Views on having sex talks with teens?

[RaniS642]

Hi everyone, I have a 16-year-old daughter who recently got a boyfriend. It recently occurred to me that I have never had a talk about sex (I was thinking about safe sex, contraception, etc) with her. I was wondering if it is normal to do this with teenagers as me and my mum didn't have the closest relationship growing up, so I never talked about this kind of thing with her.
Of course I would like her to stay safe and for her to make the best decisions. I was just wondering if you had any past experience or ideas about this?

What do you mean you've never had the sex talk? Have you ever discussed puberty / how babies are made?

Hi Bernadette, we have spoken about puberty, and a little about my values about sex a few years ago, but that is all

Please also have conversations about consent.

If they are at state school they will have covered all this in lessons, so your job is half done, you just need to say "I'm sure you know this anyway but - " etc etc

My teens HATE talking about such things with me. I am open, open minded etc but they are both very private people.

She has covered this in lessons I know, so maybe it wouldn't b so embarrassing to open up. She is like your teens in that respect: very awkward about talking to parents about these kind of things

Yes it's completely normal and necessary to have those types of conversation.
I'm sure she'll have talked about it in school but you should go over it again so she knows that she can talk to you about it, ask for contraception etc.

I just say it's a normal part of a loving relationship and do you need contraception. Tell her the importance of both using contraception.
I have 3 teenagers
Dd1 17 sexually active has bar and bf uses condoms
Dd2 16 no boyfriend yet says she never doing sex
Ds1 13 thinks it's weird to talk about.
He is covering it in school

I find it best to talk to them whilst in the car. They can’t escape and you all avoid eye contact. I’ve found I can discuss every subject there is this way - although my teens do now have me sussed.

@RaniS642

Hi Bernadette, we have spoken about puberty, and a little about my values about sex a few years ago, but that is all

Hopefully that conversation also included other people values and there being no wrong or right and she needs to make her own decisions on what her values are.

Important you don't impose your own values on them too strongly or they just end up hiding things from you, or don't come to you when they need help as they know you will not approve.

I'm guessing she may have picked up on your awkwardness if you and your mum didn't talk about personal things. So I agree with the above, raise it as you're doing other things if you feel nervous about it. I think it isn't a one time only talk to be honest though, that's doing her a disservice. As a young girl ages from 13-18 they will be exposed to different levels of sexual awareness and content, and will need to process their own changing thoughts around body image and self esteem and how this links to grooming, consent, safe sex and sexual pleasure. I see it as our job to create their conditions where they can feel safe to talk about this if they need to and to empower them to be confident in staying safe and in getting their own needs met.

I think I’ve always talked to ds about these kind of things age appropriately in the hopes a lot of it went in and a degree of openness established before he got to the embarrassment age.

He’s 14 and I recently segwayed it into a conversation that I hoped he’d talk to me when he started to think about having sex. He asked why and I said because I’d like to know he was safe and ready. I got the sneery I know about condoms and replied that’s not the only issue in being safe and there was lots to consider. He then looked a bit more convinced and aware I wasn’t just talking about lectures on safe sex and that there’s more to being ready and safe than having contraception.

Personally I just try to keep up occasionally broaching the subject or any subject that is important but potentially embarrassing in sort of bite size pieces itms?

Through that approach I’ve somehow discovered that he uses clippers down below to tidy up and that yes he still remembers the importance of washing under foreskin and that he really likes big bums because breasts can still be lovely if small but no bum is awful 🙈 Oh and he doesn’t like skinny girls and is attracted to all different ethnicities.

Sometimes it’s more information than I really want but I’m conscious that just keeping the door open to talking about ‘embarrassing’ things is important to keeping him safe through this next stage.

He’s not sexually active yet but the little conversations have revealed to me that he’s definitely thinking about these things and becoming a more sexual person so to me 16 seems late.

Maybe a conversation with her about what she likes about the boyfriend, what makes him attractive to her, what’s her favourite thing about him etc and let it lead into a conversation or a mention of sex just to open up that door?

well yes, I do think you should be talking to her. But the fact that you haven't really talked about it previously is going to make this more difficult. Ideally the sex talk starts at some point while they're still a lot younger, driven largely by the child itself. Every child at some point asks where babies come from and there's then a natural progression.

But for now, yes, you could preface it with, "I'm sure you know this but want to make sure you're clear about contraception and when to use it and if you need me to help you I can".

I never had this conversation with my parents. Would have found the whole thing horrendously uncomfortable and hated every second.

DD1 was born a few months before my 20th birthday so make of that what you will. DH and I hadn’t been together very long and I was on the pill. He was my fourth partner though so it’s not like I didn’t know how not to get pregnant.

I think the biggest one is consent and withdrawal of consent at any point. Consent is something that can be given without words, not objecting to touching or removing clothes. Giving consent by not opting out.

I have sons, this is something that has been discussed at length with them by me, Ds1 is very open about everything, Ds2 is only 15 so it is more awkward but he doesn't bolt out of the room.

I have said this many times, when Ds1 was in year 10 a girl in his class got pregnant and the Dad was a year 9 boy. As boys they do not get a say on whether a pregnancy continues. The year 9 boy did not want a baby, the year 10 girl did and went on to have the child.

You need to talk about sex having possible consequences such as pregnancy or STIs. Therefore talk about contraception for pregnancy but also condoms for STIs. And yes it is important that she knows she can talk to you and may hold different views than you.

I knew my own Mother's stance on sex as a strict Catholic so I never, ever spoke to her about any of it. With my own children they can ask anything and I will answer but I will not in relation to me and Dh and what we do or do not do but a more generic response.

Do talk to her, yes.

Also talk to her about consent, and how it can be withdrawn.

Just because on Wednesday she said she'd have sex with him on Saturday, doesn't mean she can't change her mind on Friday. And if she DOES have sex with him on Saturday, she is still perfectly entitled to decide that actually, she doesn't want to sex in this relationship again, or for a while, or on a Tuesday. Consent happens EVERY time, not just the first time, and he is also allowed to change his mind and decide that HE'S not quite ready either. He's also not entitled to a blow job just because she has her period or something.

And unrelenting coaxing until you are worn down and have sex anyway to make it stop so you can go home is not consent and it's not fun.

These are all things that are much better to talk about openly, because at 16 she is not equipped to think it all through on her own.

My mother had an unusual youth, and was a very conservative Catholic, so her sex ed for me consisted of "Just say no." which is all well and good, and takes you up to a certain point, but the WITHDRAWAL of consent is very very very very important, and is tricky for a teenaged girl, coached by our society to give way to boys and men all the time, to navigate.

DD just had a day workshop in Y9 about this. She came home totally embarressed about putting a condom on a fake penis and really didn't want to talk about it.

We are quite open about the subject so I wanted to know what they covered but I knew she wouldn't say a word with DH in the house. So I got her on the drive to the Scout meeting (1/2 hour).

We chatted about consent, taking away consent when feeling unsafe, importance of contraception for both partners, I asked if they mentioned STDs and also I gently asked about porn.

I think it helped when I told her about me watching porn when I was 17 and also about the way intercourse is written in books and that there is a huge discrepency between fiction and real life and she should know this.

Did you both watched Bridgerton? I know one friend used the episode where Daphne is tricking the Duke as a conversation opener to talk about it. Or other movies with a scene you could use to talk about? That may be easier than sitting down with "we need to have a talk".

Dunno if this will help, but in an odd sort of way, watching this scene from Malcolm in the middle was useful for me.

It's spliced into another story, the mum character is cartoonishly overbearing, the kid is a super-genius, but there's still a lesson there for anyone who needs it. If these two can do it, anyone can :-)

Good luck OP :-)

@RaniS642

Hi Bernadette, we have spoken about puberty, and a little about my values about sex a few years ago, but that is all

Seriously? This is dreadful,why haven’t you bothered? Consent should be taught from toddlerhood. Your ‘values’ (?!) aren’t relevant to your child’s sex life or development. You’ve failed to teach your daughter really important things and just left it to her school, and presumably porn, and her mates. How do you plan to repair this?

Difficult I accept but you need to have the conversation, especially about consent and boundaries. Some teenage boys have some ideas gained from porn largely about 'normal' things in a relationship that should never be, such as on anal sex or that all young women should have 'Hollywoods' to coin a phrase.

We talk about it fairly often in our house, but usually in the context of a news story, a movie or TV show. And DP and I will often discuss it in front of DSS when we know he's listening but not necessarily joining in with the conversation himself - until we ask him what he thinks / if they've discussed X at school / if his peers have experienced Y... sometimes he engages fully with the conversation, sometimes not, but it's part of general discussion in the house so we know he's aware and can contribute as and when he's inclined.

There have been more direct chats with him about specific subjects, too, but only when something's happened that prompts it naturally (like his girlfriend getting nasty sex-related texts from her ex a few months ago) - we don't tend to sit down for A Talk about it in more general terms.