Bare Marriage

Episode 256: How Should You Handle the Sex Talk with Your Kids?

• Sheila Gregoire • Season 8 • Episode 256

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Talking to your kids about sex & puberty is awkward! And over the years the church has made some big mistakes. Today we talk about how to avoid the biggest ones--and some encouragement for how to do this with as little awkwardness as possible.

OUR SEX AND PUBERTY COURSE:

Check out our revamped version of The Whole Story--our sex and puberty course for parents to share with kids. It's video-based, and it makes covering all the info much easier. It's on sale until Monday, October 28 at midnight.

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Sheila: Welcome to the Bare Marriage podcast.  I’m Sheila Wray Gregoire from baremarriage.com where we like to talk about healthy, evidence-based, biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage.  And I am joined today by my daughter, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Hello.  Hello.

Sheila: And, Rebecca, I have a dream.

Rebecca: Yes?

Sheila: Yes.  I do.  I have a dream.  I have a dream that in 10 years nobody is going to need The Great Sex Rescue.  And I have a dream that in 30 years The Great Sex Rescue will be something in the past.  That it will just be like a relic of people as we get over the purity culture era because we’ve entered an era of health.  And that’s what we’re here to do at Bare Marriage.  We’ve done the largest surveys on what contributes to positive marital and sexual outcomes.  

Rebecca: Mm.  In evangelical circles.

Sheila: Yes.  Exactly.  And we’ve learned that there is an awful lot of teachings that hurt.  But you know what’s really hard?  Is fixing something after the fact.   

Rebecca: It is.  Yeah.

Sheila: It is so much easier to do it right from the beginning.  And so while we talk a lot on this podcast about how to see marriage differently, let’s take a big step back and say what is it that we’re teaching our kids.  And that’s what I want to encourage everyone to think about today.  We’ve been involved in something for the last 6 months behind the scenes which is kind of exciting.

Rebecca: Yeah.  It’s been a lot of my life for the last 6 months.  It’s been a lot of work.

Sheila: Yes.  And tears and ripping your hair out and all that.

Rebecca: Yes.  Very much.  Calling Joanna venting.

Sheila: But it’s good.  I’m really proud of it.  Do you want to explain?

Rebecca: Yeah.  So what we did 7 years ago, first of all, is we released a course called The Whole Story for girls.  And my sister and I did it when we were 22 and 20.  So we were quite a bit younger.  And it’s really just doing the hard conversations for you about teaching your kids about sex, puberty, and growing up.  It then prompts you with a lot of discussion questions, with activities, to help you bond and get used to talking about this kind of stuff so that the parents can then finish the conversation and keep the conversation going.  So we did it two different ages because—and here’s why.  Directly because of our experience talking about sex because we had this one big weekend when I was 10, and then we never really officially talked about it again.

Sheila: Right.  And put a pin in that because I want to finish that story.    

Rebecca: Yes.  And Connor and I talk about that too in this podcast.  Yeah.

Sheila: Okay.  But then after that—a year after that, we released the boy’s version.  And we have just revamped the whole thing.

Rebecca: We have because see?  I mean we did the study for She Deserves Better.

Sheila: Yeah.  We surveyed 7,000 women on their experiences as teens and the messages that they heard.  And we realized, oh, there’s some things—we were still happy with the course, but there were things we wanted to emphasize in a different way.  There were things we wanted to say in a different way.  And then I get kind of weird where whenever I’m not 100% in love with something I stop talking about it because I feel like, oh, if I can’t—it’s not that I thought it was bad.  It certainly wasn’t harmful.  It’s not the way I would talk about things necessarily today.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Especially since we just hadn’t talked about some topics that our research showed are really important to talk about.

Sheila: Yeah.  And so we went back, and we redid it.  We really changed the boys’ version.

Rebecca: Yes.  We did.  And here’s why.  Here’s a big reason why.  One of the things that we had done differently in the previous version—which is a valid choice, but we’ve changed now.  Is that the boys and the girls’ version were different.  So the boys’ version only had one unit on puberty and then talked a lot about becoming—did a lot of different stuff where it was more about the concepts behind growing up well, right?  But the girls had puberty for two units—

Sheila: Because so much more happens to girls.

Rebecca: I mean so much more happens.

Sheila: You need a bra.  You got periods.  You got tampons.  You got pads.  You were 11, and it’s awful.  Yeah.  

Rebecca: Well, and a lot of what we did for the boys we realized, no, you know what?  These kids really should actually get the same info because that’s a lot of what we found is you need to have this information.  It’s good to have this information.  And so what we did is there’s still differences between the courses because boys do not need how to use a tampon.  They do need to know, though, what tampons are, and that’s now in the course, right?  These kinds of things where you’re going to be able to have these conversations in a healthy way where your kid knows all the information that they need.  Also so that they’re not accidentally making jokes that embarrass a friend at school because they don’t realize what a period is and that they’re not tossing the girls in the pool.

Sheila: And can I just say this—okay.  Pet peeve of mine.  Youth pastors, if you are listening to this, please, please, please do not force or pressure 11 to 15-year-old girls to go swimming ever.  Actually any woman.  Any woman over the age of 11.  Do not pressure them to go swimming.  Or if you are at summer camp for a week and everyone is supposed to take place in the regatta, and one girl is just hanging back.  And you start bothering her or splashing water on her.  Just stop.

Rebecca: Yes.  You don’t know if that girl is using a pad and can’t use a tampon.  Or if she just doesn’t want to, if she’s like, “I just don’t like tampons,” those are valid.  Those are valid.

Sheila: Yeah.  And the number of women who told us about experiences with youth pastors pressuring them about swimming pools was ridiculous.  Seriously.  

Rebecca: Use your brain, folks.  Use your brain.

Sheila: Shouldn’t you know this?  But, anyway, that’s an aside.      

Rebecca: No.  But that’s the thing though is we need to make sure kids have the same information, right?  Because, otherwise, things can get a little bit dicey.  But also it’s so easy when we talk about sex with kids.  We talk to our kids about sex to just keep it as basic as we can.  Kind of like grit and bear it.  Get through the conversation and then just drop—

Sheila: Yeah.  Not grit and bear through sex hopefully.  

Rebecca: No.  Unfortunately, I think that’s what a lot of people get from the conversation.

Sheila: That’s what Katie did when I told her.  Did I—

Rebecca: Yes.  Oh my gosh, yes.  Poor Katie.

Sheila: When she was 8, she asked me about where babies come from.  And I answered as specifically as I could.  And then she gave me a really big hug, and she said, “Thank you for doing that with Dad.  I’m so sorry.”  And it’s like okay.  Something obviously got lost in translation.  But yes.      

Rebecca: Yeah.  But that’s also why it feels really weird, but it’s also kind of important to let your kids know this is something that you don’t need to worry about because you’re really young.  This isn’t in the cards for you right now.  But also when it is, it does—it is supposed to feel good.  It is supposed to be something that feels good, and I know that’s super weird to think about.  But this is actually important that they know, and I think that we—I mean it’s—I feel bad for parents.  I’m not in that stage yet.  But I do feel bad for parents, but it can just be really awkward.

Sheila: It can be awkward, and so that’s the point of the course is we’re just trying to make it a lot easier.  So they watch short videos with either you and Katie or with Connor and Daniel, who is a med school student and a long time family friend.  So younger people kind of like mentors, big brothers, big sisters tell them the information.  And in the older versions of the courses, sometimes it’s one of you like Rebecca and Daniel or Katie and Connor.        

Rebecca: Yeah.  And that was one of the differences we wanted for the older course because we wanted both sexes to hear from both sexes as they aged.  And there’s a reason for that.  First of all, because boys need to get used to learning about this stuff from women too because they often are not actually encouraged to hear women’s perspectives about things like sex, things like their bodies, and what they’re going through.  And often there can be this huge disconnect between what boys think girls go through and what girls actually go through.  And if we can teach them, hey, you can learn from women this area and it’s actually important that you listen to women about this stuff, that’s actually—it’s really important because it’s not as common.  And for girls, girls are used to listening to boys about this.  That’s very normal in our culture.  But what I wanted for this course was to really prove to these girls, hey, there are actually men out there who think about this the same way that we women, who are presenting the course, think about it.  Because I think what I remember from growing up is especially in a lot of Christian circles, there’s this idea that there is women’s experience with sex, and there’s men’s experience with sex.  And they’re very different, right?  Like the gate keeping message where—

Sheila: Yeah.  Yeah.  Guys want it all the time.  Girls really don’t.  Girls have to be the gate keeper.  Guys get a point of no return.  

Rebecca: Exactly.  Or even things like men are visually stimulated, women aren’t.  All these different things.  But even the idea that women want emotional connection and men want physical release, I mean you guys have heard us talk about this stuff.  It’s just all crap.  But the big thing is I think it kind of reduces the ability for those messages to have as much of a hold when you’re like, yeah, but these people were giving the same message, right?  Hey, I heard that this actually is the same for boys and girls.  Or, hey, I realize I know that there are guys who are talking about making decisions that are smart, not just making sure that the girl makes sure he makes smart decisions, right?  Especially around pushing boundaries in dating and stuff like that.  Hearing that from a guy, a man, saying, “Hey, think about the reasons why you’re dating and the reasons not being because don’t you know that boys want sex and they’re going to try to take it from you.”  No.  The reasons being about, hey, do you actually like this person.  Or do you just want a boyfriend, right?  Or, hey, do you actually want to date, or are you just feeling really lonely, right?  And having the same conversations happening with both sexes, I think is remarkably protective because you won’t be able to be lied to to say the motivations are different, the experience is different because—I mean I know a lot of people listening were also the Brio groups where—you read those horrible articles, right?  Where everything that I read growing up was boys date for different reasons than girls do.  Girls, you just have to understand that boys are different than you.  Oh, you will never be able to understand how hard it is to be a boy.  Emphasis.  Pun not intended.  I just wanted to challenge that by exposing both of the kids to information from both of the teachers.  So, anyway, that was my longwinded explanation for why, but that was something that I felt very strongly about.

Sheila: Yeah.  Yeah.  Okay.  So quick housekeeping.  This is really important.  So the course is all ready.  It’s all done.  It’s all changed, and we’ve got it on special sale right now up until October 28.  So Monday night at midnight.  So it launched last Monday, and it’s on sale until this Monday at midnight.  And it’s really cheap.  There’s four versions of the course.  There’s the younger girls and older girls, and then there’s the younger boys and older boys.  But you can get a complete lifetime access to the complete girls’ version, the complete boys’, or the complete of both.  And all of that information is in the link in the podcast notes.  And we just encourage you to get it before—while it’s still on sale and spread the word because this is something really important.  And if you have already bought it in the past, just really quick thing, and you bought the lifetime version, then you will be seeing the new version in your Thinkific really soon.  So that’s awesome.  Okay.  I told you to put a pin in that, and we’re going to come back to that in just a second.  But first, would you like to bring your husband on, and you can have a chat with him?    

Rebecca: Yes.  Hello, hello.  And here it is me, Rebecca, and Connor.  

Connor: For those of you who don’t know me.

Rebecca: Yes.  Connor is my husband.  Connor also did the boys’ version of The Whole Story.  So if you have the boys’ version, you’re going to see his face explaining a ton of stuff together with Daniel.  But we wanted to come on and just tell you a little bit about our experiences when we learned about sex because these are just—I mean some of its just gold.  Okay?  Because here’s the thing.  I think there’s a lot of pressure to get this perfect or you feel like you’ve screwed up your kids, right?  But neither of us got a perfect situation with this.

Connor: Yeah.  I think kids are capable of a lot of course correction, but—

Rebecca: It’s really nice if you don’t need it.

Connor: Yeah.  Yeah.  And it’s nice if you don’t have to leave a lot of that up to chance.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Exactly.  I know some of you who have been listening for awhile already know some of what happened with me.  But for those of you who don’t, what happened was my mom took me away for a weekend.  Okay?  So the big weekend where it’s like you’re going to learn about all these changes that are coming.  And then I got explained what sex was.  And we were listening to this CD course because that’s—they didn’t have online courses back then.  I am a young millennial, but I’m not quite—I’m not that young.  We had CD courses that you’d buy, and we brought a little CD player.  And we listened to it.  And I heard this older man explaining to me what sex was.  And I was just so—I was bewildered.  I was shocked.  I was frozen.  And I just remember him explaining what a penis is as being like guys have a finger down there or something like that.  And I just was thinking in my hazed state, “Well, then why do they use their hands to scratch their balls?”  Like as if it was *makes noise*.  They could just use their little finger with their joints in their penis.  The penile joints.

Connor: The prehensile penis.  No.  For sure.  For sure.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Yeah.  We all know what that is, right?  But yeah.  I mean I did figure it out pretty soon.  I did.  But it definitely took me a little bit longer, I think.  And a penis—there’s no need for it to be described as a finger.  You can just show kids the proper diagrams and stuff.  And they can—it’s a lot easier if you actually see a diagram.

Connor: Yeah.  Yeah.  And for me, I think part of the problem was my parents were both relatively—I think they considered themselves fairly sex positive but also fairly uncomfortable with the conversation.  So what it amounted to for me, in my circumstance, was my parents—I think I was asking about where do babies come from once when I was probably about 5 or 6.  And my parents explained it to me as, well, a man and a woman touch private parts—like their private parts touch, and they do some rubbing around.  And then later there is a baby because I was young.  And they didn’t want to give me much more of an explanation than that, but they also didn’t want to lie about it.  But then I think they also kind of filed it away in their mind as we’ve given it—we’ve explained it and didn’t realize that my take away from that was that—it didn’t really register to me that women have a compatible set of sex organs.  And I just kind of pictured touching tips.  That was my interpretation of two people touch private parts together.  Okay.  All right.  Not sure I get it but okay.  Sure.  And then that was all I got from them for a long, long time.  I had to piece together the rest from cousins, friends, that sort of thing.  And so there were definitely some gaps left in my knowledge growing up.

Rebecca: Yeah.  And I think that’s more common than people realize because I think often you have one conversation with a kid.  And then as a grown up, you remember the conversation because you’re a grown up with a grown up’s brain.  And we forget that kids have to hear these things a couple of time for them to really get it often.  I mean think about when they’re growing up and you’re explaining other basic things, right?  About how the world works.  Even in school.  You don’t just have one 10-minute talk on what chlorophyll is, right?  You review it a couple of times so that the kids understand chlorophyll.  Similarly, you have one talk when they’re 7 or when they’re 10 or something.  You’re like okay.  I got it.  I got it done.  That’s a checkmark on the list.  And meanwhile, your kid processed it with their 7-year-old brain or their 10-year-old brain.  And they need to reprocess it as they get older, as they’re able to handle more, as they’re able to cognitively understand more.

Connor: Well, and the thing is too children will often fixate on totally different things from adults.  And then with their imperfect memories—an example of this that has nothing to do with sex education is when I was younger, my mom had a really bad nut allergy.  And we didn’t know if I had one.  And one time we were gifted this big box of the Ferrero Rocher that have hazelnut.  And so my mom knew she was allergic to them.  I saw them.  I thought they looked really good.  And I see my dad come over, and he just pops a couple in his mouth.  And I ask my mom if I can have some of the Ferrero Rocher.  And she says, “Oh, no.  You can’t have any of those because they might be deadly for you.  You might have a bad reaction to them.”  What I heard was there is a chance when you eat a Ferrero Rocher that you will die.  She didn’t mention allergies because when you’re talking to younger kids sometimes you have to give a simplified explanation.  And it’s really easy then to fixate on the wrong things.  I heard when you eat one of these chocolates there is a chance you will die which makes my dad, in my eyes, just the most hardcore person because he’s like, “Yeah.  I’ll roll those dice,” again and again and again.  And he ate the whole box.  And even though I could logically understand not much later than that that, obviously, that’s ridiculous it’s just that sort of understanding of things lingers in your brain.

Rebecca: Exactly.  And I think that’s why when we made—when we’re doing The Whole Story, right?  A big part of it is to get you guys talking so that it isn’t just this weird situation where you give information and then leave it alone, right?  Because both of us as we got older, we could talk to our parents about this stuff more.  And then they were happy to clear stuff up, or they didn’t have to because we already figured it out.  But it does get easier as they get older, but you could have four years there where you think Ferrero Rochers are just a deadly weapon that only the toughest of tough will eat.  

Connor: Yeah.  You need to just not care if you’re going to have these.

Rebecca: Exactly.  It’s like Russian roulette but candy.  Exactly.

Connor: Yeah.  But the thing is sometimes we don’t actually feel comfortable having those conversations later, if we don’t have them at first.  I actually still to this day haven’t really talked to my parents about any of this kind of stuff because we didn’t really have those conversations when I was at an appropriate—when I was a young teenager.  Just when I was real young, a basic explanation, and then just sort of left it alone, and I had to learn everything else from everyone else.  I never really felt comfortable having those discussions.  And part of the problem with that is you do, as a teenager, often encounter adult situations, and I—it never occurred to me that my parents were people I could go to when I was feeling confused about these things.  It wasn’t even just—it’s not even like I considered it and thought, “Yeah.  I don't know.”  It never even entered my mind that when I have questions about something or I’m confused or worried or fearful about something going on in this whole area of sex that I could go to my parents and say, “Hey, I found this weird thing on the computer.  What’s up with that?”  And so I really wish growing up that I had felt comfortable going to my parents with those sorts of questions.

Rebecca: Yeah.  I think the problem too is when you’re going through the junior high years, you’re going through the high school years, the more you don’t talk about it, the more baggage there is to unpack when you do, right?  And so then the cost of starting that conversation gets higher and higher.  So if you start talking about it when they’re 9, 10, 11 and you’re revisiting these questions periodically and you’re bringing stuff up and be like, “Hey, do you remember how we talk about this idea back when we did that weekend.  I noticed this happening with your friends, and I just wanted to touch base and kind of say, hey, this is an example of what I was warning you about.”  Having these conversations and bringing them up, it can make it easier because then you don’t have to get caught up.  You ever have that friend that you know what you to reach out to, but you haven’t talked in 7 years.  And now you’re like this is going to get weird if I reach out of nowhere or I don’t even know where to start.  I think it can get like that with sex too.  Where if you don’t talk about it, it gets harder.  Even if you’re there and you’re, as the parent—you’re like I’d love to talk about this stuff with my kids.  I want them to come to me.  I am absolutely positive that’s your parent’s perspective back then.  Yeah.  They’ll come to me.  Of course, they will.  I want to talk to them about that, but it’s hard if you don’t when you’re young.  Because then what often happens is the kid internalizes this idea that this isn’t something I talk about with my parents because we talk about everything else.  But this, ironically, often through parents wanting to not crowd their kids or give their kids space ends up the kids feel like they can’t go to you.   And that’s just not what anyone wants, right?  And your kids might be the kind of kids who are like, “Mom, I do not want to talk about this.”  Or, “Dad, oh my gosh.  Do not talk to me about this again,” but you still have to because they’re saying that now.  But the thing is if you talk to them about it even when it’s awkward, they’re going to know that they can talk to you about it even when you’re awkward about it.

Connor: Yeah.  I think with this kind of thing there is an especially big inclination from the kids to look for answers to their questions in the place where they first started getting that information.

Rebecca: That’s true.

Connor: Like you were saying about you don’t want to have to get caught up on stuff like growing up—say I had a question about porn or something like that.  Is this porn?  What’s going on with this?  If I brought that up and asked my parents, I don’t know if they know that I know what porn is.  And I don’t want to have to explain to them why I know that that’s a thing.  And so if you can be that person who first starts to provide them with information, then I think you’re a lot more likely to be that person because a lot of parents do, I think, have this great and open philosophy of, hey, if my kids come to me with any questions, I will answer those questions.  But first, you need to make sure that you’re the one they’re going to come to.

Rebecca: Exactly.  Because some kids are just going to talk to you no matter what.  That’s the thing.  It’s true.  Some kids you could give them space, and they’re going to come up to you one day and be like, “Mom, what’s an erection?”  And you’ll be like, “Okay.  We are having this talk,” right?  Or, “Hey, Mom, what’s oral sex?”  They might just come up to you and ask these things.  There are some personalities that are like that.  But the thing is you don’t actually know if your kid is like that until they’re not like that.

Connor: I think I kind of shot myself in the foot with one opportunity to get a conversation about sex started with my parents when I came up to my mom one day and asked, “Mom, what’s mastication,” because I misremembered the word I’d heard someone use in a TV show I saw where they had mentioned masturbation.  And I didn’t know what that was, but I had a concept like I think that’s maybe kind of something—kind of something in that area of stuff.  And so I misremembered the word, come up to my mom, “What’s mastication?”  And she’s like, “Oh, that’s chewing your food.”  Okay.

Rebecca: Contextually doesn’t make sense, but I trust my mom.  She knows everything.

Connor: Yeah.  That sounds right.  Yeah.  That’s not what I thought.

Rebecca: And the thing is too you were the kind of kid who would be wanting to use the word mastication in your everyday life.  Yes.  No.  

Connor: Well, now that I know that I can use it.  

Rebecca: Exactly.  That’s really funny.  But yeah.  No.  I think that what happens is the way that we talk about things or the way that we don’t talk about things unconsciously creates a family culture.  And I think that’s what can be difficult.  I was the kind of kid who was never going to ask my mom anything.  My mom did that whole weekend away because she was kind of like this girl—she was kind of waiting for me to ask about how are babies made or why do grownups look different than kids or all these different things.  And I just never did.  That part of the world just did not exist in my brain.  And so she was like, “I am going to have to make this girl learn this stuff,” right?  And your kid might be like me.  And although I joke that there were definitely things that mom wishes she had done differently now, overall, the thing that she did that was really good was she did start those conversations, right?  I knew that I could go to my mom, and I did go to my mom repeatedly throughout high school when stuff was going on, when I was like, “Hey, I just found out that this friend is having unprotected sex.  I don’t know what to do,” or, “Hey, these kinds of things are happening in the youth group, and I’m really worried someone is going to get hurt.”  I could go to my mom because those conversations were started, right?  Did we always have them as openly as she would have liked?  No.  And that’s why we made The Whole Story.  Because quite frankly, we were like, dudes, I think we got a solid B plus.  I think that’s what—I think so.  But I think that there’s so much power in creating a family culture where it’s expected that you can talk about this stuff without ramifications and that your parents can be honest with you about how awkward they find it.  So I think that’s often what parents think too.  I know that even having really young kids, right?  The idea of talking to them about this stuff can be so daunting.  And I think there is this pressure that in order to be a healthy person to talk about sex with your kids you have to be like I’m a cool mom.  I got this.  This is super chill.  I’m fine, right?  And that’s not true.  Your kids don’t need you to fake how you’re feeling.  They just need you to be honest with them.  And I think that if you can show that honesty too where if you’re someone who is really awkward about this you have permission to be like, “This is hard for me too, kid.  This is weird for me too.  I’ve never felt comfortable talking about this stuff.  But I want you to know that you can come to me even if it’s uncomfortable.”

Connor: And you know what?  I personally think that—when your kids are going through adolescents as young teens or mid teens I think that is a really good time for them to start humanizing you, to start realizing that you also grew up and had to go through a lot.  I remember it was really transformative for me hearing that for all the rules and strictness and boundaries that my parents had and everything that my parents made trouble sometimes when they were kids.  And starting to humanize your parents and realize that I think this is a really important age for that.  But a big thing with all this and why I think it’s so important to get these conversations started is sex isn’t like history.  Your kids are going to learn it whether you teach it to them or not.  But there is a lot of opportunity for them to not get a B plus.  There is a lot of opportunity for them to have a lot of holes in their knowledge or things that they—they’ll figure out the basics.  There might be a lot of flaws in their understanding.

Rebecca: They just think it’s touching tips.  Yeah.

Connor: Maybe they think it’s just touching tips.  You know when I learned that pre-ejaculate could still get someone pregnant?  In my 20s.  That’s a scary time for your kids to be learning that pre-ejaculate can get someone pregnant.  You want them to know that pretty much as soon as they know what sex is.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Exactly.  But something else we have to talk about—and I know this is kind of scary and awkward.  I’m not trying to scare parents.  But I think that we are kind of being daft if we just ignore the fact that a lot of kids’ sex education is from pornography.  For example, a lot of people know that women can orgasm, but the only reason that they know that is because they’ve seen porn.  And if your idea of female sexual pleasure comes from pornography, that’s not actually a good sex education, right?  Not at all.  And these are the kinds of things where I think oftentimes we’re tempted to just have the talk at 10 or 11 where it’s like penis goes into vagina, ejaculates.  That meets the egg.  Has baby.  That’s an important talk.  It is important for children to understand the mechanisms of reproduction.  It also makes a lot of things make sense when it comes to understanding why you get periods, why you get erections.  The idea of reproductive health helps explain a lot of the other questions and also gives the child the framework where if they are trying to piece together stuff in their head they, at least, actually understand the mechanics of how things are working, right?  But the problem is that’s not the whole picture of what sex is.  And we need to keep having these conversations as kids get older to make sure that they understand not just how are babies made but also how does your body work.  Because when your kid gets married someday—if you—I’m assuming—again, I have to apologize.  No parent wants to think about this.  And I understand that.  Okay.  But your kid is someday, most likely, going to have a sex life.  Okay?  And I know it’s not fun to think about.  Trust me.  I’m someone who talks about sex with their mom on a podcast.  I actually do really get it.  But the thing is that if you’re not having this conversation that doesn’t suddenly mean this isn’t going to be pertinent in your kid’s life some day.  It just means that they won’t have the information or that they’ll get the information from a source you don’t know about.

Connor: Yeah.  It’s not like, hey, if I never teach my kids about sex, they’ll never have sex.

Rebecca: No.  Not at all.  But it does mean they’re more likely to have sex without having the information they need.  And no one actually wants that.  And that’s why I hope that The Whole Story that we’re—we’re promoting it this week.  And it’s just released again.  And I really think it’s going to be a great tool to start those conversations and make sure that you know what gaps of knowledge your child has so that you can also have those conversations and fill those gaps so that you can make sure this isn’t a one and done conversation where you didn’t realize your kids didn’t understand that men and women have different genitalia, right?  That fit together.  It’s not just—yeah.  Or you didn’t realize that your kid doesn’t understand that a penis doesn’t have joints like a finger. 

Connor: Or that hair doesn’t sprout from the tip when you start getting pubic hair.

Rebecca: Oh, that was a really funny thing is I looked at—when we were researching for this course, the number—the FAQs of what people ask about like pubic hair development and stuff.  We added quite a bit of stuff to The Whole Story about that.  We’re letting people know, no, you’re not going to get hair growing from the top of your penis.  No.  It’s not.  Yeah.  But that’s the thing.  Kids don’t know.  They don’t know.  And you have this amazing opportunity to help them know in a way that will normalize the idea that they can talk to you about this stuff.  And you don’t have to do it perfectly.  You don’t have to be super chill about it.  But what they do need is permission to come to you even if it is awkward.  And even if you are uncomfortable, they’re going to see you powering through, and they’re going to see you prioritizing this even when you’re like, “I know.  This is weird.  But we can do this.”  Okay?  And you know what?  If you are someone who is super good at talking about this with your kids, then great for you too.  If you’re super comfortable.  I’m going to be honest.  I think we’re probably going to be pretty comfortable about it.

Connor: I hope so.

Rebecca: Yeah.  I mean I think that it’s—because of this job, I think it’s actually going to end up being quite a bit easier.  But I think that—I know that the fact that my parents were uncomfortable about it but they did it anyway didn’t make me feel like sex was shameful.  It just made me feel like my parents understood some of the awkwardness that I was feeling.  So don’t be put off if you feel intimated because sometimes what your kids need to know is not that you are perfect at everything but more that you’re making it a priority even if sometimes it’s a little bit messy.

Sheila: All right.  I am sorry that I didn’t do puberty well with you necessarily.  

Rebecca: Here’s the thing.  You didn’t do it terribly.  You really didn’t.

Sheila: No.  And we got better as you guys got older.

Rebecca: I also think a lot of it was—I will—and this is something that 99.9% of people listening won’t apply to them.  But the fact that you did talk about sex as a living when we were in high school did make it—

Sheila: Yeah.  Easier for you to come to us.

Rebecca: - even if you didn’t talk to us about it, I knew that—

Sheila: There’s still so many things that Katie claimed she—that I never told her.  And I know that I did, so I think she just blocked a lot of stuff out.  

Rebecca: Oh, I fully believe she did.

Sheila: But that’s why sometimes taking a course can help because you’ve got it actually on paper and you’ve got discussion questions.

Rebecca: Well, and not only that, you make sure that you’ve done it, and you’ve talked about it.  And then also you revisit it in a few years to make sure that it’s heard again.

Sheila: Yeah.  Exactly.  So it’s so important.  There’s a couple of things that I do want to talk about though.  I told you to put a pin in this because this is just big picture philosophy things that I think that we’ve had a problem with when it comes to how we talk about sex to kids.  And one of them I didn’t really understand until I took you on that puberty weekend.  So I took you away for that weekend.  And you listened to that CD, which kind of creeped you out.  But then there was this passport, and you never saw a lot of this.

Rebecca: No.  I didn’t see this.  

Sheila: Because I stopped it.  I think there were seven things we were supposed to cover, and you were supposed to get seven little stamps in your passport or whatever that said that you had gone through this material.  And the first two were basically just learning about it.  But then the rest of them were all about getting you to promise never to have sex.

Rebecca: You’ll be a crumpled rose.  You’ll be a torn up piece of paper.

Sheila: Yeah.  And there was all these different object lessons we had to do.  And I actually did the first one.  I don’t know if you remember.

Rebecca: I don’t really remember.

Sheila: But we took—

Rebecca: Oh the leaves.  You did the leaves.

Sheila: Yeah.  There was the leaves.  Maybe I did two of them.  So there was the leaves one, but then there was these two pieces of paper that you were supposed to glue together and then rip apart to show that when you have sex you bond with someone in part.  And you leave part of you behind, so you’re no longer a whole person.  And I did that.  And I just felt really weird about it, and you were weird because you were 10.  

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.  I was crocheting a dolly while we were on that trip.

Sheila: Yeah.  And I had just told you about sex.  And then you were supposed to promise never to have it until you were married.  And seriously, I could have said to you, “I want you to promise me never to look at a boy,” and you would have said yes because you were so freaked out.  And it felt really emotionally manipulative.  When we looked at She Deserves Better—so our book about—where we surveyed 7,000 women, we looked at the popularity of purity pledges in past generations.  And basically, Millennials took purity pledges, and Gen X and Boomers did not.  So this was very much a Millennial thing.  But what we found was that a significant number of women did purity pledges in junior high or even before—sort of that age 10 to 12 kind of age where they took a purity pledge.  And you can see some of the kind of creepy documentaries on YouTube of the father daughter dances.  And while they were supposed to be for 16 year olds, they often went as far down as—

Rebecca: Like 12, 10, 11.

Sheila: Yeah.  And those pledges did not do well long term.  

Rebecca: No.  And obviously, the parents who are doing these—a lot of them—it was just out of the best intentions, right?  Everyone feels awkward talking to their kids about sex.  Everyone is terrified that their 13 year old is going to have sex, right?  That’s something that is a normal fear as a parent.  And I think that these—these balls—they were creepy, guys.  Let’s just be real even if you did one.  It’s okay.  We can own the cringe.  Okay?  They were weird.  But I don’t think—they weren’t done maliciously.  And we understand that.  But also it’s just not really a great idea, in our opinion, and the data seems to suggest to pair understanding what sex is with threats and fear.

Sheila: Right.  And that’s what we want parents to understand.  Whether you get our course or not, please listen to me on this.  Is that kids deserve to know about their own biology apart from the idea that it’s moral in some way.  Their body is their body.  Their body is not moral or immoral.  Their body is going to have a period even if they never have sex.  Her body is going to have a period, and it should have a period.  That’s a problem if it’s not after a certain age.  Her body is going to have a period whether or not she has sex.  And so to pair those messages is really making an implicit assumption that her body is somehow either sinful or not.  And that’s just a really shaming message when kids are trying to figure out why have I got hair there.

Rebecca: Oh my goodness.  Well, and also we talk a lot about not wanting our kids to be sexualized or not wanting them to grow up too fast.  And then what we often do as a result is we immediately sexualize them.

Sheila: Yeah.  Because it’s actually sexualizing your kids to talk about, “Hey, you got to promise never to have sex until you’re married,” when that 11 year old isn’t wanting to have sex anyway.  That 11 year old is like, oh, wow—she or he is trying to figure out all of this out and what this means.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Or if they’ve just got normal amount of crushes and sexual curiosity pairing that to be the same as when 19 year olds, who are dating, dealing with sexual boundary questions.  That’s not the same.  And I think that’s something that I really hope that we can do better as just a whole group at normalizing the understanding that just puberty and adolescence and the feelings that come along with that is not necessarily the same experience as adult sexuality.

Sheila: Yeah.  That is really key.  Okay.  You’d better say that again because that’s really key.

Rebecca: Yeah.  No.  The natural curiosity and feelings that come with adolescence is not always the same as adult sexuality.  Because the thing we talk about a lot in The Whole Story when we explain what puberty is is that it—puberty is when you go from 100% kid to 100% adult, but it doesn’t happen overnight.  Right?  You’re 100%, and then you’re like 97, 93, 88, right?  And similarly, that’s the same with sex here too, right?  You have zero sexual feelings, and then you hit sexual development and puberty.  And you start to experience these butterflies and crushes and curiosity.  And it slowly becomes adult sexuality.  But it doesn’t start there.  It’s not all or nothing.  I think that there’s often so much shame and fear around sexuality especially for people who are raised in purity culture that it’s hard to separate an 11 year old giggling about the idea of sex from lust.  And it’s like, my dudes, they just think boobs are funny.  Boobs have now become salient.  Boobs have now become salient in this young boy’s life.  And that’s actually pretty normal.  And that’s not the same thing as when a 27 year old is trying to hit on an 18 year old at a bar.  Okay?  It’s not the same thing.

Sheila: Right.  Yeah.  And we need to stop sexualizing our kids.  We talk so much about how we did that with the modesty message, and we looked at that around the time She Deserves Better came out looking at the Secret Keeper Girl curriculum, for instance, which told 8 year olds that their bellies were intoxicating to adult men.

Rebecca: Which is just disgusting.

Sheila: And have the ability to make adult men go out of control.  

Rebecca: Oh yeah.  Just to be clear, the oldest girl that book is recommended to is 12.  So 8 to 12.

Sheila: Right.  It’s for 8 to 12 year olds.  So she was telling girls that their bodies had that ability.  And this is at a time—girls do not want adult men’s attention.  

Rebecca: Well, and also there’s—it’s just pedophilia there.  That’s not—

Sheila: It is.  I think that’s one of the big problems with the purity culture age is that it did sexualize stuff, which is just biology.  Just because you’re getting boobs doesn’t mean you’re deliberately trying to attract a male’s attention.  And this was a huge thing.  I remember when your younger sister—she developed early.  She’s 11 years old.   And the Sunday School teacher had her stay behind to tell her that now she couldn’t wear V necks to church anymore because she might draw the attention—unwanted attention from men.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Which is icky.

Sheila: And that’s a terrible thing to say to an 11 year old because it’s implying that that is what she wants.  That if she’s wearing the V neck it’s because she wants to attract the attention.  And we often assume that especially of girls who develop early and especially of Latino or Black girls.  Multiple peer reviewed studies have shown that we tend to sexualize minority girls even more.  People of color.  But that assumption that, oh, because she has big boobs and she has a really nice butt she wants male attention.  And it’s like, no, she doesn’t.

Rebecca: No.  They flipped a switch from child to adult when that is not how adolescence works.  And listen.  We are not naïve.  We are not acting like 17 year olds.  Do not want to get it.  Okay.  But they’re 17.

Sheila: But a 17 year old is trying to attract the 18 year old’s attention.  She’s not trying to attract the 42 year old’s.

Rebecca: That’s what I was going to say is when you’re having the conversations that’s why the conversation needs to happen more than once because what your 11 year old needs to know is different than what your 14 year old needs to know, than what your 16 year old needs to know, than what your 18 year old needs to know.  This conversation has to change.  That’s something that really was not done—it hasn’t really been done well in many generations but especially with the focus on the teaching about sex being to not have it.  The message was the same for 8 year olds and for 28 year olds.  And that is not appropriate.  Because what I realized when we’re looking at all the different stuff that was out and with our research for She Deserves Better and stuff is that kids—and this is—this should not be rocket science.  Okay?  Kids are different at 11 and at 18.  Legally, they’re different than at 11 and 18, right?  And what your junior high kids need to know is very different than what high school kids need to know.  They’re handling different things.  Your junior high kid—quite frankly if their friends are having sex, need to tell grownups.  100%.

Sheila: Yes.  Because somebody needs to get arrested or—

Rebecca: Those kids need to have parents not being—aware of what’s going on because there is no universe in which 13 year olds should be having sex.  No universe.  

Sheila: Mm-hmm.  But with 17 year olds, it is a little bit different.

Rebecca: When you’re in high school, there’s a lot of people who are fine with 15, 16, 17 year olds having sex as long as it’s consensual, and they are being safe.  And so the conversation is different where it’s like okay.  What are that person’s convictions?  What’s their family’s convictions?  Are they being safe?

Sheila: Yeah.  If your friend is having sex, what do you do?  What do you say?  And it is very different.

Rebecca: Exactly.  The conversation is different than when you’re—what I grew up saying was no matter what.  It’s horrible.  It’s terrible.  You have to tell everyone and shame them publically.  Get them an A to brand on their chest, right?  That’s a different conversation.  And then when—it’s just these conversations are much more tricky than we’d like to think.

Sheila: Yeah.  And we often think that the sexual ethic that a 13 year old should have is the same as one that a 28 year old should have, and it is really—it’s complicated because our feelings are different.  And so that’s one thing is that I really think people deserve to know biological information without it being about morality because it is just your body.  

Rebecca: It is.

Sheila: And we can bring in more of the morality at the point where kids are starting to have more sexual feelings, which is why we talk about sex very differently in our older course versus that younger course.  The other thing that is a challenge—sort of in the opposite direction, which we had to navigate, is you don’t want the first time you tell kids about sex to also be when you tell them, oh, and by the way you can get raped and porn exists.  Right?  And this is what’s really hard because a lot of us are telling our kids about sex because of threats that our kids are now facing.  And that is one of the reasons why you’ve got to tell kids about sex earlier than often you think because they can be exposed to pornography and stuff.  And so, again, you don’t want the first time that you tell a kid about sex to be—to also give them a big rundown on porn.  You might say, “Now sometimes people take this in the wrong way, and you can see scary things about that.  I want you to ever tell me if you ever see that,” and leave it at that.  And then revisit it in awhile and tell them stuff in more detail.  It’s a tricky thing because sex is about your body.  And your body is good.  There is nothing wrong with it, and there is nothing wrong with sex.  And sex should be good.  But there’s all these weird messages we can pair with it which can really affect kids long term.  

Rebecca: Exactly.  I know that what we—one of the changes that we did when we redid the course was we separated the sex unit into two subunits.  The first one is really just the brass tacks.  Here’s what it is.  Okay?  You are learning what this is.  Take a deep breath.  It’s going to be okay.  And then we just have a couple guidelines for the kids to know.  You are still a child child.  You aren’t a technically a child, 17 and 11 months.  You are a child child.  If anyone is trying to do anything sexual with you, that’s actually not okay.  It doesn’t matter if they are also your age.  It isn’t love.  You are a child child.  You are 10.  Calm down.  Right?  And if a grownup is doing anything, that’s actually something that you need to tell a grownup about, right?  And then if your friends have secret girlfriends or boyfriends, that’s actually also something that’s not safe about this.  And you know what?  Just make sure that you’re asking your parents questions and not the Internet because some people just put some kind of gross stuff online that you don’t need to find, right?  That’s the first conversations where it’s just here’s some guidelines to keep you kind of safe.  And then once they’ve understood sex, you can have this deeper conversation about what’s pornography.  How do you stay away from pornography?  What happens if you’ve seen pornography, right?  What’s sexual assault?  Let’s talk about consent, right?  Let’s talk about consent in an age appropriate way where you’re talking about the need to—the idea that this is a thing you’re going to have to think about and talk about and understand.  And, by the way, you can practice consent in things not about sex too.  This also matters about hand holding and hugging and kissing.  This matters for the things that are age appropriate for you.  If someone wants to try to keep hugging you and you don’t want them to hug you, that’s a consent issue, right?

Sheila: Did I tell you what your son said to me the other night?

Rebecca: No.

Sheila: I was putting him to bed.  He’s almost 5.  And he was reading his book, and I gave him a hug and a kiss on the back of his head.  And he says, “Mimi, you should not kiss me unless you ask first.”  

Rebecca: Yes.  Yes.  We speak about that.  It’s great.  We talk to him about it all the time.

Sheila: And I said, “Alex, you are right.  Mimi is sorry.”

Rebecca: Yes.  Exactly.  Yeah.  But this is the thing.  You can have these conversations and then we’ll get into the actual idea of, hey, unfortunately there are kids who have people touch them sexually.  And that is really sad.  And here’s what you need to know about that, right?  Because they need to know that if someone has ever touched them, it’s not their fault.  A lot of parents don’t realize that their child has been abused.  And that’s an important conversation to have.  And you can have it talking too about how if you ever find out that someone is doing this with your friend the good friend thing to do is to tell a trusted adult like your parent or someone who can come and help that child, right?  You can have these conversations.  But I do think it’s beneficial to separate them a little bit from the idea of what sex is because sex and porn and different.  Sex and sexual assault are different.  And you can decide what order you have these conversations in.  But what we’ve done is we’ve separated that out for the younger kids so that their first experience with sex isn’t something that teaches them this is a bad thing that you shouldn’t want but you will.  It’s something where it’s like this is a good thing.  By the way, like a lot of other good things this can be twisted.  And that’s just a subtle difference that I hope will make a lot of these conversations easier because you’re also not having them while your kid is also kind of like shell shocked from learning what this is.

Sheila: Now another thing that I am so passionate about parents explaining to their kids.  And we do do it in The Whole Story.  But even if you don’t get the course, again, I really want you all to know this is the concept of arousal nonconcordance.  And thank you to Olivia Benson for talking about this so much on Law and Order: SVU.  But it really is the idea that our body and our mind can experience arousal differently.  So your mind could be completely grossed out.  Your mind could be freaking out.  Your mind could be scared.  Your mind could be saying no at the top of your lungs.  But your body actually responds and gets aroused.  

Rebecca: Exactly.

Sheila: Here’s why kids need to know this.  This is one of the reasons I think that porn use can get so—can get their hooks into kids so much is because they watch porn.  They get aroused at the same time as they think it’s disgusting.  And then they think they are a pervert.  They feel shame, and it starts this whole shame cycle.  

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.  And how you talk to your parents about that, right?  Because they feel like, oh, well—it increases the curiosity so much. 

Sheila: And they assume I guess I like this because they—  

Rebecca: Or they weren’t prepared.  And so then they’re trying to understand what happened too, right?  I think that’s what we’ve heard from a lot of people too is that they didn’t understand why they had that reaction.  And so they went back because they were curious.  Whereas if they had just been told, “Hey, you can get super turned on even if you don’t like what you’re seeing.  These things are designed to make people aroused the same way that chocolate chip cookies make you drool.  These things are designed to,”—we actually—I am going to say the way we explain it because I’m fine.  We are not gate keeping knowledge.  The Whole Story is not about gate keeping knowledge.  It’s about us doing the hard conversations for you.  So I will tell you the stuff.  We actually explained, especially to the younger kids, is this idea that if someone made you chocolate chip cookies.  And they put goose poop in the cookies.  But all you’re smelling is chocolate chip cookies.  And your mouth starts to water.  That doesn’t mean that you like to eat goose poop, right?  Because your body’s reaction was different than your brain.  Your brain is like, “I’m not touching that with a 10-foot pole,” but your body is like, “Oh, I want to eat the cookies,” right?  And so this is how arousal nonconcordance works.  It’s because our brains and our bodies don’t have the same information.  And they disagree.  

Sheila: Yeah.  And then kids can feel so much shame because if they do get aroused they think, yeah, I like it.  And this is so important too about sexual assault.  This is so important too.  And this where SVU comes in a lot because they have to explain this to victims over and over again and especially to male victims because with boys especially, a lot of sexual assault can’t quote unquote happen if he doesn’t have an erection.  

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.  That’s what people believe.  Yeah.

Sheila: If sexual assault is going to be penetration of some sort, then him having an erection means that he must have consented because he must have wanted it.

Rebecca: And that’s often why people believe that women are not able to sexually assault men, right?  That’s actually a really big rape myth that’s pretty prevalent.    

Sheila: Yeah.  And so telling boys, “Hey, just because you got an erection doesn’t mean you consent.  It doesn’t mean you wanted it.”

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.  Yeah.  Just because you orgasmed doesn’t mean that you consented.

Sheila: Yeah.  And to girls, just because you got aroused.  Or both.  And so kids need to understand that.  And I think if they can understand that earlier it can just help with so much shame later on.  

Rebecca: Yeah.  You can just look at him and be like, “No.  I don’t actually want to watch porn.  It’s just goose poop cookies.”  You have a word for it that’s kind of ridiculous.  It kind of makes it less scary because it’s just goose poop cookies, right?  But these are the conversations we really hope we can make easier because these are not—we don’t want to make it—I know—Connor and I talked about it a lot.  These are hard conversations.  We know that.  These can be really awkward.  And we just want to make it easier for you guys.  But those are some of the things we think are really important.  

Sheila: Yeah.  And looking back on some of the things that were really done wrong with the Millennial generation—because seriously, your generation got the most screwed over.  I don’t even know what the right word is.  I’m sorry.  But the most messed up.  And we saw it in our data for She Deserves Better.  But all of the purity culture messages.  The lack of sex ed.

Rebecca: Well, and we also had the pornpocolypse happening at the same time.

Sheila: Right.  

Rebecca: It was just a perfect storm.

Sheila: It was.  It was awful.  And the fact that the majority of sex ed that happened was abstinence.  So instead of teaching what sex is, the message simply was don’t do it.  And that actually—what people don’t realize is that that can actually set kids up to have sex by accident way more.  Because when they don’t understand what arousal is and suddenly they get aroused and they’ve never been told what can happen in their body, then you can get really out of control quote unquote super easily.  And when you just haven’t taught kids like girls don’t know what an erection is or they don’t know what’s happening with him, that is why often things happen that they didn’t want to happen.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Well, and kids not being prepared or understanding how contraception really works, so they believe a lot of lies.  A big lie that we talk about in the course—and, again, because we’re not gate keeping information here, guys.  If you want to have all these conversations completely by yourself, you are free to.

Sheila: Without the course, yes.  

Rebecca: We just want to make it easier.  Okay?  But another thing that we talk about is how a lot of teenagers—it’s getting really popular.  And this freaks me out, so we talked about it.  It’s getting popular to do more holistic birth control as a teenager.  So counting methods and rhythm methods.  Did you know there are a lot of especially Christian young married influencers, who are being paid—who are getting sponsorships from tracking apps to use as birth control and contraception?  And I’m just thinking about these 16 year olds, who are following them who are like, “Well, I don't know.  She said I can only get pregnant for 5 days anyway, so let’s just do it,” right?  It’s just like no.

Sheila: And they don’t understand my cycles are not—

Rebecca: Well, your cycle.  You’re a teenager.

Sheila: Yeah.  Your cycles are not regular, and you have never checked when you ovulate.  Not everyone ovulates on the same day.  And so much wrong with that.  So much wrong with that.

Rebecca: No.  Anyway, so we talk about that kind of stuff too because what often happens is kids, who don’t have the whole picture of what’s going on who aren’t told everything they need to, are way more likely to have risky sex.

Sheila: Yeah.  And that actually is—we found that in our data.  But that’s been found in so many peer reviewed journals is—

Rebecca: Yeah.  That’s pretty much an universally accepted fact.  

Sheila: Is when kids don’t have information, they actually do more risky behavior.  And we found there was no downside to more information.  The younger kids were when they understood sex, the more sex ed they had, the more they understood about their period, the more they understood about consent, the better their outcomes were.  They have higher self esteem.  They were less likely to marry an abuser.  Because you know what?  If you understand sex, you’re more likely to see red flags when you’re dating too.

Rebecca: Absolutely.  If you understand, for example—and this—again, I am so sorry because no parent wants to think about this.  Okay?  But we’re just going to say it.  If you know sex is supposed to feel good and you are a girl, who is dating a selfish, just frankly narcissistic pleasure seeking man, that’s going to be a red flag.  If he’s not taking any time to make anything feel good for you because he’s—

Sheila: Like kissing or something.  Yeah.

Rebecca: Because he’s selfish in other areas as well.  And this is a pattern.  It’s going to be easier to see that pattern when she’s like, “Look.  This is supposed to be good, and I’m lying here.  And nothing is happening for me.  I’m just being used.”  They need to understand the difference even though that feels—

Sheila: Yeah.  Because you don’t want to picture your teenage girl doing that.  But that actually is important.    

Rebecca: No.  But that’s important.  The number of people that I have talked to through our research who said, “Yeah.  The sex was terrible, and I didn’t realize it was supposed to not be terrible,” right?  And that was a big red flag that they missed.  Because, obviously, if you’re taking the course, your goal is likely that your child saves sex until they are married, right?  And we all know that even when you’re married sex doesn’t always feel good.  So regardless, your kid needs to know this.

Sheila: And having that expectation that it should and telling boys from a young age that it should feel good for girls too can really set people up for a much better marriage trajectory.

Rebecca: Girls like sex as much as boys do.  Yeah.  Much better marriages.

Sheila: But your generation really did not get the sex ed they should have had.  

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.  And I think also your generation got a lot of sex ed, but they didn’t necessarily always get it from their parents either.

Sheila: No.  We really didn’t.  That’s when sex ed came in in the schools in the 70s and 80s.  And I just knew stuff—also movies were way more explicit.  I don’t think people realize this.  

Rebecca: I remember you guys showed us a bunch of movies that you watched when you were kids, and you were like, “I can’t believe we watched this when we were kids.”  But I think, as a result, you have a—

Sheila: I think we knew more because it was more in the—it’s strange.  I don’t think people understand how much was in the culture in the 80s.  So we did kind of know more.  

Rebecca: But as a result, we have a bunch of generations of parents who don’t actually have a good framework for talking to kids about sex.  

Sheila: No.  They really don’t.  And people don’t—most people don’t remember a good conversation with their own parents.  And so how do we do it well?  And I think that’s really hard for a lot of parents, who are still dealing with residual shame from purity culture, who are dealing with obligation sex in their own marriage, who are just dealing with a lot of the fallout of these toxic teachings.  What I really want to say to them is you don’t have to have everything right yourself to still have these conversations with your kids.

Rebecca: Oh yeah.  That’s what Connor and I were—exactly.  

Sheila: Yeah.  Because it can be awkward, and you can even tell your kids, “This was awkward for me when I was 12.  And here’s some of the things that I went through.”  And kids appreciate that.  

Rebecca: Absolutely.  Make sure you tell your kids all of the stuff you didn’t understand because they’ll get to laugh at you.  And then you’ll also have this really sneaky way to make sure they know that information.  

Sheila: Yeah.  It’s so good.    

Rebecca: Did you think—oh, sorry.  I was going to say something really inappropriate.  I don’t know if we can say it.

Sheila: What?  

Rebecca: Did you think that sperm came out like whipped cream from whipped cream can?  Tell them.  Did you think that a penis sprouted hair from the tip?  Tell them.  All the things that Connor and I are talking about.  All these misconceptions.  Tell them, right?

Sheila: Yeah.  Yeah.  So you don’t have to be perfect.  But you do need to show up.  And that’s the big message that we have.  And if you want to have an easy way to do that, please check out The Whole Story.  It is on sale until Monday at midnight.  It’s not expensive.  It’s $39 for both the younger and older version of the girls’ course.  $39 for younger and older of the boys.  It’s $69, I think, for both.  And that’s lifetime access.  So if in 6 years we do a massive upgrade again, you’re going to get that.

Rebecca: And, again, reminder.  If you’ve already bought The Whole Story, don’t buy the new version.  We’re going to be enrolling you.  You probably are already enrolled.

Sheila: Because it will show up, if you’ve already got the complete version.  Or there’s also, if you just want to buy a single course of the younger or older, that’s available for you too.  So go check that out.  And remember your kids need you.  They need you to have these conversations.  And so even if it’s hard, you’ve got this.  You can do this.  We believe in you.  Because in 30 years, we don’t want your kids needing The Great Sex Rescue.  

Rebecca: Yes.  

Sheila: Amen.  

Rebecca: Have fun with these very not fun conversations.

Sheila: Exactly.  

Rebecca: We hope it’s a great bonding time.

Sheila: We’ll see you again next week.  Bye-bye.

Rebecca: Bye-bye.