I spent today watching Oprah for the sex talk a guest doctor helped give to a woman’s 10 year-old daughter. The mother was incredibly nervous–and even teared up–simply because she didn’t want to “say the wrong thing to [her] daughter.” And very reasonable, because the way children are raised they can become very frightened of something seemingly threatening. In this case, however, it went very well.
They brought the daughter in, and she led the discussion by her questions. She started out with “What is sex?” and they worked their way to periods and then general female anatomy. They didn’t really talk about masturbation so much, but the doctor mentioned that there are nerve-endings in the vagina, which makes a pleasurable sensation when touched. The only reason it was mentioned was just in case she had, the doctor didn’t want her to feel odd about it. Everyone thought it was over the top when she suggested that girls try little external vibrators to experiment with themselves, but even with that I can’t feel anything she said was wrong, misleading, or inaccurate.
During a point in the discussion with the audience, Gail specifically said that teenagers know too much about sex and such, so she has no problem giving them only a little bit of information. The audience clapped, but it isn’t a good response to have for such a topic because not telling them such information only leads to isolation. The very idea of making it punishable should they tell you they have sex or masturbate is already what makes such a gap in the parent-child relationship so big, with 61% of girls uncomfortable talking about sex with their mothers.
They really are right when they say that communication is the big issue, but they’re wrong in trying to push the blame on teenagers, like when selected expert Terri Apter, PhD, said in the previously linked article, “This is a difficult conversation, and our daughters don’t make it easy for us” when the easiest change is for mothers to stop thinking less of their children because they have a developing sexuality.
To learn more about the segment on Oprah, you can look through here for more.
