When Did Porn Become Sex Ed?

[summer]

NY Times

THE other day, I got an email from a 21-year-old college senior about sex — or perhaps more correctly, about how ill equipped she was to talk about sex. The abstinence-only curriculum in her middle and high schools had taught her little more than “don’t,” and she’d told me that although her otherwise liberal parents would have been willing to answer any questions, it was pretty clear the topic made them even more uncomfortable than it made her.



So she had turned to pornography. “There’s a lot of problems with porn,” she wrote. “But it is kind of nice to be able to use it to gain some knowledge of sex.”



I wish I could say her sentiments were unusual, but I heard them repeatedly during the three years I spent interviewing young women in high school and college for a book on girls and sex. In fact, according to a survey of college students in Britain, 60 percent consult pornography, at least in part, as though it were an instruction manual, even as nearly three-quarters say that they know it is as realistic as pro wrestling. (Its depictions of women, meanwhile, are about as accurate as those of the “The Real Housewives” franchise.)



The statistics on sexual assault may have forced a national dialogue on consent, but honest conversations between adults and teenagers about what happens after yes — discussions about ethics, respect, decision making, sensuality, reciprocity, relationship building, the ability to assert desires and set limits — remain rare. And while we are more often telling children that both parties must agree unequivocally to a sexual encounter, we still tend to avoid the biggest taboo of all: women’s capacity for and entitlement to sexual pleasure.



It starts, whether intentionally or not, with parents. When my daughter was a baby, I remember reading somewhere that while labeling infants’ body parts (“here’s your nose,” “here are your toes”), parents often include a boy’s genitals but not a girl’s. Leaving something unnamed, of course, makes it quite literally unspeakable.



Nor does that silence change much as girls get older. President Obama is trying — finally — in his 2017 budget to remove all federal funding for abstinence education (research has shown repeatedly that the nearly $2 billion spent on it over the past quarter-century may as well have been set on fire). Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fewer than half of high schools and only a fifth of middle schools teach all 16 components the agency recommends as essential to sex education. Only 23 states mandate sex ed at all; 13 require it to be medically accurate.



Even the most comprehensive classes generally stick with a woman’s internal parts: uteruses, fallopian tubes, ovaries. Those classic diagrams of a woman’s reproductive system, the ones shaped like the head of a steer, blur into a gray Y between the legs, as if the vulva and the labia, let alone the clitoris, don’t exist. And whereas males’ puberty is often characterized in terms of erections, ejaculation and the emergence of a near-unstoppable sex drive, females’ is defined by periods. And the possibility of unwanted pregnancy. When do we explain the miraculous nuances of their anatomy? When do we address exploration, self-knowledge?



No wonder that according to the largest survey on American sexual behavior conducted in decades, published in 2010 in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, researchers at Indiana University found only about a third of girls between 14 and 17 reported masturbating regularly and fewer than half have even tried once. When I asked about the subject, girls would tell me, “I have a boyfriend to do that,” though, in addition to placing their pleasure in someone else’s hands, few had ever climaxed with a partner.



Boys, meanwhile, used masturbating on their own as a reason girls should perform oral sex, which was typically not reciprocated. As one of a group of college sophomores informed me, “Guys will say, ‘A hand job is a man job, a blow job is yo’ job.’ ” The other women nodded their heads in agreement.



Frustrated by such stories, I asked a high school senior how she would feel if guys expected girls to, say, fetch a glass of water from the kitchen whenever they were together yet never (or only grudgingly) offered to do so in return? She burst out laughing. “Well, I guess when you put it that way,” she said.



The rise of oral sex, as well as its demotion to an act less intimate than intercourse, was among the most significant transformations in American sexual behavior during the 20th century. In the 21st, the biggest change appears to be an increase in anal sex. In 1992, 16 percent of women aged 18 to 24 said they had tried anal sex. Today, according to the University of Indiana study, 20 percent of women 18 to 19 have, and by ages 20 to 24 it’s up to 40 percent.



A 2014 study of 16- to 18-year-old heterosexuals — and can we just pause a moment to consider just how young that is? — published in a British medical journal found that it was mainly boys who pushed for “fifth base,” approaching it less as a form of intimacy with a partner (who they assumed would both need to be and could be coerced into it) than a competition with other boys. They expected girls to endure the act, which young women in the study consistently reported as painful. Both sexes blamed the girls themselves for the discomfort, calling them “naïve or flawed,” unable to “relax.”



According to Debby Herbenick, director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at the University of Indiana and one of the researchers on its sexual behavior survey, when anal sex is included, 70 percent of women report pain in their sexual encounters. Even when it’s not, about a third of young women experience pain, as opposed to about 5 percent of men. What’s more, according to Sara McClelland, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, college women are more likely than men to use their partner’s physical pleasure as the yardstick for their satisfaction, saying things like “If he’s sexually satisfied, then I’m sexually satisfied.” Men are more likely to measure satisfaction by their own orgasm.



Professor McClelland writes about sexuality as a matter of “intimate justice.” It touches on fundamental issues of gender inequality, economic disparity, violence, bodily integrity, physical and mental health, self-efficacy and power dynamics in our most personal relationships, whether they last two hours or 20 years. She asks us to consider: Who has the right to engage in sexual behavior? Who has the right to enjoy it? Who is the primary beneficiary of the experience? Who feels deserving? How does each partner define “good enough”? Those are thorny questions when looking at female sexuality at any age, but particularly when considering girls’ formative experiences.

We are learning to support girls as they “lean in” educationally and professionally, yet in this most personal of realms, we allow them to topple. It is almost as if parents believe that if they don’t tell their daughters that sex should feel good, they won’t find out. And perhaps that’s correct: They don’t, not easily anyway. But the outcome is hardly what adults could have hoped.



What if we went the other way? What if we spoke to kids about sex more instead of less, what if we could normalize it, integrate it into everyday life and shift our thinking in the ways that we (mostly) have about women’s public roles? Because the truth is, the more frankly and fully teachers, parents and doctors talk to young people about sexuality, the more likely kids are both to delay sexual activity and to behave responsibly and ethically when they do engage in it.



Consider a 2010 study published in The International Journal of Sexual Health comparing the early experiences of nearly 300 randomly chosen American and Dutch women at two similar colleges — mostly white, middle class, with similar religious backgrounds. So, apples to apples. The Americans had become sexually active at a younger age than the Dutch, had had more encounters with more partners and were less likely to use birth control. They were also more likely to say that they’d first had intercourse because of pressure from friends or partners.



In subsequent interviews with some of the participants, the Americans, much like the ones I met, described interactions that were “driven by hormones,” in which the guys determined relationships, both sexes prioritized male pleasure, and reciprocity was rare. As for the Dutch? Their early sexual activity took place in caring, respectful relationships in which they communicated openly with their partners (whom they said they knew “very well”) about what felt good and what didn’t, about how far they wanted to go, and about what kind of protection they would need along the way. They reported more comfort with their bodies and their desires than the Americans and were more in touch with their own pleasure.



Continue reading the main story







What’s their secret? The Dutch said that teachers and doctors had talked candidly to them about sex, pleasure and the importance of a mutual trust, even love. More than that, though, there was a stark difference in how their parents approached those topics.



While the survey did not reveal a significant difference in how comfortable parents were talking about sex, the subsequent interviews showed that the American moms had focused on the potential risks and dangers, while their dads, if they said anything at all, stuck to lame jokes.



Dutch parents, by contrast, had talked to their daughters from an early age about both joy and responsibility. As a result, one Dutch woman said she told her mother immediately after she first had intercourse, and that “my friend’s mother also asked me how it was, if I had an orgasm and if he had one.”



MEANWHILE, according to Amy T. Schalet, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the author of “Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex, ” young Dutch men expect to combine sex and love. In interviews, they generally credited their fathers with teaching them that their partners must be equally up for any sexual activity, that the women could (and should) enjoy themselves as much as men, and that, as one respondent said, he would be stupid to have sex “with a drunken head.” Although she found that young Dutch and American men both often yearned for love, only the Americans considered that a personal quirk.



I thought about all of that that recently when, driving home with my daughter, who is now in middle school, we passed a billboard whose giant letters on a neon-orange background read, “Porn kills love.” I asked her if she knew what pornography was. She rolled her eyes and said in that jaded tone that parents of preteenagers know so well, “Yes, Mom, but I’ve never seen it.”

I could’ve let the matter drop, felt relieved that she might yet make it to her first kiss unencumbered by those images.



Goodness knows, that would’ve been easier. Instead I took a deep breath and started the conversation: “I know, Honey, but you will, and there are a few things you need to know.”

[rupertpenny]

Ugh, this brings up a lot of feelings for me. I never looked to porn for instruction (I've never been able to enjoy porn at all) but in retrospect it's obvious that most of my partners were. I definitely focused on the man's pleasure over mine for a long time. It honestly wasn't until several years into my marriage that I got over that and started advocating for myself sexually.

And I didn't even have abstinence only education in high school!

[ttt]

This is a great article. I just sent it to H too.

[summer]

My family never ever never talked about sex. Never. 

My sex ed experience was very much like what was decribed here. One basic anatomy lesson in 8th grade. And the next one was sophomore year of high school so waaay too late. Boys and girls were separated and it was mostly about anatomy. There was one day where we watched our gym teacher put a condom on a banana. Nothing about pleasure or anything like that.

I saw my first porn at a friend's house in 8th grade. I think I got most of my ideas about sex from late night cable movies like 9 1/2 Weeks.  

This is probably the 5th article on teen sexuality I've read this year and they mostly focus on how we need to re-educate our girls, but it seems like boys need a LOT of education on sex.

[meltoine]

When our first was stil teeny, MH used to make this joke that he was glad we had a boy because he only had to worry about one penis, whereas if we'd had a girl he'd have to worry about everyone's penis. It's an awful and vulgar joke and I told him so several times, but he didn't really get it until I sat him down and explained that our sons are every bit as responsible for what goes on in their bedrooms as their partners are, and probably even bear a greater responsibility since many of their partners are likely to come into a relationship with them in this mindset of "his pleasure is my pleasure and my pleasure doesn't matter", and also that in our society women bear the brunt of the responsibility, work, and cost associated with an unplanned pregnancy. My sons are being raised to upend that culture in their own lives and I'm so glad MH took it to heart and has done a 180 for their sake.

[ttt]

Mar 20, 2016 7:09:48 GMT -5 summer said:

My family never ever never talked about sex. Never. 

My sex ed experience was very much like what was decribed here. One basic anatomy lesson in 8th grade. And the next one was sophomore year of high school so waaay too late. Boys and girls were separated and it was mostly about anatomy. There was one day where we watched our gym teacher put a condom on a banana. Nothing about pleasure or anything like that.

I saw my first porn at a friend's house in 8th grade. I think I got most of my ideas about sex from late night cable movies like 9 1/2 Weeks.  

This is probably the 5th article on teen sexuality I've read this year and they mostly focus on how we need to re-educate our girls, but it seems like boys need a LOT of education on sex.

I almost wrote in my first reply that this is so important for parents of daughters, but I stopped because I realize it's also equally, if not more important for parents of sons. Clearly we as a society have a long way to go in teaching our sons to be respectful and generous sexual partners. 

[summer]

Mar 20, 2016 7:23:21 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

The messages I got about sex tracked with what the story describes: these are the mechanics, keep your panties up and your legs shut, no babies out of wedlock that is shameful. It never occurred to me that sex was something I should enjoy until a boyfriend in my mid-20s said, "you don't enjoy this. what's the point of us doing this if you don't enjoy it?" And my response was, "but you like it" and from that moment on, he made it his mission to teach me how to enjoy sex. God bless him.

This was me, too. 

[dancelnow]

I don't remember what point I learned I should enjoy it. But I didn't know who that enjoyment really looked like until very recently. I agree, it's men who need more education in their role and responsibility in pleasure. But women need more in asserting their wants and to stop faking it. While I do honestly get pleasure from my partners pleasure, I now know that's not near all.

[NewOrleans]

NOT SEX-POSITIVE

[NewOrleans]

I think it's all inter-related: the battle to deny birth control, the barrage of anti-choice laws, the training or lack thereof on sexual pleasure/who gets it, consent or lack thereof.

incidentally, this is all one of the reasons I think porn is inherently anti-woman-- ex: the whole 5th base section of the article. 

[erbear]

This is a sticking point for me in my sex Ed class (8th graders). Porn is readily available to kids and I think both boys and girls get this completely unrealistic and degrading view of what sex looks like. And when they do have sex, boys are dissatisfied because the aren't able to have sex for hours and girls leave feeling exploited  and unsatisfied. I am so clear with this: porn can be a great thing for people, but it is acting. It's not real. It's based on fantasy. Most women and men do not enjoy sex that doesn't include any sort of intimate connection. 

[Deleted]

I feel like I got a reasonably thorough sex education, but it was entirely based on reproduction and how to avoid getting pregnant (hey at least I got that!). Nowhere in my sex ed was a discussion of pleasure.

That education came from Harlequin romance novels.

[CheeringCharm]

Mar 20, 2016 9:40:05 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

I feel like I got a reasonably thorough sex education, but it was entirely based on reproduction and how to avoid getting pregnant (hey at least I got that!). Nowhere in my sex ed was a discussion of pleasure.

That education came from Harlequin romance novels.

Haha, me too. Good ol' Julie Garwood and Judith McNaught I found them around 12-13 while babysitting at other people's houses, lol.

[NewOrleans]

Mar 20, 2016 9:54:46 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

I'm thrilled that Obama is trying to get rid of funding for it. It has no place in modern society.

I mean, really. You want to talk about wasteful spending? This right here. Congress *increased* the funding of abstinence only by 25 million last year!  

[litebright]

I learned about sex in the context of consequences -- moral consequences and physical ones. I went through a very churchy phase and one of the youth groups I attended was super conservative, True Love Waits pledges for all, you're a chewed piece of gum that no one else will want if you have sex. Luckily, my mom, bless her, was always very upfront with me that she would help me get on birth control, no questions asked, if I found someone that I cared about enough to want to have sex with them. I think back and my impression of sex was that it was very, very important and that you had to be really careful about not getting pregnant or an STD.

But I hadn't really thought about how I learned about pleasure, so reading this makes me really glad that I learned to masturbate at such a young age. 11 or 12, I think? I first learned about the concept in a book (that I bought for myself at a Christian bookstore, lol) about the birds and the bees and tried it out until I got it right. I didn't have sex until I was 19, so I had years of knowing that I could have an orgasm and what would get me there, that I didn't need a partner or sex to experience pleasure -- and you can bet when I did start having sex, I expected to O. And did, from the very first time I had intercourse.

As a parent, though, that's not exactly reproducible. I can't count on my girls figuring things out like I did with as little guidance. As practical as my mother was about addressing birth control, I don't think anyone ever said the word "masturbation" outside of my youth group, which of course said it was a sin and moral weakness (not that that stopped me). I have managed to have a sex life that has been satisfying and I think, a decent balance of mostly-good decisions about sex with no significant negative consequences. I want my kids to have that, too, to the extent that I have influence on enabling it, and God knows that ultimately my own mother had more influence than the messages that I *thought* were going to impact me the most at the time.

Which means that as awkward as it will be, I'm going to have to talk about masturbation along with all the other aspects of sex.

[erbear]

Mar 20, 2016 10:37:43 GMT -5 @starry said:

Mar 20, 2016 8:36:31 GMT -5 erbear said:

This is a sticking point for me in my sex Ed class (8th graders). Porn is readily available to kids and I think both boys and girls get this completely unrealistic and degrading view of what sex looks like. And when they do have sex, boys are dissatisfied because the aren't able to have sex for hours and girls leave feeling exploited  and unsatisfied. I am so clear with this: porn can be a great thing for people, but it is acting. It's not real. It's based on fantasy. Most women and men do not enjoy sex that doesn't include any sort of intimate connection. 

are you able to discuss this in your classes where you live?

Yup. But I don't teach in a conservative school in a conservative state. I showed them the Ted talk video about it first. My sex Ed class is pretty everything goes, which I'm grateful for. 

I co-teach with a man and we are both very clear. If sex isn't enjoyable for both parties, you're doing it wrong. It's not a favor. It's not throwing someone a bone. It's two people making the mutual decision to do something that is mutually pleasurable. 

[sushi]

I was lucky to get fact based sex ed from both school and parents. My parents seriously had me watch the same NOVA video that I watched in high school, college, even nursing school (I think it's from the 80s)

I did view porn because I was interested in the real sex aspect. Thankfully I never saw much that was completely misogynistic that would alter my perception of "normal" or expected.

I wonder how today's school kids are going to differ from my generation in the future. I didn't have internet access until maybe 8th grade? And it was really really slow. Today kids can look it up on their phones. And in the absence of fact based education to counter it, that's their only exposure, thus it's "real."

[cattledogkisses]

*

[mx27]

Mar 20, 2016 7:26:45 GMT -5 summer said:

Mar 20, 2016 7:23:21 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

The messages I got about sex tracked with what the story describes: these are the mechanics, keep your panties up and your legs shut, no babies out of wedlock that is shameful. It never occurred to me that sex was something I should enjoy until a boyfriend in my mid-20s said, "you don't enjoy this. what's the point of us doing this if you don't enjoy it?" And my response was, "but you like it" and from that moment on, he made it his mission to teach me how to enjoy sex. God bless him.

This was me, too. 

I can relate, too.

[fumbalina]

I had a thorough sex education class through school and a mother who had no boundaries.

The class had a box for questions and they were discussed throughly at the end of class. At the time I believed students submitted the questions, but as I have aged I suspect the teacher put them in the box. My mother would tell cashiers at the store's about her sex life including details on whether she orgasmed or not, and how it happened.

She also left the everything you ever want to know about sex book on the bathroom counter when I was 12. The book had a chapter on masturbation. I tried out the descriptions and was surprised in high school when I found out not everyone had masturbated.

My parents also talked a lot about their own premarital sex, so I never assumed that sex was only for married people.

Of course, my parents embarrassed me constantly by having these conversations in public and in front of my friends, but it probably gave me a healthier outlook on sex.

[isabel]

Mar 20, 2016 7:14:22 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 20, 2016 7:09:48 GMT -5 summer said:

My family never ever never talked about sex. Never. 

My sex ed experience was very much like what was decribed here. One basic anatomy lesson in 8th grade. And the next one was sophomore year of high school so waaay too late. Boys and girls were separated and it was mostly about anatomy. There was one day where we watched our gym teacher put a condom on a banana. Nothing about pleasure or anything like that.

I saw my first porn at a friend's house in 8th grade. I think I got most of my ideas about sex from late night cable movies like 9 1/2 Weeks.  

This is probably the 5th article on teen sexuality I've read this year and they mostly focus on how we need to re-educate our girls, but it seems like boys need a LOT of education on sex.

I almost wrote in my first reply that this is so important for parents of daughters, but I stopped because I realize it's also equally, if not more important for parents of sons. Clearly we as a society have a long way to go in teaching our sons to be respectful and generous sexual partners. 

I have some pretty significant ideas of what I want my son to know when he is old enough to be sexually active. He may not be able to carry a child, but he can damn well create one and that point will be abundantly clear to him when he is old enough to hear it. Respect and awareness is crucial for both genders, but I would almost put the onus on men to be hyper aware of how they act with regard to sex, consent, and the potential outcomes. That is not currently the case in our society, imo.

[NewOrleans]

I don't know that schools should be teaching about pleasure and orgasm.

This is not coming from a place of prudishness or morality. It's coming from 1) the lack of any kind of lesson plan on such subjective material; and 2) the lack of resources already existing in schools.

[barcelonagirl]

I don't know what the answer is. I think I learned more about sex from Jean Auel books.

I'm not advocating that we go back to "first rights ceremonies" with watcher women or manhood belts with older ladies eager to teach the young boys the ropes, but it would be nice if both girls and boya were taught properly at the onset instead of having to figure it at 16 lol

[marriedfilingjoint]

Mar 20, 2016 9:54:46 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

This definitely shows how we need to frame this discussion better with kids. Both girls and boys need proper discussion of their bodies, how they work, and how they'll use them for sex. I mean, it is bizarre the way we only focus on reproduction when most of our sex lives are for pleasure/bonding/etc.

Mainstream straight porn is most definitely problematic, and it is a real shame that the only real exposure boys and girls get to sex early on in through porn. I know I only ever had abstinence only sex Ed, and I'm thrilled that Obama is trying to get rid of funding for it. It has no place in modern society.

We were just having this conversation last week in church, of all places. We're doing a couples study on love and intimacy and the teacher asked us how many of our parents gave us "the talk," and if they didn't, where did we learn about sex? (Duh, 90210!). But the point was, if we aren't setting up the framework for healthy views of sex, we certainly can't expect TV or the Internet to do it for us. And then we ripped apart the instructional video for being misogynistic.

[rupertpenny]

Mar 20, 2016 13:08:52 GMT -5 barcelonagirl said:

I don't know what the answer is. I think I learned more about sex from Jean Auel books.

I'm not advocating that we go back to "first rights ceremonies" with watcher women or manhood belts with older ladies eager to teach the young boys the ropes, but it would be nice if both girls and boya were taught properly at the onset instead of having to figure it at 16 lol

I learned a lot from these books too. And this thread did make me think about the first rites ceremonies lol. 

[erbear]

Mar 20, 2016 12:21:06 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

I don't know that schools should be teaching about pleasure and orgasm.

This is not coming from a place of prudishness or morality. It's coming from 1) the lack of any kind of lesson plan on such subjective material; and 2) the lack of resources already existing in schools.

Disagree. I use a program called OWLs (Our Whole Lives, I think?) and that is a central tenant to the program. A lot of my class is adapted, but there is a program and there are lesson plans.

[NewOrleans]

Mar 20, 2016 21:33:56 GMT -5 erbear said:

Mar 20, 2016 12:21:06 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

I don't know that schools should be teaching about pleasure and orgasm.

This is not coming from a place of prudishness or morality. It's coming from 1) the lack of any kind of lesson plan on such subjective material; and 2) the lack of resources already existing in schools.

Disagree. I use a program called OWLs (Our Whole Lives, I think?) and that is a central tenant to the program. A lot of my class is adapted, but there is a program and there are lesson plans.

Do you teach in a private school? The Internet tells me OWL is published by the UCC, and I do not feel it is ethical that public, secular schools buy materials from a religious organization.  

[wise_rita]

Mar 20, 2016 6:31:40 GMT -5 summer said:

The rise of oral sex, as well as its demotion to an act less intimate than intercourse, was among the most significant transformations in American sexual behavior during the 20th century. In the 21st, the biggest change appears to be an increase in anal sex. In 1992, 16 percent of women aged 18 to 24 said they had tried anal sex. Today, according to the University of Indiana study, 20 percent of women 18 to 19 have, and by ages 20 to 24 it’s up to 40 percent.

Jesus Christ, kids.

[marriedfilingjoint]

Mar 21, 2016 6:06:55 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

Mar 20, 2016 6:31:40 GMT -5 summer said:

The rise of oral sex, as well as its demotion to an act less intimate than intercourse, was among the most significant transformations in American sexual behavior during the 20th century. In the 21st, the biggest change appears to be an increase in anal sex. In 1992, 16 percent of women aged 18 to 24 said they had tried anal sex. Today, according to the University of Indiana study, 20 percent of women 18 to 19 have, and by ages 20 to 24 it’s up to 40 percent.

Jesus Christ, kids.

Define "tried."  Asking for a friend.

[debatethis]

Mar 20, 2016 22:00:25 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Mar 20, 2016 21:33:56 GMT -5 erbear said:

Disagree. I use a program called OWLs (Our Whole Lives, I think?) and that is a central tenant to the program. A lot of my class is adapted, but there is a program and there are lesson plans.

Do you teach in a private school? The Internet tells me OWL is published by the UCC, and I do not feel it is ethical that public, secular schools buy materials from a religious organization.  

It's published by the Unitarian Church (UUA). It's probably one of the most comprehensive available and their religious pieces are optional/available as add-ons, not as an underlying tenet of the curriculum if that makes sense. I can understand not wanting to partner with any religious organization to draw a clear line in the sand on principle but the program is pretty awesome.