Gray on 9/12/2021 at 02:54

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How do you explain sexuality to a 12-year-old without sounding like a paedophile or a puritan?

Here's the context.

Tonight I was up at my stepdaughter's flat, helping her assemble a piece of furniture. In the middle of this, her daughter, my step-grand-daughter, age 12, asks for no apparent reason "what does straight mean"? I could kind of see where this might be going, but her mother was busy reading the manual, so I tried to give a bland and vague reply. "Well, straight can mean a lot of things. Look at that line on the floor, between the tiles. That's straight. But it depends on the context. What's the context?"

Without blinking, she instantly replied "in a sexual context."

"Oh. Well, in a sexual context, it means that a girl likes boys, or a boy likes girls." That was all I could come up with. This seemed to be sufficient, and her mother did not correct me. We got onto a different topic then, but I sort of wished I would have had more time to elaborate. "Sometimes, boys like boys, and girls like girls. Which is ok." I don't really know where I'd have gone from there. I don't have any children of my own, so I've never had to deal with their puberty. What would you have said? I'm quite old and know a fair bit about heterosexual sex, and I don't think she's ready to hear any of that. But I know pretty much nothing about all the various LGBTQ+ stuff now. Perhaps it was just enough for her at that moment to hear that "straight" meant the most common thing. But I am quite curious as to why she asked, did one of her friends send her something I wish she hadn't seen? Perhaps -I- am not ready for that answer.

Gray on 9/12/2021 at 04:26

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Hmm. In my day, in Sweden in the 1980s, we'd have sex education in high school. It was all very embarrassing, and basically told you stuff that you had more or less figured out from porn magazines (usually found in a plastic bag in the forest, pre-internet), but at the time we were what, 14-15? But Sweden at that time was fairly progressive, if very inept at teaching it properly. I'm quite relaxed about it now, and feel I can speak quite openly about all of it, but what I lack is the wisdom of how to explain it to a child, and since I live in the UK now, it is very much more uptight here. I don't want to overstep my mark by saying something I shouldn't. So far I only ever answered one simple question in a fairly harmless way. But, I am Swedish, I grew up in a sauna culture, and I've seen my parents naked several times. So, I'm pretty relaxed about nudity. What I am terrible at is talking to children, and I would much rather err on the side of caution. People I talk to here would faint at the very thought of ever seeing their parents naked. To me, that's just Sauna Day.

Gray on 9/12/2021 at 05:26

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I've had a bit more time now to think about what my real question is, and I think it is this:

Parents of teenagers, how did you have The Talk with your children, what did you say, what did not work, and what did work?


Now, obviously, as previously stated, I'm only the step-granddad. Why should I worry? Surely, this can't be my problem. Well... Her real actual dad passed away suddenly when she was four, from medical complications. Her real granddad loves her to bits but is, let's say, is ever so slightly fond of things you're not supposed to smoke. So, unfortunately for her, I've become more or less by default some sort of (ick!) father figure. No, I don't like it either. And as I said, I have no parenting experience. That makes it very hard for me to pretend to know what I'm doing. Hence the above question. I am dumber than a bag of rocks. Any wisdom you can add would be much appreciated.

I would hate it if in two years time some idiot boy would get her pregnant. First I'd punch him squarely in the face, and then I'd punch myself for letting her down. And I'm not a big fan of punching myself in the face. I tend to not enjoy it much.

demagogue on 9/12/2021 at 08:02

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Of late I've started to talk about a lot of things in simple physiological or cognitive terms. I was thinking about it in terms of conservative or Dave Chappelle types that vocationally misunderstand what's going on, but I think it'd probably also be the least (or a relatively lesser) troublesome way to bring it up to the young -- I mean depending on their age & maturity -- in the same frame as why is the sky blue, why is grass green, what are stars, etc.

On sexuality, there's this part of the brain called the amygdala right in the middle that looks like a little acorn, and it makes many people attracted to boys or girls when they reach a certain age. (It's a lot more than that, but maybe okay to start with that for a first pass.) For like 85% of people, it makes them attracted to a person of the opposite sex, and they're straight. For about 10% of people, it's to a person of the same sex, and they're gay. Then a smaller percent of people are attracted (more or less) to people of both sexes, and others never or very weakly attracted to anyone at all. That's just the way the amygdala works. Blame evolution (shrug).

This discussion does remind me of an old joke that always made me laugh though. I usually had the girl 13 because 12 seems to be pushing it (for me), but it's the same kind of dynamic. NB, the joke is a bit blue & I wouldn't advocate actually telling it to a 12 or 13 year old.

You've probably heard the story of Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband's manhood then got in her car, drove to the highway, and threw it out the window. But most people don't know about the car following behind her.

A poor father and his 13 year old daughter happened to be driving behind her and the father was shocked when a penis flew out of the window of the car in front of them and splattered off the windshield.
The daughter shouted out, "What the heck was that?!"
The father, wanting to protect his daughter, fumbled and finally answered "Oh, honey, that was just a mosquito."
The daughter thought about it for a second and then replied, "Oh. Well, it sure had a big dick."

Starker on 9/12/2021 at 15:54

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Fun fact: the penis was later found and surgically reattached. Not so fun fact: apparently, the man went on to abuse several other women.