Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

On Friday I wrote about the importance of talking with teenagers about privilege vs. responsibility in sexual decision making. Here’s the first concrete step a parent or a teacher could ask a teenager to begin a conversation around this topic:

“How is hooking up with someone different from, say, playing a computer game with someone?”

This will, of course, lead to many different answers. Here are some:

• “I’m much more picky about who I hook up with than who I play computer games with.”
• “Hooking up can get you an STD.”
• “Hooking up can get you (or someone else) pregnant.”
• “Hooking up is more fun.”
• “You can play computer games with more than one person but you don’t usually hook up with more than one person at a time.”
• “Hooking up feels better than playing computer games.”

(If you’ve got other answers to that question, feel free to share them in the comments section!)

The parent or teacher can take almost any answer that the teenager gives and turn it into a supporting point for the deeper nature that being sexual with someone implies over non-sexual activities.

By acknowledging that sexuality is inherently different from the majority of activities that a teenager could potentially engage in, the doorway has been opened to talk about the inherently different responsibilities that come with it.

There are three areas of sexuality that stand out as needing bringing particular responsibilities with them: physical, relational, and social. We’ll talk about these three areas of responsibility and how to talk about them with teenagers over the rest of the week.

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.

Rev. Debra Haffner wrote yesterday about her experience talking with teenage girls about sex and sexuality. One of the things she mentioned in her post was her five criteria for a moral sexual relationship:

1. consensual
2. non-exploitative
3. honest
4. mutually pleasurable
5. protected if any type of intercourse occurs

She went on to list the four things that are needed in a relationship to know if it’s moral:

1. time
2. communication
3. trust
4. shared values

I really like this kind of sex education.

I was talking with a friend the other day, and she said that as a teenager she knew pretty much all there was to know about the physical aspects of sexuality. And so she believed she knew all there was to know about sexuality.

One of the problems my friend mentioned was her discomfort as a teenager and young adult in talking about sex with adults. She could get important information about STIs and safe sex, along with the nuts and bolts of how to engage in french kissing and oral sex, from books. But she couldn’t get conversation about discovering her own boundaries, how to say “No” to physical contact, or what it means and feels like to love and be loved.

How is it possible that our sexuality education has been downgraded to incorporating only the physiology? Why and when were morality and emotion taken out of the public discussion of sex? Regardless, I stand proudly with Rev. Haffner and many others, trying to bring these critical aspects of the conversation back into open conversation.

So when you talk with your children and teenagers about sex, don’t feel the need to mince words about the moral and emotional implications of sexuality. Providing substance in the form of your own values is far, far more effective and valuable to them than providing a vacuum.

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.

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?

This week - and Thursday in particular - is often either glorious or pure torture for high school students. (Or at least for the girls. I get the feeling there are plenty of high school boys who don’t really notice or care?)

Here’s what happened during my 4 years of High School Valentine’s Days:

Freshman year: A secret admirer gave me a stuffed Dopey doll (of the Seven Dwarfs fame). I hoped it was a different special someone than it turned out to be, but had a lovely time feeling admired nevertheless.

Sophomore year: Sat around grousing with a Senior friend about how horrible Valentine’s Day was when you’re alone. We decided to hang out that night, and ended up at an outdoors flower market and bought flowers for each other. There was a sense of innocence and ease between us. It was the start of a very sweet - if also very short - relationship.

Junior year: I was an exchange student in Germany, and was depressed in a general sense about my life. Looking back, I’m sure it was from a terrible lack of sun that I’m used to here in Texas.

Senior year: My boyfriend left a carpet of rose petals from my front door to my car door, where he had tucked in a calligraphy poem he wrote to me. Flowers were delivered to me at school, and he took me out for a romantic dinner that night. We probably made out afterwards, or maybe had sex. Romance at the highest level!

Looking back now, I think my sophomore year Valentine’s Day was my favorite. There was no stress, there was no judgment, there was no expectation about the night itself or about the good-bye kiss. My worst was hands-down my time in Germany.

What was your favorite Valentine’s Day during High School? What was the worst? What did you learn from those experiences?

Yesterday I wrote about the Silver Ring Thing. Among other issues with this program, I talked about the Born-Again Virgin process, and how much I dislike it. One of the reasons I dislike it is because I think it teaches teenagers (and pre-teenagers) that sexuality is something you can annul. You can deny it’s existence. And, most importantly, you can deny your own past experiences with it.

This really does the exact opposite of what I think the Silver Ring Thing folks want. By giving teenagers the adult- and religion-sanctioned ability to claim a sexual encounter did not happen, they are dis-honoring the sexual encounter itself.

Now, there are certainly times and places where a sexual experience was just bad, particularly in retrospect. And it is very appealing to think that it can be annulled - rather like a regrettable marriage. But here is a time for working on self-forgiveness, rather than denying the past. This is a time for understanding that mistakes make us, in part, the wiser people we are today. Teenagers need education in self-compassion rather than simple denial.

I remember a friend of mine from high school decided he was a born-again virgin. He had had two stable, loving, monogamous relationships with two good friends of mine. He had sexual intercourse within each of those relationships. Both of the girls were virgins before their relationship with this young man. Neither of the break-ups included much anger or animosity. After the second of these relationships ended, my young male friend decided that he would be a born-again virgin.

To me, that suggested that he was denying the closeness, both physical and emotional, that he had with those two young women. What an extremely hurtful thing to do to a past lover. They both considered that they had had sex with him - but he no longer acknowledged his part in that experience.

From that point forward, when asked, he would say he had not had sex. That was a misrepresentation to potential sex partners. It so happened that he did not have any STIs and had not gotten anyone pregnant, but he certainly had had the opportunity to do both of those things.

Now, had my friend simply said that he was not going to have sex again until marriage - that would have been different. Deciding to be sexually abstinent is a choice that I, essentially, support anyone making for themselves. But this “born again virgin” thing is ridiculous.

(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!