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Three Mistakes We Make When It Comes to Talking About Sex

By Sharon Maxwell, Ph.D.

“I can’t talk to my son about sex! He’s so innocent; he still believes in Santa Claus!” The Santa Claus/Sex connection comes up frequently in my presentations to parents. Somehow, not believing in Santa and knowing the real deal about how babies are made, symbolizes the end of innocence. 

It’s time to rethink this. If our children lived on a farm, the facts of reproduction would be as ordinary and innocent as having breakfast. Learning about sex in a context of love and respect does not take away the innocence from our children. By 8 years old, most kids in America today have heard about sexual intercourse, usually in less than inspiring ways. Allowing our sons to learn about sex in the context of violence and humiliation from video games, reality TV, or the Internet, because we’re too embarrassed to talk with them, destroys their innocence. Dressing our daughters at four and five in provocative costumes and applauding when they “shake their booty” destroys innocence.

Some kids will ask us about sex and some never will. By eight years old, if you haven’t explained the biology aspects of sex, sit down with the book Where Did I Come From  by Peter Mayle and start talking. As difficult as this is, it establishes you as the primary source of information.

We don’t prepare them for a

culture that introduces children to sex

“Mom, do you know what a hooker and a stripper are?” That’s my son at 7 years old. I had just picked him up from school. On the playground a group of boys had been talking about a video game. “If you kill enough people, Mom, you go into a room where a girl takes off her top.” That’s a stripper, he tells me. “If you kill more people you see a girl take off all her clothes.”

In 2007, the American Psychological Association reported a connection between the early sexualization of girls and emotional problems like depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem. “Inappropriately imposing sexuality” on our daughters is taking its toll. Any parent who has gone shopping with their daughter knows how hard it is to fight this trend. Although the APA did not study the effect of early sexualization on boys, trying to raise a son without connecting sexuality to violence and a sense of entitlement is as difficult as trying to buy our little girls clothes that are not sexually provocative.

Fighting the sexualization of children means giving our kids an ethical framework for understanding sexuality, connecting with other concerned parents, and for some, becoming politically active (see commercialfreechildhood.org) It also means raising children who understand that it’s OK to be different.

We don’t talk about sexual desire or

the social power that comes from being sexy

We live in a culture that surrounds kids with sexually explicit images, songs, games, and humor. Yet we agonize over how to initiate a conversation about sexual desire. It’s time to get over it. The whole topic of sex, from Victoria’s Secret ads and reproduction to sexual abuse and MTV, none of it makes any sense to kids if we don’t help them understand the role of desire.

Sexual desire is an enormous energy that we depend on to keep the human species going. As parents, we have to talk to our kids about desire and it’s complement, the power that comes from being able to elicit sexual desire in others. Our sons and daughters need to understand that the work of becoming a responsible adult means learning to control and direct the energy of their desires.

Sex is complicated. It involves biology, desire, social power, love, and intimacy and perhaps most importantly morality and ethics. Short of living in a cave or joining the Amish, we cannot prevent our kids from learning about sex in ways that are often demeaning and degrading. 

We can, however, be proactive. We can get there first with not only the facts but with an ethical framework for understanding all the different aspects of sexuality in a manner that aligns with our values. We cannot be satisfied with simply scaring them out of having sex in middle school and high school. They need a framework for understanding themselves as responsible sexual people that will carry them through college and beyond. And we can start today, because even if we botch it badly, we’ll do better than the kids on the playground or MTV.

Dr. Sharon Maxwell is a practicing clinical psychologist and author of The Talk: What Your Kids Need to Hear From YOU About Sex. For more information on Dr. Maxwell’s work, visit her website at DrSharonMaxwell.com.