Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / How Do You Teach Your Daughters About Sex Without Focusing On The Fear Factor?

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How Do You Teach Your Daughters About Sex Without Focusing On The Fear Factor? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi, guys, and welcome to the dr. Psych mom, show today.
• 0:09
  I had an interesting question from a listener.
• 0:13
  I don't want to give too much identifying information in case.
• 0:16
  She didn't want me to, but she is an older woman and she works
• 0:24
  with teenagers and she just wanders, why it has gotten to be
• 0:30
  from her perspective, that sex education has turned more.
• 0:34
  Or into avoidance of assault and consent.
• 0:38
  Then it is about anything positive.
• 0:40
  And I wrote her more of her question in the description and
• 0:44
  there was more than that but that was the summary.
• 0:47
  And she also asked how I as a mother of girls I have two girls
• 0:51
  and a boy and planning to teach my children about sex so that
• 0:57
  they can navigate confidently in relationships.
• 1:00
  Now I think this is a great question.
• 1:02
  It's something that I think about and talk about all the
• 1:05
  time is how to be sex-positive in your home.
• 1:08
  So that your kids don't end up fearing sex as somebody who is a
• 1:11
  couple's counselor and an individual therapist.
• 1:14
  I see how when people are scared of sex and they have been taught
• 1:19
  negative attitudes about sex and I'll link to something that I
• 1:21
  wrote about this, it can really mess them up and impede their
• 1:25
  ability to develop a healthy long-term or short-term any
• 1:30
  term. Relationship with people that in
• 1:33
  a romantic way, if you are terrified of sex, you think that
• 1:37
  things are going to go poorly and particularly for women.
• 1:41
  If they think that men are predators the, how can this then
• 1:45
  just be, how can this worldview, then just be excised from your
• 1:49
  brain when you're married it can't, if you are trained to
• 1:54
  think about men as predatorial, then you are going to continue
• 1:58
  to think about them that way, even.
• 2:00
  And you're married and it's really going to mess up your sex
• 2:03
  life and your ability to enjoy sex with your husband or with
• 2:07
  anybody at with any partner or by yourself, right.
• 2:11
  So what can you do in order to not?
• 2:14
  Come from a place of fear and avoidance?
• 2:18
  Well. Oh and also, she was talking
• 2:22
  about how, you know, even if a man kisses a woman without
• 2:27
  consent, then this can be considered a salt and all Of
• 2:30
  these different things which is of course very strong on the one
• 2:34
  hand. This sort of rhetoric is now
• 2:36
  completely normalized. You're like oh my God, he kissed
• 2:38
  her without consent and then it's like, oh wait, did I was, I
• 2:42
  am 40. Was I ever asked for consent
• 2:45
  before? Somebody kissed me know, was any
• 2:47
  of them or any of my listeners? I doubt it.
• 2:49
  Unless I got some young ones. So usually you in previous years
• 2:55
  it was thought that you could say no or pull away to a kiss I
• 3:00
  I've done my share of that, I would imagine my female readers
• 3:04
  have as well, and probably even some men.
• 3:07
  So, when you don't want to kiss somebody, you would just say,
• 3:09
  no. But the idea of them asking for
• 3:11
  your permission was not really in the cards.
• 3:14
  I myself thought that that was like ruin the mood.
• 3:19
  And I have many women in my practice who think the same
• 3:22
  thing that would not do not like to be asked various things, this
• 3:26
  maybe a generation alive is definitely a generational
• 3:28
  difference because it seems Seems like teenagers take this.
• 3:32
  Now, as, as a default or college kids in liberal arts.
• 3:38
  Colleges who are the youngest young adults that I speak to?
• 3:42
  But I can't imagine that. Everybody is like turned on by
• 3:46
  that, or that everybody is like able to verbalize their desire.
• 3:53
  Especially because everybody's always drunk when they're a
• 3:56
  teenager and a young adult. So you know I I don't I think
• 4:01
  that the idea of women being scared of men is, I don't think
• 4:07
  that that's where this whole social experiment is supposed to
• 4:11
  end. Like I feel like if the pendulum
• 4:13
  is swinging, maybe it'll swing backwards to something more in
• 4:16
  the Middle where you can yet again, kind of kiss.
• 4:19
  Somebody try to kiss somebody if you want and they could say, no,
• 4:22
  if they want, you know, that was hardly a traumatizing experience
• 4:26
  for me or for any of the, you know, many friends that I I had
• 4:30
  who this happened to somebody tries to kiss you.
• 4:32
  You don't want to you know so this this comes full circle to
• 4:35
  what I want to teach my girls about sex.
• 4:39
  Certainly consent is important. But so is like the fact that you
• 4:43
  should be able to talk about sex, you're the man should not
• 4:47
  have to ask you for your consent.
• 4:49
  In my mind, in my mind, that's already an issue.
• 4:53
  You then are not. So sometimes it's a enthusiastic
• 4:56
  consent and that's more like it. But what's with the consent
• 4:59
  part? What about you?
• 5:00
  Enthusiasm people know when the other person wants to have sex
• 5:06
  hopefully because the other person can talk about it, which
• 5:09
  brings me to that, I want my girls to be able to verbalize
• 5:12
  their feelings about sex and about physical contact.
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  So that it isn't a big mystery where there could be potential
• 5:20
  misunderstandings. I certainly do not believe that
• 5:24
  all of the drunken boys who think that they have consent and
• 5:28
  don't are monsters. I don't know anybody who does
• 5:32
  believe that. I think that there are a lot of
• 5:35
  misunderstandings and I think certainly some people are
• 5:38
  tremendous assholes, you know. But that's always.
• 5:42
  So I think that many times like in the situation that she was
• 5:46
  talking about a boy, tried to kiss a girl.
• 5:48
  She did not get consent, and then he was excluded and made a
• 5:53
  pariah by everybody because apparently he was a big monster
• 5:57
  for doing this in this situation.
• 6:00
  If the Warm is to ask for consent.
• 6:02
  Okay. Does every teenager do that or
• 6:05
  to some of them just try to kiss somebody like, you know, like
• 6:09
  everybody used to do always. So I mean, I think that people
• 6:14
  have to take a commonsensical middle ground but protecting
• 6:17
  your daughter's is really the point of teaching.
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  Anything about sex in my mind, should be to give them a whole
• 6:27
  range of feelings. Not just Fear fear, like a
• 6:31
  little bit of fear, like, don't go out with a man from the
• 6:35
  internet that you've never met before and let him buy you a
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  drink. Don't do that.
• 6:40
  You know, tell your friends where you're going, you know,
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  tell me where you would be going even if you're older check
• 6:46
  background, check somebody not like background check like
• 6:49
  insane but I mean you know Google somebody I mean there are
• 6:52
  sort of common sensical sorts of things to avoid a very bad
• 6:56
  situation but also sex Good sex is fun.
• 7:02
  Sex brings, you closer sex can be transformative in a
• 7:05
  relationship. Sex is something that people do
• 7:08
  to connect to relax to make a baby out, all sorts of positive
• 7:13
  things. It's so funny to me, that's so
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  many parents talk about consent and how to say no, but they
• 7:18
  don't talk about how to say, yes, they don't talk about what
• 7:21
  pleasure is. They have never talked to their
• 7:23
  daughter about an orgasm. But they're talking about many
• 7:26
  Myriad ways to say, no to any sort of physical contact.
• 7:30
  I don't know if people just forget what it is to be young,
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  but when you're young, hopefully, you want to have
• 7:36
  physical contact with somebody that you're attracted to this
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  would overall be good when people are very scared of this
• 7:43
  en masse. It probably speaks to some
• 7:46
  deficits and how Society is conceptualizing sex.
• 7:51
  So young girls being very scared of sex and perceiving boys as
• 7:55
  extremely monstrous, and aggressive and all potential
• 7:59
  rapist is I And most mothers of sons feel and women who like men
• 8:06
  feel that this is really not. The majority of people at all,
• 8:12
  majority of males, do not rape women, you know?
• 8:16
  I mean, that's just they also don't mug people on the street,
• 8:20
  they don't assault other people, you know, just like the majority
• 8:23
  of women are not any negative stereotype of women.
• 8:26
  They're not frigid, for example, when I think calling most men
• 8:29
  rapist, same as Calling most women frigid, it's insane.
• 8:32
  It has nothing to do with reality and it has nothing to do
• 8:35
  with individuals or even with majorities or large majorities
• 8:39
  of people. So what a girl needs to do.
• 8:42
  So so let's say it's this sort of situation where a girl does
• 8:46
  not want the guy to kiss her. She should have already been
• 8:49
  talking about physical contact, sexual desire, various
• 8:53
  situations that might happen at home so that she knows of
• 8:56
  sometimes. Boy, tries to kiss you and you
• 8:58
  don't want to so you say, no, no, thank you.
• 9:00
  You. I think I'd rather be friends
• 9:02
  and you could even roleplay that if you'd like, but only.
• 9:05
  As long as you say the other side of it, what happens if
• 9:10
  you're really attracted to a guy that you meet and you want to go
• 9:13
  home with him? Well, then you can and it might
• 9:16
  be a lot of fun. Of course you would use
• 9:19
  protection. Of course, realize that that
• 9:21
  might not turn into your boyfriend, but if you would like
• 9:24
  to do that in college, yeah, you can do that.
• 9:27
  People do that. That could be the one of the
• 9:30
  best nights ever, you know, and that could end up being your
• 9:33
  husband or it could end up being one of the best nights with a
• 9:35
  guy that you never talk to. Again, of course, you would use
• 9:38
  a condom and here's the reasons why.
• 9:40
  So, what about that? That's a positive framing of
• 9:43
  what a sexual encounter could look like.
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  If everything is about stop and know and how to protect your
• 9:52
  fragile daughter. How are they going to feel?
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  They're going to feel fragile and they're not there's strong
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  then. They have sexual desire.
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  Most of their PODS of their interactions are likely,
• 10:04
  statistically going to be positive.
• 10:06
  Most people do not get raped on their dates, you know?
• 10:09
  And if you are somebody who is this, this is like as
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  controversial as when I try to tell people who are very
• 10:17
  anxious, your child, probably not going to get kidnapped.
• 10:20
  Let's look at the actual statistics on kidnapping.
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  Probably not going to happen, strangers.
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  Do not kidnap kids. Just, you know, every day at the
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  supermarket, it Doesn't happen. You hear about it when it
• 10:31
  happens because it's so rare. You could read more about this
• 10:34
  in the book, free range Parenting by Lenore Eskenazi.
• 10:38
  I can link you to that but also most humans that go on dates,
• 10:42
  don't end up sexually assaulted, you know, and they don't really
• 10:45
  end up having a bad time. And if they start to have a bad
• 10:48
  time, they could say no stop. I'm, they start to have a good
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  time. They could say yes more.
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  They could say they like it. So, the odds of going out when I
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  was in my 20s. Example, I dated a lot, it was
• 11:00
  my friends dated a lot. It was not thought of that, this
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  would be somehow bad or treacherous and most people at
• 11:06
  the same experience. You go out you date.
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  Sometimes you like the guy, sometimes you don't like the guy
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  but we weren't was, we weren't scared of the guys, you know?
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  So that seems to be kind of a difference in.
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  I don't even know if it's how young people feel, or it's how
• 11:21
  parents are terrified for their kids to go out and potentially
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  be assaulted. I don't really know.
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  But I know that Getting a date and going out with a guy was
• 11:31
  fun. Positive ones, parents generally
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  thought it was positive as well and then you didn't tell your
• 11:38
  parents about the part where you went home with the guy but that
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  to your friends and you was also considered positive.
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  If it happened that that would be a positive sexual encounter,
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  I would really hope for the same for my daughter's.
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  If they decide to have sexual encounters with men that they
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  would go into it thinking the best and knowing how to
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  communicate their desire. It's interesting because the
• 12:00
  people that are in my practice that on high school
• 12:03
  relationships, High School, sexual relationships were the
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  very, or are the people that are the most comfortable with sex,
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  you know? And that's because you got a
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  long time of heavy petting, where you really can always take
• 12:16
  off all your clothes and you have to kind of look for places
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  to go and you're really just kissing a lot.
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  And this is what is it? It's foreplay.
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  So a lot of women enjoy those are their favorite sexual
• 12:26
  encounters in their life. We're the ones that were
• 12:28
  basically Extended for play with high school, boyfriend's what I?
• 12:32
  And and then when sex started plenty, people like that to,
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  right? So what I want to cut off my
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  daughter's from some sort of positive sexual experience,
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  certainly not certainly wouldn't have wanted that to happen to
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  me, you know, and I think that the what the listener is
• 12:48
  referring to about like, you know, this kind of fear-based,
• 12:51
  rape avoidance model could potentially cut many people off
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  from enjoying their sexuality and understanding that.
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  At sex is pleasurable, which then is an attitude that could
• 13:03
  potentially negatively impact their marriages and later
• 13:08
  relationships of All Sorts because they're coming into it.
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  Assuming that there's going to be danger, just like any anxious
• 13:16
  worldview. When you assume something is
• 13:18
  going to be unsafe, you act in a - protective way and nobody
• 13:24
  wants to have sex with somebody who has their guard up.
• 13:28
  And if you're always taught that sex is bad or could potentially
• 13:32
  harm you and that you have no recourse but to wait until
• 13:35
  somebody asks your consent and then hopefully say it in a way
• 13:38
  that they understand. No, I mean, this this isn't
• 13:41
  reality reality is that sex could be a beautiful, loving
• 13:45
  fulfilling thing, and if you talk about it like that to your
• 13:48
  kids, then you can also say, oh, by the way, sometimes you won't
• 13:52
  like what's going on. So then you say no.
• 13:55
  Stop And by the way, also, when the reader asked about
• 14:04
  navigating relationships and male attention with confidence,
• 14:08
  I don't see why it would be bad in any way to receive a
• 14:11
  compliment from somebody about your looks.
• 14:14
  I mean, this didn't used to be a bad thing, it certainly a bad
• 14:18
  thing if somebody calls out, hey, sweet tits.
• 14:22
  You know like as you're walking by a construction site?
• 14:25
  Although, I mean, I mean you know again this didn't used to
• 14:28
  be that terrible in in my experience this was kind of just
• 14:33
  something that happened. It felt more if somebody was
• 14:39
  like following you on the street and continuing to scream things
• 14:43
  but again this is not the average situation, those are
• 14:46
  certainly scary but I'm talking about if somebody says wow
• 14:49
  you're really hot. I work with some younger men
• 14:54
  that are a college-age in a little bit after Again, not the
• 14:57
  majority of my caseload, but some of them they're terrified
• 15:00
  to say anything about a girl's looks because they don't want to
• 15:03
  be seen as creepy. And I do not want to raise
• 15:07
  daughters, who feel that any sort of compliment about their
• 15:09
  looks is creepy because it's not nor do I want to raise a son who
• 15:13
  thinks that people really have to be attracted to their
• 15:17
  partners for things to work and I see this constantly in my
• 15:21
  couples counseling practice. In fact I just recently did a
• 15:24
  podcast about one of my popular Our articles men have to think
• 15:28
  their wives are really hot for things to work, so they don't
• 15:31
  have to silently think that their wives are hot.
• 15:33
  They're allowed to say it and most women like to hear it.
• 15:36
  So also that's kind of what distinguishes a friend from a
• 15:41
  sexual / romantic interest is the attraction variable, this
• 15:46
  can be spoken, you know. And so in this regard I'm a hell
• 15:50
  of a lot less worried about my girls that I am about my son
• 15:53
  because if you say the wrong thing, You know, you get just as
• 15:57
  ostracized as the kid, who tried to kiss the girl that didn't
• 16:01
  want to kiss him that was in my readers example.
• 16:04
  So it's interesting because a lot of guys now, were trained,
• 16:07
  not to give compliments, but then the women don't really know
• 16:12
  who with the guy like them, and they don't start to feel that
• 16:16
  arousal that comes from being pursued, the number one thing
• 16:20
  that the women in my practice want from their Partners is to
• 16:23
  feel pursued and desire. How can this happen when we're
• 16:27
  training a generation of men? Never to focus on looks women.
• 16:31
  Don't feel pursued and desired from a man saying, you're really
• 16:34
  smart. Trust me.
• 16:36
  I was thought of his really, really swim smart.
• 16:39
  Always, I was really always very smart from childhood and until I
• 16:45
  hit teenage years later, teenage years earlier teenagers were not
• 16:49
  so attractive. And guys started to say that I
• 16:52
  was attractive only, then, did I feel good?
• 16:56
  About my ability to be in a relationship because nobody
• 17:00
  wants to be in a relationship just because they think somebody
• 17:02
  smart men don't and women don't. But when somebody thinks you are
• 17:06
  smart and hot and nice, then they do.
• 17:09
  So I will also be training my girls to know how to graciously
• 17:13
  accept compliments. And not think they are gross or
• 17:16
  shallow and a lot of this. By the way, is just by modeling,
• 17:21
  graciously accepting compliments and being in a loving
• 17:23
  relationship where the stuff is discussed.
• 17:25
  So if My husband says you look beautiful and my girls here and
• 17:29
  see that I like that and I say thank you and that that's a nice
• 17:33
  thing then that I try to look nice for my husband.
• 17:36
  He tries to look nice for me then this is thought of not as
• 17:39
  superficial and stupid but it's something that people do in a
• 17:43
  relationship because they are attracted to each other and they
• 17:46
  value maintaining that attraction So basically my point
• 17:51
  is this I read a statistic that 43% of first-year drivers get
• 17:57
  into a car crash, right? So compare this to the statistic
• 18:01
  that 20 percent of women have experienced an attempted or
• 18:05
  completed sexual assault. So with driving hopefully you
• 18:09
  don't tell your child. You could crash, you could
• 18:12
  crash, you could die. You could get into a fatal car
• 18:14
  crash. In fact it's close to half, you
• 18:17
  know, half of 50. And chance that you're going to
• 18:21
  then your child's not going to drive, right?
• 18:23
  And you child will be terrified to drive.
• 18:25
  They will not engage in the world.
• 18:27
  They will be frightened and this is really resident for me
• 18:31
  because I grew up in a house where both parents were too
• 18:34
  anxious to drive and that informs their the throwing up in
• 18:37
  a Nature's house as I've written about and forms a lot of my
• 18:40
  perspective. And in Psychology, we talked
• 18:44
  about having an approach motivation versus an avoidance
• 18:47
  motivation sex Is is a wonderful example.
• 18:51
  If you want an approach motivation, you're talking about
• 18:53
  sex is positive here. All the positive things that
• 18:57
  could happen if it's an avoidance of fear and pain and
• 19:02
  then that's a totally different approach in you're looking at
• 19:04
  sex or very negative, anxious lens.
• 19:07
  I want my children to have an approach mentality.
• 19:11
  For life, trying new things, living to the fullest
• 19:15
  experiencing everything that humans can experience.
• 19:19
  Not assuming things are going to go poorly.
• 19:22
  Sure, you can say, sometimes, things go poorly, and here's
• 19:27
  what to do, that's like what they say in Driver's Ed, but in
• 19:30
  driver's ed, they don't constantly say and you're going
• 19:33
  to get into a crash and the statistics show that you're
• 19:35
  going to get into a crash. And so what you got to do is you
• 19:38
  only have to drive under these certain conditions on this
• 19:41
  certain way and you got to be keep your wits about you
• 19:44
  constantly here to driver's ed teacher like that, you would end
• 19:47
  up with an anxiety disorder. Order, you want to get behind
• 19:50
  the wheel of the car. See that?
• 19:51
  It's fun. See that things work out.
• 19:53
  See that you can get places. See that you can go see your
• 19:56
  friends. Yes.
• 19:57
  You got to be careful fine. But it's also really fun.
• 20:01
  So sex is the same kind of thing.
• 20:03
  Now with kids are not ready to have sex cool but if they are
• 20:07
  ready to have sex so especially as they get older and they're
• 20:10
  not kids, they're actually, you know, it with the age of young
• 20:15
  adults. Then I do feel that a positive
• 20:18
  frame Being really, really does wonders for them.
• 20:21
  In terms of later, Intimate Relationships going well, and
• 20:27
  being healthy, and being positive and fun and exciting
• 20:32
  versus based on avoidance and fear.
• 20:35
  And oh my God, somebody's going to do something terrible to me.
• 20:40
  So that is what I think listener, and thanks for writing
• 20:43
  in with your question. And hopefully that addressed it
• 20:47
  and again. Then I will link to some of my
• 20:52
  sights on anxiety and on negative attitudes towards sex.
• 20:57
  And if anybody else has any sort of questions or topic
• 21:02
  suggestions please let me know. I will be happy to get this
• 21:06
  right out to this listener. That asked me about it right
• 21:09
  away and I will talk to everybody soon.
• 21:12
  Thanks so much.