tell them to tell the clinic that, because there are no clinics that would perform an abortion on someone who didn’t want one. Some girls call and say they want to have an abortion, but their mom wants them to have the baby so they, the mother, can raise another baby. There are lots of sad cases like that, where the mother is not really thinking about the needs of her daughter.

K: What about young teenagers? What are the potential legal ramifications for a pregnant younger teenager?

T: Well, you have to be older than 14 to provide consent to have sex, so if they’re under 14, the clinic is required to report minors under 14 who are pregnant. I usually don’t ask the age of the boyfriends when they call in, because by-and-large I’m just the first stop in a process where they have to have the counseling, they have to understand the risk of the procedure, and they have to know all of their options. The minor also has to have had a sonogram and an options counseling session before she can have an abortion. There are a couple of counties that will let you get by with a blood test, but a sonogram is better because it can pinpoint the gestational age. Once they have all of these things then, I will assign a lawyer to them.

K: Why is gestational age important to pinpoint?

T: At 13 – 14 weeks, they generally have to do a two-day procedure. They have to soften up your cervix. So that’s why it’s always best to have an abortion as soon as possible so you don’t get into that two-day procedure process. The cost and the risk are both substantially less the earlier you have it.

K: Wow, a two-day procedure! That sounds expensive. So talk with me about cost for a minute here. How much does an abortion cost in Texas?

T: Some clinics around the state will waive the fee for clients who come through Jane’s Due Process. But generally the cost of the sonogram is about $100, and that is often put towards the price of the abortion, so you want to go ahead and have the sonogram at the same place you’re going to have the procedure. An abortion procedure costs between $300 and $500 before 11 weeks. As a minor, they can sometimes get financial support for the procedure.

K: Wow, that’s really pricey. I’m somewhat overwhelmed at the process for getting an abortion, and I’m not even a teenager in a difficult situation! Thank you so much for sharing your time and knowledge, Tina. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us? Anything that strikes you as particularly interesting?

T: Sometimes I ask the minors who call Jane’s Due Process “Who else have you spoken to about your pregnancy” and they’ll often say “the father of the baby” not “my boyfriend.” And I want to say “hopefully it’s more than that” but often it’s not, it’s just someone they’ve hooked up with.

Another thing - I think as Texas becomes more Hispanic, we’re going to get more phone calls from Hispanic minors. And I’ve had lots of Hispanics call who say they’re going to be shipped back to Mexico, or Asian minors call and say they’re going to be shipped back to the Philippines if their parents find out they’re pregnant. Whereas in my day (I’m 50), girls would mysteriously go live with their aunts in New York, and nobody knew what they were doing. But now I know they were going up to New York to have an abortion. So in many ways it’s easier for the minors now, because they don’t have to go somewhere else, but this judicial by-pass makes it difficult in a different way.

And one last point – One other kind of call I get are from minors who want to be emancipated from their parents. But Texas makes it very difficult unless you can prove child abuse or that she is financially self-sufficient. Even if a teenage girl has a baby, her parents still have legal guardianship over her. So the minor can make medical decisions for her baby, but her parent gets to make them for her.

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.

I am delighted to have been interviewed by Boinkology recently. Go take a read and read my (rather lengthy) answers to these questions:

• What got you interested in adolescent sexuality?
• In your writing, you stress the importance of parents talking to their kids about sex. Does it matter how parents address the topic, or is just bringing it up for discussion enough?
• When should parents start talking to their kids about sex? What kinds of messages should young children be given about sex and sexuality?
• If you could design a sex ed curriculum for America’s public schools, what would it look like?
• What’s the most common mistake parents make when talking (or not talking) to their kids about sex?
• In your opinion, has the Internet had an effect on how — and what — kids learn about sex?
• What’s the most important sex advice you can give someone?

Thanks so much to Lux for taking the time to talk with me! I look forward to catching up with her sometime soon, and picking her brain for an interview here.

There are lots of good things on Boinkology (in addition to me, of course), including a post from yesterday titled: Yes, You Tell Your Partners About Your STIs. This is just good, basic sexual protocol for teenagers to know, and it’s often easier for them to read it on-line rather than have their parent tell them - so go ahead and forward them that link. The comments are also interesting because they give a bit of a view into realistic expectations about STI prevention among young adults.

In other news, an incredibly brave and strong 8-year-old girl from Yemen filed a suit against her father for marrying her off to a 30 year old man. She showed up in court alone because she couldn’t find anyone who would agree to take her. Wow, what fabulous gumption!

And, finally, the Washington Post has done a relatively decent job of introducing the difficulties of talking with your kids and teenagers about sex in a world full of sexual mixed messages, ambiguity, and scientific amazement.

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.

With every privilege should come increased responsibility.

For example, my 6-year-old daughter has increased freedom at every birthday.  She is able to stay up later or walk alone to our neighbor’s house.  But her responsibilities also increase at every birthday.  Last year she started getting ready for bed without our prompting or help.  Maybe this year she’ll start putting her own clothes away or rinsing her dishes.

Teenagers too often have an imbalance of privilege and responsibility.  What I mean by this is that parents are too often willing to provide their teenager with a cell phone or a car (a privilege) without requiring the teenager showing an equivalent increase in responsibility (like paying for a portion of the on-going costs or running household errands).

Sexuality is too often talked about with teenagers in terms that have everything to do with privilege and very little to do with responsibility.  In sex education classes, either at home or in schools, adults are far too likely to assume responsibility for teenagers’ sexuality decisions without putting the onus of safe sexuality squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the individuals availing themselves of the privilege of engaging in sex.

Next week I’ll write about what it looks like in concrete terms to ask teenagers to fully step up to the responsibility of safe sex if they are choosing to engage in the privileged activity of sex.