I ask myself: as the father of a daughter who’s age we still count in months, when is the right time to wade into the messy waters of sex education? While I suppose breaching the subject at this point in time would be fairly pointless, it is something that I think parents need to have a good understanding of well in advance of that looming day when the topic becomes a necessary conversation. I also think, whatever your moral standpoint on the subject, ignorance and avoidance by you is just going to put your kid into a vulnerable position. That said, I do have some strong, if perhaps a little abstract, convictions on the subject and think — if nothing else — turning those abstractions into concrete ideas now is only going make things easier down the line.

For the record, I have a fairly left-leaning interpretation of sex. I’m not sure if this attitude is borne from witnessing a community torn across a kind of transitional sexual morality, or just because I spent four years of my adolescence studying molecular genetics where the term “sexual reproduction” is tossed around as freely as a mechanic might say “oil change.” Read some of Dawkins’ early work and one might even find a conviction that our bodies are nothing more than vessels for our genes, evolved to efficiently blend the genome of the species into new and exciting (re)combinations.^[1] I suppose this split in attitudes is something quite fundamental, however, and figuring out where one stands is really the first step. I don’t think it is my intention to change reader’s minds on the subject — at least not in one introductory post (though long-time readers may have noticed I’ve re-devoted a whole daily theme to this and related topics) — but instead offer some grounding points for those who still haven’t looked a those years into the future and foreseen the need to be on the side the conversation that has the superior grasp of the content.

The Convictional Divide

The impetus for this particular post came from an article I found in The New Yorker‘s latest issue: Red Sex, Blue Sex: Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant? It is an insightful read, particularly if you are liberal-minded on the subject. (The more conservative might feel it is biased somewhat, to be sure. It gives the impression of demonizing abstinence-only education. I am myself not in favor of that method if only because I live by the idea of information as power, and I think narrowing the field of understanding only weakens the mind and never strengthens it.) Go ahead and check it out. The link is at the bottom of this post. This entry will still be here when you’re done.

I remember having discussions with my wife (before she was my wife, in fact) on something closely related. It seemed that a bunch of my younger relations were jumping into marriage at a very early age — 18, 19 at best — and I had a very simplistic explanation for this: They came from evangelical families, and had been instilled with the notion of no sex prior to marriage. Their solution, I reasoned, was to get married as soon as possible. While I think there might remain a thin thread of fact in that statement, I now only write it because I think the answer is far more complex. And while I am fairly certain the answer — at least as it pertains to my reality for my family — is somewhere in the gray area between the two extreme ends of opinion, I suppose the best place to start is to look at where spans those opinions. In the article mentioned above, Talbot brackets her definition of the sexual morality spectrum:

Evangelicals are very good at articulating their sexual ideals, but they have little practical advice for their young followers. Social liberals, meanwhile, are not very good at articulating values on marriage and teen sexuality—indeed, they may feel that it’s unseemly or judgmental to do so.^[2]

In other words, somewhere between the “DON’T DO IT” line of advice and the “IT’S NONE OF MY BUSINESS” kind of parenting there must be a reasonable middle ground that results in a kid who ends up safe, happy, bright, and open to an adulthood that fulfills their mental and physical needs. And I also suppose, where one lands in this spectrum has as much to do with other societal factors:

Some of these differences in sexual behavior come down to class and education. Regnerus and Carbone and Cahn all see a new and distinct “middle-class morality” taking shape among economically and socially advantaged families who are not social conservatives. In Regnerus’s survey, the teen-agers who espouse this new morality are tolerant of premarital sex (and of contraception and abortion) but are themselves cautious about pursuing it. Regnerus writes, “They are interested in remaining free from the burden of teenage pregnancy and the sorrows and embarrassments of sexually transmitted diseases. They perceive a bright future for themselves, one with college, advanced degrees, a career, and a family. Simply put, too much seems at stake. Sexual intercourse is not worth the risks.” These are the kids who tend to score high on measures of “strategic orientation”—how analytical, methodical, and fact-seeking they are when making decisions. ^[2]

Again, knowledge is power. And perhaps not just knowledge of sex itself, not just an understanding of the mechanics plus social norms and morality of it all, but knowledge of self and others. Check one off as another argument for building critical thinking skills.

In the end — at least as far as this introduction goes — what is again emphasized is parenting. Yes, being a parent: the consequence of one’s own experience on the subject matter at hand. Put on the uniform, fellow father, this is now your job. And we may or may not have many years to work out the details. But then both research and common sense articulate that it is not so much the details that matter, but the framework upon which those details are constructed and delivered:

…adolescents who say that their families understand them, pay attention to their concerns, and have fun with them are more likely to delay intercourse, regardless of religiosity. ^[2]

[1] Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
[2] Margaret Talbot, Red Sex, Blue Sex: Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant? The New Yorker, November 3, 2008.