Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

I am, as you may remember, an editor for the Personal section of Blog Nosh Magazine. It’s great fun, mostly because I get to peruse old posts on great blogs and call it work. We take old posts that have fallen off the front page of other blogs and re-post them on Blog Nosh in their original entirety (with the original author’s consent, of course). I look for posts about sex and sexuality. If you know of any great blogs on the topic, please send them my way! It’s somewhat disheartening how hard it is to find really well-written blogs about sex. There are lots of other topics posted on Blog Nosh - I highly recommend you take a look because there’s sure to be something that interests you!

This morning I posted a great piece on Blog Nosh from Bitch, Ph.D. It’s more about adult sexuality and relationships than adolescent sexuality and relationships…but well, it’s too thought provoking and interesting for me not to post here too. So here you go:

Originally posted on Bitch Ph.D.

So here is the biggest, most annoying problem with having a feminist marriage:

No matter what you and your partner have agreed on, other people will cling to their antiquated notions.

It’s the biggest evidence to me that marriage is not just a contract between two people; it’s also a kind of social contact (for better or for worse). Like, if you and your partner decide to reverse conventional gender roles–you work the day job, he stays home with kids and kitchen–and you are perfectly happy with this arrangement (ok, reasonably happy). Lovely! You win! You and your partner have done all the hard work necessary in arriving at this decision, you have had principled discussions about division of labor, you have made sure that neither one of you is feeling coerced, that this is how you both want it to be, blah blah blah and now you can sit back and enjoy your domestic life. WRONG. Because now you have to deal with constantly explaining to everyone around you that, “no, this really is what we both want, no, I am not an emasculating bitch, actually this was his idea, no really you can ask him, no, he isn’t doing it “for” me, no, we’re not doing this to “prove” something, really, we are doing this because it works for both of us, individually and as a couple.”

Of course, you could refuse to explain all this, and then you have the fun of hearing the whispered comments, the second-hand hints from, oh, say, your sisters-in-law: “well, of course it’s none of our business, but we do wonder. . .”or “oh, I think it’s fine,” (gee, how big of you) “but you know, mother-in-law thinks you’re emasculating Mr. B.” And I like my mother in law, but jesus. Or things like snide comments about how little housework you do which make you want to scream about how you did the lion’s share of the housework for TEN YEARS, goddamnit, including while you were writing your dissertation and all that time you were teaching but of course that was always invisible.

It starts when you decide not to change your name, of course. You explain it to everyone, and then they get it wrong on the letters anyway. Which, you know, fine; I realize that people kind of default to the “normal” pattern without thinking. But my own father?!? Dude. It’s the same name I always had. It’s YOUR name. Get it right. And stop acting hurt when I get irritated by it. And then there are the casual acquaintances or new friends who, at some point, you have to tell–“well, actually Mr. B.’s last name is not B.,” and instead of just saying, “oh, okay” (I mean really. It’s unusual but not unheard of.) they say “really? Why did you do that? Did he mind? What did your parents think? What did his parents think? What about the kid? Don’t you think he’ll be confused? Why did you give him the last name you gave him? Isn’t that weird? Isn’t this kind of a weak feminist statement since you just have your dad’s name anyway?” and so on. Most of the time I really don’t mind this stuff. There’s a reason why I teach, and it’s because I love to explain shit. But occasionally I’ll step back and think, lord. Do I really have to explain all of this to every single person who asks? Do they really have the right to ask? Do they have the right to be irked if I’m feeling tired of it that day and just say something snotty like, “why the hell should I change my name?” and try to leave it at that?

And you know, the sex thing too. You decide hey, it’s really stupid to promise never to fuck anyone else for the rest of your life, which you hope will be long, and you agree okay, neither of us is the jealous type and possessiveness is stupid, so whatever, if something comes up or you get interested in someone else, go for it because we both know neither one of us is going anywhere. And this works for you, and it’s really not anyone else’s business, so you don’t make a big deal over it (plus, let’s not scare the horses), and really 95% of the time you act just like any other monogamous married couple. But guess what? Let’s say you get interested in someone else, and you make a move on them. Surprise! Three out of four decent men (which is to say, any guy who you would be interested in sleeping with, because you’re really not interested in creepy assholes) will freak out because you are married and they just can’t quite bring themselves to sleep with “another man’s wife.” Which you know, you have to respect, b/c first of all you can’t make someone sleep with you and second even if you could it would be illegal and wrong, and third of all, you don’t believe in lying or manipulating people so great. You’re just fucked. Or rather, you’re not.

Interestingly, Mr. B. has not run into the same reluctance from women, which means either he picks sluttier people than I do, or else (since I prefer to think he has good taste, for obvious reasons) women just have a li’l more progressive attitude towards this shit than men do, stereotypes notwithstanding. Which is actually what I think, given the responses of most of my women friends when (if) I tell them how things are. They mostly say, “wow, I envy you, but my guy would never go for that.”

Anyway, this is all apropos of nothing, because the guy I have a date with on Friday knows I’m married and finds it neither offputting nor creepily enticing, so that’s not what I’m on about. It’s just something I was thinking about on the drive home, the way that you think, when you’re young, that you and your partner will invent your marriage on your own terms, and by god, you do that! And it’s hard work! And yay you, both of you, for doing the work and picking someone who was smart enough to get it and do it too! But then you find out that it isn’t, in fact, entirely up to you. Which is just very annoying.

It makes you really feel for Lucy Stone.

Editors Pick by Dr. Karen at Adolescent Sexuality. Bitch Ph.D. tells it like it is like few people do. Her entire blog is, frankly, a breath of fresh air about parenting, relationships, and attempting to work-while-being-overeducated. It’s particularly interesting to read about a relatively normal nuclear family unit who are open to…openness.

There’s lots more to read on her site (she’s been writing since here since July 2004), and of course you should subscribe too. Be sure to check out the original post and read the comments too - there’s lots of them and they’re worth the read.

Given that this week is Valentine’s Day week, I’m going to write a little bit about adolescent romance.

First, close your eyes. Let your memories from high school wash over you. Center your self back in the body you had then, the sense of self you had then. Remember the hard chairs and uncomfortable tables. Open your eyes, and see what you saw then. See that one person who use to make your heart jump and your stomach wobble when they walked across classroom. Feel that again.

Was that love or lust? Can you tell the difference now? Could you tell the difference then? How?
Sometimes I wonder if we can only tell the difference between love and lust in hind-sight. I wonder if we call an attraction that lasts only a short while lust, and an attraction that takes the time to grow into respect love.

What do you think? And is there a way to teach teenagers the difference?

Ah…those endless days at home or at your grandmother’s house, with no one but family in sight. If you’re not out of town, it doesn’t really matter, because everyone else is anyway… None of the family cares about the things you care about, and they all make it very obvious by ignoring you during Thanksgiving dinner. All the worser if you’re a teenager with a significant other significant enough for you to want to spend Thanksgiving Dinner with him or her instead of your family…but apparently not significant enough for your family to allow it. So. Typical.

Of course, if you’re on the other end of that experience, your once lovely and family-devoted child has suddenly decided that any other random family or friend is better than the ones at home who have showered time, attention, and love on him or her. Your child has suddenly developed a major attitude and, indecipherably, become a vegetarian last week and decided to lectured everyone in the family about the poultry industry over the turnkey Thanksgiving dinner… And suddenly you think that foisting the kid off to some other unsuspecting family might not have been such a bad idea after all…

So what to do? Several Holiday with Teenagers Survival Hints:

1. Remember that teenagers’ connections with their friends and sweethearts is very, very important, even during family holidays. Consider letting them spend time with whoever is around, particularly a boyfriend or girlfriend, so long as they don’t completely neglect their own family. Everyone will be happier.
2. Also remember that teenager’s convictions are very, very important, especially when they sense that someone is being dismissive of them. So if you think that your teenager has a value that might be challenged by the holidays, talk about it with them before hand. Together, come up with a plan of when and how to talk about it with the rest of the family. Give credence to your kid’s values (even if you think they will be short lived), and then make sure that the rest of the family does as well.
3. Breathe deeply. These teen years are short and passionate. Enjoy them for what they are. As with the sweetnesses and horrors of toddlerhood, they too will pass.

Someone (I have no idea who) recently did a google search asking the question, “Can adolescents truly be in love?” This blog is the fifth search result out of 1,710,000 websites which may or may not provide something of an answer to that question. The searcher looked at my blog for less than 2 seconds. In addition to being an awkward, ineffective search question, this is a dehumanizing, insulting, and above all very ageist (as in sexist and racist) search question.

And in the event that that searcher returns to this blog, I want to be ready with an answer.

Teenagers often love more passionately, more deeply, and with more of their being than adults. Sometimes we can be scared by that. Teenagers can also release their loves with breath-taking speed, particularly if someone else has come along to take the original love’s place. Sometimes we dismiss their love because of that.

But that’s not fair. Love is love, and the ability to be in love is not diminished just because someone is under 20.

I saw Hairspray last night. It was good, campy fun. I was really struck by the innocence of the dating relationships. When compared to American Pie and the dreadful genre of movies it has inspired, Hairspray was a delightful return to the fumbling, romantic interest many teenagers experience.

I am not saying that some teenagers’ prime motive for dating isn’t sex. I am not even saying that most teenagers’ prime motive for dating isn’t sex. But for many teenagers the reason they’re dating is that inexplicably heady feeling that they get when a certain someone walks into the room. Not a certain feeling in their groin.

Our current spate of hyper-sexualized media teaches teenagers that sex is the reason they should be dating. And that’s just stupid. I wish we could have more movies like Hairspray - something that portrays the adolescent experience as something other than a 24/7 search for that first (and subsequent) roll in the hay. Maybe I’ll start my own movie company. What do you say? Who’ll go in with me on this one?

I am currently reading a short book called Sex in the light of Reincarnation and Freedom by Alan Howard (1980). Howard is a lecturer and writer about anthroposophy and Steiner education. I am grappling with his book, which is really the only discussion of sexuality from a Steiner perspective that I have found. Here are several quotes which I find quite evocative:

“Love is not something that happens; love is something we create. A powerful, dynamic attraction can happen to us, but not love. If, therefore, on the basis of such an attraction only, two people hasten into marriage with all the trappings of ’till-death-us-do-part’, then they are likely to discover that all kinds of other things can happen too.”

“Sex is certainly one of the expressions of love, but love itself has nothing to do with sex. Love is devotion to the destiny of the one loved… It imposes no restraints, sexual or otherwise. It makes no demands; it is not possessive. It is faithful only to itself, to love; and many can be loved as easily as one.”

I am still mulling over the implications of these and other points by Howard. And I wonder, what might be different for an adolescent who had this perspective of love, rather than the romantic ideal presented through the books, movies, and music of our time?