Talking With Both Daughters and Sons About Sex – article via NY Times

Talking With Both Daughters and Sons About Sex

You will notice that this study which is mentioned below describes how sexual stereotypes influence how parents teach their kids about sex: daughters (girls) are encouraged to be abstinent and to delay sex, but not boys.

I see this same exact (sexist) pattern among Christian families: Christians buy into secular stereotypes that girls should be as sexually pure as the freshly driven snow and Christians wrongly assume females lack a libido, but males are assumed to be sex-starved horn-dogs who lack control, and boys are not generally expected to remain celibate.

Ergo, females are taught in Christian sermons and other Christian content to sexually abstain. Christian boys don’t generally receive as much pressure or sermonizing on abstaining. There may be something “off” about Christian teachings about sex, since they are mirroring secular cultural assumptions about gender and sex in these matters.

On the other hand, regarding other (non sexual) topics, I can see how Christians might BENEFIT (or, ironically, be MORE in line with the Bible) if they went along with secular mores instead of with their incorrect biblical interpretation of some topics. But on this issue, they sound quite similar to secular culture, and are off they mark, I believe.

(Link): Talking With Both Daughters and Sons About Sex – via the New York Times

Excerpts:

By LISA DAMOUR

JAN. 11, 2017

Parents play a key role in shaping sexual decision-making among adolescents — especially for girls.

A 2016 (Link): review of more than three decades of research found that teenagers who communicated with their parents about sex used safer sexual practices. Likewise, (Link): new research from Dutch investigators who studied nearly 3,000 teenagers found that young adolescents who reported feeling close with a parent were unlikely to have had sex when surveyed again two years later.

Notably, both research teams found that daughters benefited more than sons, and that the effective conversations and relationships were typically had with mothers.

According to Laura Widman, lead author of the review study and an assistant professor of psychology at North Carolina State University, “parents tend to talk about sex more with daughters than with sons, and we can speculate that that’s what’s probably driving these findings.

Boys may not get the messages as frequently or have the kind of in-depth conversations that parents are having with girls.”

….That parents have more frequent conversations with their daughters about sex and sexual development may be prompted by biological realities.

Menstruation, HPV vaccination (which remains more common in girls than boys), and the fact that birth control pills require a prescription might spur discussions that aren’t being had with sons.

Yet experts also agree that gender stereotypes play a powerful role in sidelining both fathers and sons when it comes to conversations about emotional and physical intimacy.

Andrew Smiler, a psychologist who specializes in male sexual development, noted that women generally “have a better vocabulary for talking about feelings and relationships than boys and men do.

Fathers may be a little more stoic, more reserved and more hands-off.” And, he added, “they may play to the stereotype of trusting boys to be independent and able to care for themselves.”

These same stereotypes can also tend to steer the conversation in one direction with daughters and another direction with sons. When parents do address sexual topics with their teenagers, they typically adopt a heterosexual frame with boys playing offense and girls playing defense.

“We usually view our girls as potential victims who need to be protected from pregnancy and rape,” says Sheryl Ziegler, a psychologist who provides mother-daughter seminars on puberty and sexual development, while boys are often cast as testosterone-fueled prowlers looking for nothing but sex. These assumptions often drive how parents approach the conversation.

Dr. Mary Ott, an associate professor of pediatrics at Indiana University and the author of a research synopsison sexual development in adolescent boys observed that, “when parents talk with boys, there’s an assumption that they’ll have sex and they are advised to use condoms. Whereas for girls, there’s more of a focus on abstinence and delaying sex.”

(( click here to read the rest ))

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(Link): Slut Shaming and Virgin Shaming and Secular and Christian Culture – Dirty Water / Used Chewing Gum and the CDC’s Warnings – I guess the CDC is a bunch of slut shamers ?

(Link):  The Christian, Liberal, and Feminist Tendency to Intellectualize Away the Meaningfulness of Female Virginity; Also: Are Engagement Rings Sexist? Liberal Vs Conservatives Sound Off

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(Link): Slut-Shaming Is Bad—But The Overreaction Against It Also Hurts Women by J. Doverspike

(Link):  Abstinence Groups: New Sex-Ed Study Misses Point of Urging Teens to Wait

(Link):  Teenagers Given Condoms at School Likelier to Become Pregnant and Get STDs / STIs: 2016 Study

(Link): No Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity and Sexual Purity – Christians Attack and Criticize Virginity Sexual Purity Celibacy / Virginity Sexual Purity Not An Idol

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(Link):  An Open Letter to Male Virgins by Anna Broadway

(Link): Typical Erroneous Teaching About Adult Celibacy Rears Its Head Again: To Paraphrase Speaker at Ethics and Public Policy Center: Lifelong Celibacy is “heroic ethical standard that is not expected of heteros, so it should not be expected of homosexuals”

(Link): Marcotte (secular, leftwing feminist) on Anyone Choosing To Be a Virgin Until Marriage: “It’s a Silly Idea” – What Progressive Christians, Conservative Christians, Non Christians, and Salon’s Amanda Marcotte Gets Wrong About Christian Views on Virginity

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(Link): The Myth of Safe Sex by D. Foley

(Link):  Hypocrisy: Secular Pundits Judge Christian Sexuality: Josh Duggar’s So-Called Vanilla Sexual Preferences Deemed Dull