How to be a sex positive parent?

— It is important to instill sex positivity in your kids. If you have been wondering how to be a sex-positive parent, here are some expert-approved ways that can help.

By Arushi Bidhuri

Sex is a natural part of our lives and it only makes sense to talk about sexuality in all its fairness. Yes, conversations about sex are still hushed and laden with stigma, but embracing a sex-positive approach as a parent becomes an important tool to shape the future of your child. With so many sexuality terms being thrown around, it is more important than ever to be a sex-positive parent and to teach kids how to be sex-positive.

For the unversed, sex positivity is a way of being that gives importance to pleasure and freedom, instead of shame and judgment. If you are confused about sex positivity and how you can instill it in your kid’s life, read on.

What is sex positivity for children?

In the most simple terms, sex positivity is believing that sex is a positive thing in a person’s life. Psychiatrist Dr Sanjay Kumavat explains, “Sex positivity is the way children are brought up with age-appropriate and adequate knowledge about their orientation, and the concept of sex. This comprises knowledge sharing with respect to sex organs, the importance of healthy relationships, all aimed at letting them know about sexuality positively.”

What makes a parent sex-positive?

There is never a right time to have the “talk” with your kid. However, it is still important to know that you must not avoid talking about sexuality with your children. It is important for their overall development. For a parent to be sex-positive, they need to be comfortable and have a clear understanding of what sexuality means.

“Sex-positive parents are not embarrassed to talk about sexuality openly and adequately. Adequate is the word I emphasise, because it should not be too much or less, and they should not be embarrassed about communicating about these issues. They should start talking as soon as the child starts developing secondary sexual characters, and when they see that the child is showing some interest in sexuality, like showing interest in cross-gender relationships and friendships,” says Dr Kumavat.

How to be a sex-positive parent?

If you have been wondering how to be a sex-positive parent without going overboard, here’s what you can do.

1. Have open communication

The first thing is to be open to your children by communicating your ideas and thoughts clearly. Be very open and always watch for the signs that your child is showing some interest in sexuality.

2. Do not judge

Parents should not suppress children. If they ask you queries, be open to clear their doubts. Even if parents find the queries stupid or which will require too much information sharing, the doubts shouldn’t be suppressed. Keep communicating with children and give them adequate information by resolving their queries and avoiding snapping at them, advises the expert.

3. Teach them about consent and safe sex

Make them aware of being guarded about sexuality, and the precautions to be taken. Talk to them particularly about sexuality under the influence of drugs and alcohol, or sexuality crossing the limits, which is not age-appropriate. Talk about appropriate touch, and how it should be an act of respect and compassion.

Also Read: 5 things to know about condoms to avoid unwanted pregnancy

4. Be vigilant

With so much information available, it can be confusing for kids to know what information they should consume or avoid. One of the biggest influences on kids these days is social media. Make sure that you know the kind of information your child is consuming through these platforms. Give them some guidance about what the problems are with believing things on this website, and the misinformation that is shared, recommends Dr Kumavat.

5. Limit internet access, but do not judge

It is important to help your child understand the ways to separate right from wrong. You have to make sure your kids are not hooked or addicted to certain kinds of inappropriate sites. Such kind of openness and guardedness also should be there as necessary. Don’t give too much access to the Internet – it has to be monitored and a judicious approach must be taken when giving internet access, says the psychiatrist.

Takeaway

Being sex-positive means that you think of sex as a positive thing and do not associate it with shame and guilt. It is vital to instill these values in your child to make sure they do not judge the world too harshly or feel judged for the choices they make. Your child should feel comfortable talking about sexual matters, feelings they get, ideas or thoughts that cross their mind, or how someone’s touch makes them feel. They should be able to define sexuality in a positive sense – one that allows them to be free and not caged. And there is not a better feeling for a parent to help their child understand who they are and be true to themselves.

Complete Article HERE!

Why Talking About Sex is So Awkward

— Sex is everywhere, but talking about is still so taboo. Here’s how to begin to change that.

By Sabrina Winter

Gianna Bacio makes a living doing something most people are uncomfortable with: talking about sex. And she’s been doing it day in, day out for the past 13 years, especially on Instagram and TikTok.

Today, great TV shows like Sex Education have begun demystifying the topic, but we’re still very far from comfortable and positive discussions about what we like in bed. We asked Bacio why that is and what we can do about it.

VICE: Hey Gianna. When was the first time you talked about sex?
Gianna Bacio:
I was 4 years old. I was sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car, playing with Barbie and Ken, when Barbie said, “Ken, let’s fuck!” That’s how my family still tells the story to this day.

People hate talking about sex, but for you, it seems fun.
I’ve always enjoyed it. I remember an evening with my friends, I was maybe 19 or 20, where we met up with plans to go out later. I just threw the question out there: “What do you do with the sperm after having sex?”

Some friends found it totally gross and shut it down, but I thought it was an important question. I wanted to share my experiences and learn from others. Maybe I was just oversharing.

Why do people get so embarrassed?
Shame is a crucial part of embarrassment. The ability to feel shame is innate, but it’s only later that it really kicks in with socialization. When children hear, “Yuck,” “That’s gross,” or “Stop that,” they become insecure. Talking about personal preferences is considered shameful in our culture, just as opening your mouth in public is shameful in Japan, for example.

Does shame have any positive connotations?
Well, if we look at evolution, yes. For humans, group survival was crucial and bodily responses like blushing signal: “This is uncomfortable for me.” Today, it’s become unnecessary in many situations, though.

So shame gets in the way of good sex. But it’s only part of the explanation, right?
Yes, during sex, we are usually naked. This vulnerability should not be underestimated when talking about sex. We make ourselves vulnerable, we reveal something about ourselves. Plus, sex has long been considered forbidden and dirty. And that’s even more the case with female pleasure – we’ve only begun openly talking about it in the past few decades.

Why is that?
We haven’t come very far in terms of gender equality. While there has been a revolution on women’s rights, the Church – which has had a huge influence in Europe for many centuries – made sex and masturbation taboo. Today, few people are religious, but we still don’t learn to talk about sex.

Who should teach us? Parents? Teachers? The internet?
Parents, of course, are role models. People often ask me: When is the right time for sex education? I think there doesn’t need to be a big moment. If you talk about sex openly, you’ll notice when a child develops their curiosity. Then they’ll ask questions, and you can answer them.

You have a young son. What questions does he ask?
My son is almost 5 and is very curious. He sees many books at home dealing with the body. Recently, at the library, he held up a book about bodies and said, “Look Mom, you like these kinds of books.” Of course, he knows what I do for work and asks many questions.

What should schools teach about sex?
I was recently in a classroom and could feel the embarrassment. It manifested as a lot of giggling. But it was even worse in the teachers’ lounge, there was even more giggling.

The problem is, in school, you only learn how to protect yourself – whether from pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. The joyful, positive aspects of sex are rarely discussed.

In one of your Instagram posts, you wrote that good sex can be learned. How?
There’s this assumption you should just be able to have sex, that it’s innate. Either it works, or it doesn’t. Some believe they just need the perfect partner. That’s mostly nonsense.

I believe that if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can have good sex or a good relationship with anyone. You have to educate yourself, experiment, communicate, and figure out what pleases you.

How do you start doing that?
You have to get over yourself, of course. One strategy is to dive into the deep end. For example, you can say to your partner: “Hey, let’s sit down tomorrow at 6PM and talk about sex.” This involves revealing intimate details, stating your own needs, and discussing preferences.

How do you even find out about your preferences?
That’s not easy. Our attention and thoughts often focus on the other person and what they like. It can be worth asking yourself: Where do I want to be touched? What makes sex good to me? Opening up isn’t easy. People often message me about it.

What kinds of messages do you receive?
Sometimes women write to me that they’ve been faking an orgasm for years. They ask me: “How can I now say it was never real?”

What do you advise them?
Well, either they live with the lie or they overcome this hurdle. Often, I sense a desire for change in these messages. But you have to do something about it. It’s probably awkward to talk about sex for the first time. But I promise: It gets easier over time. 

What helped you?
Repetition. And therapy.

Therapy isn’t always accessible, nor is jumping into the deep end. What else can you do to talk more about sex?
Perhaps with a game. Then, there’s an external entity raising questions and stimulating reflection.

Are these topics harder for men or women?
Often for men.

Why?
This sounds like a stereotype, but unfortunately, men talk less and are less open. When they do talk about sex, it’s more about performance. They don’t frequently ask themselves what they would like.

Not talking about sex is bad, but having sex without your partner’s consent is worse. How can we communicate more clearly about that?
Here we are again with the question: What do I like, and what do I want? It helps to listen to your gut feeling. When we don’t want something, we notice it, and we should trust ourselves. If we don’t, we also harm our self-esteem and confidence because we betray ourselves.

Complete Article HERE!

Consent Culture

— What Consent Means and How to Set Personal Boundaries

By Peyton Nguyen

What is consent? Consent is a key component of all healthy relationships. What you are or are not comfortable with in a sexual experience can change over time. Thus, it’s important to communicate your needs to your partner while also checking to see what their needs are.

Consent culture, where people in a community feel empowered to freely make decisions regarding their own comfort as it pertains to their sexual experiences, is created through open dialogue about sex.

As part of a continuous effort to bring that conversation to the BU community, Student Health Services hosted an event for incoming students at Orientation called Cones for Consent. The event was originally established by SHS’ Sexual Assault Response & Prevention Center (SARP). Students completed a quick survey and got free ice cream in exchange! As a Student Health Ambassador, talking with students about such an important topic at a fun event like this was nice. Being able to chat with such a large portion of the student body over a popsicle was a great way to close out the summer. Our discussions and the array of anonymous survey responses helped us better understand how BU students think about consent.

Here’s What Students Responded With:

“Consent culture means having respect for others’ boundaries.”

Defining boundaries is an important part of establishing a healthy relationship, and respecting them ensures that everyone feels safe and comfortable.

“It means that you openly communicate with your partner.”

Open communication empowers partners to discuss what they like, dislike, and everything in between.

“Creating consent culture lets us feel safe and empowered on campus.”

Consent culture makes the campus community a better place for us all!

“Consent is always an enthusiastic yes that can be taken back at any time.”

Consent should always be freely given. If a person feels uncomfortable or can’t give consent, stop what you’re doing.

Through the survey, students showed that consent culture is important to them as members of the BU community – so how can you encourage the development of consent culture in your own relationships?

Here are a few tips to help you get started!

Have a conversation with yourself:

  • It isn’t always easy to know what you want. That’s why it’s important to take time and reflect on what you’re comfortable with.
  • Consider what ideas you may have surrounding sex in general. These are often shaped by past experiences, but you’re the only one who can know what’s best for you!

Understand what boundaries are:

  • Boundaries are guidelines/limits that help you feel comfortable and safe. These boundaries should be respected.
  • Over time, boundaries can change. This is completely normal! It’s important to revisit them as time passes, just to check in and see if anything has changed.
  • Boundaries can be set regarding a large number of things. Examples include:
    • Using condoms when having sex
    • Getting screened for STIs before having sex
    • Types of sexual activities that you are comfortable (or not comfortable) with

How to have the conversation:

  • Clearly communicating your needs and wants will help everyone be on the same page.
  • Here are some fill-in-the-blank guides for communicating boundaries:
    • Before we have sex, I think it’s important for us to both get screened for STIs. It’s important to me, and will make me feel safe.
    • Just FYI, since we’re going out tonight, I don’t want to have sex if we’ve been drinking. It makes me feel ________.
    • I don’t feel comfortable with ______. If you’re not okay with that, we shouldn’t have sex.

Addressing Consent and boundaries in the moment:

  • You might think you’re okay with something, and then once you’re in the moment, it may not feel right. That’s okay, and you deserve to have your boundaries respected. Don’t be afraid to verbalize that.
  • “No” is a full sentence – you don’t need to give a reason or justification.
  • If you hear “no” during sex, stop what you’re doing and check in with your partner. Boundaries are not a one-and-done conversation. It can take time to fully discuss everyone’s boundaries, and that’s okay!

Complete Article HERE!

My Son Asked Me How Two Men Have Sex.

— My Reaction Surprised Me.

“The next day, I was still thinking about our conversation and sitting with the vague feeling that I hadn’t handled it correctly.”

By

We’ve been talking about sex around my house a lot lately.

As my 10-year-old gets ready to enter middle school next year, he’s been getting increasingly curious about bodies, puberty, and of course, s-e-x. He’s not interested in having sex, he’s quick to inform me ― in fact, the first time I explained the physical machinations of intercourse, his initial response was, “I don’t know, I’d rather play video games.”

But he is interested in understanding sex, a circumstance that has led to a series of increasingly difficult-to-answer queries along the lines of “But what does semen look like?”

We’ve looked at a diagram of the inside of a penis together. We found out that the hole on the tip of the penis is called the “urinary meatus.” I finally convinced him that a man doesn’t pee inside a woman to make a baby. It’s been a wild time.

I try to answer his questions as honestly as is age-appropriate while using the clinical and appropriate terms for body parts and sex acts. Sometimes, I get a little stumped or tongue-tied by questions I didn’t anticipate, like when he asked me how old you have to be to have sex. (I came up with: “There’s no set age, but you want to make sure you’re emotionally mature enough to handle it, that you’ve found someone you trust enough to take that step with, and that you have the necessary information to do it safely. Also, sex should never happen between children and adults.”)

While it’s not always easy or comfortable to have these conversations, I love that my preteen feels comfortable with himself and unashamed to approach me with any and all questions about sex and sexuality. (Although I did have to tell him recently that it’s not necessary to inform me every time he has an erection.)

I have also, throughout his life, been careful not to assume my son’s sexuality; if we talk about the idea of a future partner, I refer to a potential “boyfriend or girlfriend,” “husband or wife.” He has queer people in his life, and he knows other kids with gay parents. He knows about trans and non-binary people, and he once told me a great joke that went: “What are a chocolate bar’s pronouns? Her/she.” The time he came home from school repeating what some boy had told him — “Boys can’t kiss each other” — I didn’t hesitate to tell him that, my dear, they can and they DO.

“What if my son does turn out to be gay? Wouldn’t my ability to provide LGBTQ-inclusive sex education be of dire importance?”

I am very much a parent who says gay, because my son’s sexual orientation (and potentially, gender identity) has yet to be revealed to me, and it’s imperative to me that he knows I will love and support him no matter who he turns out to be attracted to.

So, the other night, when he asked me if two men can have sex together, I had no problem telling him enthusiastically: “Of course they can!” It’s when he asked me HOW they do it that things got hairy.

Tripping over my words, I gracelessly gave him the main idea. (Clinically, and not in excessive detail, but he got the gist.)

Then I immediately started to second-guess my decision. I should have said something nebulous like, “People have different ways to kiss and touch each other,” I thought to myself, feeling the itchy discomfort I get when I overshare with another mom at soccer practice.

So later, when he thought to ask me how two women do it, I sort of pawned him off with a nonanswer and sent him to bed. (But not before he asked me if I had ever done it, to which I responded with a swift and only slightly panicked “NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS,” which I stand by.)

The next day, I was still thinking about our conversation and sitting with the vague feeling that I hadn’t handled it correctly.

In light of the “Parental Rights in Education” law passed in Florida, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in the popular lexicon, there has been a lot of talk about how supporters are assuming that discussion about the existence of sexual orientation or gender identity and related topics is somehow sexual in nature, and thereby inappropriate for children. That is wrong.

Knowing that some families have two mommies or two daddies is not sexual information. Small children don’t sexualise things in that way, and there’s nothing inherently deviant or inappropriate about knowing that LGBTQ+ people exist.

But what about when children are old enough to be taught about sex? (And experts do agree that these conversations are perfectly appropriate for children between 9 and 12, or even younger, especially considering they are on the cusp of puberty.)

If my son is old enough to have gotten a frank explanation of the mechanics of hetero sex, why did I feel so uncomfortable giving him the same information about queer sex? Especially considering that the sex acts engaged in by queer people are also performed by straight folks.

Somehow, when he asked me about two men together, the same information had just felt instinctually more, well, sexual.

I had to look at that discomfort. How had someone as well-intentioned and liberal and frankly not even entirely straight as me fallen into the idea that gay sex is somehow dirtier or less appropriate to talk about than straight sex?

“If my son is old enough to have gotten a frank explanation of the mechanics of hetero sex, why did I feel so uncomfortable giving him the same information about queer sex?”

And I don’t think I’m alone. When I started trying to research the topic, I found a lot of information on how to explain the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity to children, but practically nothing about actually talking to them about queer sex, at any age.

And what if my son does turn out to be gay? Wouldn’t my ability to provide LGBTQ-inclusive sex education then be of dire importance? Don’t I want my son to be sexually prepared, informed, and provided with the information he needs to stay safe, no matter what his sexual orientation? Who would tell him about things like safety in anal play and dental dams?

Not necessarily the teachers at his school. According to the GLSEN 2019 National School Climate Survey, only 8.2% of students (including those who received no sexual education at school) “received LGBTQ-inclusive sex education, which included positive representations of both LGB and transgender and nonbinary identities and topics.”

As a high school junior who identifies as a lesbian told The Atlantic in a 2017 article on LGBTQ-inclusive sex education, “We were informed on the types of protection for heterosexual couples, but never the protection options for gay/lesbian couples.”

Despite my attempts to resist assuming my son’s heterosexuality, when I half-answered his questions about gay sex, wasn’t I assuming it was information he didn’t need? If I was truly considering the possibility that my son might not be straight, wouldn’t I have answered him differently? Pretty sneaky, hetereonormativity.

The more I Googled and the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I’d gotten it wrong. Luckily, this is no uncommon experience for a parent. I make mistakes all the time, and when I do, I think there’s great value in modelling my ability to admit it, take responsibility, and apologise.

So last night, around bedtime, when all the most important conversations seem to happen, I went back in.

“Last night, you asked me some questions about how two men and two women have sex together,” I told him, “and I think I felt a little bit uncomfortable, or nervous, and I didn’t really answer what you asked. But I thought about it more and I realised that if you’re old enough to know how straight people have sex, there’s no reason you’re not old enough to know how gay people have sex. So we can talk about the different ways that gay people have sex together, which, by the way, are also ways that straight people have sex together, and I will answer any questions you have.”

There was nothing dirty or inappropriate about the conversation we proceeded to have, and at the end, he just wanted to know which acts could result in pregnancy, which, hey ― is really important information to have!

He even made me proud when he pivoted from a reaction of “Wow, that’s so weird” to “Actually, it just wasn’t what I was expecting. I shouldn’t call it weird,” in less than 3 seconds with no prompting.

Maybe as importantly, I told him that I’d felt uncomfortable talking about all this because of a prejudice I had, and that everyone has prejudices, but we have to investigate them and try to move beyond them when they come up.

I hope that’s a lesson we all can take to heart because the core belief contributing to my discomfort around the topic of talking to my son about gay sex feels to me like it’s on the same continuum of the ideas fueling Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” and copycat bills.

To be clear, I do not think that we should be educating young children about how anybody has sex. But just as gay people are not inherently inappropriate, and education about LGBTQ topics is not inherently sexual, providing education about gay sex to children who are old enough for sex education is not any dirtier than providing them with information about straight sex.

And in the case of LGBTQ kids, it just may be vital.

Complete Article HERE!

The third step is supporting

— Taking the child’s lead during gender identity exploration

Following the child’s lead is key as they explore their gender identity, experts say.

Being supported is critical as children and adolescents explore their identity. It is the key to avoiding worsening mental health outcomes, research indicates.

By Christine Dalgleish

Being supported is of the utmost importance for children and adolescents exploring their gender identity.

It is the key to avoiding worsening mental health outcomes, research indicates.

A group of local healthcare providers and doctors, Physicians for Diversity & Inclusion, have come together to stand with families of gender diverse children and gender diverse members of the community.

Dr. Ingrid Cosio, whose practice includes time spent at the Northern Gender Clinic in Prince George each week, provides specialized care to transgender and gender diverse persons living in the Northern Health region.

Only about 25 per cent of those exploring their gender identity before puberty go on to take the journey to transition and identify as trans, Cosio said.

“That gender diversity group who is exploring is much bigger compared to the group who ultimately, after puberty, identify as gender incongruent,” Cosio said. “But all the more important is that exploration piece be supported so they can figure that out.”

The key is to follow the child’s lead.

“If the child would like to try different clothing, a different pronoun, a different name or nickname, to see what that feels like then that’s great,” Cosio said. “I think that’s really important because it’s part of that reflection/exploration that is so key. So really it’s about observing them, creating a space where they’ll hopefully tell you if they want to explore.”

Parents can invite their child to talk about it if they would like to change things, Cosio added.

“I have some young folks who were assigned male at birth, they identify as female since they were two years old but want to keep their very typically masculine name – and they don’t want to change that and that’s totally fine,” Cosio said. “That’s what I mean about following the child’s lead – it’s not like ‘well, now you have to change your name’ – no, it’s like ‘what are you comfortable with?’ So I think there’s a lot of misinformation about children being told or being convinced they need to change pronouns or do this or do that. The key is taking the child’s lead and supporting them along that path to do that exploration because only they can do that.”

Support and love for the child no matter what, Cosio said, is the biggest part people can play.

Sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) programs in place in local schools helps educators make schools inclusive and safe for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities. At school, students’ gender does not limit their interests and opportunities, and their sexual orientation and how they understand and express their gender are welcomed without discrimination.

But if parents want to connect with the school, Cosio said, that might be a good idea if there are issues.

“This is something I would see 15 years ago for sure, much, much less now, but do go have a meeting with the school and talk about the goals and how to support your kid,” Cosio said. “That’s the main message.”

Gender diverse children and youth who received medical gender-affirming care over one year experienced 60 per cent lower odds of depression and 73 per cent lower odds of suicidality.

Gender diverse children and youth with supportive parents compared to those with somewhat or non-supportive parents have reduced rates of depression from 75 per cent to 23 per cent, reduced rates of suicidal ideation from 70 per cent to 34 per cent and reduced rates of suicide attempts from 57 per cent to four per cent.

Research has consistently shown very low rates of gender diverse children and youth de-transitioning after social and or medical transitioning, Cosio added.

For reliable and accurate information about gender identity, visit the BC Children’s Hospital gender resource page.

Complete Article HERE!

FIND PART 1 OF THIS SERIES HERE!

FIND PART 2 OF THIS SERIES HERE!

The second step is learning

— Distinguishing gender identity and sexual orientation

The Gender Unicorn illustration explains the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are hot topics that bring much controversy and misinformation with them, especially when it comes to youth. Dr. Cosio, Prince George physician, explains the difference.

By Christine Dalgleish

Sexual orientation and gender identity are hot topics that bring much controversy and misinformation with them, especially when it comes to young people.

A group of local healthcare providers and doctors, Physicians for Diversity & Inclusion, have come together to stand with families of gender diverse children and gender diverse members of the community.

Dr. Ingrid Cosio, whose practice includes time spent at the Northern Gender Clinic in Prince George each week, provides specialized care to transgender and gender diverse persons living in the Northern Health region.

Cosio referred to the www.transstudent.org online tool called The Gender Unicorn to explain basic terms used when it comes to explaining the difference between gender and sexuality.

“So gender identity is what’s in the brain, in the sense that this is how you feel on the inside – your gender,” Cosio said. “So there is female, male, other. So you can have some of one – it doesn’t mean you’re less of the other.”

Gender expression is how you are presenting yourself, which includes feminine, masculine or other.

“You can feel male even though you were assigned female at birth but not feel safe to express it in any way,” Cosio said. “Or you could fully express that by cutting your hair and doing things that are stereotypically considered more masculine. So that’s your expression piece and that’s what other people are going to see when they look at you. So that’s very different than what’s going on in your thoughts in your brain.”

Sex assigned at birth are your chromosomes and what parts you are born with, Cosio explained.

Who you are physically attracted to are totally separate from gender identity. Sometimes these are divided into physical attraction and emotional attraction.

“So you can have any combination, so that means if a person is gender diverse, it doesn’t mean they are gay and a lot of people make that mistake,” Cosio said.

Cosio often finds those who identify as gender diverse, where things aren’t put in boxes so much, are pan-sexual which means they are attracted to the person, no matter what gender they are or what parts they have.

“It’s really about the connection they make with a person,” Cosio said.

For reliable and accurate information about gender identity, visit the BC Children’s Hospital gender resource page.

Complete Article HERE!

FIND PART 1 OF THIS SERIES HERE!

The first step is talking: how kids can safely explore gender identity

— “Going to talk to your doc doesn’t mean you’re expecting to have a treatment or some sort of solution. It’s a start of the discussion.”

It’s important to know children and adolescents will explore their identity and it’s a normal part of growing up.

By Christine Dalgleish

It’s important to know children and adolescents will explore their identity and it’s a normal part of growing up.

It’s not just about gender identity exploration but also what values are held dear, what kind of person they would like to be and it’s important to create a safe space for that exploration to occur.

A group of local healthcare providers and doctors, Physicians for Diversity & Inclusion, have come together to stand with families of gender diverse children and gender diverse members of the community.

Dr. Ingrid Cosio, whose practice includes time spent at the Northern Gender Clinic in Prince George each week, provides specialized care to transgender and gender diverse persons living in the Northern Health region.

Cosio offers some guidance during those first steps taken toward getting more information for a child talking about their gender identity.

“Any time is an OK time to bring it up,” Cosio said. “Going to talk to your doc doesn’t mean you’re expecting to have a treatment or some sort of solution. It’s a start of the discussion. Just like it would be for anything a patient is struggling with or has questions about. The ideal is that your primary care home – whether that’s a family physician or nurse practitioner – offers a safe place that you can go and talk about some feelings you’re having and have a chat about that. Even knowing that’s the starting point is so important and knowing you can come back if things are getting more difficult or you just want to follow up and talk some more.”

Knowing that identity exploration is normal and having a safe space to do that at the doctor’s office, at home and at school is the most important thing, Cosio said.

“Creation of the safe space at the doctor’s office where a patient can come and talk about things is super important,” Cosio said. “That they have a place to come – because some may not have that safe space – if they are coming with their parents, hopefully that means that there is some support to go get some questions answered and talk about it – so hopefully that’s already there. But the message for that first visit is that identity exploration in childhood and adolescents is totally normal, whether it’s gender, sexuality, just figuring out what your core values are, what’s important to you and what kind of person you want to be. And same goes for things like ‘the gender people assume I am doesn’t seem to fit.’ To think about that, to talk about that, so that’s where the whole exploration piece – and for the family and the child to know – that this is normal and we can just take their lead and support them.”

Having that safe space at home and at school is critically important, Cosio added.

“That’s where they can do that exploration,” Cosio said. “They can, so to speak, try on identities that they feel fit them better and to know that they are going to be accepted and loved no matter where they end up and would continue throughout that process.”

Feeling supported and safe while exploring their identity is essential for good mental health, Cosio added.

Gathering information from a patient is an important part of the job for a healthcare provider.

“Just letting them tell their story and talk about their experience and not necessarily guiding that but just seeing the important things they bring up, what are the questions, what are the fears and what their context is – who is in the home, things they like to do, what are the real successes that make them feel awesome, and what are some of the challenges they have. So the experience and the context are the two key pieces of understanding what’s really going on for the young patient.”

Cosio added it’s also important to ask about when they started thinking about this, how it has been making them feel, if it’s affecting their day-to-day life and  has it affected their mood? Are there other more pressing concerns like depression, anxiety or thoughts of self-harm or suicide?

“We want to be screening for that because it can be super dangerous,” Cosio said. “And if we don’t ask the question, they might not bring it up. And we don’t want to miss the opportunity where we could put in a safety plan or be aware of how at risk they are. And also are there any hopes or expectations of how, as their primary care provider, we can help other than listening and providing support.”

Those are the issues a first visit to the family practitioner will address.

The Prince George Public Library, in partnership with the Northern Gender Clinic, provides excellent resources, including gender workbooks, and novels with gender diverse characters going through similar journeys.

For reliable and accurate information about gender identity, visit the BC Children’s Hospital gender resource page.

Complete Article HERE!

How to Raise Sex Positive Kids

— And Why It’s So Important To

By

I will never forget the time I found my eight-year-old watching porn. I was in shock at first and had no idea how to handle it, but I swallowed my inhibitions and used the opportunity to open the lines of communication around sex, which went really well.
Unfortunately, many parents are not as likely to do the same. It’s just the world we live in. But that needs to change.

There are few topics as stigmatized as sex. By extension, the term “sex positive” is highly misunderstood. So what does sex positive mean? It is merely what it sounds like: having a positive attitude toward anything relating to sex. It’s a simple enough concept, yet most fail to grasp it. In fact, if you mention anything remotely sexual in a conversation, people will often laugh, get uncomfortable, feel awkward and usually make jokes. But it’s no laughing matter.

When there are teenagers going to jail for throwing babies in trash cans and dumpsters to avoid admitting to their parents they had sex and got pregnant, it’s not funny.

When there are young members of the LGBTQ+ community who would rather take their own lives than face another day of bullying, it’s not funny.

When there are children expelled, suspended, even arrested, for sharing explicit images of their “peers” on social media, it’s not funny.

When the young people in those images are cyberbullied and slut-shamed to the point of contemplating suicide, it is not funny.

We are living in a society where many still cling to yesterday’s toxic, close-minded ideals. The outdated school of thought behind everything from female anatomy to gender identity is simply not going away fast enough. So what do we do? It’s up to us as parents to break the cycle and teach our children how to think openly, be accepting, respectful and understanding of others, and to make the right decisions for themselves and their own sexual health.

I sat down with Melissa Pintor Carnagey, sexuality educator, licensed social worker and founder of Sex Positive Families, an organization that helps foster healthy attitudes toward sex in young people. Melissa believes that all children deserve holistic, comprehensive, and shame-free sexuality education so they can live informed, empowered, and safer lives. Her website is a wealth of knowledge for families, with information on a wide array of topics and tips on everything from puberty to pornography. She also hosts interactive virtual workshops for tweens, teens and their trusted adults.

I reached out to Melissa to learn how parents can begin to break the generational taboos and misconceptions around sexuality. She broke it all down for us with the points below.

Sex positivity is not sexualization.

Me: Can you define the term “sex positive”?

Melissa: There’s a misconception about what sex positivity even means or is, and some people can think that it just means being completely permissive about sex or not having limits or boundaries about sex, or that it’s about being very sexual or very erotic, partially because a lot of our media is about sexualizing and erotisizing bodies and sex.

Sex positivity really is about having an open, shame free, honest way of looking at bodies, sex, relationships, all these very human things, and taking away the taboo around it. Being sex positive doesn’t mean that you’re just having lots of sex and that that’s what defines your sex positivity. It’s not just about a person’s sex life. It’s really about making sense of your own choices and your own decisions and also respecting those of other people as well.

Start young. It’s not The Talk; it’s many talks.

Me: When should you have “the talk” with your kids?

Melissa: A lot of parents might think you need to discuss it all at once, but no. It’s definitely a series of conversations, a lot of teachable moments that happen over time. We are sending our kids messages about bodies, about identity, about relationships, about consent or lack of consent, gender identity literally from the time they’re born. So when we realize that we’re sending them these messages, we also understand that we’re creating the constructs of all of these things in our homes, in our families, and in our communities. It’s to our benefit to recognize the influence that we have and that it’s early. And then we can just get intentional about what we want to help foster with our children and that it really can be a collaboration.

Melissa: It’s so important that we normalize talking about periods, about where babies come from, and not just, staying in taboo and promoting fear around sex or seeing these things as inappropriate. Sex is how most of us get here. And kids at a young age often wonder, Where do babies come from? They see their teacher or family members that are pregnant and they have questions about that. That’s an opportunity to plant the seed that ultimately helps to foster comfortable talks about sex so that as they develop and their worldview starts to change and evolve.

But if you keep it silent, if you say, don’t ask that, that’s for adults, or you’re not supposed to talk about that, you’re not supposed to know about that, or if they can see you’re visibly uncomfortable, you shut down and you don’t open that back up to them. That’s a learned taboo. They learn, oh, I’m not allowed to talk about that. I don’t know why. But now I’m not going to ask and I’m not going to be curious. Then when you try later on, when you realize there’s a situation that comes up, and they’re like 13 or 14, and you’re trying to talk to them, they’re going to be uncomfortable because every other message that was sent, either direct or indirect, up to that point, told them that this is not okay to talk about. So they may find other unhealthy ways to learn about it.

It’s not just about sex. Early conversations should include bodily autonomy.

Me Where do you even start?

Melissa: So from the beginning parents can ask themselves, how can I be intentional or just aware of what messages I’m sending? What are my kids observing? And that it isn’t just something that’s hormones and puberty and teenage years – hopefully by then we’ve already sent them a whole lot of messages.

If we want to help foster openness around sex, then the talks might start early with consent, helping young people understand their own bodies, giving them accurate names for their body parts, especially the genitals. Help them understand safe and unsafe touch, and who is allowed to help them when they may still need help. Whether it’s going to the bathroom or bathing or changing their clothes, or at their medical appointments; these are some of those teachable moments. When they’re greeting others in the family or even in your own home, are those interactions forced, or are we inviting or asking? Are we giving options as opposed to saying go give your grandma a hug, even if they don’t want to. Bodily autonomy is a foundational aspect that ultimately will support their understanding of sex and healthy sexuality.

It’s important for parents to break the cycle instead of passing it on.

Me: How do parents overcome their own issues stemming from being raised in a non-sex positive world?

So many of us weren’t taught these things. They weren’t modeled to us. And so we may have been confused as we were experimenting with sex or relationships along our own journey. We may have actually had experiences that are abuse or trauma as opposed to sex, because sex should always involve consent. And that consent should be ongoing and clear. There are many of us that have had interactions that were not consensual, or that were coerced in different ways. And so a lot of that that is taking a look at our own understanding of these topics, how well do we know our own bodies, especially people that have vulvas, people that have vaginas and uteruses because our education system is so patriarchal and taboo and stigmatized when it comes to anything related to sexual health. There are so many of us that didn’t get the education that we needed and deserved to understand how our bodies actually work.

It’s never too late to start the conversation.

Me: What if your kids are already tweens or teens and you’ve never talked about sex with them or you weren’t as open to begin with?

Melissa: We’ve got to take the brave steps to be vulnerable and be honest and so that could sound like ‘I realized that I have not been as open as I could have been with you about bodies, about sex, about puberty, about relationships, whatever it is that you want to talk about and that’s on me. But it’s important that we learn about these things and that you know who you can turn to. So I want to change that. I would love for us to start having conversations or start you know, talking more openly about these things.’

And then that little piece opens up empathy. For many of us, it can just sound like, ‘when I was growing up, I didn’t have anyone that I could talk to about this. It wasn’t normal for us when I was your age, so then I didn’t know how to handle it as you’ve been growing up. But I’m learning. I’m learning a lot of things now and I want to make sure you have support. I want to do that differently for you. It might feel awkward, it might feel uncomfortable. That’s okay. This is something that we can work on together.’

And then you just kind of weave it into everyday moments. It isn’t about staring your kid face to face in a confrontational, high pressure kind of way. Maybe you make time to go on a walk together or you build something together or you go have an ice cream date together something that says, this is time for us. And then in the midst of that time, you naturally kind of move into something. And the more you have those one-on-one times, especially when you have more than one kid that’s really important because then they can feel special. The more that you have that you integrate that, the more you might notice that they bring up things about what’s going on in their worlds.

Self-exploration is encouraged for all genders.

Me: How do you approach the topic of masturbation with your kids, and how important is it?

One thing that I teach about when we talk about masturbation, and particularly when we talk about the clitoris, is that we need to help our kids understand and normalize what may feel good to them. This is so that they can know what does not – which ultimately helps keep them safer before they invite anyone else to play with their body. It’s important for them to understand for themselves, and that helps them establish their own boundaries, their own limits.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for so many of us. There are so many people with a clitoris as adults that are deep in their adulthood and still never have experienced orgasm. We can trace that back to a major lack of body literacy. There’s been no foundational understanding. But interestingly, people with penises don’t seem to have that same problem. Why do you think that is? It was 1998 when scientists discovered the full body of the clitoris. Wow, why did it take them so long to realize that this is a full body part and not just this little tip? So this is all a part of us changing this narrative on a broader level, and it starts with these conversations that we can have with our young people so that they know yes, that’s your clitoris, and yes it can feel good because it has thousands of nerve endings. Just like the penis has thousands of nerve endings. Those two body parts are homologous which means that they are made of similar structure. Just like you might explain why the heart beats or how hearing works or all the things that they learn about in school – but these things that are so vital to their safety and their well being as humans, are conveniently left out of the conversation.

You might say to your child ‘I love that you’re getting to know your body. And this is not something that we do in the living room while people are around or at the dinner table or at the grocery store. That’s something that we do in private so that you can get to know your body. These parts are really sensitive. That’s why we were clothed to cover them so that they stay protected. And no one else is allowed to touch your clitoris, your penis, your anus.’ All of that can happen in these little teachable moments.

So it’s just us getting comfortable with a new way of helping them understand – helping a new generation understand – their bodies and their rights to their own bodies.

Never punish or demean. It’s okay to be curious!

Me: I caught my child watching porn at a young age and it was stressful. How do parents handle this situation?

Melissa: The world places a lot of responsibility on us as parents, like, don’t raise a perpetrator, don’t raise a victim, all of these messages about how perfect we need to create our children’s lives. And there are going to be things that are going to happen that we may not be able to prevent – like our children finding easily-accessible porn on the internet.

I avoid words, like ‘catch them’, because then that sends that message that like oh, I caught you doing something bad. So if we find out our young person has come across porn or has been shown porn, or has been actively searching, we need to recognize that our children are not bad, they’re not demons, they’re not scarred forever. This is really an opportunity, not a threat. We can get a better understanding of what happened in the situation, not from a well ‘Why were you looking at that?’ stance. It’s important that our reaction isn’t shame-based or accusatory or punishment oriented. It’s our job as a family to help keep all of us safer. We know porn is not for children or education. It’s made for adult entertainment. So we say to them ‘It’s okay to be curious. It’s okay to be curious about bodies. It’s okay to be curious about sex. When you have questions about these things. Here’s what you can do, instead of going to Google or looking at porn, we can talk about it. You can ask me any questions you want.’ And then that goes back to whether you are truly creating a space that feels safe for them to ask, because kids will go to Google or porn or friends if they’re curious when the home isn’t feeling safe from punishment or shame.

If you simply say ‘Don’t watch porn’ it’s likely to just push them back towards it. We need to be more thoughtful and smarter about treating our young people like the whole humans that they are. Give them more credit than sometimes they’re given. They’re more likely to listen to what we have to say if they feel respected, and if they feel heard. And they know that we’re on their team, that we’re not just looking for an opportunity to punish them next. So you can say ‘ I want to make sure that you have reliable information about bodies and about sex because you deserve that. One day you’re going to make choices about sex. And I want you to feel ready when that time comes. Watching porn can send confusing, unsafe and mixed messages.. So what questions do you have about sex? How can I help you understand these things? It’s okay to be curious.’

Understand that others might have different perspectives.

Me: What do you do if your child’s other parent has a different attitude toward sex that is not as positive?

Melissa: There is often the reality that there’s a whole other person we can’t control, someone who has whole separate values, triggers, traumas related to all this stuff. It’s healthy for our kids to see and know that there are different perspectives. What you can control is, when they are curious with you, how you show up for those curiosities. Never approach them with negativity or blame or shame. You can acknowledge it like ‘ you might hear some different things about a topic, so tell me what you’ve heard about that? That’s interesting. What do you think?’ Because sharing your perspective is helping them to shape their understanding of their perspective.

Want to learn more (trust me, we barely scratched the surface) about raising sex positive kids? Sex Positive Families’ interactive workshops are held virtually and open to tweens, teens, and their trusted adults. You can also order Melissa’s book, Sex Positive Talks to Have With Kids, a bestselling comprehensive guide that helps caregivers create the kind of bond that keeps kids safer, informed, and empowered in their sexual health.

Complete Article HERE!

I Can’t Orgasm, Am I Broken?

By Sriha Srinivasan

The first time I had a go at an orgasm, I tried to plan for everything. Music? Check. Unrealistic erotic content? Check. Privacy? I mean, as much privacy as a young teen could get in her childhood bedroom so…kinda check? Fingers ready, I went for it and as my desire to succeed crescendoed, I didn’t. I felt nothing. Truth be told, my first attempts at masturbating were uncomfortable and embarrassing.

When I confided in my friends, they were sympathetic but it seemed that each of them in their own way had figured themselves out. They couldn’t relate to my struggle to orgasm. Throughout my teenage years, I tried modifying every variable I could think of. I thought that if I just had the right playlist, or tried moving my fingers at exactly the right angle, I could spontaneously fix myself. But I still couldn’t reach the elusive ‘big O’ my friends talked about: the supposedly euphoric experience that I’d watched play out on TV and in movies. I started to think that maybe I wasn’t meant to experience an orgasm. That maybe I was broken.

Hearing about my struggle, a friend who I had always looked up to for her confidence and strength took me aside on my 17th birthday and presented me with a small box. “It worked for me,” she said. “It might just work for you.” It was a brand-new Satisfyer Pro, a clitoral vibrator apparently changing the sex toy landscape for people with vaginas. It was totally portable, waterproof, sleek, shiny — and utterly terrifying. I didn’t touch the box for at least a couple of months. I watched YouTube reviews and revisited the step-by-step articles from my youth that promised to teach me how to orgasm before setting out to give it a try. Unfortunately, the first time using the vibrator was too much for me. Even the slowest setting felt like ants all over my clitoris. So I hid the box away and grappled with a fresh onslaught of shame.

It was a shame that I needn’t have felt. Despite my generation having more information than ever at our fingertips, our sex education is still deeply flawed and far from comprehensive. As a teen growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was lucky to be surrounded by empowering young people who talked openly and honestly about pleasure. I remember being 13 and at a Halloween slumber party, having whispered conversations by flashlight after putting on flimsy sheet masks and eating popcorn, laughter hiding our nervousness over topics we really didn’t know anything about. These conversations led me to the teenage manuals of women’s magazines and websites, where I learned that there was an elusive state called an ‘orgasm’ or, colloquially, ‘the big O’. For penises, ejaculation was the obvious marker of having reached orgasm. But for vaginas? The scientific literature I came across wasn’t helpful at all and mainly referenced studies from the early ’70s. The articles I read described reaching orgasm as feeling like fireworks, whatever that meant. My curiosity led me to follow each article step by step in my bid to discover what an orgasm actually felt like, ultimately leading me to my initial failed attempt. Years had gone by and here I was at 17, still hitting the same wall.

In high school, fueled by misinformation, stigma and frustration at my perceived failure to experience an orgasm, I became involved in sex education. Simultaneously, I grew comfortable with my culture as the daughter of immigrants, and as a rising senior created a consent curriculum that I taught to over 300 youth in my parents’ hometown in south India. After I came back to the United States, I became a UCSF California-certified sexual health educator and eventually, during my final year of high school (and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic), I set out on TikTok, creating my platform @sexedu to reach as many as I could with my work.

From what I’ve seen as an educator, the United States is in desperate need of comprehensive sex education. We need to deconstruct the idea that sexual wellbeing is a taboo topic. I know now as a creator that my story of struggling to figure out how to orgasm isn’t unique. I want every young person to know that regardless of their journey with pleasure, they aren’t alone and they aren’t broken. That’s why I’m sharing my story. In 2023, we need stories to break the stigma.

In what felt to 17-year-old me like a last-ditch effort, I shared my desolate feelings with the friend who’d gifted me the vibrator. She urged me to try again — she said that it was uncomfortable simply because it was unknown. It was a brand-new sensation; I just had to lean into the discomfort to make a discovery. I took a long, hard look at myself. I looked at my body with a mirror in an attempt to become comfortable with these parts that society had made me shy away from. I shoved down the shame I felt and focused on exploring, not on the destination I sought. Yes, I reached those fireworks. Yes, it felt brand-new the first time, and a little uncomfortable because of that. But yes, it was fantastic. It was an experience that belonged to me and that connected me to humankind.

In the end, the elusive orgasm was a journey for me as it is for so many. After all, there are so many types of orgasm: clitoral, vaginal, deep vaginal, G-spot, anal, nipple, ‘coregasms’, audio/visual, blended and possibly more (there’s a debate to be had about the exact number of types given the lack of research on pleasure for people with vaginas). The journey to reaching an orgasm looks different for everyone! Some reach their first orgasm early on with ease; others might not say ‘orgasm’ aloud until they reach college. You shouldn’t feel pressure to orgasm every time either — even the practice of masturbation without orgasm can be pleasurable.

You aren’t broken if you can’t orgasm from penetration alone, or if you need a half hour of foreplay, or if you can’t orgasm more than once at a time. Pleasure is a biological function; it can also be magical and frustrating and your relationship with it can change over time. But regardless of all this, pleasure unites us all — via orgasm, or whatever pleasure might look like for you. It is your right to experience pleasure in whatever consensual capacity you choose.

Complete Article HERE!

Beyond condoms and bananas

— The questions kids ask show the changing reality of sex education

If children and teenagers go looking for answers to their awkward questions on Google, what exactly will they find?

By Maani Truu

James* was in Year 3 when he walked up to his teacher and asked her what a 69 was.

He had heard the number being joked about by other students and wanted to know what on earth they were talking about.

Not satisfied with the teacher’s response, he tried another teacher, and then another, who promptly told him to stop asking. A phone call from the school to his mother set in motion a conversation that’s still ongoing to this day.

Now 11 years old and in Year 5 at an inner-Sydney public school, James matter-of-factly describes his peers talking about “Porn Hub”, performatively “moaning” in front of teachers, or looking up sexually explicit anime, known as “hentai”, at sleepovers.

“Most kids just say stuff because they’ve heard other kids say stuff,” he says, speaking with the permission of his parents.

“But the other kids know what they’re doing … like telling younger kids how to get on to certain websites, telling kids how to turn off Google Safe Search so their parents or anyone can’t track them.”

Rowena Thomas, a sex and relationships educator who runs workshops in primary schools across New South Wales, is well acquainted with kids’ curly questions. You can see some of the ones she’s asked throughout this article.

A white post it note that reads, in handwriting: "Should I be scared if I have seen porn" next to a doodle of a scared face.

That curiosity is nothing new, but widespread access to the internet and the terabytes of graphic and often violent pornography it hosts has given rise to a fresh set of concerns: if children and teenagers are left to go looking for answers to their awkward questions on Google, what exactly will they find?

Last month, this harsh reality was at the heart of a heated debate over a brightly-coloured sexual education book that offers frank explanations of how sex works, the myths and taboos surrounding it, masturbation, and consent, alongside cartoon drawings of body parts.

Vocal critics of Welcome To Sex, written by broadcaster Yumi Stynes and former Dolly Doctor Melissa Kang, argued the book was inappropriate for children (the book is marketed to teens between 12 and 15), leading to it being pulled from Big W shelves.

The book cover of Welcome to Sex.
Welcome to Sex, by Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, was removed from Big W shelves following backlash.

Others hit back that books like Welcome to Sex are a crucial counter to harmful content readily available online. The furore was raised in a senate inquiry into consent laws, where author and advocate Jess Hill said it showed “just how little adults know about the sex lives and sex education of young people”.

At the heart of the debate were simple questions, complicated by the complicated emotions that so often inform views on sex. When, where and from who should young people access information about sex, and perhaps more importantly, how does this measure up to the reality of what’s already happening?

“We need to be talking about the dangers of pornography, just like we talk about the dangers of swimming in a rip or riding a bike without a helmet,” Ms Thomas says.

“Parents aren’t talking about it because they don’t think that their nice child would watch pornography — very nice kids watch pornography because they’re curious.”

How young people are learning about sex

Ms Thomas has been teaching sex and relationship education for 30 years and over that time, she says, children have become “much more inquisitive, much more open, and much more honest”.

Her anonymous question box has given thousands of students a place to direct the queries that they’re too embarrassed to ask anyone else. Scribbled on colourful notes and peppered with misspelt words, they provide a snapshot into what students already know, and crucially, what they don’t.

A woman with dark hair and red glasses points to a projection behind her that says SEX in giant letters.
Rowena Thomas has been teaching sex and relationships education for 30 years.

Some of the questions are childishly naive (“Can sperm drown?”), others are imbued with genuine concern (“Is it normal to have public hair at the age of 10?”), but the question she gets the most usually comes from a place of intense curiosity: “What does the number 69 mean?”

“I hear it nearly every day,” Ms Thomas says. “So parents think that immediately they have to go into talking about oral sex, but that’s not what the kids are asking. The kids are just curious, the number 69, what on earth does it mean?”

Sometimes they’ve heard it in the playground, like James, or from an older sibling. But it’s the information source in kids’ pockets that she’s most worried about. Just under half of all Australian children between the ages of six and 13 use a mobile phone, and one in three have their own phone, according to data collected by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in 2020.

While parental controls are available to limit what apps and websites young people can access, they aren’t fail-safe. Not only are increasingly tech-literate young people adept at bypassing them, it just takes one student with lenient controls for information to spread through school grounds.

“Not every kid is watching porn, but a couple of kids in the class are watching porn, you can tell in nearly every class,” Ms Thomas says. “They get shown stuff, they get air-dropped pictures, they’re maybe at a friend’s house … and they want to fit in.”

A peach post-it note hat reads, in messy handwriting: "Why is there different type of sex."

Most children see pornography long before they ever have sex, and it only takes a few taps to go from a Google search to a plethora of hardcore videos depicting unrealistic and harmful sexual encounters. “How sad is that? Because that’s not what sex should be like,” Ms Thomas says. “As soon as a child gets access to the internet, we should be saying to them: ‘If you see a naked picture online, I would be so proud of you if you tell me’.”

Most of the time Ms Thomas is teaching Year 4 to Year 6 students, which means she has to find age-appropriate ways to introduce tricky topics. Her sessions cover a lot of ground, from bodies and puberty, to sexual health, and staying safe online, which includes pornography (though she calls it “unsafe or inappropriate pictures”). Sometimes she delivers pared-back workshops on bodily safety and consent to kindergarteners.

With younger children, for example, she might introduce bodily boundaries in the context of hugging or tickling. With older students, there’s more of a focus on building healthy relationships.

“Age appropriate is a very difficult thing to talk about because it really does depend on your kid,” Ms Thomas says. “But every child is definitely mature enough to be talking about this stuff, in an age-appropriate way, according to where you think your child is at.”

She is big on caregivers being “askable adults”, something she focuses on when she runs workshops for parents. If a child comes forward with a question or story, no matter how shocking or awkward, she encourages adults to treat it as a positive teaching moment — respond calmly, fake it if you have to, and validate their feelings, rather than shutting down the conversation.

A white piece of paper with a handwritten question that reads: "What happens in your body that makes you have a bonur?"

It’s an approach James’ mother, Lisa*, has adopted. The pair have an open dialogue when it comes to sex, something she felt she didn’t have a choice in once she realised what her son was being exposed to. While James is quick to fill her in on what goes on away from adult eyes, letting her know when one of his peers has been looking up “weird” websites, she’s aware that not all parents are as clued in.

“I do worry that there’s a disconnect between what people think kids are doing these days and what kids are doing, and that divide is only going to get larger if we don’t start seeing it for what it is,” Lisa says. “If he was in Year 4 when he first heard moaning [in the playground], there would be kids in kindergarten hearing it now, because it’s not going away.”

Lisa believes her son’s school has a porn problem, one that neither teachers, principals, nor parents know how to deal with despite her attempts to raise it. “They’re sticking their heads in the sand,” she says. “It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they don’t want to know.”

The talk no one wants to have

Jennifer Power, an associate professor at La Trobe University’s Australian Centre in Sex, Health and Society, says it’s not surprising that parents shy away from having these conversations with their children. “They’re not sure what’s age-appropriate, or when to raise these issues, let alone how to do it,” she says. “They’re not comfortable. The kids are uncomfortable. No one wants to have that conversation, and they’re worried they’re going to get it all wrong.”

Just because young people aren’t opening up to their parents about sex, doesn’t mean they’re not engaging in it. A 2021 survey run by La Trobe University and funded by the Department of Health found the average age for first viewing pornography was 13.6, and the average age for first experience of oral, vaginal and anal sex was 15. More than half of Year 11 and Year 12 students said they had sexual experience or were currently sexually active.

A blue post-it note that reads, in messy handwriting: "Is sperm consciously released or is it just randomly released?"

The survey included the responses of almost 8,000 Year 11 and 12 students, from a range of different backgrounds and schools, however, it only recruited respondents through social media advertising, meaning it’s possible the results skewed to reflect students who were sexually aware or comfortable discussing the topic.

Despite half of the respondents stating they had sexual experience, only 25 per cent of the total cohort felt their most recent relationship and sexual education class at school was “very or extremely relevant to them”.

“When we asked people to explain that … the thing that really stood out was people saying they thought they would learn more about sex,” Dr Power says. “It’s not tapping into what young people are looking to learn about and I suspect young people probably go online to try and find that stuff out.”

The national curriculum — which is used in all states and territories except Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, which have their own syllabus informed by the national curriculum — includes broad mandatory topics, like reproduction and sexual health, contraception, and relationship and dating safety. What these lessons actually look like, however, is much more open to interpretation and varies from school to school, teacher to teacher.

Curtin University sexologist Jacqueline Hendriks believes this lack of detail is a problem. As a comparison, she points to the United Kingdom’s curriculum which states in detail what students are expected to learn, such as: “facts about the full range of contraceptive choices” and “how to recognise the characteristics and positive aspects of healthy one-to-one intimate relationships”.

Teachers are often also not specifically trained in delivering sex education, she says, which can lead them to default to topics and lessons they are familiar with. “Because they’ve not been trained in sexuality education, they’ve not seen it in practice, they’re not comfortable doing it,” she says.

A yellow post-it note that reads, in messy handwriting: "What is discharge and what does it look like?"

The lack of training, along with time constraints, is why schools frequently opt to bring in outside educators or speakers to cover the material. Often this takes the form of a one-off workshop or lecture, something Dr Hendriks says is counter to the best-practice approach of building up lessons over time.

“It’s much easier to get a guest speaker in, chuck every kid in an auditorium and lecture to them for an hour, so they [the school] can tick the box,” she says. “That can sometimes be a great starting point, but you want a lot of little lessons over time … and if it’s done well, it actually does take time, and schools don’t necessarily have that luxury.”

Overall, looking internationally, Dr Hendriks says Australia is about middle-of-the-road when it comes to the delivery of quality sex education but adds that any efforts at improvement are an uphill battle. “We are constantly fighting to be able to deliver really comprehensive and contemporary programs, there’s always push-back,” she says. “It’s always two steps forward, one step back.”

That’s partly because some parents and politicians would prefer schools steer clear of sex altogether. Just last month, the Queensland Liberal National Party voted against sexual consent being taught in schools at their annual state conference, with members arguing that it should be the responsibility of parents.

How sex ed is changing

Dr Hendriks started working in sex education in the ’90s, shortly after the HIV epidemic had spurred educators into teaching the topic in schools for the first time. The lessons were largely focused on sexually-transmitted disease, and weaponised fear to stop young people from becoming sexually active, “but at least we were able to talk about it in schools”, she says.

In the decades since, what constitutes sex ed — officially called sex and relationships education or RSE — has expanded far beyond the tokenistic demonstration of how to put a condom on a banana.

A pink post-it note that reads, in messy handwriting: "How do I teach myself how to love myself?"

There have been moves to increase representation of diverse sexualities and gender, and steps to educate young people about sexual violence. Most recently the national curriculum was updated to explicitly include lessons on consent, following a petition by advocate Chanel Contos calling for it to be made compulsory.

While Dr Hendriks says these are positive steps, she’s worried the focus on sexual violence signals a return to the fear-based rhetoric of the past. “It’s still about violence prevention, as opposed to, let’s look at it from a positive viewpoint,” she says, “like you’re growing up and your body is changing and you may start interacting with other people in a sexual way … here’s how you can do that in a really fun, enjoyable, healthy and respectful way.”

Ms Thomas is more optimistic about where things are heading. “When I work at night with parents and kids, I ask ‘how has this education changed?’ and they say, ‘we’re talking about it more’,” she says. “That’s my whole thing: open, shame-free, honest, lifelong conversations that change as your child gets older. It’s not easy, but it’s awesome because it’s all about connecting with your child.”

Complete Article HERE!

Don’t feel pressured, learn to ‘simmer’ and keep experimenting

— How to have great sex at every stage of life

Expert tips on a fun, fulfilling sex life – for teenagers, octogenarians and anyone in between

By

Age 16-25

Don’t worry if your first time isn’t perfect
“It’s not helpful to think of sex as having one big ‘first time’. You’ll probably have lots of first times,” says Milly Evans, author of Honest: Everything They Don’t Tell You About Sex, Relationships and Bodies Instead, she advises breaking it down into all the individual firsts you might have – “your first time having oral sex, penetrative sex, using hands or using toys”. Even if you experience all of these with one person, there will be a whole new set of firsts to explore with a different partner.

Communication is the thing that matters most
This holds true whatever age you are, according to Clover Stroud, author of My Wild and Sleepless Nights “Communicating clearly about desire, or how you like to be touched or treated, isn’t easy. I wish I’d known how much sex improves as you get older and become more confident about what you like and how to communicate those needs.”

Being ready to have sex is more than just a feeling
“It’s about lots of practical and emotional things too,” says Evans. “Does the idea of having sex make you excited or anxious? Do you know enough about contraception, STIs and consent? Do you know where to access support if something doesn’t go to plan? Would you have to drink alcohol in order to feel confident enough to have sex? Is there a safe place for you to have sex? Safety, comfort and wellbeing are essential.” If you can’t answer all of these questions positively, you probably aren’t ready.

Think about what you want ahead of time
“Reflecting can help you feel more prepared and in control,” says Evans. “Take a look at boundaries around things like touch, communication and time. Ask yourself if the relationships or sex depicted on TV, in books or on social media are what you’d like from your own. And remember that sex is something that happens with you, not to you – speak up about what you want, and encourage partners to do the same.”

Switch off negativity
“As you’re looking at movies or television or porn, or magazines or music videos or social media, ask yourself, ‘After I see this, am I going to feel better about my body as it is today, or worse?’” says sex educator Emily Nagoski, in her book Come As You Are. “If the answer is ‘worse’, stop buying or watching those things.” This is especially important where porn is concerned.

As the recent report from the children’s commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, has highlighted, the increasingly abusive, aggressive behaviour depicted on many mainstream porn sites is normalising sexual violence and exploitation among teenagers, affecting their mental health and undermining their ability to develop healthy sexual relationships.

You have the right to change your mind
“Don’t feel pressure to do something sexually that you’re not comfortable with,” advises psychotherapist Silva Neves, author of Sexology: The Basics. “You can always say ‘no’ or ‘pause’, or say ‘no’ after you’ve said ‘yes’.”

Age 25-35

It’s good to simmer
“The happiest erotic couples make a point of enjoying feeling aroused together for its own sake – even on days when sex isn’t on the menu,” says US sex therapist Stephen Snyder, author of Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship. “In sex therapy we call this simmering. It’s what teenage couples do whenever they get a moment’s privacy. Quick, intimate bodily contact, fully clothed – just enough to get you slightly buzzed.”

Penetrative sex isn’t the gold standard (nor, for that matter, is simultaneous orgasm)
Many of what we have come to perceive as cultural markers of sexual excellence are spurious ideas that are now being refuted by science – and more honest, open debate around the subject. Such ingrained cultural beliefs are worth challenging. Do what works for you rather than what society tells you ought to work for you. For example, says Neves: “Many gay men don’t have anal sex at all, but prefer oral sex and intimate touching. Similarly, many women have very good sex without penis-in-vagina sex.”

You need to set the right conditions for sex
Context is everything, explains Nagoski. If you’re feeling relaxed, loved and fully present (as opposed to, say, worrying about an email you need to send, an argument you’ve just had, or whether the children might walk in on you) you’re likely to have better sex. If you’re not, it doesn’t matter how sexy your partner is, how much you love them, how fancy your underwear is or how many candles you light – almost nothing will activate that desire. Nor is it about what you do with your partner, which body parts go where, or how often, or for how long. It’s about sharing sensation in the context of profound trust and connection, and recognising the difference between what great sex is really like and what most of us expect great sex to be like.

You don’t have to have sex at all
“Gen Z are having less sex than millennials, who have less sex than older generations. This is often treated as a bad thing, but it might reflect more self-awareness in a hypersexual society,” says Aimée Lutkin, author of The Lonely Hunter: How Our Search for Love Is Broken. “Think about what you want out of sex and be honest about whether it is the thing you are really seeking. Is it intimacy? Community? Distraction? If it is sex, that’s great. The more in touch you are with your needs, the more likely it is you’ll make the connections you want to.”

Commitment and monogamy can be exciting
“In my teens and 20s, I thought good sex was about physical desire,” says Stroud, “but in my 30s I realised that feeling psychologically ‘seen’ by another, and trusting them implicitly, is where good sex starts. Then you learn to take huge risks with them too. At that point, commitment and monogamy get really exciting.”

Age 35-45

It’s normal for sex to drop off the list of priorities
“When you have a new baby or you’re caring for an elderly parent, overwhelmed with work or coping with some other form of stress, sex won’t be top of the agenda (though for some it will be a useful stress reliever),” writes Nagoski. “Don’t panic about it. It’s a phase you’ll pass through when you’ve managed the stress, and you’ll find your way back to the other side.”

Have a six-second kiss
“Greet one another at the end of the day with a kiss that lasts at least six seconds, or a hug that lasts at least 20 seconds. That guarantees you will both produce the hormone of emotional bonding, oxytocin,” says relationships expert John Gottman, co-author of The Seven-Day Love Prescription.

Make sex a priority
“Don’t make lovemaking the very last item on a long to-do list,” says Gottman. “Make it a real priority. Go on an overnight romantic date at a local B&B, or farther afield, at least four times a year.”

Don’t try to second-guess what your partner will enjoy
Whether you’re trying to sustain sexual satisfaction in a long-term relationship or wondering why a new partner isn’t responding to your usual moves the way a previous one did, the key is to be really honest about what works (or doesn’t) for you, instead of expecting your partner to guess. “About a quarter of women orgasm reliably with intercourse,” writes Nagoski. “The other 75% sometimes, rarely or never do, but might orgasm through manual sex, oral sex, vibrators, breast stimulation, toe sucking or pretty much any way you can imagine. They’re all healthy and normal. Similarly, a woman can be perfectly normal and experience arousal nonconcordance, where the behaviour of her genitals (being wet or dry) may not match her mental experience (feeling turned on or not).”

Have sex with yourself
Whatever age you are, “masturbation can be a great way to explore your body and fantasies”, says Evans. “Spend time creating your own storylines and find out what turns you on. You can also explore a whole world of visual, written and audio erotic content – but make sure it’s ethical (ie it is consensual, treats performers with respect, and pays performers and makers fairly). Audio erotica, in particular, has become more mainstream, especially among those who aren’t into visual porn, enjoy bringing their imagination into solo sex or want to try something new.” Two of the best-known platforms are Quinn and Dipsea, but it’s a fast-growing market.

Mothers are allowed to enjoy sex, too
“It is a complicated balance, being both a mother and a sexual being,” says Lucy Roeber, editor of the Erotic Review, which relaunches later this year. “In our society, we sometimes expect women who give birth to pass through a door into an idealised state of maternal preoccupation without a backward glance. Yet they have the same messy lusts and cravings. My advice is: don’t strive to be too perfect a mother and don’t deny yourself pleasure. It is surprisingly easy for women to accidentally put their sexual being to one side while they work on motherhood. Yet the two can and should work together. After all, in most cases, it was sex that started the process of parenthood in the first place.”

Age 45-55

To cuddle or not to cuddle?
Snyder says that “cuddling tends to deplete a couple’s erotic energy. If you like to cuddle together while watching TV, then be sure to ‘simmer’ [see above] during the ad breaks.” Gottman, however, advises “a daily cuddling ritual for watching films and TV shows at home where you actually stay physically in touch with one another. On one of these nights offer to give your partner a 15-minute massage.”

Don’t wait for desire to strike – practise creating it
“Too many couples only have sex when they feel desire,” says Snyder. “That’s fine when you’re 20. But by 50 most people are more interested in a good night’s sleep. What to do? Have sex anyway.” Nagoski agrees that pleasure matters more than desire. She says: “Create a context that allows your brain to interpret the world as a safe, fun, sexy, pleasurable place. It’s called responsive desire and it asks that your partner help you in creating good reasons for you to be turned on. While some people have a spontaneous desire style (they want sex out of the blue); others have a responsive desire style (they want sex only when something pleasurable is already happening). The rest, about half of women, experience some combination of the two.”

Embrace body confidence
“I’ve found that being in my 40s is entirely liberating. We get better as we shed the self-consciousness of youth, the desire to please, the emotional pliability. I love my body. It is the map of the years I’ve lived,” says Roeber. Nagoski questions wider sex-negative culture. “If you’ve learned to associate sexual arousal with stress, shame, disgust and guilt, you won’t have as good a sex life as someone who associates it with pleasure, confidence, joy and satisfaction,” she says. “Begin to recognise when your learned disgust response is interfering with your sexual pleasure. Your genitals and your partners’, your genital fluids and your partners’, your skin and sweat, and the fragrances of your body – these are all healthy elements of human sexual experience.”

Manage the menopause
Hormonal changes during the menopause and perimenopause can trigger a host of symptoms (low libido, fatigue, low mood, vaginal inflammation or dryness) that do not make a recipe for romance, according to Dr Louise Newson, GP, menopause specialist and founder of the Balance app. “If you notice any of these changes, see a healthcare professional for a proper diagnosis and to discuss treatment options.” Don’t assume these issues will only start in your late 40s, either. “Though the average age of menopause is 51, one in 100 women will go through menopause before the age of 40. Even if you have an ‘average’ menopause, the perimenopause often starts in your early 40s.”

Have a sex date
“Set a date to meet naked in bed to do absolutely nothing at all,” advises Snyder. “Talk, if you like, but this isn’t the time for deep conversation. Instead, focus on experiencing what’s going on in your body at that moment. Time is an endless string of such moments. Pay attention to a few of them. That’s often the best preparation for good lovemaking afterwards.”

Learn how to reconnect
“It can be hard to connect to someone intimately if you don’t feel connected to them emotionally. Launching into ‘You don’t make me come any more’ or ‘You never want sex and I feel rejected’ will put your partner on the defence,” says Ammanda Major, head of service quality and clinical practice at Relate. “Saying, ‘I’ve noticed we seem to have drifted a bit on this and I’m really hoping we might talk about it’ is gentler. You’re not making assumptions about what your partner might be feeling, but you are showing that you’re interested in what they have to say about it. Once you’ve got those things in place, you can have a conversation about how to deal with it.”

You’re never too old to experiment
“We have one body, but it can experience so many different forms of pleasure, especially when we open our minds. The more we accept the lie that our lives are over at 40, the more we are just cutting ourselves off from possibility,” says Lutkin. Newson agrees: “Your 50s and 60s can be a time of sexual liberation when your children may have flown the nest or you may be back on the dating scene after the end of a relationship. Many of my patients tell me that HRT and testosterone have given them a new lease of life. Make sure you are using lubricants [see below] and toys that are safe. These can ease discomfort and make sex more enjoyable, but many brands of lubricant contain irritants like glycerine and parabens, and should be avoided.”

Age 55-65

Focusing on sex drive is a wrong turn
So often we use the catch-all phrase “sex drive” to describe our enthusiasm for, or lack of interest in, sexual activity. In reality the process is more complicated than whether you’re feeling in the mood or not. “Your brain has a sexual ‘accelerator’ that responds to ‘sex-related’ stimulation: anything your brain has learned to associate with sexual arousal,” says Nagoski. “It also has sexual ‘brakes’ that respond to anything your brain interprets as a reason not to be turned on. Constantly monitoring for footsteps in the hallway? Have sex when no one else is home. Tired? Have a nap. Icked out by grit on the sheets? Change them. Cold feet? Put on socks. Sometimes it really is this simple.”

Follow the recipe for romance
While everyone’s particular sexual preferences may differ, studies suggest there are some commonalities among couples who claim to have great sex lives. “From the largest study ever done on what makes for great sex, the Normal Bar study, as well as our own studies, there are a baker’s dozen suggestions that set apart people who say they have a great sex life from people who complain that their sex life is awful,” says Gottman. “Things that work include kissing passionately, giving each other surprise romantic gifts, talking comfortably about their sex life and having weekly romantic dates.”

Manage dryness
“One symptom affecting a healthy sex life that should be on every woman’s radar is vaginal dryness,” says Newson. “You might also experience soreness, itching, irritation, painful sex, vulval changes and UTIs. It can be hugely distressing – I’ve treated women who have been in so much discomfort they can’t put on a pair of trousers or even sit down, let alone have intercourse. But it can be managed by using vaginal oestrogen or HRT and avoiding tight-fitting clothing. You should also avoid perfumed soaps and shower gels or intimate-hygiene washes.”

Find out what you like as a couple and make it happen
Monogamy is sometimes framed as the death knell of erotic connection, but, says Nagoski, this is a red herring. “Passion doesn’t happen automatically in a long-term, monogamous relationship. But it does happen if the couple takes deliberate control of the context,” she says. So find out what is pleasurable for you as a couple and spend time creating the context that leads to it. Often, but not always, we fall into one of two categories – those who need space from a partner in order to create spontaneous desire and those for whom great sex tends to happen when it’s preceded by affection and intimacy.

Don’t take things for granted
People often get stuck in familiar routines in the bedroom but, whether you’re with a long-term partner or starting a new relationship, it’s important to check in now and then and ask whether your usual approach is working. “If something doesn’t feel quite right, it’s important to be able to talk about it honestly and caringly,” says Major.

Age 65-plus

Don’t rush things
“If you’ve been in a partnership for many years that has now ended, you may want to get out there and meet people,” says Major. “But if something doesn’t feel right, it isn’t. Whether you’re 18 or 58, having sex is something to do when you feel confident that there is a degree of trust. New partners may have different expectations from you and different experiences. That’s potentially two very different sets of boundaries.”

Make the wellness connection
Older generations sometimes see sex as a taboo subject. If that’s the case for you, try reframing sexual wellbeing as one component of your wider physical and mental wellbeing. Whether you’re eager to discover positions that are easier on arthritic joints or prefer the closeness of a cuddle, maintaining intimacy can significantly boost overall wellness. Conversely, good health habits can improve our sexual wellbeing, particularly as the effects of ageing start to kick in. “Not drinking too much, eating sensibly and exercising regularly can all have a beneficial impact on our sex lives,” says Major.

Seek medical help when needed
Many older couples say erectile dysfunction medications make sex less anxiety-provoking, says Snyder, just as a lubricant can help some women. “Sex and worrying don’t go well together. As a sex therapist, I’m always happy when a couple has one less thing to worry about.” Major agrees: “Issues like erectile capacity and vaginal dryness need not rule out a satisfying sexual connection. But seeking medical help where needed is important – lumps, bumps, weird bleeding and poor erectile capacity can be symptomatic of health issues. And with the number of STIs in the over-65s having significantly increased as people move out of long-term relationships and start new ones, it’s important to get checked out.”

Strive for connection
“Being able to share intimacy with a partner, as opposed to just wanting intimacy for yourself, is vital,” says Major. “Your level of energy or physical connection might be quite constrained, but it’s very possible through gentle touch, words or kindness to maintain that core intimacy. For some couples, the physicality of sex becomes unimportant in later life, but what they have is a deep emotional connection – an ability to talk honestly and openly and caringly with one another.”

Welcome your sexuality
“The most important thing you can do to have a great sex life is to welcome your sexuality as it is, right now,” says Nagoski, “even if it’s not what you wanted or expected it to be.”

Complete Article HERE!

The Best Books to Give to Your Teen to Learn About Their Reproductive Health

There’s a book for everyone to help them understand their sexual health better. Here’s a stack you should grab for your teen.

By Mara Santilli

If your kids are anything like I was as a tween, protesting going to the “birds and the bees” talk proclaiming that they “already know everything” when it comes to menstrual and sexual health (or if your child’s school or community center does not offer sex education), you’re going to need to call in some backup. It can be difficult to have a discussion with your teen or tween on reproductive health who might be getting a lot of sex education from social media, and sometimes having a conversation starter can be helpful.

Reproductive health books can be a great way to do that, especially if your teen is going through something that you didn’t necessarily go through at their age — for example, coming out as queer or nonbinary. There are some books we selected as resources for young teens who are about to start or just started their menstrual cycle and want to feel more comfortable in their bodies, and for older teens who are curious about sex and their sexuality. A couple of these books are written by doctors, therapists, and sexual health editors who want to reach young people and help them better understand their reproductive and sexual wellness.

Parents, teachers, and mentors, update your personal stack by having these reproductive health books ready for your teen whenever they’re ready to pick them up.

‘Love Your Body’ by Jessica Sanders

Love Your Body may be your tween’s first introduction to knowing more about, understanding, and accepting their body as it is. This is key to them stepping into puberty and eventually into their sexuality. Pick it up for tweens between ages 10 and 13.

‘Welcome to Your Period’ by Yumi Stynes and Dr. Melissa Kang

Your child’s menstrual education class may have only lasted 30 minutes, and they may have many more questions about what a period is like, even if they’ve already started theirs. That’s where tag team authors Yumi Stynes and Dr. Melissa Kang come in. They’ve written this comprehensive menstruation guide, Welcome to Your Period, and also have newer books that have come out, including Welcome to Consent, if your teen responds well to the period book.

‘Let’s Talk About Down There’ by Dr. Jennifer Lincoln

If your teen hasn’t had that first visit to the OB/GYN yet, there are a lot of things they want a medical professional’s opinion on. Dr. Jennifer Lincoln has a warm but powerful social media presence, and is the perfect doctor for the job. Her book Let’s Talk About Down There answers questions like “Can I Get Pregnant on My Period?” and more, including an introduction to understanding the intricate workings of the vulva and reproductive system.

‘The Pride Guide’ by Jo Langford

Therapist and sexual health educator Jo Langford put together one of the first LGBTQ+-inclusive puberty books. The Pride Guide: A Guide to Sexual and Social Health for LGBTQ Youth gets into queer sex education, body image and changes, coming out, and dating for queer teens (which, by the way, is about 1 in 4 teenagers, according to CDC data.) This is an important book for teachers and librarians to keep on their shelves in case students haven’t come out or don’t plan to come out to parents or family members.

‘Life Isn’t Binary’ by Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi

Especially if you have a teen who is figuring out their gender identity, it’s a great idea to read nonbinary authors’ Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi’s book, Life Isn’t Binary. Make it a parent/teen book club so you can both discuss what it means to live outside the gender binary. It’ll really stretch both of your brains to think about how nonbinary thinking can apply to other areas of life, too.

‘Decolonizing the Body’ by Kelsey Blackwell

Decolonizing the Body is another groundbreaking book that would be more appropriate for older teens. It acknowledges the reality that around 8 in 10 Black women go through some sort of trauma in their lives. This book by Kelsey Blackwell is designed to help young people of color to connect to the body using somatic practices.

Complete Article HERE!

A ‘failure to launch’

— Why young people are having less sex

By Hannah Fry

Vivian Rhodes figured she would eventually have sex.

She was raised in a Christian household in Washington state and thought sex before marriage would be the ultimate rebellion. But then college came and went — and no sex. Even flirting “felt unnatural,” she said.

In her early 20s, she watched someone she followed on Tumblr come out as asexual and realized that’s how she felt: She had yet to develop romantic feelings for anyone, and the physical act of sex just didn’t sound appealing.

“Some people assume this is about shaming other people, and it’s not,” said Rhodes, 28, who works as a certified nursing assistant in Los Angeles. “I’m glad people have fun with it and it works for them. But I think sex is kind of gross. It seems very messy, and it’s vulnerable in a way that I think would be very uncomfortable.”

For what researchers say is an array of reasons — including technology, heavy academic schedules and an overall slower-motion process of growing up — millennials and now Gen Zers are having less sex, with fewer partners, than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations did. The social isolation and transmission scares of the COVID-19 pandemic have no doubt played a role in the shift. But researchers say that’s not the whole story: The “no rush for sex” trend predates the pandemic, according to a solid body of research.

UCLA has been tracking behavioral trends for years through its annual California Health Interview Survey, the largest state health survey in the nation. It includes questions about sexual activity. In 2021, the survey found, the number of young Californians ages 18 to 30 who reported having no sexual partners in the prior year reached a decade high of 38%. In 2011, 22% of young people reported having no sexual partners during the prior year, and the percentage climbed fairly steadily as the decade progressed.

California adults ages 35 to 50 who participated in UCLA’s 2021 survey also registered an increase in abstinence from 2011 to 2021. But with the percentage of “no sex” respondents rising from 9% to 14% during that time frame, the increase was not as pronounced.

The broader trend of young adults forgoing sex holds true nationally.

The University of Chicago’s General Social Survey — which has been following shifts in Americans’ behavioral trends for decades — found that 3 in 10 Generation Z males, ages 18 to 25, surveyed in 2021 reported having gone without sex the prior year. One in four Gen Z women also reported having had no sex the prior year, according to Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor who reviewed the data for her book “Generations.”

In an age where hook-ups might seem as unlimited as a right swipe on a dating app, it’s easy to assume that Gen Z “should be having the time of their lives sexually,” Twenge said.

But that’s not how it’s playing out. Twenge said the decline has been underway for roughly two decades.

She attributed the slowdown in sexual relations most significantly to what she calls the “slow-life factor.” Young people just aren’t growing up as fast as they once did. They’re delaying big milestones such as getting their driver’s licenses and going to college. And they’re living at home with their parents a lot longer.

“In times and places where people live longer and education takes longer, the whole developmental trajectory slows down,” she said. “And so for teens and young adults, one place that you’re going to notice that is in terms of dating and romantic relationships and sexuality.”

A slight majority of 18- to 30-year-olds — about 52% — reported having one sexual partner in 2021, a decrease from 2020, according to the UCLA survey. The proportion of young adults who reported having two or more sexual partners also declined, from 23% in 2011 to 10% in 2021.

Though sex was on the decline in the years leading into the pandemic, COVID-19 made dating trickier.

Many people tightened their social circles when the pandemic surged in 2020 and 2021. And young people’s reliance on cellphones and apps for their social interactions only intensified when in-person meet-ups posed a risk of serious illness.

In general, people coming of age in an era of dating apps say the notion of starting a relationship with someone they meet in person — say a chance encounter at a bar or dance club — seems like a piece of nostalgia. Even friendships are increasingly forged over texting and video chats.

“A lot of young people when you talk to them will say their best friends are people they’ve never met,” said Jessica Borelli, a professor of psychological science at UC Irvine. “Sometimes they live across the country or in other countries, and yet they have these very intimate relationships with them. … The in-person interface is not nearly as essential for the development of intimacy as it might be for older people.”

Ivanna Zuniga, 22, who recently graduated from UC Irvine with a degree in psychological sciences, said her peers have largely delayed sex and romance to focus on education and career. Zuniga, who is bisexual, has been with her partner for about four years. But their sex life is sporadic, she said, adding that they hadn’t been intimate in the month leading up to her graduation.

“I’ve been really preoccupied with my studies, and I’m always stressed because of all the things I have going on,” she said. “My libido is always shot, and I don’t really ever think about sex.”

The sexless phenomenon has made its way into pop culture. Gone are the days when meet-cutes in bars leading to one-night stands and sex at college parties were the cornerstone of coupling in films.

In “No Hard Feelings,” released this year, a 32-year-old woman is hired by “helicopter parents” to deflower their shy 19-year-old son. At a party, the woman frantically searching for her date busts open bedroom doors where she expects to find people feverishly tangled in sheets. Instead, she finds teens sitting side by side on a bed, fully clothed, scrolling their phones or playing virtual reality games. Bemused, she yells, “Doesn’t anyone f— anymore?”

While there are practical benefits to waiting to be in a physical relationship, including less risk of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy, Twenge argued that there are also downsides to young people eschewing sex and, more broadly, intimacy. Unhappiness and depression are at all-time highs among young adults, trend lines Twenge ties to the rise of smartphones and social media. And she noted with concern the steady decline in the birth rate.

“It creates the question of whether Social Security can survive,” Twenge said. “Will there be enough young workers to support older people in the system? Will there be enough young workers to take care of older people in nursing homes and in assisted-care facilities?”

Zuniga, who plans to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology, can’t imagine pausing her education or career to have children, so safe sex is particularly important, she said. Others interviewed said “horror stories” involving friends who contracted herpes or other sexually transmitted infections had turned them off from casual sex.

“I prioritize my studies too much, and I can’t fathom the thought of having my identity as an academic fall secondary to being a mother,” Zuniga said. “Moving out of the income bracket that you’re born into is so hard to do, and a very secure way to do it is through education.”

For Rhodes, not having sex has taken a lot of the pressure off social interactions.

“It lets me relax,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t care about how I look or how I come off to other people. But I have a little extra help caring less about it, because I don’t have to worry about attracting specific kinds of people for specific things.”

And she pushes back against the notion that shying away from sex is some sort of societal problem that needs to be “fixed.” It might even be a sign that young people have more control of their bodies and desires, she said.

“Maybe you don’t have to have sex all the time,” Rhodes said. “Maybe if you’re doing other things in your life, and you’ve got other priorities, or you just don’t feel like it, that can be a good enough answer.”

Complete Article HERE!

To Solve the LGBTQ Youth Mental Health Crisis

— Our Research Must Be More Nuanced

Young people do not fall into neat categories of race, sexual orientation or gender identity. Research into LGBTQ mental health must take that into account

By Myeshia Price

Our youth are in a mental health crisis. Young people describe steadily increasing sadness, hopelessness and suicidal thoughts. These mental health challenges are greater for youth who hold marginalized identities that include sexual orientation, gender identity or race or ethnicity. Near-constant exposure to traumatizing media and news stories, such as when Black youth watch videos of people who look like them being killed or when transgender youth hear multiple politicians endorse and pass laws that deny their very existence, compounds these disparities.

But young people do not fall into neat categories of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. They reject antiquated norms and societal expectations, especially around gender and sexuality. Yet most research on people in this group, especially on LGBTQ youth, does not fully account for how they identify themselves. Approaching research as though sex is binary and gender is exact leads to incomplete data. This mistake keeps us from creating the best possible mental health policies and programs.

We need to collect robust data on specific populations of LGBTQ young people to better understand the unique risks they face, such as immigration concerns that Latinx youth may have that others may not. We can also better understand factors that uphold well-being, such as how family support affects Black trans and nonbinary youth.

LGBTQ young people of color, including those who identify in more nuanced ways than either gay or lesbian, are more likely to struggle with their mental health than their white LGBTQ counterparts. As researchers, if we can equip ourselves with this information about their unique needs and experiences, we can create intervention strategies that support the mental health of every LGBTQ young person rather than attempting to apply a “broad strokes” approach that assumes what works for one group must work for all.

As director of research science at the Trevor Project, the premier suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ youth, I lead projects that examine LGBTQ young people and their mental health in an intersectional way, accounting for the many facets of their identities and how society and culture influence how they value themselves. I and my colleagues conduct studies with groups of people who are geographically diverse and gender- and race-diverse to understand what drives mental health distress in a way that allows us to address specific needs in different populations. For advocates trying to improve mental health outcomes, this means they must consider stigma, how it turns into victimization, discrimination, and rejection and how it disproportionately affects people who hold multiple marginalized identities.

Our 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People, for example, found that LGBTQ youth with multiple marginalized identities reported greater suicide risk, compared with their peers who did not have more than one marginalized identity. To learn this, we asked young people demographic questions about race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity amid a battery of assessments. Based on survey questions about mental health and suicide risk, we’ve found that nearly one in five transgender or nonbinary young people (18 percent) attempted suicide in the past year, compared with nearly one in 10 cisgender young people whose sexual orientation was lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, pansexual, asexual or questioning (8 percent). Among almost all groups of LGBTQ young people of color, the rates of those who said they had attempted suicide—22 percent of Indigenous youth, 18 percent of Middle Eastern/Northern African youth, 16 percent of Black youth, 17 percent of multiracial youth and 15 percent of Latinx youth—were higher than that of white LGBTQ youth (11 percent). And youth who identified as pansexual attempted suicide at a significantly higher rate than lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual and questioning youth.

The majority of research exploring LGBTQ young people’s mental health does not have the sample size to do subgroup analyses in this way or, in rare cases, opts to unnecessarily aggregate findings (such as when bisexual young people are not analyzed separately despite representing the majority of the LGBTQ population). Our recruitment goals are set on finding enough people in harder-to-reach groups, such as Black transgender and nonbinary young people, and not to simply have a high overall sample size. In doing so, we are able to analyze findings specific to each group and also ensure these findings reach a wide audience. However, just as other researchers, when we are unable to collect enough data for subgroups to appropriately power our analyses, we do not publish those findings.

What we hope is that people working in small community settings can design targeted prevention programs. For example, an organization that aims to improve well-being among Latinx LGBTQ young people can also provide appropriate support for immigration laws and policies because immigration issues feed into mental health. Or an organization focused on family and community support among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders can also focus on LGBTQ young people. The data we have gathered can informed services at organizations such as Desi Rainbow Parents & Allies, National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) and the Ali Forney Center, among others.

Researchers must be intentional about which aspects of sexual orientation and gender identity are most relevant to the questions they are trying to answer when designing their studies. They must use survey items closely matched to those categories. Researchers must find a balance between nuance and analytic utility—allowing young people to describe their own identities in addition to using categorical descriptors. This can look like including open-ended questions or longer lists of identity options. Taking steps like these are critical for collecting and analyzing data that reflect the multitudes of this diverse group of young people. I urge researchers to apply an intersectional lens to their work and public health officials and youth-serving organizations to tailor services and programming to meet the unique needs of all young people. That’s because a “one-size-fits-all” approach has never and will never work when the goal is to save lives.

IF YOU NEED HELP

If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, help is available. Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or use the online Lifeline Chat. LGBTQ+ Americans can reach out to the Trevor Project by texting START to 678-678 or calling 1-866-488-7386.

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‘The sex ed class you wish you’d had’

— The influencer doctors teaching Americans the basics

With schools failing American students, OB-GYNs use TikTok to tackle questions and dispel myths

By

Some of TikTok’s biggest stars aren’t teen influencers or adorable pets – they are OB-GYNs posting sex education videos.

Need to know if you can continue to take antidepressants while pregnant? Dr Keith L Riggs, a Houston-based OB-GYN, has got you covered. Want to see how an IUD is inserted into the uterus? Check out a demo on the Dallas physician assistant Shay Blue’s page. Have questions on what sex position is most likely to get you pregnant? Dr Ali Rodriguez – aka the Latina Doc – made a video for that. (Spoiler: it’s whatever position you like the most – no method has emerged as a scientifically proven best choice.)

All kinds of doctors have joined TikTok. There are plastic surgeons and dermatologists who gleefully post videos hypothesizing what work an actor has had done. Dentists film videos – equal parts terrifying and mesmerizing – showing what plaque looks like as it’s scraped from teeth. If you really want to see footage from a colonoscopy, hit up the urology corner of #healthtok.

But those who practice #OBGYN – a hashtag that has over 5bn views on the app – enjoy a particular kind of virality. And some of the most popular have parlayed their online fame into other ventures.

Dr Jennifer Lincoln, who has 2.8 million followers and claims to offer “the health class you wish you had in high school”, published a book on reproductive health in 2021 and hosts a podcast where she answers listeners’ questions about all things sex. (Recent episodes include A Summer Period Survival Guide and Myth-Busting the Morning-After Pill.)

Dr Jennifer Lincoln has 2.8 million followers and hosts a podcast.

“There’s just a lot of people out there who do not know how to access things,” Lincoln, who lives in Portland, said. “Commenters have asked about anything from birth control to a pregnancy test. These are basic things we would have hoped to have been covered in sex ed, but that’s not the case in the majority of states.”

Americans have been receiving inadequate sex education for decades – but in the last year, things have become even worse. The supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade has led to a flood of abortion misinformation online, and Florida’s “don’t say gay” law means that teachers can no longer lead classroom discussions on gender identity or sexuality. As LGBTQ+ students continue to be marginalized across the country, they lack information that can help them understand their bodies and cultivate a sense of autonomy.

A few years ago, people with concerns about their reproductive health might hit up anonymous Reddit boards for help – now, they can take their pick of TikTok experts to follow.

Dr Danielle Jones, who goes by @mamadoctorjones on TikTok, said she had joined the platform because that’s where the kids are. “It’s a good venue to do some sex education and dispel myths about things that impact people who are younger,” she said. “We know that if we can get into their heads early and dispel misinformation before they encounter it, it can keep them from falling down the rabbit hole.”

And there are a lot of myths to dispel. Though Planned Parenthood reports that the vast majority of parents support having sex education taught in middle and high school, the US is pretty terrible at teaching it. Only 30 states and the district of Columbia require sex education classes in schools, and those that do may stress harmful abstinence-only narratives or spread medically inaccurate information.

Since the fall of Roe, Lincoln’s teen viewers have reached out to her after applying to college in states where abortion rights have been gutted, such as Texas, Florida, or Oklahoma. “They’re really scared, and they’re not sure if they’ll be able to access contraception,” she said. “Parents will also message me saying, ‘My daughter is going to college, she has her heart set on the University of Texas, but I’m scared for her. What should I do?’”

Lincoln’s answer: “Let’s talk about birth control and get Plan B and abortion pills ahead of time, just in case. You may not think this is a conversation you have to have with your daughter, but in 2023, you do.

Only 30 states and DC require sex education in schools.

Jones, who practiced obstetrics in Texas before her family moved to New Zealand in 2021, said many of her followers reach out to her with questions they do not want to ask their primary care physicians.

“In states like Texas, people are concerned about who they can safely ask about contraception,” she said. “If you don’t know how your healthcare provider feels about abortion, you don’t know if you can trust them.”

Tiffany Connolly, a 26-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan, has learned helpful information from OB-GYNs on TikTok. “It’s a useful source when it can be difficult to pinpoint certain things within my body,” she said. “I can’t always just call up a doctor or make an appointment right away.”

Connolly, who does not want children, plans to get a tubal ligation after her IUD expires next year. Young people who seek sterilizations often have to visit multiple doctors before finding one who will agree to provide it, but Connolly found a spreadsheet posted by Dr Franziska Haydanek, a Rochester, New York, gynecologist with more than 300,000 followers, that lists the names of doctors across the country who are known to safely and responsibly perform the procedure on unmarried and childless patients.

Haydanek posted the spreadsheet last summer, right as the reversal of Roe v Wade pushed more women to consider the procedure as a means of permanent birth control. Since then, the video has been viewed over 50,000 times.

Krysten Stein, a PhD candidate in media studies, has written about TikTok gynecologists for a communications journal. “I wanted to know why these videos were getting so much traction,” she said. “When people seek these kinds of resources online, it’s often because they don’t have access to health insurance or doctors.

Dr Danielle Jones wants to keep young people from ‘falling down the rabbit hole’.

Stein has polycystic ovary syndrome, which can cause irregular periods and pelvic pain, but often goes undiagnosed by doctors who downplay its symptoms as normal period side effects.

Years ago, Stein found refuge in online forums like Reddit, where she finally engaged with people who took her pain seriously. She suspects that people on TikTok form a similar kind of community on the app. “It’s a platform where you can see other people who might be experiencing the same thing as you are,” she said.

Samantha Broxton lives in southern California and frequents OB-GYN TikTok, where, the 35-year-old mom said, she had learned things she wished her own doctors had told her years ago. It’s been a resource for her, but she also wonders what type of care TikTok OB-GYNs provide their patients offline.

“If they’re talking about inequalities in medicine on TikTok, I want to know if they’re vocal about it too in the workplace,” she said. “Are they working to improve the system, or is it just easy to talk about doing that online?”

The American College of Gynecology and Obstetrics does not give doctors specific rules on how to use TikTok, but some hospitals and institutions have social media policies. For the most part, Stein said, doctors are on their own when it comes to deciding what information is appropriate to include in a TikTok.

They don’t always get it right. Last year, four obstetrics nurses were fired from an Atlanta hospital for making a video mocking expectant mothers. Emory hospital, which employed the nurses, later released a statement saying the video was “disrespectful and unprofessional”.

Should OB-GYN influencers take money from brands? When Stein interviewed some for her paper, there was no general consensus. Certain TikTok OB-GYNs said they would only accept deals with brands that felt aligned with their values – they were not just taking cash from anyone. Others were less judicious.

“Some of them said, ‘I want to be a content creator full time,’” Stein said. “There were a lot of moral questions that came up around that. There are no rules, and right now it’s based upon the specific person’s moral compass.”

And how do you know someone is actually a doctor, and not just playing one on TikTok? Lincoln noted that some creators are misleading in their credentials, calling themselves “hormone experts” in their bio. “That’s a term some people use after reading a book or taking a weekend ‘course’ – so, meaningless,” she said.

There are also chiropractors, anesthesiologists, and generalists who are not reproductive health experts dispensing advice on the subject. “It’s really confusing to people, because they see MD in the handle and think they’re experts, though they’re not experts in the field,” Lincoln said. “This harms the OB-GYN TikTok space because these grifting experts often throw our field under the bus.”

Actual gynecologists worth a 30-second watch, Lincoln says, are ones who cite their sources or at least let their viewers know when something is their opinion rather than a studied fact. “As a rule, when I’m explaining something medical, I always give references,” she said. “We need to be transparent about what we know and what we don’t.”

Jones believes the most urgent part of her job right now is spreading accurate information about abortion rights. She grew up in rural Texas and described herself as pro-life until going to medical school changed her mind. Now, she hopes to help others come to the same conclusion.

“I’ve had people reach out and say that I’ve helped them see abortion rights from a different perspective,” Jones said. “It’s one of the most meaningful things I can hear: ‘Two weeks ago I would have called you a murderer, but now I support the right to choose.’”

Still, she knows the limitations of TikTok activism. “What I do online is valuable, and it’s a great supplement, but it’s not going to fully replace sex education,” she said. “Young people need that, and we know the outcomes are not going to be good when they don’t receive it in schools.”

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