“Mommy, are you going to let me go to puberty?”
“I hadn’t realized it was optional.”
“At school! Health classes!”
“Makes way more sense. Wait, I think I got an email about that today…”
I found it buried under subsequent, inconsequential messages from the school, my top spammer. Unless the sender is a teacher and the matter calls for immediate attention—e.g. Mark poked a friend with a ruler, could I please have a conversation with him regarding appropriate school behaviour—I usually glance at the principal’s updates and news in the evening before clicking on the delete button.
There it was, just under “Pizza Announcement, Long Time No See”—seriously, this was the subject line—“We are fortunate that School Council will organize and provide our families with pizza options for the rest of this school year.”
(I should volunteer as a proofreader. Is it me or does it sound like they will organize families with pizza options?)
“The sixth wave must be over, you’re getting pizza plus Human Development and Sexual Health Education! Why would I exempt you? You already know pretty much everything.”
He does, indeed. All is revealed. We had The Talk.
“Did the teacher explain what the class was about?”
“She said we were going to talk about hair.”
“Stop whispering in my ear, I swear Daddy can’t hear us. And hair, really? This is like… the least interesting part of puberty.”
“What’s the interesting part?”
“Boyfriends, girlfriends, growing up… just not body hair.”
“Many of my friends don’t know anything and they were super embarrassed.”
“This is where face masks come in handy, I suppose.”
Mark used to be embarrassed as well. I knew that he knew, and he knew that I knew that he knew, but I was waiting for him to be ready for The Talk, and maybe for the right moment too.
The moment came during a walk on a beach in Brazil. I explained everything, confirming what he suspected and setting the record straight because at recess, nine-year-old kids do talk about what they find online when they feel curious.
“Look, if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate.”
Message received. This is what parenting books don’t tell you—talking about sex with your kid isn’t a slightly awkward, planned and rehearsed thirty-minute speech and a checkmark (no pun intended) on your list but a fun, ongoing conversation.
I know size doesn’t matter but sexuality is a big concept, so Mark has many, many follow-up questions and I had to explain Feng why he is suddenly so eager to go for long walks with me.
So far, we’ve talked about babies, from the placenta to breastfeeding, from C-sections to natural birth—my neighbour just had a baby girl Mark met when she was just four days old. We talked about menstruation following some school drama about tampons (girls were talking about it, and clueless guys were making fun of something they didn’t know existed but sounded funny). We talked about erections, masturbation, and porn. We talked about contraception, homosexuality, and more.
“Don’t forget you can ask daddy questions as well—he probably knows more than me about penises…”
Mind you, Mark comes to me when he wants to know what this or that means in Chinese, so I’m not sure he understands the concept of a subject-matter expert.
Indeed, don’t let the French accent fool you—I’m not that knowledgeable about sex. However, I know what I want to teach Mark. I have key messages. In private, anything goes between two consenting adults. It’s important to know how your body works and there’s nothing to be ashamed about sexual feelings or sex organs. Nudity isn’t inherently sexual. It’s your body, your choice, your partner’s body, their choice. There are no stupid questions and knowledge is power.
I hope Mark will be a respectful and fun partner, whoever he chooses to explore sexuality and build a good relationship with.
I’m proud that he trusts me to give him a kid-friendly introduction to this important part of life.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to Google how dolphins do it because like Mark, I just can picture it.
And ducks ! Look for duck penises.
Moreover, yes, it’s important to acknowledge that there are different form of sexual orientation and gender expression, and that people should not be bullied for it. It’s pretty simple, but our culture doesn’t really help any non-conforming people.
”gay” is still often used as an insult, as is ”virgin” for a man or ”slut” for a sexually active woman (all being the result of a backward patriarcal mindset), which is a real issue. That puts pressure on young ones, and forces them to hide who they are and what they want.
It is OK to want to have sex with another consenting person. Get protection.
It is OK to not want to have sex with anyone.
I suspect Mark is still too young to be bothered by this kind of details, though. Just answering questions is enough.
The great part with the talk about sexual orientation is that it doesn’t have to include a talk about sexuality (at least not at first). It’s very simple, actually. Two men can be in love, two women can be in love. Ta da!
I can’t remember seeing gay couples when I was a kid and a teen. It was still taboo in the 1990s. Now it’s much more common, at least in some parts of the world, phew. So Mark is used to seeing gay couples (hello Sao Paulo!) and different gender expressions.
The “it’s okay to not want to have sex” is an important message too. There’s a lot of pressure on teens and adults to have some kind of “one-size-fits-all” (no pun intended) sexual life. Then there’s real life… where everybody has a different way to love, desire, experience pleasure, etc.
The perverts on the right (see Florida or Russia) consider that talking about homosexuality is talking about butt sex.
It seems it’s now an offense in Florida for a male teacher to say he went to a show with his husband to his students, but I wonder if the same teacher could say he fucked his wife in the ass last night.
That’s a verty unhealthy relationship to sexuality.
I’ve never understood why what happens in the bedroom between two men is so stigmatized. I mean, straight people do *really* dirty things too…?!
The fascists in the USA have reignited since the hearings of justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson the trope that gays are pedophiles. It wasn’t far away, but the predominance of the use of the word ”groomer” by right-wingers in public forum since the last couple of monthes is telling.
I will never understand people who insist that whatever they don’t like just shouldn’t exist, despite the fact it benefits the majority and/or is just a fact of life. Abortion saves lives. Homosexuality has been a thing since forever. I mean, I’m not a big fan of Sprite, I’m not going to campaign to say it’s an evil drink and it should be banned…
AWWW I love it !
And yes nudity is not sexual.
Good for you to explain to Mark! I talk to the kid on and off. We also bought him a book about consent at Venus Envy and it has been helpful.
Oh, Venus Envy! I haven’t been in ages. I should stop by…