It’s never easy to have “the talk” with a child. And when discussing sexual relationships, many straight parents default to their own lived experience, illustrating only one hue in the spectrum of sexuality.
So we give props to the dad who signed onto Reddit and asked, “How do I, a straight man, teach my son about sex in a non-heteronormative way?”
This father told the users of the r/askgaybros subreddit that he knew it was time to talk about the facts of life when he and his 10-year-old were watching Eternals and the son started asking questions about the “relatively mild” sex scene.
“Later, we chatted, and I did my best to stumble through the basic biology of [penis-in-vagina] sex. (He thought it was hilarious, by the way.) Only afterwards, I realized that I talked about sex in a very heteronormative way,” the dad added. “How can I do better?”
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The question attracted a lot of productive comments — and some troll-ish ones, too, which put the dad on the defense.
“I’m not trying to push anything in to his mind,” he argued in a comment on the thread. “I just realize that, for me, sex means sex with a woman. Knowing that about myself, I want to make sure that he understands that there are other ways of thinking about sex that are equally valid. … I don’t want to send a message that the only ‘right’ way to think about sex is man plus woman.”
One commenter, helpfully, suggested the website AMAZE, the missions of which is to “[harness] the power of digital media to provide young adolescents around the globe with medically accurate, age-appropriate, affirming, and honest sex education they can access directly online.”
Another person gave useful advice: “I’d say that sometimes people have sex to make a baby, and sometimes people have sex because it feels good or because they’re attracted to another person, of whatever sex or gender, or because they want to make the other person feel good,” that person wrote. “There are a million different ways to get sexual pleasure and a million different kinds of people to do it with (and you can also do it by yourself), and you’ll discover as you get older who and what you’re into. People with penises often like to put the penis places — into vaginas, mouths, hands, bums, and even other things, if you’re careful, old enough, and everyone involved wants to. People with vulvas sometimes like their vulvas to be touched or kissed, in addition to or instead of having things put inside them. In all cases consent is the most important thing, yours and theirs, as well as safety to protect yourself and them from diseases and, if relevant, from pregnancy.”
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One commenter told the dad to also “acknowledge that sex is about bonding and that heterosexual reproduction is a symptom/consequence that evolved to coincide with that desire for bonding, that the desire to be physical with someone is not a desire to reproduce, it’s a desire to bond in some way, and reproduction is merely a consequence of one version of that interaction.”
And a different Redditor boiled down the conversation to three points: “There’s difference between sex and love: One is physical and the other is emotional, [and] they’re often linked, but they’re different, and it’s possible to have one without the other. Mutual respect and consent need to be essential elements of sex (and love), and consent can be given or withdrawn at any time. Who you love is who you love, and someone’s love for another person deserves respect.”
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Jim
When I was an adolescent a wonderful book came out called, “Everything you Wanted to Know About Sex but were Afraid to Ask.” I’m at a loss as to why it went out of print as opposed to be updated regularly.
It was fairly straightforward and unjudgemental with just enough humor.
I’m not sure it would be possible to get such a book published today with political correctness taking precedents of “just the facts ma’am”.
BigE
Actually, it was a horrible book,if you were anything, but heteronormative. Most of the research was pre-Kinsey and suggested everyone would be happier if we all paired up into butch/femme couples. There was a revised edition with additional research that showed rampant FISTING had taken over the gay male community. My parents handed me a copy of the original edition at puberty. I took everything it said with a grain of salt as I was already conducting my own research….
GlobeTrotter
“People with penises often like to put the penis places”
“People with vulvas sometimes like their vulvas to be touched or kissed”
Nothing like being reduced to a single body part…
Brendan76
I think it’s a very trans-inclusive way to word things that also focuses on the actual topic of the discussion – sex. Obviously there are other body parts that can be pleasured / pleasurable during sex as well, but generally speaking, giving a talk about sex to one’s child does tend to necessitate discussing the actual body parts involved in sex – the penis and the vulva. I’d probably add a few more body parts in there, but saying “people with penises” and “people with vulvas” is anatomically accurate regardless of someone’s gender identity and places the focus in this discussion of sex on the body parts that are involved in sex. It’s relevant and inclusive and it answers the dad’s question.
GlobeTrotter
@Brendan76: You may say it’s “trans-inclusive”, but to me the only thing accomplished by such absurd language is the erasure of sex and identity. I’m not merely a “person with a penis” – I’m a living, breathing, red-blooded man, with all the psychological and physical attributes that entails. I can’t speak for women, but I suspect the overwhelming majority of them would share similar views regarding their sex.
I reject the efforts of trans-activists to redefine language, to redefine sex and to redefine gender to fit their narrow, out of touch with reality views.
tallskin4
If some advanced civilization is out there in the vast universe, it’s too bad they don’t know that their best chance of detecting earth’s existence is by creating a device that picks up on virtue signals.
Den
If you understand what you are trying to say here, perhaps you might give a clue. I suspect most would agree that it just sounds like fuzzy right wing blather.
tallskin4
Den,
actually I am centre left, as are most gender critics here in the UK. It’s only in the USA that the left has lost it senses and planet earth.
But to answer you directly. You say I sound like “fuzzy right wing blather”. So what? I respect other people’s opinions. As I say over here in the sane UK we respect each other’s opinions and I listen to what the right wing have to say. If people over your side of the pond who call themselves “the left” really reflect left wing views, then god help the USA!
cheks
Please, you mean to tell me this guy is “so straight” he couldn’t imagine a way to explain to his son that sex could be more than PIV? “Oh my gosh, what about the gays!? How do they have sex?”
This is just lazy and a stupid question.
Also, he should have told his son about the clitoris. I feel bad for the guy’s wife.
THAT Steve
Just tell the kid there’s procreative sex and recreative sex and love can be attached to either or it can just be about fun.
Den
“sex is about bonding and that heterosexual reproduction is a symptom/consequence that evolved to coincide with that desire for bonding, that the desire to be physical with someone is not a desire to reproduce, it’s a desire to bond in some way, and reproduction is merely a consequence of one version of that interaction.”
This is kind of backwards and disingenuous. Sexual reproduction (as opposed to heterosexual reproduction since all reproduction among vertebrates with the exception of a tiny number of species is heterosexual) evolved well before any sort of “desire for bonding”, and the most obvious reason for the evolution of bonding is a stable environment for the care and feeding of offspring needing care after birth. The evolutionary value of homosexuality (which must have some as it exists in a number of species in widely different genera) is far from understood. Saying reproduction is, through evolution, “merely one consequence” of sexual activity is as bad as saying that the stork brings babies. Species which demonstrate homosexual relationships are generally those that are social and hierarchical in nature. Sex in humans clearly strengthens bonds, but that function could not possibly have preceded sex for reproduction.
Species that bond for raising of offspring often form different bonds during each breeding cycle and few bond for life. Once humans or pre-humans lost seasonal mating instincts all bets were probably off regarding who coupled with who and for how long. We really have no idea at all what kind of bonds existed in humans beyond about 10.000-20,000 years ago. And given our species (Homo sapiens sapiens) is about 200,000 years old and the genus about 2.5 million, cultural norms that are not tracible beyond the past 10,000 years cannot tell us much. But it is likely that having members of your band not preoccupied with raising their own offspring would make survival of the band as a whole easier. In light of that, the slight correlation between birth order and male homosexuality makes sense. But it is clear that a continuum of sexual/affectional preferences has some evolutionary benefit.
Best to simply tell kids that only male and female can make babies, but humans have many ways in which they form bonds.
soviet
the normal way a human to have sex is male and female other then that it’s not normal, not saying it’s wrong just it’s in the minority of ppl and you know what they say you should not make rules to fit the wants of the minority. might not be the responce you all want but it don’t make it no less true
tallskin4
Those of us who find the entire transgender thing to be utter woo woo, should take a look at a recent argument on UK Talk radio
just go to youtube and type in the search “james max Kellie Jay keen on Talk Radio”
go see and enjoy watching a pro trans woke bro totally demolished by a feisty, intelligent woman!
Heywood Jablowme
“Dad, where do pregnant people come from?”
“ummm… Ask your mother.”
[long pause]
“Dad? Mom says it’s heteronormative of you to expect your female partner to explain childbearing and neonatal functions. And she says wash the dishes!”
tallskin4
Little girl: “Mummy, where do trans women come from?”
Mummy: “Well darling, when a man loves himself very very much!”
ingyaom
What’s a vulva?
Inspector 57
It’s a high-end Swedish automobile made by a company founded 95 years ago.
I don’t know how women managed before 1927.