Talking to your kids about sex

Please forgive me if this topic was dicussed here before, but I don't recall seeing it.

My son is almost 10 and I'm starting to think I need to talk to him about sex. Do any of you parents have advice for me?

Barbwire a.k.a. Cowboy Lover

I have 4 girls, and I tell them there is no such thing as sex. Just kidding. I haven't given much thought about what to tell a boy. Our older is 16 yo. We tough her that boys want your junk. My wife was telling her that kissing and making out will make his dick hard. Dance next to him will make his dick hard. When the wind blows, his disk is hard. Just because his dick is hard, doesn't mean it's your responsibility to do anything about it. That's when I chimed in and said, it's just a natural part of the body. A boy's penis gets hard, and most are a walking hardon at that age. I also told her that when the blood goes to the penis, the brain gets starved, and the thought process is messed up, and even if he doesn't want sex, his body is screaming "do it". I told her that the girl is the pacing factor at that point. It's up to her to put the brakes on. and No means No. He can always go into the bathroom and jerk it.



She gets a little embarrased, but she likes to be informed, and hung on every word we said.


Be candid, and keep the communication open. Is he eying up the girls? We noticed when our kid started eying up the opposite sex, and then we would say, he is cute, and well built. We tried not to lecture and be too serious. We try to just say the way it is in the human body, and the way people think.

I hope this helps you a little bit.

The biggest thing to teach is to respect women, and never believe what his buddies tell him

I'm sure there are a number of good books available on the subject, geared towards young people. Chack the Amazon site for one.

Yes, I am sure there are dozens of books written about the subject, I was just looking for how my fellow horndog SF'ers handled the topic with their kids.

My son hasn't started checking out chicks, in fact, its just the opposite. When a scantily clad woman comes on tv he looks mortified and turns his head. The other day, there was a show where a man took off his shirt, and I could see my son cringe in his chair.

I have always told him that touching himself was ok, as long as he did it in the privacy of his own room, but that's about as far as the sex talk has gone.

We are building a new master bedroom right about his bedroom and hubby and I are moving in there in the spring. I am a bit concerned that my son will hear us and that is part of what has brought up the sex education. Should he ask, I want to be able to tell him that no, daddy isn't trying to kill mommy, that its just sex.

Also, I don't want him to hear about sex from his friends or learn about it on tv, so I know I need to broach the subject soon.

Barbwire a.k.a. Cowboy Lover

I hear you ! It is hard to stay ahead of the "school bus" education

Our kids get grossed out when they hear us. We used to have the kids computer in our library area in the loft. Our Master bedroom was next to it and you can hear anything on either side of the wall. At night we would have a bedtime except for the teenager. One saturday night at about 10PM, it went like this..

WIFE: (to teenager) honey, we are going to bed, so shutdown the computer and come down.
TEEN: It's OK, I'll turn down the sound so you guys can't hear the computer.
WIFE: Well, we will probably make a lot of noise, and we might be turning up the sound, down here.
TEEN: oh gross mom. I am going to bed, you guys are sick aren't you too old for that stuff?

In your constuction of the new MB, are you adding accustic attenuation design features. There are a few major things you can do to isolate sound, and are much cheaper to do before you finish. You can be surprised how much you can sound proof a room.

We since banned the loft from the kids, and no one has said anything, and they would have after last Sunday night. But our MB is at the opposite end of the house from the other 4 bedrooms.

As a member of your son's generation (I think I am... or has Y rolled over into Z now?), I can say that by age 10... it's probably too late. For me the "school bus" education that indagroove is talking about started in grade 3... which would be 7 years old. At age 10 our primary school had a "puberty night" which all the kids and their parents went along to. Then at 15 all high schools have a compulsory subject which covers all other sex education.

So really... at least in my part of the world, there was very little that my parents could've added. When my dad and I actually talked about it (I think I was 15) it was a very short conversation... it was literally already covered in lots and lots of detail by the school system.

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

Aussiebloke,
You have the same advantage as my children (and me), we're all Australian and sexually liberal. I first spoke to my children about 8 or 9 years ago (when they were about 10), and by that stage they had sex education at school. They also had another level of sex education, and that is while my wife and I don't flaunt our sex life, we don't hide it either. They knew that they were not allowed in our room at times, and they knew it was because we were having sex. Sex could be happening in the morning, the evening or during the day. So my talk was less about mechanics and STDs, and more about how sex is a normal and natural part of friendship, relationships and love. This is a positive thing, my wife and I love each other and we have sex with each other as part of that love. I also suggested that you don't necessarily have to wait until the one and only love of your life, and that sex with a friend is part of growing up.

I think they had more sex education ages 11-13, so they are pretty in tune with the mechanics, stds and pregancy prevention.

At a later stage, 16, we made the offer for him to have a girlfriend to sleep over if he wants, and we'll respect his privacy. The same will hold for my daughter, but she hasn't reached that age yet.

Not a parent, so I'm not going to offer any real advice, I just wanted to point out that the public school system sucks big time at providing truly educational sex ed. classes. Case in point, the shocking rise in the number of Herpes cases among junior high/high school students who think oral sex is "safe". If I were you, I would really drive home how important protection for every kind of sexual contact is. And I would make sure he realizes that accidents do happen, condoms break, that there's no such thing as 100% fool-proof sex, once a girl gets preggers you're stuck paying child support until the kid is 18, and so it should be a decision he makes, and one he's mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared for, not a spur-of-the-moment deal.

*Learn About STIs/STDs* *STD Fact Sheets*

The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy. ~Yves Saint Laurent

The sexiest parts of my body are my brain, my heart, my spine, and my guts.

The increase in the number of herpes cases is just one of the consequences of the ignorance-only education program. There has also been an increase in chlamydia cases and teenage pregnancies. The program doesn't discuss birth control or condom use apart from saying that the pill can cause "premature death" and condoms aren't that effective anyway. They believe that telling kids that condoms and birth control are no good will somehow prevent them from having sex. Also, many kids that are abstaining from vaginal intercourse are enthusiastically engaging in oral or anal sex, because they think those acts aren't considered "real" sexual intercourse. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with either of oral or anal sex, I'm just pointing out how much misinformation there is out there.

Anyway, as far as talking to your son about sex is concerned, when my mom became pregnant with my sister she sat my younger brother and I down (I was ten and he was eight) and got out the anatomy book. She showed diagrams and explained the mechanics of having sex and having a baby. Of course it was years later when I began to understand first hand the emotional aspects of having sex, but at least it was a start.

Unlike aussiebloke, when I was 10, I didn't know what sex was. It was explained to me by a friend in gym class. My parents and I have never had the sex talk, and anything I knew about sex either came from the teen magazines or Cosmo.

Anyhow, I don't really know how to tell a boy about sex. But I think you should emphasize the need to respect women/girls. Most boys/young men do not.

to be honest, your son probably already knows, which is why he cringes, as you put it... I recall looking away at that age because if i did look at a sexy woman, i got hard, which was (at that age) the embarassing part. And as for him looking away from the guy...well, thats still gross 11 years later, so i dont blame him, lol

My parents never had the talk with me, actually. My father only told me "to make sure you wear a rain coat, if you catch my drift." TV and classmates had already told me the rest by age 10, and the school took care of the rest concerning STDs and the like in the 5th grade...which was age 10, come to think about it... I recall us talking about jerking it back in the 3rd grade while we were still running away from the girls trying to kiss us on the playground...

It's very likely that you are too late to prevent him from learning about sex from outside sources. If that was your goal, you should have started several years ago. Sorry. In other places on the internet, I can read what these young kids have done and see already, and I'm afraid it will shock you, based on what you think your son knows now. Think back to when you were that age -- what did you know, when did you know it, and how did you learn it? What would you have liked your parents to have done differently?

Sex needs to be taught from toddler age on, in a progressive way of course. If you try to introduce the subject "cold turkey" (what a coincidence on Thanksgiving day), he will be embarrassed by it, and so will you. Ok, now you have gotten there anyway and need to deal with it. I don't think the "sit down, I need to talk with you" approach works, not now, not ever. Having "the talk" is just not a good way to approach it.

I suggest that sex be made more a part of everyday conversation - not a one-time, give it all talk, but rather a more casual form of on going conversation. You can start by simply asking his some question and go with the flow, something like "Son, do know why your penis gets stiff sometimes?" "Why do you think girls develop breasts?" "Do you like the looks of girls' breasts?" "Have you ever seen between a girls legs and do you know what is there?" These can be casual dinner conversations or while riding in the car with both you and hubby and he will learn more from your attitude then your knowledge, and he will learn that taking about this is normal and permitted in your household. The discussion should seem as natural as if he had asked: where does rain come from?, or why does it rain? Be sure not to embarrass him by laughing or ridiculing him for any question, no matter which words he chooses to use. Boys are ofter aware that boys and girls pee differently, and boys especially have both an interest and a visual appreciation for this subject that girls don't have. It is yet a way to introduce sexual body parts and the differences between boys and girls in a way he can understand and be interested in and use that as a steeping stone to sexuality and why boys are different from girls. Have you talked to him about circumcision, why or why not it his penis is the way it is, and how other boys might be different and how to respect them for the way their parents had the friend penis treated. This didn't get any coverage when I was growing up and sure should have been. I was an adult before I understood the difference.

I have raised 2 boys, now in their upper 30s, and I did a lot better then my parents who never had any talk but left it to the school to do it. Still, I now know how I would improve further and look forward to my new grandson being raised better then I or my boys were. But times have changed and so has our access to sexual info. Best wishes for him.

I'm going to add again Some good points made. They learn a lot for the outside world,. TV, school, whereever. Most kinda know that tab A goes into slot B. What we have to do is teach them the repsonsibilities that go with taking your cloths off for someone else. They need to know the emotional price, and the respect we need to give our partners. In the beginning we want sex for ourself gratification (my view), and then as we mature we realize that we need to give more then we take for a succesful relationship.


The natural physical anatomy questions are the easy ones to answer. WE are straight up and tell it like it is. It's the emotional why do people act like that questions that get tougher.

I agree with jcool. Your son probably already feels a sexual attraction towards girls and doesn't want to show it. For one thing, puberty is the death noll of childhood and experiencing new sexual thoughts brings an adolescent to unfamiliar places that may, at times, seem dark and wrong. Think about it from a boys point of view, he can no longer play with girls as if they are just like boys and the growing gender divide may disturb him. Public education does suck when it comes to sex and I think the best way for one to learn about sexual practices/preferences is by experience and intropection. If you go over the consequences of sexual intersourse clearly, your son would benefit tremendously.

As for sexual education from elsewhere, I cannot stress to you enough how important it is to keep your child from viewing pornography. Porn at a young age makes sex seem extremely dark. Young viewers aren't able to differentiate between reality and fantasy and porn may inculcate sexual preferences that are deviant and undesirable leading to an estranged relationship with the opposite sex. A serious talk with him about pornography might calm his fears if he has already viewed the material and is experiencing confusion.

Not intruding upon your sexual mores, excess masturbation may pose productivity problems. If you keep him constantly surrounded by people with things to do he would be limited in his masturbation tendencies. I'm sure you don't want your son to view women as pieces of meat so I encourage you to push him to interact with girls (in a non-sexual manner) more.

All this I say to you as a result of experience. PLEASE, trust me.

What exactly do you mean by that?

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans