I think it's also very important to teach our kids that what they see in porn is the end point of runaway competition to get men/boys (and increasingly women/girls) dopamine addicted, overcoming constant habitation by present ever more extreme scenarios and imagery. That porn is an addictive nightmare, dangerous to be caught in, and even more dangerous to people whose sexual partner's sexuality is formed in that nightmare.
All the advice here serves young people well. But we still live in a world of weird prudish ideas about sex. Parents often never “teach” their children anything deeper than” just say no.” The reality is parents are poorly educated about sex and are just keeping up with the tradition.
When you think about how many sex-info Q&A columns you can find in podcasts, magazines, alternative newspapers and social media, you realize that even adults are stumbling around in the dark. Adults without a well rounded understanding of sex from anatomy, content, equality, techniques, sex toys, birth control are seeking these answers for themselves. That doesn’t make them prepared to teach anyone no less embarrassed children.
Sex education needs to start early just by calling body parts by their real names and not your “winky”. Often early exploration is a simple curiosity. My oldest grandson at 9 yr. searched for boobs on my computer and came to PornHub. A surprise when I woke my computer next day. I told we had to tell his parents so they could explain what he found. My son spent some time with him and discovered he didn’t want to see all those naked people he just want to know what women’s breasts looked like. Sounded reasonable, so my son found an appropriate book that showed all the private parts in tasteful color portraits. That event was the opening for open honest conversations about sex. Their talks got more detailed until he turned 26.
But educators are faced with having to fill some pretty big gaps. Porn today is a extremely poor teacher. It reinforces the incorrect idea that boys deserve it and girls really want it even if they say no. Dominance during sex id misunderstood completely if you learn it from porn. “Kinky” can play a healthy part of sex with consenting adults but there is a lot more misinformation than good advice. In a school setting, you’ll never be discussing whips and gags! Saying sex is pleasurable can be problematic.
My second concern is pleasure - a critical part of a lasting sexual relationship. My husband and I were married 48 years before he passed away. We had an exciting sexual relationship that lasted for 45 years before he became sick. The conservative Christian evangelists want to discourage any sex that isn’t for procreation. I feel sorry for those stick up their butt conservatives. God wouldn’t have made sex so pleasurable, intimately beautiful or a bond of deep love if she didn’t want us to partake.
Project 2025, an ultra conservative Christian Nationalist manifesto that Trump has pledged to follow. Eliminates all sex education, gender info, transgender info along with outlawing all contraceptives. Only the old fashioned rhythm method will be allowed. SCARY STUFF.
Should Trump regain the White House, you won’t be discussing advanced sex ed. You won’t be teaching it at all. Because as you well know, teaching it makes kids do it.
Yes to all of this Sharon!! Best line EVER: God wouldn’t have made sex so pleasurable, intimately beautiful or a bond of deep love if she(!!) didn’t want us to partake. AMEN. The idea of discussing whips and gags in school made me laugh out loud. Not gonna happen but I did interview a parent for my book that discussed kink with her teens. Pleasure -- so important and it plays a big part in the book. And I totally agree, too many people have weird ideas about sex and most of us lack good examples of how to parent around it. There was “the Talk” (one talk!) that was laden with shame and awkwardness or “the Book” (one book!). And many people—women especially—have experienced some form of sexual trauma, so fear and shame can affect how we parent, leading to hypervigilance or denial of a kid’s sexuality. Not helpful for relating to inquisitive, puberty-bound children and sexually interested teens. Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful comment. I'm so sorry for the loss of your husband. It sounds like you two figured something out that so many other couples struggle with.
I think they probably do address skills for saying no and setting boundaries, waiting for affirmative consent, etc. but maybe not the exact skills they used in the Columbia study. I wondered what exactly they taught too. I talk a lot more about how to teach kids these skills in my book. Thanks for the comment!
When I was a teen, I had friends who found their fathers’ porn magazines, which got passed around and shared, and in comparison to what’s on the internet were very vanilla. I suspect pornography is inevitable for teenage boys. But looking back, I expect those magazines were meant to be found, that there was some parental curation going on there. In an internet age there’s no way to do this. What would you do, pay for one of those more ethical sites and then give your kid the login?
I suspect that boys are going to find their way to this material somehow, and so I feel like that we need some way to make what they find more positive. Or maybe just less harmful. At a bare minimum, it would be nice if the women involved looked like they were (actually were?) having a good time, which seems to have been all but eliminated from most freely available pornography.
I wish I felt like there was a solution here. It’s a vexing problem.
Yes! Thank you for this comment. Viewing porn has been a rite of passage in the lives of adolescents for generations. It helps them learn about sex and tune in to their own sexual preferences, which may be particularly useful for LGBTQ+ teens who don’t have a lot of other avenues for this. But like you say, seeing the odd Playboy is different from the videos most kids are seeing today. There's no great solutions unless porn hub and the like are held accountable. Otherwise it's just educate educate educate and hope they choose to use porn less and see it through a more critical lens when they do. But, yeah, we're up against something so tempting and easily accessible and the unconscious is unruly so...
Until everyone is honest and that is the point from where we start, nothing will change. Males are extremely defensive, angry, irrational, and bitter at even the hint of being held accountable. Until that accountability happens, women will suffer. And that's the problem with males.
It is critical to emphasize - especially to boys - that if porn is in fact a genre of film like any other, then the women performers are actors, and they are acting. What is depicted is not real, any more than an action movie car chase or gun fight or whatever.
I think it's also very important to teach our kids that what they see in porn is the end point of runaway competition to get men/boys (and increasingly women/girls) dopamine addicted, overcoming constant habitation by present ever more extreme scenarios and imagery. That porn is an addictive nightmare, dangerous to be caught in, and even more dangerous to people whose sexual partner's sexuality is formed in that nightmare.
So true. It can become a real nightmare yet half the country would rather clutch their pearls and say abstinence is protecting their kids. Maddening.
"habituation" not "habitation" of course - pesky auto-correct.
This is a problem with males. Not women or girls, and everybody knows it.
Until males admit that they and their behavior is the problem and clean up their own mess, nothing will change.
Good luck.
I used to think that but these days girls and young women are using porn significantly. Times have changed and not for the better.
Exactly. Porn negatively affects boys too, although maybe in less frightening ways. Everyone needs to be educated, not villainized.
All the advice here serves young people well. But we still live in a world of weird prudish ideas about sex. Parents often never “teach” their children anything deeper than” just say no.” The reality is parents are poorly educated about sex and are just keeping up with the tradition.
When you think about how many sex-info Q&A columns you can find in podcasts, magazines, alternative newspapers and social media, you realize that even adults are stumbling around in the dark. Adults without a well rounded understanding of sex from anatomy, content, equality, techniques, sex toys, birth control are seeking these answers for themselves. That doesn’t make them prepared to teach anyone no less embarrassed children.
Sex education needs to start early just by calling body parts by their real names and not your “winky”. Often early exploration is a simple curiosity. My oldest grandson at 9 yr. searched for boobs on my computer and came to PornHub. A surprise when I woke my computer next day. I told we had to tell his parents so they could explain what he found. My son spent some time with him and discovered he didn’t want to see all those naked people he just want to know what women’s breasts looked like. Sounded reasonable, so my son found an appropriate book that showed all the private parts in tasteful color portraits. That event was the opening for open honest conversations about sex. Their talks got more detailed until he turned 26.
But educators are faced with having to fill some pretty big gaps. Porn today is a extremely poor teacher. It reinforces the incorrect idea that boys deserve it and girls really want it even if they say no. Dominance during sex id misunderstood completely if you learn it from porn. “Kinky” can play a healthy part of sex with consenting adults but there is a lot more misinformation than good advice. In a school setting, you’ll never be discussing whips and gags! Saying sex is pleasurable can be problematic.
My second concern is pleasure - a critical part of a lasting sexual relationship. My husband and I were married 48 years before he passed away. We had an exciting sexual relationship that lasted for 45 years before he became sick. The conservative Christian evangelists want to discourage any sex that isn’t for procreation. I feel sorry for those stick up their butt conservatives. God wouldn’t have made sex so pleasurable, intimately beautiful or a bond of deep love if she didn’t want us to partake.
Project 2025, an ultra conservative Christian Nationalist manifesto that Trump has pledged to follow. Eliminates all sex education, gender info, transgender info along with outlawing all contraceptives. Only the old fashioned rhythm method will be allowed. SCARY STUFF.
Should Trump regain the White House, you won’t be discussing advanced sex ed. You won’t be teaching it at all. Because as you well know, teaching it makes kids do it.
Yes to all of this Sharon!! Best line EVER: God wouldn’t have made sex so pleasurable, intimately beautiful or a bond of deep love if she(!!) didn’t want us to partake. AMEN. The idea of discussing whips and gags in school made me laugh out loud. Not gonna happen but I did interview a parent for my book that discussed kink with her teens. Pleasure -- so important and it plays a big part in the book. And I totally agree, too many people have weird ideas about sex and most of us lack good examples of how to parent around it. There was “the Talk” (one talk!) that was laden with shame and awkwardness or “the Book” (one book!). And many people—women especially—have experienced some form of sexual trauma, so fear and shame can affect how we parent, leading to hypervigilance or denial of a kid’s sexuality. Not helpful for relating to inquisitive, puberty-bound children and sexually interested teens. Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful comment. I'm so sorry for the loss of your husband. It sounds like you two figured something out that so many other couples struggle with.
If this horrid trend has to exist, I wish we'd start using the proper term for "choking" -- it's strangulation.
Oof yes. Great point!!
Do some of the resources you list at the end have information about the strategies for girls to refuse sex that you mentioned?
I think they probably do address skills for saying no and setting boundaries, waiting for affirmative consent, etc. but maybe not the exact skills they used in the Columbia study. I wondered what exactly they taught too. I talk a lot more about how to teach kids these skills in my book. Thanks for the comment!
Why do girls have to learn strategies to refuse sex?
What is the real problem here?
Why don't you ask for strategies for males to stop behaving this way?
Jo-Ann, thank you for writing this. I’d echo so much of what has already been said. I’m also grateful for your recommendation for further reading.
Thanks Jeff! Glad to have found you on here.
When I was a teen, I had friends who found their fathers’ porn magazines, which got passed around and shared, and in comparison to what’s on the internet were very vanilla. I suspect pornography is inevitable for teenage boys. But looking back, I expect those magazines were meant to be found, that there was some parental curation going on there. In an internet age there’s no way to do this. What would you do, pay for one of those more ethical sites and then give your kid the login?
I suspect that boys are going to find their way to this material somehow, and so I feel like that we need some way to make what they find more positive. Or maybe just less harmful. At a bare minimum, it would be nice if the women involved looked like they were (actually were?) having a good time, which seems to have been all but eliminated from most freely available pornography.
I wish I felt like there was a solution here. It’s a vexing problem.
Yes! Thank you for this comment. Viewing porn has been a rite of passage in the lives of adolescents for generations. It helps them learn about sex and tune in to their own sexual preferences, which may be particularly useful for LGBTQ+ teens who don’t have a lot of other avenues for this. But like you say, seeing the odd Playboy is different from the videos most kids are seeing today. There's no great solutions unless porn hub and the like are held accountable. Otherwise it's just educate educate educate and hope they choose to use porn less and see it through a more critical lens when they do. But, yeah, we're up against something so tempting and easily accessible and the unconscious is unruly so...
Males and male behavior are the problems.
Until everyone is honest and that is the point from where we start, nothing will change. Males are extremely defensive, angry, irrational, and bitter at even the hint of being held accountable. Until that accountability happens, women will suffer. And that's the problem with males.
There are no “kids of all genders.” Gender is a linguistic term for words only. Words have gender. Humans do not.
There are two sexes in humans—female and male.
And the male sex is the problem because they are the ones watching pornography and inflicting this on the females that they choose to target.
That is the truth, Ms. Finkelstein. Stop tiptoeing around the topic of criticizing male behavior because that is the origin of this whole problem.
Thank you for highlighting the systemic failures of the sex education system--or, in many places, lack thereof.
You're so welcome. Thank you for reading and commenting!
The sex education system can do nothing here. The problem is much larger than it could ever address and blaming the system solves nothing.
Males are the problem. No system on earth could solve this.
It is critical to emphasize - especially to boys - that if porn is in fact a genre of film like any other, then the women performers are actors, and they are acting. What is depicted is not real, any more than an action movie car chase or gun fight or whatever.