Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

My long-time, very dear friend Alice Fielding kindly agreed to share her experience around sexuality education and her evolving thoughts on pre-marital sex. She’ll be following the comments on this post, so feel free to engage her in conversation though your comments.

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The only sex talk I ever got from my parents took place at Pizza Hut one rainy afternoon when I was twelve. My dad set his ham sandwich on his plate, leaned forward, looked me square in the face, and said, “SEX IS ONLY FOR MAKING BABIES.” After pausing for effect, he sat back, picked up his sandwich, and resumed eating.

He definitely made his position clear, although I already knew that my parents believed premarital sex was wrong, having picked up this idea from context. I was routinely shocked by what I read on the bathroom walls at my middle school. In elementary school, I had been shocked when a substitute teacher told us she had gotten married the previous month, but had a daughter who was a year old. In high school, I would be shocked when the girl who wore revealing clothes, the girl everyone whispered about, actually did get pregnant and have a baby. Even in college, when asked by a resident adviser what I believed about premarital sex, I wasn’t able to answer.

My parents weren’t religious fundamentalists. My father was a committed Unitarian Universalist; my mother attended a Presbyterian church wearing a lapel button which read, AGAINST ABORTION? DON’T HAVE ONE! I was even less dogmatic than my parents, and in my late teens felt confused about the fact that I didn’t know anyone else my age who was against pre-marital sex but not for religious reasons.

As soon as I graduated from college at age twenty, I got into a committed relationship with a family friend I’d known for several years. He wanted to have sex with me, and I felt silly saying “I can’t have sex with you because my parents think it’s immoral.” So I said yes. When the relationship turned abusive, I felt lost and alone. I didn’t think anyone else would ever want to be with me; I felt like the dirty toothbrush or licked Junior Mint from an abstinence-only sex ed curriculum. Worse, I was afraid to tell the trusted older adults in my life what was happening to me, for fear that they would stop loving me once they found out I was immoral. The only reason I ever told any of them was that months after I finally ended the relationship, I started experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that were too severe for me to deal with alone.

My mentors and friends were loving and supportive from the moment I told them about the abuse all the way through the nine years it took me to recover from the PTSD. I wouldn’t have gotten through it without them. The tragedy here is that if I had told them much earlier, the abuse would not have escalated, and it might not have occurred in the first place. The trusted older adults in my life would have perceived what was happening and helped me, if only I hadn’t been afraid to tell them.

I’m not opposed to premarital abstinence. In fact, I think abstinence is the healthiest choice for most teenagers and many young adults, and I think anyone of any age who makes that choice should be fully supported in it. I am, however, utterly opposed to abstinence-only sex ed, and not just because it’s unrealistic or has been proven ineffective. I’m opposed to it because it closes the doors of conversation between older and younger adults, and that can be incredibly damaging to young people who want to live their own lives but still need guidance from folks who have more experience than they do.

So, go on. Take your daughter or son, or nephew or niece, or younger sibling or cousin or friend’s child out to a pizza restaurant. And don’t be afraid to bring up the topic of sex. But make it a two-way conversation. If you are the younger person in this situation, remember that prior generations grew up with different sexual norms that may be difficult to see past. Regardless of whether you are the older person or the younger, listen. Don’t shame or judge, but try to understand.

Have you ever had an honest, trusting conversation about sexual ethics or decision-making with someone much older or younger than you? If so, how did it go?

We have some old friends staying with us right now with their granddaughter, who is almost one year old. We’ll call our friends the Sullivans, their daughter Hannah, and their granddaughter Beth. Here is the startling story of the Beth’s birth:

Hannah was 18, and a senior in high school. The Sullivans thought she might be sexually active, and offered to provide her with birth control, but she declined saying she was not having sex with her boyfriend.

And then Hannah started…gaining weight…most prominently in her tummy area. The Sullivans started wondering between themselves whether Hannah was pregnant or not. They dropped hints, tried to bring up the possibility obliquely. But Hannah did not seem to pick up on their hints, and never showed any sign of being pregnant. Except that her tummy grew a bit more every month.

Finally Mrs. Sullivan asked Hannah point-blank if she was pregnant. Hannah looked her mother in the eye and said no. Now, Mrs. Sullivan knew that Hannah had a tendency to lie. But she just didn’t think that Hannah could lie about something so big so completely. So she took her word for it.

Hannah was in a car accident, and the police officer asked her if she was pregnant, saying that if she was, he had to take her directly to the hospital. Hannah told the police officer no, she was not pregnant.

Hannah’s friends asked if she was pregnant, and she told every friend who asked, that no she was not pregnant.

You probably get the gist of where this story is going.

So the Sullivans went on vacation.  They drove three days to visit extended family, and on the day they arrived they got a phone call from Hannah in the hospital: “Mom, I had  baby.”  It had been Hannah’s plan that she would have the baby during the Sullivans’ well-timed trip, and that she would give it up for adoption before they came back.  But after the birth, she changed her mind.

The moral of this story: What incredible fortitude!  What strength and will!  Hannah is an amazing, powerful young woman.  When her determination is pointed in a supportive, meaningful direction, watch out world!

Many children and teenagers have this kind of willpower.  But adults, for whatever reason, aren’t able to see it in that light very often.  Far more commonly, adults label these children and teenagers as rebellious or deviant or liars.  Young people in these places are rarely praised for this gift and power they have of determination and strength - and so they are far more likely to see it as a negative personal trait that they should try and rid themselves of, rather than a gift and a responsibility that they can train and use.

Next time a child or a teenager you know does something that you are tempted to label as “rebellious” or “deviant” or even “bad,” stop for a minute.  How can you change your perception of this action, so that you can see where something good inside the child or teenager was misled or poorly utilized to get to this point.  Then speak to the good rather than the bad, and suggest how that positive quality could be used differently next time.

And remember Hannah and the will behind her decision and her ability to stay behind that decision through incredible difficulties over many months.

Listen up, Parents: Your teenagers listen to you. You talk, they listen. They might not appear to take in anything you say, but it goes in nevertheless. And it affects them, whether they’re willing to show you or not.

And here’s the even more impressive thing: You don’t have to talk very much. In fact, if you talk too much they stop listening!

So for serious impact on your teenager you don’t actually have to do much talking!
Maximum benefit for minimum input! How often do you get such a great offer?

Adolescence is a time of breaking away from parents and family - so your teenagers are developing their own identity separate from you. And one way they’ll do that is by not engaging with you in conversation.

But never fear!

Your teenagers are listening to you, and when you talk to them in moderation and restraint, they think about what you say. Even when they don’t respond, and
even when they roll their eyes.

But beware of talking too much! If your teenager says you’ve said something “a million times,” you’ve got that point driven home. Don’t mention it again - for at least 6 - 8 months! Mark it on your calendar!

I have been thinking a lot about virginity recently.

A sex ed teacher recently asked me how I would respond to a 6th grade girl who asked for the definition of “virgin.” Does “virgin” apply to those who have done a wide range of sexual activities, but have not engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse? Or can “virgin” only apply to those who have not engaged in oral, anal, manual, or missionary-position, heterosexual sex? The essence of her question seemed to be, “Would Monica Lewinsky still be a virgin?” This teacher and her co-teacher disagreed on the answer to the Monica Lewinsky question, and they wanted my professional thoughts so they could present a unified front to the young girl who originally asked the question.

I essentially rejected the basis of the question.

This is a question I get a lot - I get it from parents, from children, from teenagers, from teachers, from grandparents, from non-parent-single-people. Everyone seems to want to know: What is a virgin?

But rather than answering, weighing in on this ridiculous point that carries such extreme emotional weight, I encourage the asker to look inwards and to try and identify why they want to know what sexual acts a virgin-no-longer-makes.

The answer is always this: “I want to know if _________ is still a virgin.” Please feel free to fill in the blank with whomever you so choose. Some of the more common fill-in-the-blank people include: me as I am, me as I once was, my best friend, my boyfriend, my child, my student, my grandchild.

And I scratch my head and ask: “Do you know what sexual acts they have done? Because if you don’t know, then having a definition of virginity won’t help you. If you do know, then why does it matter whether those acts can be defined as virginal?”

Or maybe they want to know the Official Definition for Virgin because one of those people told them “I am a virgin.” But if you have to head for a sex expert for the real definition of virgin, then the likelihood is that the person who said it didn’t know either. So it still won’t help if I give you the definitive definition.

And all of this conversation about virginity brings to mind the very yucky side of a strict definition of virginity, like hymenoplasty (hymen restoration surgery). Judith Warner wrote a fabulous piece about just this thing recently for the New York Times. Here is a quote:

“But there is nonetheless a kind of horror to [fathers who attend Purity Balls with their daughters] obsession with their daughters’ sexuality. There is a dangerous boundary violation contained in their vow “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.” And there is even greater danger to the fact that this particular aspect of the nationwide “abstinence movement” has not been broadly denounced as the form of emotional violence against girls that it indisputably is.”

Warner is basically saying, as I have said in circumspect ways to parents, teachers, teenagers: “Who gives a shit?”

Why do you or anyone else care who is a virgin? Why does this single word have so much power over you? I won’t define the word for you, because I reject the word itself. And so should you.

Birthdays are a big deal. While they get less important as we get older, particularly the random ones between the decades, teenagers are not yet into that no-mans land of unimportant birthdays. These teen birthdays, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, all have particular nuances to them, and should be honored for that.

• 13 is the entrance into teenage-hood, which is often a long-sought-after place for preteens.
• 14 means you’re not a teenage “freshman” any more, even though you’re often still a freshman in high school.
• 15 is so close to driving and freedom that it’s almost a penultimate birthday.
• 16 is often the entrance into the best years in terms of lack of real responsibility coupled with the most possible freedom.
• 17 and suddenly you’re beginning to taste adulthood - and are probably preparing for life post-high school.
• 18 carries much legal weight in America - as has been pointed out by millions of newly-18-year-olds - now they can buy porn, cigarettes, vote, and die for their country. (But not drink alcohol. Because that would just be wrong.)
• 19 and suddenly birthdays don’t matter as much. At least they didn’t to me. This was the age when I forgot how old I was for the first time - when I really stopped caring how old I was for the first time. Honestly, it came as something of a relief.

So honor your teenagers’ birthdays. And realize that they will want you to increasingly honor them by not taking part in them. And that’s okay. Although I’ve never known a teenager - hell, anyone of any age - to be miffed by an appropriately-timed, non-embarrassing cupcake.

(Today is my daughter’s seventh birthday! Happy Birthday, Goose! Because she’s still firmly in the years of loving birthday-cake-focused-parties, we’ll be tie-dying and eating cake with friends and family tomorrow.)

This week has not been an uplifting one for those looking for progressive and women-friendly laws about sex. And frankly, I don’t have quite the energy to rage. Instead, here are the words of others:

RH Reality Check talks about how anti-abortion groups are subtly shifting their focus from narrowly protesting abortion to widely protesting all forms of birth control (including, most notably, the pill).

Paul Sunstone of Cafe Philos talks about the potential freedom of speech issues in the decision by the three largest ISPs to block all child porn sites.

And speaking of bad news, I gave some to a mom yesterday.

Here’s the situation: This mom’s teenage son is not doing as she would prefer. He’s smoking pot, having sex, and ignoring most of what she says. I tried to point out what he’s doing right - going to school, having safe sex, coming home. But she had a hard time acknowledging the good choices he makes.

So I was talking with this mother about how to maximize her son’s good choices and help them bleed over into the areas where she’s currently concerned about his behaviors. But in order for her to help her son, I was straight up and told her there were some things she was going to have to change before he would start to change. And these were big, lifestyle changes I was talking about. Not changing the laundry detergent brand changes. She wanted nothing of it.

I told her that I had bad news: That unless she changed, her son wouldn’t change. I’m hoping after sleeping on it, she’ll wake-up renewed and ready to start really grappling with her own issues in order to help her son start addressing his. But really, it’s in her court, in her power to break the pattern.

I am writing this a few minutes midnight, and my little brother is playing Rock Band with a friend (he says his name is Satan).  They are both graduating from high school on Sunday - although neither of them was sure whether or not they were going to be or not until several hours ago.  Also, my brother’s friend will turn 18 in twelve minutes.  So now they’re celebrating with bad, loud music.

While I am unable to focus enough to write a decent post, due to the late hour and the bad music, I am delighted by the adolescent enthusiasm running rampant.

Because really, what better way to celebrate than with loud, bad music and friends?  It’s great that this house is welcoming to teenagers and their impulses.   (Plus, who knew that Bon Jovi was popular with the young set these days?)

This afternoon a mother asked me this question:

“When do I teach my 13-year-old son about birth control?”

Regrettably, the answer is much more complicated than the question. Because really, it depends. And on pressing her, it was clear that the boy knows how babies are made, and probably knows that there are ways preventing pregnancy. He also knows that you can catch diseases from sexual intercourse, and so probably knows that there are ways of preventing that too.

So this mother’s question wasn’t so much about when to tell her son about birth control, it was about when she should start providing higher levels of knowledge - like how to use a condom and where to get them.

And when a teenager needs to know these things is just a very individual situation. But here’s what I said she should tell her son sometime before he starts high school in the fall:

“There are lots of ways of experiencing your love for someone sexually besides sexual intercourse. These other ways do not include a risk of pregnancy and they generally have reduced risk of STD transmission. Right now, you should probably stick to those. At some point you’ll decide you are ready to experience intercourse with your partner. At that point I expect you to come and ask me for condoms, which I will happily provide for you. If you prefer, you are welcome to leave me a note asking for them rather than asking me in person.”

Sex ed by text message. Of course it happened first in San Francisco, where they’re serious about getting sex education messages out, in any medium possible.

The moral of this story is: Want to talk to your teenager? Do it in the medium she or he uses most. For many teenagers that’s text message.

But maybe it’s not text message. Maybe it’s the cell phone, or Internet-based chat, or e-mail.

Or maybe the medium isn’t as important to your teenager as the primary content of the conversation. In that case, talk about whatever interests your teenager - movies, video games, books, horses, football, anime, whatever!

The point is that in order to reach and effectively interact with your teen on any subject, you have to do it on his or her turf. Trust me.

“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.)