Let’s Talk About Sex Baby, Let’s Talk About You and Me…

“Let’s talk about all the good things, and the bad things that may be. Let’s talk about sex.”

The song from the early 90s says it all.  When the hit group Salt-N-Pepa sang about the otherwise taboo topic, they were doing a major service to many teens and their parents.  Through the hit, they touched upon how sex is inevitable and that it is about making good choices.  The song also echoes the notion that there is no need to avoid discussing the subject.

And I second this notion.  From as early as I can remember, my mother the wonderful Priscilla Anderson, would talk to me and my sister about positive, healthy relationships.  It wasn’t always about just sex, but sex was part of it.  I remember my mother reading my sister and I bedtime stories but then also we’d get our fair share of sexual health education through the red and gray Life Cycle book.  After that, anytime we had any questions we were allowed look it up in the book so we understood what there is to know.

We recently held a show about this topic where I had invited several guests to discuss varying viewpoints.  My very first guest had one extreme perspective while the one immediately following her had the opposite extreme view.

Interestingly, both are named Holly.

Holly Hill, best-selling author of Sugarbabe and Toyboy, feels very strongly that not only is it the parents’ responsibility to teach children about sex, but it is also their duty to provide the kids a safe venue to have the sex they are having.  She emphasizes that girls should understand their worth.  So, it’s not about having sex with anyone and everyone or engaging in sex without the social intimacy that comes along with it, such as respect, genuine admiration for the partner and courtship.  Rather, she says, girls should expect to be valued and their worth should be redeemed.

She explains her theory, “Instead of telling your child they’ve just grown a new set of wings but they can’t use them for another decade or so, why not tell them that it’s a dangerous thing having a new set of wings but how about practicing here, where it’s safe.”

As I engaged my guests in the radio program, I couldn’t help but imagine letting my teenage boys have sex in my home, with their mother a few feet away.  I’m liberal but that is pushing it.  I personally think that it’s our job to teach our kids to be responsible and to understand all there is to know about relationships and the sexual health that goes hand in hand with good relationships.

In my case, unlike how Holly Hill expresses, there was an emphasis on sexual learning and familiarity but at the same time my mother would instill in us her value system which was that it’s nice to have sex when you’re married but more importantly, with someone you love.  My mother gave us her values but didn’t make it mandatory, giving us breathing space to be who we are and make our own judgments about right and wrong.

My feeling is this:  if you don’t have a solid understanding about what good relationships are, then when you are in a relationship and don’t have good sex with your partner, then your partner will leave you to go find good sex elsewhere.   So there goes one more marriage failed because there wasn’t a good foundation to begin with.  Now, while I may not allow my boys to have sex down the hall from my bedroom as Holly Hill suggests is the healthiest way to behave, I will provide them with condoms, educate them about the risks involved with unsafe sex, talk to them about how getting a girl pregnant before it’s the right time is a dangerous and irresponsible thing.  Several guests agreed that by educating our children we prevent cases of pedophilia and instill values of strong, healthy and long-lasting relationships and/or marriages.

The opposite extreme of this spectrum is another guest I had on my show, Holly Boyd, a member of a Christian organization, coach and author.  She holds the main viewpoint that one should remain a virgin until they get married.  Sex is not something that people should have before that point, especially teenagers because, she says, they are not prepared.

As a physician, I see everything.  I have seen pregnant 11-year-olds which makes me cringe when I think about how a bit of education could have spared this child about to have her own child from years of a consequence.  It gets uglier than that too, with cases of oral cancer from sexual activity that results in STDs spreading in places these kids wouldn’t dream of had they known the facts in advance.

I maintain that it is important for us, as parents, to guide our children into a comfortable sexual existence.  Even more so, they should know and understand the value of good, strong, solid, loving and respectful relationships – that translate into good, strong, solid, loving and respectful sex within those relationships.

Dr. Veronica – Wellness for the REAL World