I am 24. I am a virgin. I tried to have sex with my boyfriend. We didn't use condoms. He tried to put it inside of me. I was in pain. He went in a little. I was feeling uncomfortable. He was so angry. I told him, I wasn't ready. He was very angry. He told me to get over it. He is so frustrated. Is there way to get over the pain? Does lube work?
There seems to be the almost universal belief among North American parents (I'm sure this is a phenomena found elsewhere as well, but I'm just talking about what I've personally seen) that their kids, whether these are theoretical future children or actual kids, and whether they have yet to reach their teen years or not, will hate or at the very least dislike them. Teenagers hate their parents: everyone knows that.
My mother has told me that when my sister and I were small, she used to say to my father that he had to take over primary parental duties once we hit our teen years. She's told me that she loved being a parent, and loved spending time with us, right from the get-go, but being surrounded by warnings of "wait until they become teenagers!" she always thought that would change when we got older.
Out for a Fall walk in 2008. We so obviously hate each other.
I suppose it's actually a very reasonable belief that your teens will dislike you: after all, most teens I know and have known do dislike their parents!
What isn't true, though, is that that dislike is inevitable.
The dreaded teenage years came in my family, and likely to my parents surprise, nothing horrible happened. I mean, problems came up in day to day life, for sure, but looking back, I actually think that in terms of parent-child relationships and issues over "discipline" type stuff the teen years were (and are, as my sister is still a teen) smoother than when we were younger. I attribute this to the fact that it was a constant progress over the years from more traditional parenting to more respectful parenting (which mirrored our transition from relaxed homeschoolers to unschoolers).
Though there are definitely unschooling parents/teens who don't have very good relationships with their teens/parents, it seems that the majority of unschoolers really and truly do. Which to me, is a wonderful thing to see.
I believe the reason for that is actually pretty simple.
When the subject of "teenage rebellion" comes up now, my mother is fond of saying "why would you rebel, since there wasn't really anything to rebel against?"
Now, I think there is an important distinction to be made here: some parents proudly brag about how their teens aren't "rebellious," and what they really mean is that their children are obedient to their parents wishes (or, possibly more likely, are simply very good at hiding the aspects of their life that their parents would disapprove of). When I say that most unschoolers I know, myself included, don't or didn't "rebel" against our parents in our teen years, I don't mean it's because we fit the perfect-child model of some narrow-minded authoritarian-parenting suburbanite.
While I've never been very big into alcohol or drugs, I definitely drank long before the legal drinking age (though admittedly the whole culture in my home province of Quebec is very different from the rest of North America, in that virtually everyone drinks at least some amount from the time they hit their teens, with the parents knowledge). My sister, who turns 18 (legal drinking age in Quebec) this summer, has been going to bars since she was 15 or 16, with my parents knowledge (again, very common practice in Montreal). Both my sister and I have been openly anti-state, anti-hierarchy, and anti-authority for years. I've dyed my hair unusual colours, shaved the sides of my head, and worn clothes throughout my teen years that plenty of parents I know would have disapproved of. Sometimes we stay out late into the night. We've been known to participate in Pagan religious rituals. We swear frequently. We hang out with people who are big into drugs. If all those things were listed entirely out of context, it would probably sound like we were the people that many parents warn their kids about (then again, for all I know, parents have warned their kids about us...)!
So why do we get along so well with our parents? It's pretty simple: control.
Or, more accurately, the lack of control.
Think of the things that most commonly cause friction between teens and their parents: breaking curfew, bad marks in school, skipping school, using drugs, subscribing to different religious and political views than their parents, disobeying parents...
Compare this to a respectful unschooling parent: no school, no marks, no curfews, no orders, and a belief that teens are entitled to their own beliefs.
I want to make it clear that being a respectful parent doesn't mean agreeing with or approving of everything your teen does: it just means accepting and not attempting to control what they do. Thus, a parent that's strongly anti-drugs of all types might share all their opinions on the issue with their teens, give them information on why they believe what they do, etc. Yet despite that, they wouldn't ground, punish, or shame their teen if they came home high. In a mutually respectful relationship, teens are far more likely to genuinely take their parents opinions into account when deciding what they want to do, but teens are still their own complete and autonomous people, and will make the choices they deem best for themselves in the end.
Parents in general, from the most to least mainstream out there, all seem to frequently express a wish that their children communicate with them and be honest with them. Yet what the more authoritarian and punitive parents seem oblivious too is that no one is going to be honest with someone else if they know that by being honest, they're opening themselves up to be yelled at, punished, shamed, or treated with anything less than respect. Those parents also don't seem to realize that good communication has to work both ways: parents can't expect their children to spill all the secrets of their lives, all their important thoughts and deeds, to someone who thinks their own personal life is none of their kids business.
I also want to make it clear that I don't, and didn't when I was still in my teens (having just turned 20 a couple of months ago, I still have trouble remembering I'm no longer a teen!), tell my parents everything. I'm my own person, with my own life, and some things stay private. Sometimes because it's something very personal, or a secret not mine to share, and sometimes it's because I know it would worry or upset them to know something. Yes, occasionally I keep things (and have kept things in the past) I know my parents would disapprove of away from them, not because of any fear that I would "get in trouble" or anything like that, but simply because I don't want them upset or worried about things they ultimately have no control over.
My (and my sister's) relationship with my parents is really good. We talk to each other about everything from how we've been feeling, what we've been doing, interesting links online or news stories, what our friends are up to. We don't stray away from subjects such as drug use and other illegal activity. I'll cheerfully announce that a friend is taking up graffiti, and Emi will call to say she's headed out to a bar after band practice, so expect her home late. I've never worried about coming home smelling like weed. And because of the relationship we have, my sister and I have never hesitated to get our parents help when we're worried about a friend doing hard drugs, and we'd never hesitate to call instead of driving home with someone who's drunk.
I'm incredibly grateful for the relationship I have with my parents, and that my parents are the people that they are.
So in conclusion, here are my very inexpert opinions on what makes a good parent-teen bond: respect, honesty, communication, and a lack of coercion and control.
Basically? Treating each other like full and complete human beings, with different desires, beliefs, aspirations, and experiences.
It's such a simple concept: don't be your teen's enforcer, be their partner. And if more parents acted this way? Well, then I think we'd start seeing a hell of a lot less of this "teen rebellion" thing!
Originally published at http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/
This may get a bit vivid. Be warned. I have a twisted sexual history. After being molested at age 5 and again at 14 I somehow allowed myself to get taken advantage of and used in regards to sex. It took me many years to heal and much pain to get to where I am now and I can have a healthy sexual experience with my current boyfriend. I stayed at his house when he was renting a room out of a bachelors pad and I understood and accepted that Playboy magazines were on every toilet and the toilet seats were always up. One day he came to the kitchen with a boner kissing on me and whatnot, a short while after I went up to the bathroom where he had been showering and found a Playboy open. Are you kidding me? How dare he have the audacity to come to me with a boner he got from a slut in a magazine? It was talked about and made clear I am not comfortable with that whatsoever, he should be loyal to me mind body and soul, and I should be enough for him; as it is likewise.
It's been months since then. I found some porn videos on his phone yesterday and it really repulsed me. I get dressed up for him, I go down on him, I put out frequently. We do get kinky. Now the reason this video offended me so much is I do let him [ejaculate] on my [breasts]: its a thrill for him. In this porn video there's a girl who looks like me, disturbing enough as is, and shes giving a guy a blowjob till he [ejaculates] on her [breasts], then she turns to the next guy and does it again. Screen changes and she's [having intercourse] from behind and he [ejaculates] in her, then she crawls forward and starts giving another guy head as yet another comes up to [have sex with her] from behind as well. TOO FAR. It's not your basic porn scene, and it bothers me that its a twisted repulsive obscene image of something him and I share intimately. We've just moved in together and I can't imagine ever letting him see me naked again. I feel like he twisted our passionate and beautiful sex into some perverted expression of his twisted fantasies.
I've been dating my current boyfriend for 5 months now, and I really am ready and willing to have sex. But, he's not. He wants to, and he's curious but he feels that he shouldn't? I don't know what to do, I don't understand why he's feeling this way about it. Is there something wrong with me? Something he's afraid to say? Or is he just really scared himself? Help!
Some of our staff and volunteer's fave links and reading from our Facebook and Twitter feeds this week:
Stephanie's Fave: 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence:
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the ensuing 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence are commemorated every year around the world to raise awareness and trigger action on this pervasive human rights violation.
This year, UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet unveiled a 16 Step Policy Agenda to address the issue. Ending violence against women is one of UN Women’s priority areas. UN Women also coordinates the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign and supports widespread social mobilization through its Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women platform. In addition, UN Women manages the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women which commemorates its 15th anniversary in 2011.
Karyn's Faves: Abstinence education does not lead to abstinent behavior:
The study is the first large-scale evidence that the type of sex education provided in public schools has a significant effect on teen pregnancy rates, Hall said.
“This clearly shows that prescribed abstinence-only education in public schools does not lead to abstinent behavior,” said David Hall, second author and assistant professor of genetics in the Franklin College. “It may even contribute to the high teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries.”
Along with teen pregnancy rates and sex education methods, Hall and Stanger-Hall looked at the influence of socioeconomic status, education level, access to Medicaid waivers and ethnicity of each state’s teen population.
Even when accounting for these factors, which could potentially impact teen pregnancy rates, the significant relationship between sex education methods and teen pregnancy remained: the more strongly abstinence education is emphasized in state laws and policies, the higher the average teenage pregnancy and birth rates.
Personal Stories of Young People Living with HIV:
I'm Lilly and I’ve just been given my diagnosis a couple of months ago. I'm 20 years old and I don't know exactly how or when I got the virus as I have never had any distinctive symptoms or conversion illnesses however I have my suspicions on my first love boyfriend when I was 15. I have been with my current partner for over 3 years and until now had never used protection, I feel grateful that he is still testing negative.
My initial reaction to the diagnosis was complete and utter shock...how could I get HIV? How could this happen to me? I am going to die! Although I was reassured by my health advisor that there has been progress and I would live hopefully a \'normal\' life, visions of AIDS patients did not stop crossing my mind. I cried non-stop for the next few weeks, my appetite disappeared, I was not able to sleep, I did not want to go out, got severe headaches and basically wanted to end it there and then.
My partner has been great in helping me get through this time, I have not told my parents as yet out of fear that they will disown me, or worse, making their life a living hell. Although I still get times when I break down and cry, I am beginning to feel slightly stronger and more couragous(sic). I have joined a few support groups and have realised I am not alone, and this illness does not fit any stereotype- everyone is at risk, not just MSM, injecting drug users or people of colour.
On World AIDS Day, Remember Women:
Worldwide, 215 million women are not using an effective method of contraception despite the fact that they want to avoid pregnancy. The largest segment of these women live in sub-Saharan Africa and many are at risk of HIV. Women account for 60 percent of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and young women between the ages of 15 to 24 are up to eight times more likely to be infected than men of the same age.
December 1st marks World AIDS Day and this year’s theme is “Getting to Zero.” Much of this day will be focused on a celebration of new technology and science that can help prevent HIV through daily treatment and male circumcision. And we should celebrate those advances – but we should also not lose sight of women who need both family planning and HIV services.
Heather's Faves: Let’s get real: female sexual pleasure and HIV prevention:
My point in highlighting these particular experiences is clearly not to advocate for forms of sexual practice that may increase the risk of HIV transmission, but rather to encourage a broader and realistic conversation amongst researchers, policy makers and service providers around the varied ways in which young women define their sexuality and what they find sexually pleasurable. If our responses do not resonate with young women’s lived realities, they will fail. It is especially worrying that mistrust of African women’s sexual pleasure has become the default position in the HIV prevention world. There are hardly any interventions that are designed specifically to address young women’s sexuality in a positive and non-judgmental way and which acknowledge that some young women have sex because they find it pleasurable. Indeed, those of us in the HIV prevention world would do well to remember that sex is not always about danger and risk but is also ‘a positive and joyous experience’ for many people, including young, unmarried African women. In the mid-nineties, US anthropologist Ralph Bolton wrote a piece in which he lamented the fact that most HIV research had completely ignored ‘the joys of sex’. He identified twenty-six ways in which sex is a positive—rather than a negative—experience and these included: sex is play, adventure, transcendence, fun, fantasy, interaction, pleasure, liminality, ecstasy, experience, an expression of emotions and a source of meaning.
Play, adventure and experience were particularly strong themes in the narratives of the female students I encountered and yet, as Kenyan feminist scholar Mumbi Machera so poignantly asserted in Re-thinking sexualities in Africa, very rarely is ‘women’s sexual desire depicted as an autonomous gesture and as an independent longing for sexual expression, satisfaction and fulfillment’ in most of this literature. Surely, our reluctance and failure to acknowledge that young women are autonomous sexual beings must, at some level, impede our ability to effectively intervene with this population. The continued high rates of HIV infection among young women point to major inadequacies in current responses and these, in turn, can partly be attributed to the fact that many of these responses have been premised on the notion of women’s victimhood and lack of sexual agency. Examples include generic messages that are based on the ABC approach—abstain, be faithful and use condoms—which encourage young women to ‘say no’ to pre-marital sex or which focus on teaching women condom negotiation skills. These do not leave much room for individual choice and preference, and they do not resonate with the lived realities of those young women who prefer to ‘say yes’ to sex, or who may have successfully negotiated the non-use of condoms with their sexual partners. In fact, US scholars Jennifer Higgins and Jennifer Hirsch note that a few studies have shown that women - rather than men - are sometimes responsible for the non-use of condoms in relationships as they complain that condoms adversely affect their sexual enjoyment.
Adoption in the United States: Harder and More Complicated Than Most Believe But "Open" to Change:
Adoption has an abysmal and embarrassing history in the United States. The twenties saw Orphan Trains, where children (many of whom weren’t actually orphans) were placed into what frequently amounted to indentured servitude. The thirties and forties marked the emergence of for-profit adoption following the lead of the terribly corrupt Georgia Tann, who actively stole children from poorer families and placed them with anyone able to pay her high fees. The fifties and sixties constituted the “baby scoop” era, where young pregnant women were sent to maternity homes and subjected to emotional and financial coercion that denied their motherhood and assured them they would forget about their children soon after the adoption.
They never did.
From this history of corruption emerged the tenets that would shape adoption for following generations: a large amount of secrecy, an unhealthy dose of shame, and the belief that keeping adoptions closed was the best thing for all parties.
To all those men who don’t think the rape jokes are a problem:
I get it—you’re a decent guy. I can even believe it. You’ve never raped anybody. You would NEVER rape anybody. You’re upset that all these feminists are trying to accuse you of doing something, or connect you to doing something, that, as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never done and would never condone.
And they’ve told you about triggers, and PTSD, and how one in six women is a survivor, and you get it. You do. But you can’t let every time someone gets all upset get in the way of you having a good time, right? Especially when it doesn’t mean anything. Rape jokes have never made YOU go out and rape someone. They never would; they never could. You just don’t see how it matters.
I’m going to tell you how it does matter. And I tell you this because I genuinely believe you mean it when you say you don’t want to hurt anybody, and that it’s important to you to do your best to be a decent and good person, and that you don’t see the harm.
What was going on here at Scarleteen in the last week? Some snippets:
Some of our staff and volunteer's fave links and reading from our Facebook and Twitter feeds this week:
Rae's Faves: How Modesty Doctrines Made Me Hate My Body:
This isn’t a story about how modest clothes allowed me to “let myself go” and conceal a growing figure. It’s not even a story about how wearing modest clothes kept my self-esteem at rock bottom and thrust me into a too-close relationship with Ben & Jerry. It’s a story about how modesty doctrines impacted my mind, in ways that had real, negative effects on my body. Modesty was one of the reasons my defining relationship with my body became whether or not I was “fat.” Modesty was one of the engines that pushed me into a full-blown eating disorder. It’s not just a dress code: it’s a philosophy, and it’s one that destroys young women, mentally and physically.
Modesty taught me that my first priority needed to be making sure I wasn’t a “stumbling block” to men. Not being sexually attractive was the most important thing I had to consider when buying clothes, putting them on, maintaining my weight (can’t have things getting tight!), and moving around (can’t wiggle those hips, or let a little knee show). Modesty taught me that what I looked like was what mattered most of all. Not what I thought. Not how I felt. Not what I was capable of doing.
Stealth Shaming: What It Is, Why You Shouldn’t Do It, and How Not To:
The term “out” is of massive importance to queers. It is a term that describes how brave we are, how open, and most important how good we are at being us when everyone else insists that we shouldn’t be us. Denying blending trans people access to this term is identity policing in the worst way, and of course, it’s cissexist.
In a specifically trans context, to be out means to be honest and open about one’s gender identity. When a trans man tells someone he’s male, or walks into a men’s bathroom, or says, “From a guy’s perspective…” or does anything that indicates that he identifies as male, he’s out as a man. And he’s out. Full stop. He’s put his gender identity out there. The idea that he needs to add being trans to that as some sort of qualifier is a huge double standard. We don’t demand that all cis people come out as cis in order to be honest about their gender identities, even though it’s entirely possible that some of people in our lives whom we assume are cis are actually trans.
Karyn's Faves: Glee Teen Sex: Facts & Opportunities Using CDC vs. Hollywood TV:
Truth is, Hollywood is lying about teen sex. Big time.
New CDC research points to numbers that might as well frame Hollywood shows as a public health statistical version of ‘The Lying Game’ since TV consistently paints youth onto a recklessly bleak canvas of stereotyped imagery as impulsively hormonal lusty idiots …when the exact converse is true. Of those teens that have had sex, they did so using protection. And get this…according to the CDC, less than 43% of teens have ever had sex, meaning teenagers having sex are now in the MINORITY. (NYT/CDC) Contrary to “realityTV,” teen birth rates are down, based on data collected between ’06-2010. (and that worrisome ’05-’07 bitty bump that blipped up briefly slid back to decline and we are now at the lowest rates ever recorded in the US)
And yet, what are we seeing on teen shows? A gaping chasm between the reality of teens today and the “hot or not” salaciousness of bed-hopping flings, teen moms and baby bumps galore, sexting storylines, and fixation on appearance-based boinkability… We see consistent media depictions of a 24/7 teen focus on sex. Either overly romanticized with ‘gift giving’ overtones. Or under-handed, manipulative, sex as power tool.
What We Can Learn From the Dutch About Teen Sex:
When Jamie Hubley was in Grade 7, teenagers on a school bus tried to stuff batteries down his throat because he was a figure skater. Jamie Hubley, as many Canadians sadly know, was the 15-year-old Ottawa youth who took own his life just more than a month ago. From what he wrote and what's been stated, he took this drastic and tragic measure because of depression, because he was the only openly gay student at his high school and because he had been the target of homophobic bullying at school for years. In his final blog entry, he expressed concern that life might not get better and that he could not endure the hurt for another three years.
It is difficult to know which part of the school bus batteries story is most shocking: the fact that the aggressors were teenagers bullying a seventh-grader; the sheer viciousness of the assault; the fact that Jamie was victimized because of figure skating and because of perceptions about figure skaters and because of homophobia; or the fact that he was on a school bus at the time, presumably surrounded by students who should have known something was wrong, and at least one adult who should have been informed and able to help.
Young, Gay And Homeless: Fighting For Resources:
“"The day after my 18th birthday this year, my adopted parent kicked me out," he says. "At the time, I was really infatuated with this guy, and she was listening to my phone calls. She started telling my family, 'He is this, he is that, he is gay,' and talking about me as if I wasn't part of the family."
Beaverly was lucky — he had friends whose parents were more accepting. He stayed with them until he finished high school. Now, in New York City, he is in emergency housing — only available for 90 days.
Vero's Faves: Sex Educators and the Politics of Attractiveness:
There are certainly some media “sexperts” (both female and male) who I am pretty sure are sexperts because they are conventionally attractive and willing to talk about sex. I say willing, but not necessarily well-equipped. And there are some who are smoking hot, in conventional and unconventional kinds of ways, and are totally well-equipped to be talking about sex in smart, helpful ways.
And it’s even trickier than that because there’s a balance. It turns out that if you’re a legitimate, hard-working, earned-her-credentials kind of scientist/sex educator like me – and yet conventionally attractive – media folks don’t always know what to do with you. Having served as a sex expert for several TV shows, I can tell you that the producers have sometimes struggled with how I look. In one episode, they wouldn’t let me wear my own clothes because they wanted to dress me in more professional, conservative and high-necked clothes so that I would look “less sexy”.
'I was lectured on my sexuality':
A few years back when my school principal became aware of my sexuality I was given a lecture about not publicly promoting my sexuality. I have not been successful in applying for any promotion since. I should be first in line because I am the most senior teacher in the school and I hold a Masters of Education degree. I have regular visits from the local priest to keep an eye on how I am teaching religion. No other teacher in the school gets these “visits”.
Most of my fellow teachers are not regular mass-goers. Their lives do not all fall into the norms of Catholicism when it comes to marriage. Yet they are not singled out like I am. The INTO have been sympathetic, but I was told that the school is not breaking any rules by enforcing religious practise on me or curtailing my freedom to discuss my life in the staffroom. They advised that I do not rock the boat.
What was going on here at Scarleteen in the last week?
My 15 year old son has a first girlfriend who is a year older. My concern is that she lives with her dad only and quite often is home alone. My son has been there twice already and one time I made him leave because the dad was not home. I am besides myself about how to handle this. He said that he is not going to have sex with her but you know how that goes. I know what I was doing at 15. Do I make condoms available? But that would be condoning it. I will have a talk with the girl about not hanging at her house. They are always welcome at mine and I will try to speak to her dad about it.
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