Kids are getting their sex education from porn. If parents hate that, they should talk to their kids about sex rather than criticizing porn.
And they should urge schools and churches to better serve young people by talking about sex in an accurate, meaningful way.
For parents and kids of all ages, it’s back-to-school time.
And while mastering reading and writing are unquestionably important for young people, sexuality is pretty important, too. That’s because of an intense brew of emotions, norms, laws, and cultural change that grammar school, high school, and college students face in 2019.
So let’s talk about some common concerns that parents have. The following apply to children of all ages.
~ Information and words won’t hurt young people.
You’re a good dad, you care about your kids and want the best for them. “The best” includes the information and values they need to develop healthy sexuality.
When parents ask me “at what age should I start talking to my kids about sex?” I gently reply, “If you haven’t started yet, you’re behind schedule—no matter what age they are.”
“Consent” is only one aspect of sexuality; focussing on it too much distracts us from other important policy issues regarding sex. It also ignores the central role of ambivalence and ambiguity in sexual decision-making.
As you may know, I lecture around the country on various aspects of sexuality: from how couples can have better sex, to how therapists can work with issues such as infidelity, to innovative public policy.
I love presenting “Talking with your kids about sex,” which I do for various parent groups—including at Catholic high schools.
Except right now, Catholic high schools think they have too much going on to bring me in. And if they want a speaker about sexuality, they think they need something focused on exploitation, consent, and recovering from trauma.
There’s a lot of passionate talk about pornography these days. The loudest voices involve a lot of false assumptions, a lot of fear and rage, a lot of predictions about porn’s destructive aspects. Some of us insist on looking at the science of it all—exactly how much (or how little) violence there is in porn, about porn’s effects from both the neuroscience and marital counseling side, about the nature of human sexual fantasy. We’re often shouted down. We’re often accused of being “pro-porn.” When I toured after my 2016 book (His Porn, Her Pain) was published, that was usually the…