The birds, bees and boys: Talking with boys about sex BY RERE LUNSFORD
She encourages and empowers parents to own their voices and not shy away from having what can be uncomfortable discussions with the young men in their lives. “I think the most important thing I would convey is that the parent or guardian in a young person’s life is the primary educator in that young person’s life,” said Wright. Samantha Butts knew ‘the talk’ was coming at school for her now 14-year-old son, but the Norman mom wasn’t nervous about having conversations at home because open dialogue with her children has always been important to her. Butts said that stems from the fact that she was a teen mom. “I had him when I was 17 so we always had an open dialogue,” said Butts, who also has a 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. “As he got older and closer to [the age that I had him], I think he realized how young we were and I think that kind of opened it up.” Butts and her husband grew up very differently when it came to their parents discussing sex with them. Her parents were
When Cristi Whiddon’s soon-to-be 5th grader came into her bedroom armed with questions about menstrual cycles, anatomy and the female body, the Tuttle mom of two admits she was caught off guard. But before she knew it, that feeling of shock was gone and she was drawing diagrams and answering all of her son’s questions, opening the door to conversations that she said her parents didn’t have with her. “My parents didn’t sit down and have ‘the talk’ with me; I had to learn on the streets from friends, and I didn’t always get the information right,” said Whiddon. Discussing sex with teens and pre-teens is not a new concept for parents, and neither are the nerves, shock and sometimes embarrassment that come along with it. Oftentimes those feelings seem to be multiplied when the audience for those discussions is boys. Dr. LaNita Wright, an assistant professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, said there is a focus on girls when it comes time to discuss sex because there is an assumption
that girls are undergoing more changes and have more questions. “There are more conversations with girls because menstruation is less uncomfortable to talk about than semen and sperm production,” said Wright, who teaches in UCO’s community/public health program and focuses on human development, adolescent development and sexual health.
Leaning in to Discomfort
Wright said society doesn’t expect for boys to express themselves and come to their parents or guardians with questions about sex, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have questions and that they don’t want answers. “Oftentimes we think that young people don’t want to have conversations with their parents or guardians, but they actually do,” said Wright. “They just don’t know how to ask the questions and they may be uncomfortable or don’t know where to start.”
38 METROFAMILYMAGAZINE.COM / SEPTEMBER 2020
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