It may sound great to hold fast to the innocent presumption that young people don’t ‘do it’, but indeed, they do many things when it comes to sex. I was all of the age of 15 while my ‘science partner’ was 14 years old when we decided to experiment with oral sex.
Yes, we were in my home.
Yes, there were adults roaming around the house.
Nope, my bedroom door was wide open.
Nope, he and I both survived and are here to contribute to articles about our secret missions from days or yore.
Does this mean that every teenager will do as I’ve done?
Not at all, there is a large rainbow of interests and sexual activities that young people will participate in, there is no lock or key to restrict them from exploring whether you think them ready or not.
So get over trying to be the sexual hallway monitor.
This is life, and as they say, sex happens!
Culture and law have always chiseled the constricted foundation of what is deemed appropriate and inappropriate behavior for young women when it comes to sex.
Strangely enough, these young women’s counterparts, the young men, are left conveniently and disturbingly, out of the conversation.
I touched on the subject of Raising a Sexually Aware Young Person in the previous issue of Corset Magazine. In my article, I discussed all of the ways in which I went out of my way to ensure that my daughter had a more knowledgeable and loving relationship with her sexuality and future private life than I and others of my generation were allotted.
I bestowed upon her the fragile existence of a black woman set free to live comfortably in her own body.
With information, with hugs, with love, with laughter, and with bashfulness on both of our behalves; I gave her the gift of secret pearls and ways in which she may know the many joys of the smell of sweet roses at the time and place of her choosing.
She and many of her friends, both male and female, teenagers, and as of lately adults, have requested an audience with me regarding a strange angry bump, a complicated situation, the immediate need for a better solution or general information regarding the human body’s reproductive capacity.
Not knowing what would come out of the person’s mouth next, I never cast a shameful eye, nor admonished the person’s predicament regardless of what they said.
A wagging finger was applied early on and it did nothing to avoid finding themselves faced with a personal and intimate challenge. No need to wag a finger and shame a person further.
I gave hugs and information, phone numbers, a shoulder to cry on and a sobering conversation.
What little I was able to offer is nonetheless valuable, I know information is the gift that keeps on giving, contrary to how much we embrace ignorance in some Black communities.
As women of color, we must ask ourselves, why does society fear budding sexuality? Sexual development goes hand in hand with walking upright, learning to make decisions and other milestones we prepare young people for, yet we ignore this.
Aside from the general realization that we are taught to remain ignorant by religion and conservative social views. Have you ever asked yourself what is to be gained by other’s when women are purposely raised to be ignorant.
Follow the bouncing ball………….I say.
What is to be gained by policing the activities of individual women when we see the end result of such ignorance to be sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, child molestation and a damaged legacy in which we eagerly reap upon the next ignorant generation of young people?
You can’t have it both ways.
Society prepares young women to be victims and then discards her for being taken advantage of by the opposite sex who is left out of the conversation of what is and is not appropriate.
Was this the intention all along?
It begs the question, indeed.
At what point do we cease to disagree and instead try something new?
How do you lend your voice of reason and knowledge to young people?
What are some ways in which we, as adult women of color with a few worldly experiences to share, able to assist with the growth of a sexually aware young person?
Each one, teach one…and I”m more than happy to answer questions or draw diagrams (or make finger puppets..if that’s your thing!) about anything and everything involving sex, love and relationships.
I don’t tolerate trolls, bullies, religious zealots that have wandered out the doors of church, or those that will support the censoring of curiosity in favor of more babies, confusion and misery.
I support and will always promote an open dialogue with young people.
I don’t condone ignorance or sexually bullying and some may not know enough to give out advice, but let’s just say…
I’ve done a lot of field research.
Viva la sexual….
I grew up in small town-americaand this hits a note with me. My highschool had abstinence-only sex ed, and sex ed was not taught until 9th or 10th grade. By the time 10th grade rolled around 50% of the class(or more) had already had sex. The solution to this? Just stop and wait some more. There was no info on std's except "they are bad" and pregnancy due to lack of birth control was not a topic. It would be great if all kids could wait until 18, or even 21, but that is not going to happen. I remember it was common to hve two boyfriends or girlfriends in highschool, one you bought home to your parents, and one that you actually spent time with. I decided to partake in this practice, when I was 16 I was "dating"(it was more or less harmless flirting) a guy I knew my dad would be head over hills for(straight A's, christian, airforce academy hopeful etc.), I have always had a penchant for older men, so while he was not around my hanging out/chilling partner(no sex was involved but there was a lot of making out) was a 21 year old journeyman carpenter who smoked weed, was an athiest, rode a motorcycle and was just in general a slacker(brilliant, but never applied himself he could have easily been an engineer or master carpenter). The plot also thickens, my 16 year old "coverup" didn't care about my much less than desireable rainbeau, because he was gay and seeing another guy on the side. After about 9 months I parted with my psuedo boyfriend(I didn't actually start dating until recently) to focus on other things and because the excitement had worn off(yeah, I was one of those people). I graduated three years ago so I doubt much has changed. The good thing is now both myself and former cover-up/friend now can truly be ourselves. I have also become much more competent at vetting, although my penchant for older men on motorcycles is still present(I can now see other things). The moral of this story is that teens are masters at hiding things from their parents. My parents believed(and still believe) that I was totally innocent. One of my fathers friends had a daughter that actually was impregnated by a teacher(who cheated on his wife, the student was 18 though so nothing happened), and my parents still thought that I would never do anything like that. This was all in small town america. Kids these days may give you their facebook, and you may have their phone number, but they can always get another social networking page, and a tracfone for "important call". My parents were not open about sex or talking about it. They tried to drill it into my head that I need to vet men, but lets be quite honest at 16 my brain was wired for "cool" and "exciting", so it went through one ear and out the other(oddly enough at 21 I am not a party animal, infact I can't stand parties). Parents need to be open with their kids, and teens should not be afraid to talk about sex with their parents. I could have avoided the less than desireable psuedo-boyfriend but encountering him taught me a valuable lesson, and I would have never learned that. As for the chilling partner, he knocked up another girl and apparently is still fighting over custody and child support, so abstaining from having sex with him did help(did I dodge a bullet or what?)
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