When you think about sex education, you already know there’s a big difference between what minors should learn at different ages. You are not going to teach a toddler about the things you’d teach a kid entering puberty, while teens need a completely new and different knowledge set to cope with the realities of teenage hormones, STIs, and looming adulthood.
I don’t even consider it an age-appropriate thing — I see it as a matter of developmental readiness. A safe and stable education in sex isn’t about a precise age number, but about the individual person’s stage of psychological readiness AND physical development. Some kids are ready to learn more when they’re young, while others may safely wait until they are older to absorb the information they need to lead a sexually healthy life. This means delayed learning for kids coping with developmental disabilities, autism, or other issues, and accelerated learning for especially precocious or rapidly developing children.
A safe and stable education in sex isn’t about a precise age number, but about the individual child’s stage of psychological readiness AND physical development
One of the shocking downers of culture is how many adults think sex education is viewed as a one-time, one-step process, limited to the “big talk” parents have with children somewhere in their teens. Scientifically speaking, it should continue well into adulthood and, ideally, into the senior years.
The sex and relationship problems along with sex/reproductive issues that affect adults are entirely different from what kids go through. Most adults come to them totally unprepared for the fact that sex and desire evolve and alter throughout adult lives. They don’t understand the changes in adult sexual health. They don’t understand the role of psychology in sexual performance. They are “surprised” when the bloom falls from their sexual rose after a couple of years of marriage. They freak out the first time they have a performance issue. They sabotage their sexual health with quack remedies and unnecessary surgeries.
Many moms are either disinformed or unaware of how pregnancy, childbirth and raising children will influence their sexual function and desires. They get to hear endlessly about hard-bellied models getting their shape back after giving birth. You know what is more important than looking good? Getting your vaginal function back. That includes restoring any damages through pelvic floor exercises and making sure the birth process didn’t leave any nasty scar tissue behind. When was the last time anyone talked to you about labial adhesions, for example, a rare but painful risk of vaginal delivery?
When it comes to human health and happiness, vaginal atrophy and limp dicks are more depressing than wrinkles or saggy skin.
It’s easier to talk about aging skin than aging sexuality. There are a million creams now to “rewind the hands of time” and reduce bags, sags and crepey skin” (ew!), but where are the ads to remedy sagging scrotums, downward-pointing dicks, and post-menopausal vaginal dryness? When it comes to human health and happiness, vaginal atrophy and limp dicks are way more depressing than facial wrinkles.
We KNOW that orgasms are beneficial in old age, yet we paint a dim picture of sex and aging, as if getting old means getting asexual. We don’t discuss the fact that women and men can keep on fucking into their 80s and 90s if they pay as much attention to their sexual health as they do their cardiovascular health. There are more than a handful of men around the world who fathered children in their 90s and without taking Viagra. Why don’t we prepare women adequately for menopause? Why don’t we teach all men they can keep their penises in great health they remain vigilant about their sexuality in their 40s and 50s? Damned if I know. Oh, wait I do know. Prudism.
Needless to say, I firmly believe sex education should be a human right at every age and stage of life because every developmental stage (yes, adulthood is a developmental stage lodged firmly between childhood development and elder development) is a little different. Each one carries different reproductive health risks and emotional health concerns, each one requires a different set of skills and tools to continue on a mentally and physically healthy path. Every stage of human life is a developmental stage. The time you stop developing is when your body breaks down and kicks the proverbial bucket. Until then, you and everyone you know who has a human body will go through fairly predictable changes to their reproductive system and function.
There is no damn excuse for keeping people in the dark about their sexuality and unprepared for the next stage in their development. In a sane world, everyone would get sex education throughout their lives, so they can prepare for next-stage challenges. As it stands, most people feel overwhelmed when each new stage of sexual development hits. Little kids stress out over puberty changing the bodies they once knew, teens stress out over the hormonal changes that change their personalities, adults stress out when they realize that sexual function doesn’t come as “naturally” as they always expected, and elders stress out because they did not understand the importance of loving, consensual orgasm until it’s too late to go back and rewrite their youths in happier ways.
My big project for this and next year is to rectify all that with a series of short Ebooks (that will eventually be compounded into one giant book) on sex education for humans of all ages. The first one — coming in a few days! — will teach parents to teach their kids the facts they need according to their developmental stages, from birth to the end of their teens. So I’ve been keenly organizing new theories and compiling endless research on what humans need to know at every stage to stay sexually alive, vibrant and, I hope, comforted and affirmed, throughout their lifespan, regardless of orientation or gender.
Even as I’m working on all the nuanced differences among the various stages of sexual development throughout human life, it occurred to me that there some things which are totally applicable to all human beings, regardless of their age, class, gender, race, religion or any of the other artificial social lines that cultures draw around groups. ALL of us are united by these five universal commonalities.
Five Things About Sex That Apply To Every Human
Consent Keeps You Emotionally Healthy: whether you are 1 or 101, being receptive to a sensation makes you feel affirmed while fearing a sensation can set you up for lasting psychological trauma. We think of “mutual consent” as an adult issue that primarily effects college-aged kids. That’s not true. A toddler can be sexually damaged by parents who don’t respect their boundaries or handle them too roughly. Think it’s smart to force your child to toilet-train super young or to teach them that genitals are dirty? WRONG. It’s deeply stupid. Intimacy issues, inchoate sexual fears, body image problems, and other anxieties can result from perceived harm as a little kid. And, of course, a rape feels just as horrible to an elder as it does to a young person. The data isn’t there but I’d bet my sexological reputation on this: non-consent hurts your brain. It triggers fight-or-flight instincts as your brain seeks to prevent you. I hunger for the day when a brain scan shows the changes that occur after a rape or similar sexual trauma in adults. If it’s sex-related, both consensuality and positive associations with our sexuality keep us emotionally balanced. Sexual aggressions, unwanted contact, and sexual objectification are harmful at any stage of life. If and when the medical data come in, I’m fairly confident they may well also discover that sexual violence is psychologically worse than regular violence.
You Are Responsible for Your Genital Health If you’re a parent, you are primarily responsible for your child’s health but even little ones can and should be taught that their parts are not “junk” or “shameful and smelly” but that they are valuable parts of their whole body and that the appearance of lumps, bumps, and rashes mean a trip to the doctor. If only all of us had been taught that genitals are critical parts of the human body which deserve to be cared for with the same respect and care as we show our teeth and skin. Most adults and elders simply do not pay attention to what’s happening to their genitals until they want to use them for sex or the doctor surprises them with a scary diagnosis. Every single human being needs to pay attention to their genitals. They need to own them and love them, regardless of size or shape. By taking full ownership of your sexual health, you open the door to extending your ability to perform in bed and the length of your life too.
Words CAN hurt you. You know the old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”? Well, it’s stupid. Words do hurt. They can damage self-esteem and create inhibitions. Ask any man whose partner told him his penis was too small to satisfy or any woman whose partner complained she was too fat to be sexy. Those kinds of ugly passive/aggressive assaults on a person’s sexual being cut to the core of human sexual identity and confidence. A chronic problem that crops up among clients is the devastating effect of harsh words, whether it was something that happened to a man when someone punished him harshly for masturbating as a teenager or something that happened to him last week when his wife told him he was a disgusting pervert. I won’t even start on the kind of misogynistic crap that women hear every day or the constant verbal assaults in popular media on LGBTQI people. Suffice to say that words penetrate your brain, which is where your sex and gender identities reside. Teaching people to express feelings without attacking another person’s sexuality may be impossible but at least we should people to understand that when someone insults or mocks them on sex and gender issues, they need to protect and defend themselves just as they would do with a physical aggression. Words really hurt.
You Can’t Separate Your Sexuality From your “Real Life.” The way most people are raised, they totally compartmentalize sex and so-called “real life.” The way this therapist sees it, you can’t separate them, no more than you can separate your authentic sexual identity from your personality and life choices. You may think the problem you had in bed last night stayed in that bed when you left it. Not true: you carry it with you. If it was a happy, affirmative experience you’ll probably feel a little better about yourself, a little more attractive, a little more optimistic that day and maybe for days or weeks to come. If it was unsatisfying, unpleasant or otherwise frustrating, you will carry that negative energy forward with you. Sex doesn’t end at the bedroom or dungeon door, for that matter. Whether you are a toddler whose parent punished him or her heavily for indulging in a natural masturbatory exploration, or an elder living in a facility which won’t allow you to have sex with other elders, what happens to your sexuality has implications for how you feel about yourself, your body and your options in life.
Your Sexuality Will Change There is only one thing you can count on with your sexuality. It will change throughout the course of your life. One reason is because there are a set of natural biological changes that you cannot control. You start out primal and uninhibited, you become aware there are rules around sex, you develop secondary characteristics, you get flooded with sex hormones, your hormones start to calm down, your psychology places as big a role as your hormones in your choices, your interest in sex begins to flag, your interest in sex refreshes, your physical capacities play as big a role as your psychology. That about sums up in brief and incomplete terms the flow of human sexual biology from birth to old age. Another reason is that within each of the developmental stages, different things happen to different people — traumatic experiences, delightful experiences, loss of desire, sudden bursts of desire, sexual identity crises and sexual identity victories, gender confusion and gender enlightenment, and so on. Sexuality ebbs and flows naturally within each human, like life itself. Don’t fear change. None of it is bad, it’s just different. By working with our biology instead of fighting against it, we can continue to evolve and redefine our own desires until the whole show ends.
When we free sex from its traditional closets, we will begin to build a world where all human being can reap the benefits of the amazing biological rewards of sexuality and, at long last, disrupt the age-old horrors of child abuse, sexual predation, and domestic violence. I’m not so optimistic as to believe we can end all violence. But we could sure make a big dent in it if we freed people to fully appreciate how sex works at every age!
[div class=”appt_callout callout_lblue”]
A Guide For Parents
Gloria’s new guide for parents who want to take a proactive approach towards teaching their kids about sex.
[end-div]
