For Goodness Sex (21 page)

“But an empowered, healthy woman
should
know what her vulva looks like,” I’ll tell the class. That’s when I invite the young women to go home and get a mirror. “I’m serious. Take a few minutes, go somewhere private, get a mirror, and take a good look.” Besides looking, getting to know the sensitivity of one’s vulva is important. What parts respond best to touch? What’s too much sensation? There’s no shame in a teenager examining herself and learning about her body. In fact, it’s an important part of coming of age. If a teenage girl doesn’t know her body, she can grow to be ashamed of it and not feel in control when it comes to guiding sexual activity. Girls get so many messages in pop culture about vaginas being dirty or gross, but I want my female students to know that their genitals are actually amazing, beautiful, and pleasurable. I want to try to increase vulva pride! My students know I’m gay and they often assume I’m grossed out by vulvas. I may not be sexually attracted to them, but I think they’re amazing. It’s important that we change the conversation about girls’ bodies, so they feel more confident about them, whether they’re in a sexual situation or not. I talk about them with awe and enthusiasm, and getting to know and understand the natural beauty of vulvas has made many young women in my classes feel better about having one. The boys—because they’re boys—ask me, “Mr. V, are you
sure
you’re gay?” I’m sure.

Some parents reading this may want to empower their daughters to get to know their own vulvas but have no idea how to encourage them to take a look, especially if the parents are not comfortable looking at their own. You can decide whether this is a mother-daughter experience you want to share, or maybe you ask another trusted woman in your daughter’s life to broach the subject with her. Sometimes I find that students respond better to an older sibling, an aunt, or a cousin than they do their parents, because it feels less awkward for them.

Both the boys and girls are especially enlightened when I report that Go Ask Alice, Columbia University’s premier website for sexual health information, says that the average woman’s vagina is three to four inches deep when not sexually stimulated and five to seven inches deep when stimulated. In other words, it’s made to accommodate an average-size penis. “Vaginas aren’t endless passages to Narnia,” I’ll joke. “If a boy has a longer than average penis, he’s going to bump a girl’s cervix, which actually really hurts girls. Those boys have to be especially sensitive partners.”

Answering Questions About Masturbation

Y
ears ago I taught in an all-boys high school. Frequently the young men would come to me with questions or concerns about sexuality. One day a young man made an appointment to see me about “something really serious.” I brought to the forefront of my mind all the things this usually meant: a pregnancy or STD scare, possibly a coming-out story, questions of whether a relationship is ready for sex, or even, God forbid, reports of abuse. I steeled myself for a tough conversation.

He was visibly upset when he came to see me. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, and he fidgeted constantly. I told him that I was open to hearing whatever he wanted to tell me and that I wasn’t going to judge him. I also gave him the caveat every teacher needs to give a student who comes to talk: “You need to know up front that if what you tell me makes me think you are in danger of harming yourself or someone else, I can’t keep that information confidential.”

“No,” he said, still looking down at his fidgeting hands. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just . . . Well, I don’t think I’m normal.”

“OK,” I said. “Is there something you’re doing that makes you think you’re not normal?”

“That’s just it!” he said, raising his voice and then instantly lowering it again. “I’m not doing anything. I mean, I’m not . . .” and his voice trailed off.

“I can see this is hard for you,” I said, “and I’d really like to help if I can, but I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about.”

He mumbled a string of words so quickly and softly that I could make out only the word
off
. “One more time?” I asked.

“I don’t jerk off,” he said. Saying that opened the floodgates for him. He told me he had tried masturbating a few times but didn’t like it, and he didn’t feel that he needed to do it. He wasn’t in a relationship and wasn’t sexually active in any other way. He just didn’t like masturbating. It wasn’t that he thought masturbating was wrong or dirty. It just wasn’t for him. The last thing he said before he stopped talking was, “I know I’m pretty screwed up, right?”

We talked for a while longer, and I assured him that he was perfectly normal. Masturbation isn’t a requirement of adolescence or of any other phase of life. Some people like it, some people don’t. We talked about how guys tend to assume that every other guy masturbates, and how guys freely talk about masturbation. But some of this is just talk. If adolescent guys masturbated as much as they say they do, they’d never have time for anything else. I said, “It’s not like all the other guys are cutting class to go masturbate. I mean, they’re there in class with you, right?” That made him giggle.

If you’re a parent of a teenage boy or girl, you can safely assume that your child has at least experimented with masturbation. Really, it’s not a question of do or don’t; it’s a matter of what role masturbation can play in helping to develop healthy sexuality.

While it is true that not everyone does, or has to, masturbate, masturbating can be an important way for young people to get to know their bodies. If teens know what feels good to them, they’ll know how one day to tell someone else what they like and don’t like when they’re getting intimate. Not only is it pleasurable, but masturbation can also help relieve stress. Simply put, an orgasm is the release of built-up tension. When our bodies are stressed or become sexually aroused, we begin to store muscle, nerve, and vascular tension. Think of it like compressing a spring; all that energy gets stored up as the spring coils tighter and tighter. An orgasm in our body is like suddenly releasing the spring. All that stored-up energy is let loose in a rush that feels great and leaves us in a very relaxed state. An orgasm doesn’t distinguish between what’s sexual tension and tension from anxiety; it clears it all away. After studying for tests, navigating the emotional ups and downs of high school, as well as coming to terms with the changes in their bodies, teenagers need a way to release their stress. Masturbation is one way to do that. During my time at the boys’ school, a photo of me in the yearbook had the caption: “Ask Mr. V about his cure for headaches.” All joking aside, an orgasm can be very helpful in relieving a tension headache, and has also been shown to help reduce menstrual cramps. There’s no reason in my mind why my students shouldn’t know that. For parents weary of thinking about their kids masturbating, rest assured that masturbating is a safe and very normal way for teens to discover their bodies. And for those young people who don’t masturbate because they don’t like it, they don’t want to, or it violates their value system, they need to know that they are perfectly normal as well.

A lot of myths about masturbation still exist, and some teenagers need help distinguishing truth from fiction. Few teens believe the old tales about masturbation making hair grow on your palms or ruining your eyesight, but some boys still worry that it will disrupt their athletic performance (it won’t) or that they’ll use up all their sperm cells (they can’t), and some girls worry that masturbation will make sex with a partner less pleasurable (it won’t). The big thing kids ask me is if it’s possible to masturbate “too often.” The frequency of masturbation among young people varies tremendously. The normal range spans from never to several times a day. The frequency also varies within a young person’s life; one may go through periods of frequent masturbation and then may decline or stop for other periods. This is not a place to worry about what’s normal, because the range of normal is so wide.

Conventional wisdom says that boys masturbate more frequently than girls, but that idea is affected by our societal views about penises and vulvas, as we saw earlier in the chapter. Society also allows boys to talk about masturbation much more freely than girls. The difference I’ve witnessed in this is that boys will talk about masturbation at the cafeteria table no matter who else is sitting there. Girls might talk about it with their close friends and usually only in private settings. There are boys who masturbate at home in the shower, in the bathroom at school, or in their bedrooms. Sometimes boys will masturbate together (which does not necessarily have anything to do with their sexual orientation). Many boys masturbate before bed because it helps them fall asleep. It’s true that a young person can get so turned on during school—remember, their hormones are raging, so it doesn’t take much—that he or she might take a quick trip to a private place so as to refocus on lessons.

I tell my students that the important question isn’t whether they’re masturbating too little or too much, but rather, what’s the place of masturbation in the larger context of their lives? If masturbation becomes an obsessive or intrusive part of your life, that’s a problem. If you’d consistently rather stay home and masturbate than go out with your friends, then that’s a problem. If you make your genitals sore by masturbating too roughly or too much, but you keep doing it anyway, that’s a problem. For some people, masturbation is against their personal, family, or religious value system, and doing it makes them feel guilty. To act consistently against one’s values and suffer guilt as a result is a problem.

There is one conversation about masturbation that parents really do need to have with their sons. Every year a practice called autoerotic asphyxiation tragically takes the lives of young people, almost always young men. This is the act of restricting one’s airflow during masturbation, usually by fastening a belt or rope around the neck. Cutting off the oxygen to the brain heightens the feeling of an orgasm, but this is an extremely dangerous practice. People can and do inadvertently strangle themselves. Every adolescent needs to know that it is never OK to restrict the airway in any way while masturbating.

Girls also masturbate, of course, and while my female students don’t deny it in my class, they’re much less comfortable talking about it than their male counterparts. It’s important for girls to understand that masturbation is as normal for them as it is for the boys. And beyond normalizing this experience for girls, I also think we can share the empowering message that their sexual pleasure does not depend on a penis. The clitoris and labia are the main areas of stimulation in female masturbation; these are also the primary sites for stimulation that results in orgasm for women. According to
The Hite Report: A National Study of Female Sexuality
, a famous 1976 study, upward of 70 percent of women say they don’t regularly orgasm through vaginal intercourse alone.
10
This is eye-opening for the boys who, as teenagers and sometimes into their adult years, often assume that rough sex is what feels most pleasurable to girls.

I wonder: if we help young people understand their bodies and what brings them pleasure, do you think we might actually see a decrease in intercourse among young people? Despite what is depicted in the media and pornography, intercourse isn’t necessarily the best or only option for sexual pleasure and orgasm.

It’s perfectly OK to give your kids permission to explore and touch their bodies, genitals included, so that each can understand his or her body and its response to touch. You don’t even have to use the word masturbation, if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Let’s be clear: I’m not suggesting you direct your son or daughter: “Go to your room, fantasize, and pleasure yourself.” That would be way outside most parents’ and kids’ comfort zones. And certainly I, as a sexuality educator, would never say that to a kid. But do give them facts. You might say, “You’ll hear all kinds of things about masturbation, but it doesn’t do any physical, mental, or emotional harm to a person, and for lots of people it’s a normal part of life.” You might also review your family rules about privacy, assuring your teenagers that you respect their right to have time to themselves for whatever purpose. It takes nothing more than a simple statement, like “I’ll always knock before I come into your room if the door is closed, and it’s OK to tell me that you need privacy.” At that point, your child may run screaming from the room—or may surprise you and ask a question about masturbation. If you don’t panic and shudder in embarrassment, chances are, they won’t either. And if you talk to them about their genitals the way that you would, say, about keeping your heart healthy or your skin clear, with the wisdom of experience, it will make the conversation less awkward for you as well.

I frequently remind kids how important it is to try to love your body, especially if you expect anyone else to love it, and that one way to love it is to know it. “If you’re ashamed of your body or think your body is gross, what is the gift you’re giving to someone else?”

“Am I Ready to Have Sex?” and Other Questions Kids Ask About Their First Time

M
ost people are incredibly nervous the first time they have any kind of sexual activity with another person. Just reading that sentence may prompt you to recall your first time and how you felt. Losing your virginity, however that’s defined, is generally an experience met with some anxiety and nerves. Kids wonder:
Am I ready? Will it hurt? Is it normal to be so scared? How will I know if I’m doing it right?
I end up answering those same questions each year for a new crop of kids, which goes to show how universal these fears are.

In my opinion, the best way to start a conversation about losing one’s virginity is to figure out exactly what virginity means and what value a young person attaches to that term. Virginity has traditionally meant not having engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse. Some people also include not having had penile-anal intercourse. Few, if any, teens today include not having had oral sex in their definition of virginity. There has traditionally been a double standard to loss of virginity: heterosexual boys are expected to lose it while heterosexual girls are expected to preserve it. Some people still consider virginity until marriage an important value for both men and women; some consider it important for women but not for men; and some no longer value retaining virginity until marriage. It’s important for parents to talk with their teenagers about what value virginity has for them and what place it holds in their family values. It’s also important to avoid legalistic definitions of virginity that are full of loopholes or that are not inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. My own definition of virginity is “not being involved with another person’s body with the purpose of achieving sexual pleasure.” So in my book, having oral or anal sexual contact counts as losing one’s virginity—but that’s just my personal opinion. I tell this definition to my students but also make it clear that what’s most important is that
they
know what
they
mean by virginity, and that they’re sure they know the definition of virginity of any potential sexual partners.