The Birds and the Bees

The Birds and the Bees
With my two daughters, I certainly know what I want my girls not to do, what I want them to avoid. I don't blush in the slightest telling them about their bodies. They, at 8 and 5 have asked most of the 'difficult' questions. They know the words: vulva, vagina, labia, clitoris, even perineum and anus. They know about the penis (they even know that the plural is penes), thanks to my friend's nudist one year old son. But, the wisdom I want them to have concerning sex, I have no idea how to share that, or even if it is possible.

I want them to know that girls who have sex too early simply can't handle it. I wish that they could see the damage that sex can do. I wish that they could hear the way that boys (who cannot handle it either) talk about girls who do have sex, how they seemingly disdain them. I've seen girls who loved themselves, who loved their boyfriend start to have sex in high school. I've seen them hold on to a dead relationship because, while they called the value 'old fashioned', they felt real shame at having shared something so intimate with a person they would now like out of their life. It seems that for them admitting that the sex was a mistake was far more difficult than admitting that the relationship was over, mostly because they had the sex.

Sex is often about power. I've known men who didn't particularly like the act of sex. They loved the conquest though. I've known women who felt the same. And with each and every conquest, they damaged the possibility that they would have a cherished and sacred sex life with their life partner. I want my girls to know about that.

I want my girls to know how powerful it is to be a woman. The message has bombarded them since birth, beauty is power. But, simply being female is so powerful. We have the power to choose. Men do the asking out, but women do the choosing. And what we barter with is our femininity. Our very place in society can be decided by how we carry ourselves, by how we view ourselves, and whom we share ourselves with.

I want them to know how dangerous a weapon it can be. How hurtful, more to themselves than to their man. I wish I could convey the cliché that sex is 10 percent of a healthy relationship and 90 percent of an unhealthy one. I want them to take rejection seriously, whether giving it or receiving it. I know it can destroy a relationship if it is used to get one's way all the time. I want them to cherish their relationships and their spouses.

How far is too far? I remember my mother told me it was shameful to 'make out' in public. I knew that French kissing was probably OK. But I wasn't comfortable going 'in private' and there was no private place to go. I remember my brother used to make uncomfortable remarks about 'prick teasers' and also about 'sluts', with the former seemingly more horrid, and the latter more unseemly. I had an older sister, who was pregnant and married by the age of 16 to her onetime boyfriend (she was neither a slut, nor a 'prick tease' I surmised), so while she could define 'too far', she had no real line for me either. It seems strange, thinking back. I didn't date in high school. In junior high, I had a couple of uncomfortable make out sessions with Randy LeJeune (very tall, made my back hurt, so it was hard to focus on whether I liked it or not). I had a brief 'relationship' with a boy named Don, but I found out that he had already 'gone all the way' and he really couldn't focus on anything else. After that, pretty much only crushes. But, the morality of each individual sex act was a minor obsession. I knew what my Church taught about intercourse... the rest was a mystery.

I haven't figured out all the answers about it. Is this a sin? Is that? I really know that if it feels 'too far' than it is 'too far'. I will tell them that they need to decide BEFORE doing any particular act whether they want this someone walking around, this someone that they may eventually despise, having experienced that level of intimacy with them. There is nothing so awkward as running into someone who has had their hand on your naked butt!

With careful use, I want them to know exactly how wonderful sex can be, what a gift from God. I want them to have that level of intimacy with their husbands. I want them to have a wonderful sex life. I want them to have planned pregnancies. It would crumple me to know that one or the other had a therapeutic abortion. It would hurt me if I knew that they had a difficult time discussing their desires with their spouses.

So, approaching the subject isn't difficult. We've been talking about it since they could talk. I was so fearful of them being molested, and me not knowing, that I taught them the vocabulary early. But, how do I get the values across??? I guess we will be doing a lot more talking before my influence wanes.

Copyright (c) February 24, 2005 by Janet Johnson. http://liam-and-janet.blogspot.com