BY Lux Alptraum
April 15, 2008
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7 Comments

While in Austin for SXSW, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Karen Rayne, a sex educator who blogs about adolescent sexuality. Recently, I had the good fortune to catch up with her again and pick her brain about kids, sex, and (of course) the Internet.

What got you interested in adolescent sexuality?
I really got interested in this topic through working with teenagers as a teacher, a friend, and a youth group leader. Sexuality is such a huge topic for teenagers. They are always talking amongst themselves about romance and sex. And once a teenager feels close to an adult, there is often a flood of questions about those topics. I ended up educating myself about sex to be able to fully answer the questions of the young people around me.

After some years of this, a mother friend of mine was talking to me about her 9th grader who had just had sex for the first time. My friend was very concerned because her daughter did not know the rudimentary aspects of safe sex, but did not want to go into enough detail with her month to learn them. My friend wanted someone to sit down with her daughter and teach her about safe sex, but also teach her how to listen to her body, how to get pleasure from her body, and how to talk openly with her lover about her sexual needs and preferences. My friend couldn’t find anywhere that offered such an education, and so I offered to sit down with her daughter over a few months and talk. It was a fabulous experience for me and the daughter!

From there, I started talking with parents in small focus groups about what kind of sexuality education they wanted for their teenagers. What really struck me was that what the parents wanted was to feel confident talk to their teenagers about sex themselves. They just didn’t know how.

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?
Here is what I tell parents: Talking with your teenagers about sex is hard (much harder than talking at them about sex!). But you have to get over that hump and make the effort. Teenagers list their parents as the most influential people in their sexual decision making. You can do it. Even if it’s awkward, it will make a difference in your teenager’s choices.

After parents get over the initial hump and start the conversation, the majority of the advice I have left for them is this: Now stop talking and listen! Allowing your teenager to talk through her sexual experiences with you probably has a much higher value for her making good sexual decisions in the future than whatever guidance you’re dying to give!

When should parents start talking to their kids about sex? What kinds of messages should young children be given about sex and sexuality?
The conversation about sex starts at day 1. All children explore their own bodies as babies and toddlers - and how we as parents react to that exploration impacts everything about our ability to converse about sex from that day onward.

Young children are very egocentric (I’m talking about the under 6 set here). So most of what information they need about sex has to do with their own bodies. The need to know that exploring their bodies and feeling the good feelings that come with that is a delightful thing for them to do. Once they’re old enough to be alone, they need to know that masturbation is a thing for them to do alone.

Regrettably, young children also need some basic safety information. They need to know that no adults can touch their penises or vulvas or vaginas except their parents, or a doctor when their parents are in the same room. And they need to know that if an adult does anything that feels uncomfortable to them, that they can tell their mamas or papas without anyone being angry at them. These words are so, so hard for parents to say to their children. But they are so, so necessary.

If you could design a sex ed curriculum for America’s public schools, what would it look like?
Well, it would probably look a lot like the Unitarian Universalist sex ed
program, Our Whole Lives. This is really the only large-scale curriculum that I’m able to get behind 100%.

A fully developed sexuality education curriculum needs to take the best of the health and sexual diversity discussions from comprehensive sexuality education programs and couple it with a solid series of discussions about the moral and ethical implications of sexual involvement.

What I propose as a healthy and complete sexuality education program is, frankly, scary to a lot of people. The need for a scientific-based, factual approach is often at odds with abstinence-only supporters. A full integration and discussion of sexual morals and ethics is often at odds with comprehensive-education supporters. As I suspect there are far more of the second category reading Boinkology, I’ll address the remainder of my answer here.

I want to point out that it is a sad state of affairs that the religious right have co-opted the terms moral and ethical. We have to fight to get these terms back! The most moral and ethical approach to sexuality education is to set up a safe space for pre-teenagers and teenagers to grapple with their sexuality, and to have the tough discussions like what it means to not feel comfortable identifying as straight or gay, or how to read another person’s sexual clues about what sexual activities they do and do not feel comfortable with, or how to discuss and react to the potentially conflicting feelings that that pornography can bring up.

A truly comprehensive sexuality education must address moral and ethical decision making as well as the biological and safety basics.

What’s the most common mistake parents make when talking (or not talking)to their kids about sex?
The most common mistake, hands down, is not talking or not talking soon enough. It’s uncomfortable! But you’ve still got to do it.

In your opinion, has the Internet had an effect on how — and what — kids learn about sex?
This is a really, really interesting question. I have a whole interview on just this topic with Karen Kreps coming out in the May edition of The Good Life Magazine. Karen had to cut down what I had to say substantially to get it to fit into her column space, so I will try to be even briefer here!

There are a few good sexuality-related sites on the web that are directed specifically towards teenagers. I generally plug scarleteen.com and sexetc.org as my favorite. The content for both of these sites comes primarily from teenagers, and so is often more relevant for teenagers.

However, when I ask teenagers where they get their information about sex online, they almost never name sites aimed at teenagers. Teenagers generally start with google and follow where ever it may lead. (Regardless, I should point out, of the “Click here if you’re under 18″ buttons. Let’s be honest here. Those really don’t stop anyone who is over 18 from viewing a site.)

So, yes, the Internet has dramatically changed how teenager get information about sex. There is a 24/7 information source that has no judgment associated with it. That’s great! There is also way, way too much for teenagers - particularly young teenagers - to grapple with alone on the net. That can have very bad results.

What’s the most important sex advice you can give someone?
I’ll stick to the most important sex advice I can give teenagers. And I have two of them:

“Decide how far you want to go sexually before you see the person you’re going out with and before you have anything to drink or otherwise alter your thinking process. Then resolve to respect yourself and your body enough to absolutely stick to that line. If you decide you really do want to go further - there’s always tomorrow to decide on a new boundary.”

“Always, always, always use a condom. It’s not a sign of infidelity, it’s a sign of respect.”

Want to hear more from Karen Rayne? Catch up with her at karenrayne.com.