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I ended up having an impromptu sex talk with my 16 year old daughter the other night. I’ve had “talks” with all of my children over the years. It’s an ongoing thing, I think that’s the best way to handle it because as time goes by more questions arise (no pun intended). And you don’t want to sit them down and bombard them with too much information or you’ll have an 11 year with a deer in the headlights look who wants to crawl under a rock. Hell, I’m still learning things at my age.
So, I don’t even know how it happened… Oh wait, now I remember… we were watching “The Carrie Diaries” and a boy tried to pressure Carrie into doing naughty things with/to him. At the end of the show we both went to the kitchen for whatever reason… and I used that as a teaching moment. I told her not to ever let a boy pressure her into doing things she didn’t want to do.
Then it turned ugly… I mean ugly for me. Lord I was more nervous then a long tail cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs! (That was very Honey Boo Boo, wasn’t it?) She told me how she had been asked for sexual favors. Oh my God, I felt like my lungs were closing! She turned them down. Oh thank you sweet baby Jesus in swaddling clothes… But jeez boys are rather forward these days. In my day they just pulled moves while making out, guiding your hand or head where they wanted it go. Now they just flat out ask? Jesus Christ, at least set the mood a little…
What was also tough was censoring myself from making jokes. “Honey I had a girl in my sorority who could suck the chrome off a tailpipe!” But I refrained. And then I ran like a drunk who needs to get sick in a toilet afterwards to spew out all the jokes I had pent up from the talk to my friend. Come on, I’m only human. It’s how I deal with shit. Lighten up.
She told me she’s not even remotely interested in sex or getting intimate because she doesn’t feel good about her body. Part of me was like “Yay!” But then most of me was like, “How sad, I don’t want you to have body image issues”. We talked about that. Ladies, you know every single one of us has had body image issues, 95% started in jr. high and high school. 80% of us still have them…
It gets worse. We get into specifics. Blow jobs, hand jobs, anal sex. You could probably see the steam rising from my head, the sweat pouring down my face, the rash on my chest. But I knew it had to be talked about. I asked her if her friends talk about this stuff and that I heard BJ’s are kind of a form of currency now. She said no, but girls do brag about giving them! Ah! Ah! In my head I’m now dancing like I have leeches all over me, get them off, get them off!
Clutch the pearls! In my day the only girls who gave head were trollops. Then she says to me… “Nothing about doing that sounds appealing to me”. Phew. (I wanted to say “Oh honey, you get use to the gag reflex thing.” Just kidding!)
This is where it gets tricky. I say, “Oh no, at your age that is done if you don’t have any self-respect” Well what the hell was I supposed to say?! “Just wait until your 35, it’s an amazing sense of power over a guy and a great way to spice things up”? Then she says the same thing about anal sex. In my head I’m like, “oh my God I’m having chest pains, am I dying?” I feel it’s necessary to tell her that having anal sex is not a way to keep your virginity intact as my ex-husband’s college girlfriend thought. ( I didn’t tell her the part about her Dad’s girlfriend) And it can be really unsanitary and unhealthy not to mention painful. But in my head I’m thinking but if you feel like doing it as an adult, wear a condom! But luckily again she says it doesn’t sound appealing. Holy Mary, Mother of God.
See, my head was exploding because first and foremost I’m a Mom, but secondly I’m a red blooded adult American woman with lust in my heart. I’ve always been a little provocative by nature. And yes, that’s what has lead me to bad choices at times throughout my life and I’d like to teach my daughters to stay away from that. I mean nothing major but stuff like I shouldn’t have slept with that guy that I really really liked on the first date, no wonder he dumped me. Or like where a guy is totally bad news for you but the sex is incredible so you stay. Oh girl, it’s hard but don’t go there…
However knowing how to enjoy sex when you are an adult in a committed relationship or marriage is amazing. Let’s face it, we all enjoy sex. Don’t lie now. And sex can make or break a relationship sometimes, right? I loves me some sex! But I can’t tell my 16 year old daughter that! That’s when I have to apply the Mom filter. But at the same time I don’t want her to have a fear of it, I think that causes some adults to have dysfunctional sex lives later. My parents put the fear of God in me about it, that really screwed me up for a while.
I suddenly find myself back in my parent’s shoes though. Well, except I’m still waiting for my sex talk from them. Good Irish Catholic parents. Seriously, I think my “talk” was “Stay away from boys”. All that I knew about sex were the vague facts they taught in health class at the time, and the Playboy magazine I found in my Dad’s drawer in the 70’s with the woman with the gigantic shrubbery growing between her legs.
My kids? Hell they were looking at porn on the computer as soon as they learned where it was. I mean, I’m assuming that, since I didn’t have any kind of content blocker on the pc. So if I don’t talk to them they will think that sex is supposed to be all nasty with spitting and spanking on your naughty bits and lots of swearing. I want them to know it’s something that is to come from love and respect… when you’re much older… and hopefully married, but I’ll settle for just much older.
So it was really strange having a sex talk with my daughter, knowing I’d have a completely different conversation with my adult friends. It also makes me feel that knowing what I know and what I have done in my 4 decades in this life that I really don’t want to let her out of the house ever again. *makes sign of the cross*
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