Category: Sex

…For as long as you can. Because once you start having sex, you’re not gonna want to stop. And it’ll distract you from all the other things that you really wanna do.

That was my sex talk with Morgan.

I went on a little about how sex can be alotta things—including fun. But once it gets past that stage, sex can become a problem. All the emotions, the head games, the hots. How could a kid concentrate on geometry? But that’s not an issue with M. Yet.

Twenty years ago, when my oldest son turned 15, I gave him a box of condoms. I explained that I was 15 when his father and I started having intercourse. So I would be deluding myself to think that sex at that age wasn’t a possibility. Nor was I encouraging Dallas to run out and rip open his new present to use one (or two) that night. But when he was ready, I wanted to make sure he was really ready. No lame-ass excuses about not having a condom, but having sex anyway. STDs, pregnancies and broken hearts alter lives.

So when I heard a recent study announcing that when it comes to parents having “The Talk” with their kids, it’s a matter of “too little, too late,” I’ve gotta wonder what are these people’s fucking (excuse the pun) hang-ups? I mean, the adults speaking with these children are their parents, right? And people become parents (in most cases) by having intercourse. Or at least, somehow, somewhere, somebody’s sperm is fertilizing somebody’s egg.

So why would it be so awkward to share info about a process that resulted in creating the very person you’re talking to? Afraid you can’t sell abstinence? If you tell your kid not to do something, doesn’t that make it all the more mouthwatering? I prefer to admit to my kids that sometimes sex is all it’s cracked up to be. But I’ve warned them that it’s also a Pandora’s Box. And being human, sooner or later, we all peek inside.

This Summer, Morgan progressed from checking out skimpily clad Wrestling Divas to ogling naked Hotties online. I figured as much, having glimpsed the porno progression during my walk-bys. He caught my drift with my “Don’t use the Green Dot card for any of that.” But when I opened my laptop and the “Boobies That Make You Say Damn” website popped up, well, we just had to have The Talk.

No, Morgan already knows where babies come from. I mean the talk about pornography. Now, I gotta admit, I like big titties as much as the next guy, but was right. I thought those girls were grappling with the runners-up from the state fair’s largest watermelon contest. Too much of a good thing, even for me. So I figured before his search led him any deeper into dark places he doesn’t need to go (yet), I’d start him off with everybody’s “men’s entertainment” training wheels—Playboy.

And, yes, you should read it for the articles. That 1980 interview with John Lennon sure was a timely gift and a keeper. The writing is an introduction into the world of liberal views, sexual basics and bawdy humor. Unlike cigarettes, sexual titillation isn’t gonna kill you. No matter what your grandmother might have told you.

Excuse my flippancy, but I want my children to understand that sex, in all of its consensual forms, can be just plain fun. I also made it clear that everybody masturbates. Just close the door and don’t make alotta noise when you do it.

So Playboy magazine covers a lot of those bases without my 13-year-old son having to squirm through hearing the nuances from me. To cut back on any embarrassment on his part, I even let his Dad buy and give it to him. I concluded The Talk by conceding that no matter what a girl tells you, she DOES want to be viewed as a Sex Object.

So Santa brought him a year’s subscription.

Okay, Britney Spear’s 16-year-old sister is pregnant. So what? Join the club, honey. Alotta us baby-boomers were teenage Moms. So were our mothers. And certainly, at some point in our illustrious, holier-than-thou history, 16 was considered primo breeding age.

In fact, according to the NCHS/CDC report “Births to Teenagers in the United States, 1940-2000,” the birth rate for U.S. teenagers in 2000 was 48.7 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19 years, the lowest level ever reported. In 1957, the rate was 96.3 per 1,000, about double its current level.

Of course, in 2000, Baltimore led the nation with 22-percent of the city’s kids born to women under 20. No wonder cynics believed that our former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke’s slogan The City That Reads should have been The City That Breeds.

But my beef isn’t about why this girl got pregnant, what she (or her author-wannabe Mom) should do about it or, apparently the most pressing concern—if Nickelodeon should cancel her TV show. That whole choice thing is waaaaay too personal of an issue for me to discuss here. Hence the word “choice.”

What I find so infuriating is how quick therapists, counselors and other parenting “experts,” including some parents themselves, are to want to tell us what to tell our kids about this situation. Whatta they call that? A “Teachable Moment?” Or is it more accurately a “Marketable Moment? Thanks, Jamie Lynn. Maybe the writers can work the baby into next season’s Zoey 101 plotline.

Why would I need a script to help me talk with my kids about our feelings? You only need a script when you’re not gonna speak your own Truth. And this time seems like a real good time to be real. Gosh, no matter what you say to your children, you better be honest. They might not agree and you can’t make them. Ultimately, whatever it is, it’s gonna be your kid’s choice.

And you know that’s The Truth. Because you were a teenager once, too.