We need to have an awkward conversation about an awkward conversation.
Kids need to know about sex. And they need to know about it from you.
That doesn’t mean that you have to do anything perfectly, or that it’s not allowed to be awkward.
It just means it has to happen, and it has to happen repeatedly. You need to be a safe place for your kids to come to with their questions, and you need to keep having age appropriate conversations with them as they grow up.
But what do you say? When do you say it? And more importantly, HOW do you say it?
We’ve got something that can help you. But first, a little background of our research.
There is no downside to more information.
We found some really interesting data about sex education in our research for our book She Deserves Better. We surveyed over 7000 women about their experiences in church circles as teens, and here’s just a few of the things we learned:
Close Up on Sex Ed Data
- Gen X and Boomer women had better sex ed than millennial women. You could really see the purity culture effect!
- On high school graduation, girls were more likely to know the words for male anatomy than for female anatomy (clitoris or vulva, for instance, were often mysteries to women)
- Girls who were homeschooled or who attended Christian school had the least information about sex, and also had the highest levels of shame about their periods
- Having shame about your period was linked to much lower self-esteem and higher rates of marrying an abuser
- Only 25% of girls, on graduating high school, could confidently explain consent and date rape. Those who could were less likely to marry abusers and more likely to have higher self esteem.
- The earlier you learned that girls can orgasm, too, the higher your future marital and sexual satisfaction
- The more sex ed you received, the less likely you were to marry an abuser
- The more sex ed you received, the less likely you were to be assaulted or harrassed in church situations
Basically, the more girls knew, the better they did.
And while we didn’t specifically ask men the same questions, other studies have found similar things for boys. The more they knew, the earlier they knew it, the healthier their relationships would be.
Last night, at the Emmys, the teenage actor who starred in the Netflix series Adolescence won Best Actor in a Limited Series. It’s such an important show, because it shows how online social media specifically targets young men, taking them in a dark hole of misogyny and racism and incel culture, to absolutely devastating effects.
Our kids need us to be having these conversations with them, now, more than ever.
There’s a mistaken belief that if kids know about sex, they’ll do it
For years, Christians have practiced telling kids “don’t do it” rather than telling them lots of information about sex and contraception and the arousal cycle and porn and sexual assault. But this hasn’t worked. It’s amazing how stark the bar charts are in our data between Gen X and Millennials. Gen X largely received comprehensive sex ed; evangelical millennials largely did not. And you see the effects, and they aren’t pretty.
I used to believe that if I talked to my girls about something, they’d try it. Or if you prepared them with talks about contraception, it was like telling them, “I assume you’re going to do this”, and kids live up to expectations. So I had to show them that I expected them NOT to do this.
But in their early teen years, I realized that they needed all the information for a lot of reasons, and giving information did not mean relaying the message “I expect you’re going to do this.”
Here’s why:
- One of my daughters had a lot of trouble with regulating her period, and so we had lots of convos about cycles and ovulation and fertile windows and hormone medications, because this was her body, and she needed to understand what was happening. And by extension her sister needed to understand as well!
- Even if my own daughters weren’t having sex, lots of their friends were. And those friends tended to come to my daughters for help and advice because my daughters were seen as safe and wise. And so my daughters needed info so they could help their friends!
- My daughters also understood a lot about abuse dynamics and coercion, and were able to recognize when some of their friends from more vulnerable backgrounds were in over their heads. And you know what they did? They came to me so I could fix it. And I did intervene, a few times. Because teens need adults to care and intervene! Their friends wouldn’t have come to me directly, but I think they came to my daughters because they knew my daughters would rope me in.
- Having talks about healthy attitudes towards sex also helped my girls figure out what were serious red flag behaviours in the boys around them (and, it turns out, in some youth leaders too).
- Knowing that they understood stuff, and could talk to Keith and I about anything, gave them a confidence that meant that the predators around them never looked twice at them. That’s not to say that you can guarantee that your girls won’t be targeted. But in retrospect, we now know that my daughters had predators in their midst who have since been discovered. But predators tend to target the more naive and the more vulnerable. My girls were so confident predators stayed away, and the data does show that confidence lowers the likelihood of being targeted (though nothing can ever make it zero).
We never raised boys, but I can make a similar list for boys based on our research.
It would include things like:
- Most boys get their sex ed today from porn, and they need to know that’s not real (so do girls!).
- Boys who understand that respecting women and girls is an absolute necessity, and who understand what sexual coercion is, are more likely to develop healthy relationships, and less likely to get into sticky situations.
- Boys (and girls!) who understand that porn is designed to get you aroused, but just because you found something exciting doesn’t mean you’re a pervert or a sex addict find it much easier to not get sucked into becoming a chronic porn user
- Boys who understand that girls don’t enjoy what porn depicts are more likely to have healthy marriages and sex lives later
Information empowers; it doesn’t give permission
Do you remember a few years ago when Cedarville University hit the news with their awful sex ed/consent posters in the bathrooms? To qualify for some federal funding they had to address consent. And they did it in the worst way possible, putting up signs in the women’s bathrooms asking, “Have I ever encouraged my boyfriend to go beyond the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves?”
In the dust up as this hit national news, one of the big topics of discussion was that Christian high schools and universities didn’t even like talking about consent, because they believed that kids shouldn’t be having sex in the first place. Talking about it normalizes it.
But here’s what I can tell you: NOT talking about it normalizes assault, secrecy, and abusive relationships later.
Or even if there’s not abusive dynamics, it normalizes not understanding your body’s arousal cycle, and having much more difficulty with sexual pleasure, and a much higher rate of sexual pain disorders, when you do marry.
No one wants that for their kids.
But what do you do if you were raised with terrible sex ed? How on earth do you talk about porn to an 11-year-old boy? How do you talk about female orgasm to a 12-year-old girl? How do you talk about erections and wet dreams to a young boy–or a young girl? How do you talk about making good decisions without shaming them?
How on earth do you start these conversations, and how do you encourage them to keep going?
We’ve created The Whole Story puberty and sex course to help you do just that.
When my daughters were 20 and 22, we had a conversation where they laughed at all the things that I had missed when I gave them sex ed. And I said to them, “well, why don’t you do it better then?”
So they did. They created our first Whole Story video course, an online course that moms can share with their daughters, with short videos from my daughters going over sex, puberty, friendships, body changes, caring for your body, and more, and then discussion questions and activity date nights to solidify the lessons.
We start the conversation, so you can finish it.
A year later we added a boy’s version.
And then last year, we totally revamped the course to include our research from She Deserves Better.
We hadn’t realized how important it was that everyone understands early that girls can orgasm too–until we saw the data.
We hadn’t realized how important it was that everyone understands the sexual arousal cycle, and that understanding this actually empowers you to stop in a makeout situation when you want to–until we saw the data.
And so we wanted to include even more!
In The Whole Story, my daughters Rebecca and Katie teach the girls, and my son-in-law Connor, along with medical student Daniel Barros, teach the boys. And for the older course, we have plenty of modules with both men and women teaching.
They’re all like fun big sisters/big brothers, or your fun young aunts and uncles, who can start these awkward conversations, so they don’t have to be so awkward.
We have four courses:
- Girls 10-12 and Girls 13-15
- Boys 10-12 and Boys 13-15
(They can be started earlier or later depending on where your child is at!)
You can buy them as individual courses, or you can buy lifetime packages with access to all the girls’ material, all the boys’ material, or both altogether!
This week, The Whole Story packages are on sale!
We try to keep everything really affordable, so right now, the complete girls’ package or complete boys’ package is $39, or you can get them both for $59. And that’s lifetime access, plus access to anything we ever revamp! So anyone who bought the original course package way back in 2017 still has access to the brand new course!
But the sale ends next Monday, so get them now!
Each individual course is $39, so right now, when you buy the bundle, you get a bunch of courses for free.
Let us start the conversations, so you can finish them.
Because you can be that awesome parent! And we want to help.
Growing up, my parents had two reactions to talking about sex. My dad joked about it and embarrassed me. My mom seemed super uncomfortable when the topic came out, so I learned not to ask her questions. I was determined it would be different for my kids. We started using anatomical names for body parts from the time they were toddlers. I answered every body question honestly. Both of my teenage sons know about the menstrual cycle, and I can say “I have cramps” just as easily as “my stomach hurts” or “I have a headache.” In middle school my son asked me”how can there be a surprise baby? Wouldn’t someone know they were having sex?” That led to a conversation about different forms of birth control.
We’ve also had many conversations about what the Bible says about sex, why God wants us to wait until we are married, and how our life choices change if someone gets an STI or becomes pregnant before being married and established in a career. I agree with Sheila and crew that sex is an ongoing conversation, and I have never regretted giving my kids as much age appropriate information as they wanted.
People also seem that teaching kids about different sexual orientations and gender identities means all the sudden they will turn gay or trans when in reality what is happening is the kids who are LGBTQ learn that about themselves sooner and that their feelings are normal which is good because I have heard a lot of stories about older gay people getting into straight relationships without realizing they are gay, asexual, a different gender, etc and end up facing a lot of heartache especially since in a lot of Christian circles getting married despite not being attracted to your spouse tends to be normalized.
Queer youth need to learn early on that they aren’t broken and deserve healthy relationships and safe communities just as much as their straight peers.
I also must add that Christian churches need to understand cultural context in not just about passages about marriage and submission but also realize that how people back in Bible times viewed being gay was waaaay different than how we view being gay now. Like in Ancient Rome it was only considered gay if you receive and two gay people having loving long term relationships raising kids was unheard of or thought to be impossible. Most people back then didn’t even acknowledge lesbians exist either. Homosexuality was very much associated with promiscuity which we know now doesn’t have to be the case.
“Like in Ancient Rome it was only considered gay if you receive..”
Because the distinction was not between male and female, but Penetrator and Penetrated. Where the Penetrator became more Manly because “he made a woman” out of the Penetrated. Like an animal forced-dominance display.
(And Roman culture was very much into Power Dynamics.)
Many years ago, talk-show host Dennis Prager wrote an essay called “Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality”; his thesis was that pre-Torah sexual attitudes were as above, and Torah redefined sex as between male and female to get away from Penetrator and Penetrated forced-dominance displays. Like the prohibition on graven images and emphasis on Word bypassed the “Monkey See, Monkey Do” of visual imagery in sight-dominated primates.
In Thomas Cahill’s book “The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels”, he starts with a vivid image of a sex ritual in pre-Torah Mesopotamia, with two-legged animals howling in rut on the steps of the ziggurat, not yet able to Transcend the Animal.
Yes and it’s important for cishet kids to learn too! I never understood why evangelicals were so against the portrayal of same-sex couples in the media, where kids can see. Like, if it’s not on tv, do we think gay people will just stop existing? Do we think kids will never meet LGBTQ+ people in real life? Those kids grow up having no idea how to interact with people who are different. Now little Johnny is going to snub or even bully little Joey at school because he has two moms and Johnny’s parents say that’s an abomination, do we really think that’s ok??
I know I’m preaching to the choir here. Just saying, all kids need to learn this. It doesn’t do them any favors to avoid equipping them to function in normal society. But there are still lots of people who really do believe that LGBTQ+ people just existing will influence their kids to become LGBTQ+, and they don’t care about the evidence to the contrary.
Yes. Knowledge of any sort cannot be a bad thing. It should be (and is) protective. I so appreciate the reminder that giving our kids solid and thorough sex education protects not only our own kids but other kids, too. A great post, Sheila. Thank you.
Thank you so much, ma’am. Something I’ve said for years is this:
“If our children cannot learn from their parents,
And they cannot learn from their schools,
And they cannot learn from their churches,
Then they will learn from the rest of the world.” And that’s usually from sources that are designed to entertain but not so much to inform or to edify.
If I may:
“just because you found something exciting doesn’t mean you’re a pervert or a sex addict find it much easier to not get sucked into becoming a chronic porn user” I think two sentences got stuck together here. But that being said, I think the core message is wonderful, because (my parents did not realize this for years because my youth group and its teachings did not *integrate* parents into what their children were being taught) instead of being given the straw-man “anything goes” message that my church leaders continually told me that the world would give me, they gave me the exact inverse and taught me to be unduly afraid of things, even good and healthy and beautiful things, and that cost me a lot of genuinely wholesome opportunities, both to learn and to put into practice. I learn by doing, and too many people, especially young people, simply do not know where to go in order to learn how to conduct themselves in adult life, particularly in this precious and sacred and holy aspect. I thank you so much for your voice and for all that you do.
Also I liked Courtney’s and Kristy’s comments
PLEASE lets give our kids more information about sex and talk openly with them.
I was raised in an evangelical home where my only “Sex Ed” was James Dobsons book “Preparing for Adolescence.” My parents did not about sex, were not emotionally available, and so I did not feel safe asking any questions about sex or the opposite sex. I am a 36 yr old man, and a recovering Sex Addict. I have blown up my life and my marriage. My wife and I recently read the Great Sex Rescue and it completely blew our minds. I would have never thought I was affected by “Purity Culture” but I was unaware and in denial.
In my recovery and trying to piece together my life and how I got to this point, I rediscovered James Dobsons “Preparing for Adolescence.” I re read it last week in an effort to know my sexual foundation. It was so weak and pathetic. This book did not discuss “porn” or “lust” to any degree. Some quotes that stood out to me from the book:
“But just as serious are the changes that take place within a person’s mind when he has intercourse outside the bonds of marriage. First and most important, his relationship with God is sacrificed.”
Wow, I remember vowing that I would save myself for marriage, I definitely didn’t want to sacrifice my relationship with God. I also had no tools or any preparation on how to handle desire, lust, and temptation. So naturally I turned to porn..
Dobson also describes the Vagina as “that special opening.” In his description of Menstruation he his only mention of pain is “if there’s some pain associated with menstruation or you have any questions at all, then muster your courage and talk with your mother.” I did not realize the full gravity of menstrual pain until well into my 20s.
I could go on and on with the messages in this book which formed my knowledge of sex and women. Pathetic and I was so unequipped. Learning today what my “sex talk” actually involved from Dobsons book is infuriating, and sad.
I made the choices to turn to porn and sexting though and I must live with the consequences. I pray to God that he heals us and completely renews and transforms me.
Oh, wow! I’ve never read that. I think I should go back and do that and do some Fixed It for Yous!
In an age of iPad babies raised online and where heavy-duty porn is one tap-and-swipe away from anyone with a phone, they WILL learn about sex from somewhere. And once learned, it is difficult to unlearn.
And Christians these days are famous for doing everything ass-backwards wrong.
Think about it.
Hi Sheila, I’m hoping you’ll see this comment (I’ve posted it on FB as well). I received the marketing email for the sex and puberty courses. It says there are resources for single mothers to share the resources with their sons.
Are there any resources for single fathers to share the resources with their daughters?
We have single fathers in our congregations – some are widowed and others are in situations where the mother is allowed only limited and supervised time with their daughters (court ordered).
We also work with Defence families, supporting Dads where the Mother is on deployment or posted to another military base without their family (Unaccompanied Resident Family).
These Dads are stepping up and we want to have resources to support them.