Over the past few weeks we have been having more and more frequent conversations in my house about sex. I smell the changes on the horizon and in Ryan’s suddenly very stinky feet. I have always answered all their questions frankly while trying to remain age appropriate. This has been great till suddenly one day (insert the sound of a record player needle scratching across a record) I caught Aaron on my Ipad googling “nakid gyrls”. He is seven years old!!! I tried to remain calm and ask him what he was doing. He said he was curious about what young nakid gyrls looked like. Ryan said over his shoulder nonchalantly, “I told him it was a bad idea, we are too young for that”. I explained to the boys the pictures of the women on the internet were not always real and not what all women look like. I then promptly locked my Ipad browser down and I monitor the usage very closely.
If I had a girl I would know what to do in this situation and the situations that are sure to arise in the future but with boys I am lost. I want them to learn to respect their body and the body of their future lovers, I want them to be knowledgeable about and use birth control consistently. I never want them to feel pressured into having sex when they might not be ready, nor do I want them to pressure anyone else. I want to raise boys who can become self actualized men who know sex is a normal, healthy, fun, part of life but is not an act to be entered into lightly. I want them to be aware the internet has changed the sexual landscape of the world and not every possible sexual act should be explored in the first few sexual encounters they have
I know what I want for them but I have no clue on how to go about this. My husband and I came to age before people had VCR’s in their homes. The porn we were exposed to came to us when someone stole one of “those” magazines from a Woolworths or the racier ones were stolen from under an older brother or uncles bed. The sex in the pictures was simulated. The women were naked but the worst you saw were her vulva spread. Nowadays the internet has brought a virtual smorgasbord of porn into our homes for free at the touch of a button. How do we teach our boys that sex is not always this easy? Teach them their partners are people with feelings and ideas and not just there to perform at will like on the internet.
I am going to keep pondering this and do my best by my sons.
Internet, what would you do to educate your sons about sex in the age of internet porn.
August 20, 2012 at 5:57 pm
I am more than confident that whatever you figure out will work for your family. The most important part is to just keep talking!
August 20, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Oof. This is a topic I have NO clue about and yet, like it or not, it looms on the horizon for us, too. I’ll be watching and taking in all the knowledge and wisdom of those with slightly older kids.
August 20, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Well… my boys are 23, 19 and 16 now. My oldest had to endure an old-fashioned sit-down-and-listen-to-me lecture. I talked mainly about the feeling during puberty and how enormous they are and how easy it is to be fooled into believing those enormous feelings are forever and THE! MOST! MEANINGFUL!
I told him that just like he practiced and learned over time certain other things about life, feelings, relationships and sex were things he was going to have to practice too – practice understanding them. He didn’t have to engage in anything in order to learn, he had only to listen to others, pay attention to his own body and emotions and learn to identify what was going on. I also admitted that it was common for girls especially to be fooled into believing their emergent feelings were TRUE LOVE! so it was really important to understand that and be very careful about the things you say and do. I told him the under no circumstances was he ever to think about sex as more important than the person he was with. Sex was never more important than someone’s feelings. “Sex is awesome, but truthfully its only awesome for a few minutes, maybe an hour if you really know what you’re doing, but feelings and connections last a very long time and can have effects for the rest of your life” I told him the best thing he could do was to always remember that sex can be great no matter who you’re with, but it only takes up a small portion of your time with a person, so make sure that person is worth being with without sex too.
I think I scared him off. He hasn’t had a girlfriend that I know of ever. His best friend told me he’s gone on some dates and possibly maybe lost his virginity but that he appears too aloof and picky to really get involved with any girls who express interest. On the good side, I chalk this up to the fact that so far, his exposure to females outside of high school has been hanging out with his “player” friends and his promiscuous father. Its quite clear he has no wish to act like any of them. We figure he’s holding out for the “best friend lover”
August 20, 2012 at 7:31 pm
My other two boys are on the spectrum. Their step-father elected to discuss certain basic realities. He explained how masturbation worked first. Believe it or not, many many adults on the spectrum say they wish someone had told them this! So we decided we would. I made a brief appearance just to explain to them that women liked to masturbate as well but it was a very private thing. People don’t talk about it because there’s nothing to talk about so although it was okay to mention it, it wasn’t something to discuss with strangers. Husband explained the mechanics of sex. He explained some of the very basic feelings involved in sexual congress.
We both told Son Number Two (moderate autism, severe language disorder) that under no circumstances was he ever to engage in sexual behavior with someone who did not tell him “yes I want to do this”. We also told him he was not supposed to have sexual contact until he was married. We personally do not subscribe to that as a blanket moral but frankly in his case, it seemed the simplest solution to the problem of how to navigate the intricacies of sexual behavior with him. He matures, he just does it slow. We’ hoping, betting, that eventually he may meet some woman who loves him and they may want to be sexual. By that time, we are hoping he will have matured enough that it will not be a difficult enterprise.
Son Number Three has had extensive private discussions with me about how to deal with burgeoning relationships. As with just about all kids who have Aspergers, he does not intuitively understand the subtleties of social interaction but he very much wants to learn. We talk about how to have a conversation, how tell if someone is enjoying your company, what to do if you’ve offended someone, how to ask questions without seeming rude, how to be mindful of someone’s feelings etc
August 20, 2012 at 7:35 pm
I feel confident that all my boys very much see women as people first and want their future interactions with romance and love to be with a person who is their equal and their friend.
We also told Second Son he was never to have sex without a condom. Period. We didn’t explain why.
Third Son told us he is bisexual. This was completely without fanfare as the boys know both their father and myself are bisexual. That’s why our language has had to purposefully be as gender-neutral as possible
August 21, 2012 at 4:14 am
If you find out how, please tell me! I have a 10 year old boy and I’m pretty lost too!
August 21, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Good Luck. Hopefully, you can do as well as Smibbo, per her comments…
August 21, 2012 at 8:07 pm
this should help