Did you get "the talk" as a kid?
Did you get "the talk" as a kid?
Saw a comic recently about this topic and got me thinking. I know what "the talk" is about since it appears in so many media but I don't ever recall having such an experience personally. Did you? What was it like?
I was a late 80s kid, just for context. As far as my experience goes, my parents were very open about sex as a natural process for reproduction. They answered openly any questions I had whenever I had them, keeping to the bare minimum necessary but never avoiding the topic- also never using metaphors as a substitute for plain facts ie. "the birds and the bees".
So at about age 5 or so I was already aware about how reproduction worked on animals, us humans included. As I kept growing up of course I kept connecting the dots on any social aspects of sex and relationships (ie that is supposed to be pleasant, that people do it even if they're not planning to have babies, etc) but I never had a moment of shocking realization regarding sex. I often found it stupid how some of my classmates would giggle or lower their voice when talking about anything sexual like, well, like it's a taboo. And I was often disappointed at how much of what my classmates knew wasn't exactly true, which at the time I chalked to their stupidity, although obviously it wasn't their fault. They were misinformed.
By the time kids got to sex ed in highschool they already had their facts pretty much right though, fortunately.
So I'm curious about your experiences about this while growing up. Was yours similar to mine or did you sit through some awkward conversations? How did you feel about it all?
My parents were Catholic, so they never talked about sex per se. My "talk" was my dad saying, "I want you to remember to always respect women. And that means not doing anything inappropriate." Very informative.
My mother was very conservative and never talked about sex. She discovered I had discovered boobs on the internet though and freaked out, and I found out about sex with a Christian book left on my bed. It explained how I was being possessed if I masturbated
Did you believe it at the time? How did you feel once you eventually learned about sex from a non religious source?
I don't know that I believed it, it definitely didn't stop me, maybe gave me pause but never stopped me. I felt more guilty about it though. It wasn't until real sex ed that I learned more healthy ideas about it
My parents raised me out in the wilderness in a literal compound and hour from the nearest convenience store with no phone or even a mailbox.
So yeah.... I had to learn everything about the world through a little black-and-white TV in my room that had big ol' rabbit ear antenna that if I moved just right, I could get PBS from another town that had a lot of educational programming. As long as it wasn't about "evolution" they were fine with me watching PBS.
If it wasn't for PBS I would probably be dead. Seriously, that life doesn't do a person well, both my parents and a sibling drank themselves to death, others are on the way. I however, learned science, and biology, and how to read and how to do math and a host of other topics that I am going to be an eternal sponsor of PBS for. There was one special that explained sex to some degree, but was still heavily censored. My parents were too busy being high and religious to dream of having an awkward talk with their son, so I was totally on my own.
Thankfully, I learned where to find the "relationship" books on my rare ventures into town to visit places like bookstores and managed to learn a lot about sex from pilfering a book from the sex and relationship section and reading it in the kid's books section.
Both constantly and never. I was born to teen parents, so as far back as I can remember, every other day, my Dad would constantly say "Whatever you do, don't get her pregnant." Even when I was far too young to understand what pregnant or sex was.
But the closest thing I got to "the talk" was when I was 17 and he randomly barges into the living, throws a pack of condoms at me, says "wrap your schlong" and then keeps walking to his bedroom.
Later that night I told him that A) I wasn't having sex B) didn't plan on it and C) that I wasn't even sure what to do with a condom or how throwing one at me was helpful. He shrugged "Sorry I don't have ace parenting skills or whatever" and that was the end of it.
I thought I learned how to have sex by watching porn, but... obviously that wasn't true so I had to be taught everything by partners. Including extremely basic things like what semen, periods or orgasms were.
Thanks Dad...
I never got "the talk". Dad considered it to be mom's job. Mom forgot she never had it with me; I'm one of over a half dozen kids and i believe her that she forgot me on top of her being very Catholic and very uncomfortable talking about sex.
I learned from reading on my own, picking up tidbits from friends (who barely knew more than me), and making mistakes. Having a bajillion younger siblings went a long way in teaching me to take safe sex seriously. I've changed diapers on enough younger siblings to last me three motherhoods. Hard pass.
No, nothing ever from my parents. School had one session at some point. I can't say I remember anything from it.
My mom peaked in my room and left me with the American Girl book about hygiene and female anatomy. I don't think it said anything about sex. Just had to navigate that part of life armed with (mis)information from whispered conversations with friends over sleepovers.
I think back on how many experiences I had growing up that could have gone wrong. This was all happening just as AIM chatrooms and chat roullette were popular. And there were so many creeps that my friends and I talked to because we were curious. No normal adult was giving us the information, but plenty of adults online were happy to talk and ask for favors in return. Shivers down my fucking spine.
I am so thankful that I was too nervous to do anything and usually ended conversations quickly. But the risk of genuine harm was right there, and our parents had no idea. We laughed whenever we saw a penis appear on chat roullete and clicked away, but we were not mature enough to know how fucked up it was. It was our parents' job to guard us from that. Not by putting blinders on us. But by affording us the respect of an important conversation.
I am so passionate about people having this discussion with their kids. Kids are curious. The fact that the subject is taboo makes it even more exciting for kids. It is such a crucial moment in the transition to adulthood. Ignoring the conversation endangers them by making the subject seem exotic and inticing.
Have the conversation with your kids or someone else will. And you will have no control over how and when that happens.
Nice write up. Yes, I couldn't agree more. I guess it's the potential for abuse where things get really complicated, not so much the biological and mechanical side of sex- which makes even more baffling to see being avoided as a topic. Getting a child to understand the many ways they are vulnerable is certainly difficult no matter the topic.
Glad to know nothing happened to you, scary to see how easily someone could get groomed online. I've had a close call with a pedophile when I was a kid, in spite of being well aware of sex in many ways at that age, but at the time I didn't recognize his attempt at manipulation for what it was- precisely because there was no mention of anything sexual at all. I got really lucky that nothing happened to me either, and walked out if it absolutely oblivious to everything, but unlike you I do owe some of that to good parenting though. A few years later when I remembered the incident and realized what had been going on it hit me like a truck. An "oh shit" moment.
I didn't reflect on all of this until my 20's. I coach girls from around 8-18 years old, and the standards for interacting with kids nowadays means you have to take a lot of abuse training courses. That coupled with watching the girls I coach try to navigate social media and coming of age made me realise how abnormal my own upbringing was.
Its crazy how protective I feel about these kids that aren't even my own. But looking back on the dangers lurking in the corners, I know how important it is to keep kids in the loop. Not to scare them, or try to keep them isolated. But safety starts with communicating freely with the safe adults in your life. I think things are trending towards more quality information about sex being readily available. Most (non religious) parents seem to realize they need to raise confident kids that they have an open dialogue about important things with.
Eh, the school handled it, so my parents didn't need to x3
Same here. I remember about once a year growing up the school would have a day or so dedicated to the topic. I remember once as a pre teen my mom tried to give me a book on puberty for some reason. I found it embarrassing so I never read it but I never felt I needed to. The school's teachings were sufficient.
Iirc as a younger kid they focused a bit more on changes to your own body. And then as I got older, they got to talking more about the physical act of sex.
Yeah but at what age?
12-13 :3
Never did.
Parents never really talked about relationships or anything with my siblings or anything. But we had a whole course in middle school that taught us the ins and outs, I guess.
Got the talk at ~17, about 5-7 years too late.
Mom's side of the family is Catholic and my dad's side is super reserved, so I got nothing. Anything I know comes from school health classes (which were actually really informative) and the internet.
My mom also believes that this sort of thing shouldn't be taught in schools (at all) because it should be up to the parents to decide what their kids should know about the subject. She also says that her parents never taught her anything.
I don't remember a talk about the mechanics of sex, pregnancy, STDs, etc. Clearly my parents were talking to me about that stuff without scarring me because I also knew it all long before sex ed (or really even before I gave any real thought to sex).
What I remember is the awkward talk with my mom after I got my first serious girlfriend about how "horny doesn't last nearly as long as fatherhood," the costs of hasty decisions, and "emotional responsibilities." To be fair, there were a lot of strollers at my HS graduation and I was glad to not be pushing any of them.
Your experience sounds similar to mine.
That talk sounds awkward but necessary. I also recall my mother always stressed that if I was going to have sex to always always make sure the guy was wearing a condom.
The first time I heard about sex from a friend, I was around 5 or 6 and went to my mom if that's true. My mom went to the library, got some sex-ed books for kids and talked me through it. It ended up being not one single talk, but multiple, age appropriate ones spread over the years.
She didn't do a perfect job, I'd say. There were many things left unknown and she was awkward with the topic (not an issue as a kid, certain issue as a teen).Though, considering that she got all her sex ed from magazines back in the day, definite progress on a generational scale.
I'm confident that I could do a better job than her, because she did a better job than her parents. That's how it all works, no?
Kudos to her, I don't think my own mother would have bothered to go get books if she didn't know how to explain things to me. I think most people's reaction to facing something they don't know how to do is to just avoid it, which she clearly didn't. So yeah, cheers for progress!
I was told the truth when I asked where babies come from. I remember seeing a stork deliver a baby in some cartoon when I was a kid, and I just assumed it was the animator's fever dream. I only found out maybe in the last 5 years or so (I'm 34) that some parents tell their children that it works that way.
How old were you at the questioning time?
Anecdotally, the stork along with other stories (did you know? Human babies can also sprout from cabbages) were more effective a few generations ago when people were actually in contact with and interacting with storks or cabbages etc.
My mother has a large family. Some of her aunts/uncles would tell the stork story to their youngest kids so that when the newest baby had to be delivered (at home, in some rural area) the kids would be distracted looking for a stork in the skies while their mother yelled her lungs out in pain from the contractions indoors. Once the kids grew up they figured it out obviously, and as adults they would laugh about it, but as a tool for distraction I think it's pretty clever. It makes sense in the context.
I would've been 4 or 5.
My mom was (and still is) very sex positive. She would answer any questions I had growing up. By the time school got around to teaching me sex Ed in 5th grade I already knew everything and then some.
My father basically never touched the subject until one day when I was ~17 almost 18 he came into my room and sat on my bed before he awkwardly tried to start talking about the topic and all I said was "I've been having sex for years dad" and then he slapped his knee, gave me a hug and walked out of my room.
I learned everything from the internet, my parents never told me a thing! Luckily, I had stumbled onto a very sex positive forum, and that’s where I got all my info—not pr0n. I asked a lot of questions (I wasn’t even 13 yet) and the folks there were very helpful. I learned how to not let anyone disrespect me, how to respect others, how to actually do… sex… anything at all—I had NO knowledge before going into the forum.
I had sex ed but it consisted of “this is your body changing, babby happens when sperm goes to egg”, I didn’t even know that for sperm to get to egg, penis goes into vagina! Or what an orgasm was! It was quite the journey.
No. I'm first generation Indian in California so no. Thank god for schools in the early 2000s
I grew up in rural Ohio, USA. We had sex ed in 5th grade ('91, maybe?) that covered the very basic biological stuff. I think the following summer, we were supposed to go to a waterpark but had to cancel because my step-sister was on her period. Mom came in to talk about it, I showed her the pamphlet that school sent me home with, she read through it, then said to ask her if I had any questions. That was the first and last time any of that came up.
my stepmother tried to explain how the hymen works to me, but described it as a "stopper" instead of the ring of tissue it actually is. so, I wound up mutilating myself in an attempt to "break" it. having one or more sexually repressed religious people as legal guardians can lead to some gnarly results.
surprisingly, middle school sex ed taught me a bit more than you'd think it would, including how a condom is put on.
My mother decided my father would explain to me. I was dreading it. He turned up looking pretty uncomfortable / fearful himself. It was excruciating before it even started. He opened with “they teach this at school don’t they?” and I saw my exit. “Yes”, I replied. And that was it.
We spent a few hours on it in school.
Hell no. My mother was a repressed prude and my dad never had a adult conversation with me in his life.
no never had.
was about 30(M) when learned that the menstrual cycle in women is not the same as "heat" in dogs. was about last month when learned there is a time slice in the month where getting pregnant is almost impossible (right before / after cycle apparently ). shocked my mum when asked if humans are born with eyes open, or closed like puppies
but i never felt interested in that , just gross
My mother made sure I knew what condoms were, and that I had attended health class when I had a serious girlfriend in high school.
Yes - I felt like I was getting in trouble, and it was somewhat traumatizing. Kind of hilarious in retrospect
I only know of one classmate who got the talk but personally I didn't get anything like the talk just my parents understanding that I knew.
"The talk" is something I've only seen in american media. Never heard anyone from here europe bring it up. I just had sex ed in school some time in early teens.
All sexual education I got as a child are either in school or internet (I rarely talked with my parents, and I don't remember my childhood at all)
lolno. My parents didn't give a fuck about me.
My father once mumbled something about “keeping it in the cage” that was about it.
After a tear through multiple foreign women I figured it out myself.
Yep, the morning after I lost my virginity.
When I was a pre-teen I asked my mom about it because I'd been playing The Sims 2 and figured out that your sims can woohoo or they can try for baby, and both look like the same thing. And of course 1 sim day after the lullaby jingle plays upon woohooing the female sim enters the first trimester, and 3 sim days later you have a new baby sim in the family. She was very factual about it all, but didn't bother to talk at all about anything other than explaining vaginal sex. I had to piece the rest together from what I learned at school.
Fortunately I had fairly decent sex ed, except it was painfully boring and felt no different talking about human reproduction than when in highschool biology we talked about how plants reproduce (complete with extremely vague heavily photocopier-burned diagrams of anatomy that look almost entirely unlike what it's depicting which we had to label) but they at least discussed condoms and birth control pills, and even demonstrated a condom on a wooden phalis when I was in high school so that's a lot more than I'm sure some kids get
For my own kids, my oldest is 5 and has already asked. I've left it extremely scientific because she's way too young for a proper talk in just explaining that a male secretes sperm that fertilizes an egg which eventually forms a baby. She wanted more detail but I had to leave that at "when you're older". I'll probably have to give an updated talk when she's 7 or 8 to make sure she knows about periods and maybe I'll then go into more detail so she can be armed with knowledge should any boys take an interest in her (and statistically many boys have watched porn by age 10 which is terrifying)
25% of Canadians are no longer virgins by 12, which means that 12 is too late to start discussing it for 25% of the audience.
I started talking to my kids about it when they were about 5, and made it a policy to answer any question they asked at the level of detail they asked, with the exception of personal details in my own sex life. I think it worked out pretty well, even if it wasn't exactly comfortable. Did have to say to one of my now-married kids that I'm happy they have a healthy sex life, but I'd prefer the sex paraphernalia not be left in the common areas when we stop by.
Like most parents, my mom was uncomfortable talking to me about sex, but unlike most other parents, she recognized her discomfort as her problem and she did her best to work around it. She didn't want me to have the same hangups. Fortunately, this was the 1970s, and she had a lot of resources available. There were lots of books about sex, and she gave me some, and left others around the house for me to read when I wanted.
At the time, I don't think there was any specific law against allowing your kid to look at, say Playboy magazine, much less more explicit material. You'd probably get prosecuted for it now, which is reasonable. At that time, Playboy was still fairly softcore, just air-brushed breasts and gauzy drapes. And there were "nudist" or "natural" publications, with people having sex out in nature without the photo tricks used today, so you really couldn't see much. I was allowed to look at those for a while, although I think the adults felt ishy about it, and soon put those away.
Good on her!
Yes I remember seeing the 70s Playboy magazines for the first time in my life just a few years ago, and I loved them. As you said, they were more about erotic nudes but it was also mixed up with tasteful art, literature (not all of it erotica either) and articles on contemporary culture. I would absolutely want to buy a few issues if I ever get the chance.
Yes, but not from my parents. My grandma told me and one of my cousins one evening when we were staying with her. I think I prefer that it had been her vs one of my parents being awkward about it.
Your grandma sounds like a legend. I know for a fact mine couldn't have touched the topic
She was legendary for sure, but in a chaotic narcissistic way, sometimes negatively, but not always. She did us alright this time though.
Kinda embarassing, for my parents.
I was a precocious kid, read my way through libraries before we got online. By the time my parents got around to giving me the talk I had already started puberty, gave the talk to one of my friends who hit puberty early, and gone through a gender crisis to figure out I was enby.
Pretty similar to you. I don't really remember specifically learning about it, it was just another topic I gradually learned things about. I vaguely remember having a book designed for children explaining the basic concepts and I probably asked my parents stuff and they answered. Then later we had sex ed in school several times.
Knowing my mom, she probably talked to me as a teenager and asked if there was something I wanted to ask. But I don't really remember, so I guess it wasn't especially awkward, just a normal conversation.
No.
I was lucky to have an elementary and middle school that still did sex ed talks. My dad wasn't in a talking mood after roofing all day every day and my mom was a puritanical prude who would much rather I figure it out than actually tell me how to exercise caution in order to avoid pregnancy.
Did you resent the avoidance at any point? Also, did you have questions before getting sex ed talks that went unanswered? I guess that's what I'm curious to find out, from those who didn't have any talk or had it too late, what did they do before hitting the first school lesson on the subject.
Oh, absolutely.
They pounded sexual discomfort into me with religion, and I could have had a lot more sex and enjoyed my life more when I was younger if they hadn't done that. I also would have appreciated knowing more about how sex needs to be for a woman to experience pleasure and more information about body language and consent.
Nothing really that I can remember from my parents. I don't think they were that comfortable with it. But my school had pretty comprehensive health education, including sex Ed. Once in 5th grade, once in middle school (I think I took it in the summer so I could take more electives during the year) and once again in high school, iirc. My college also had pretty fantastic PSAs everywhere.
I remember starting very very early elementary school, like 3rd, 4th grade, kids would ask each other if they knew what sex was, or what 69 meant, or how babies were made, when teachers couldn't hear, but I have the impression that while some kids knew more than others, no one really knew what they were talking about.
My grandparents had a World Book Encyclopedia set. I started reading it around 8 or 9. That told me all I needed to know. (this was before the wwweb).
Dad never even hinted at any kind of advice like wearing condoms or abstaining or "being careful" with any of my girlfriends. I guess the fact I was not very attractive and was sort of religiously brought up seemed to keep me out of any accidental pregnancies or STDs. As a parent now it's not easy to talk about these things but we don't shame each other for being naked or use "baby terms" when it comes to reproductive organs.
Iirc, we had sex ed in 3rd or 4th grade at age 10 or 11. Maybe younger, depending on the age you entered 1st grade.
It was repeated at grade 5, I think.
I don't remember ever asking my parents anything and they never sat me down. I don't think anyone ever seriously told me any fairy tales or misinformation.
Honestly, not really. I live in a pretty conservative family, so I never had this talk. Thankfully, I (think) I have my facts through.
