Sex and Sensibility

In this transcript of an ABC News chat last week with Sex Educator Deborah Roffman we listen in on people's concerns about sexual behavior amongst youth

Deborah Roffman
A recent issue of Newsweek highlighted a government report that says the percentage of high school kids having sex dropped this past decade to 46 percent. Still, that's about half the kids, and more are having oral sex. Some teenagers tell 20/20's John Stossel the news is not surprising, considering that they are exposed to more sexual images in advertising and the media than ever before.
Deborah Roffman, a nationally recognized sex educator and author of the book Sex and Sensibility, tells parents they must make it their business to find out what their kids are doing and talk to them about their sex lives.
"Sexual intercourse is the most fundamentally powerful behavior there is on earth," she told Stossel. "It has the ability to give life, to potentially take life away, and to change it forever. It's not for kids."
At what point should parents have a frank discussion with their kids about sex and reproduction? How can parents help steer their children toward healthy sexual development?
 

Moderator
Our guest today is Deborah Roffman, a leading parent educator. Thanks for joining us.

Deborah Roffman
Thanks — I'm looking forward to seeing your questions.

Brenda Baker asks:
When is the right age to talk to our child? How much do you tell? Or is it a gradual conversation?

Deborah Roffman
Under the best of circumstances, it's a gradual conversation that can begin as young as the age of 4, when children typically begin to ask questions about their origins. If the child has the sense that the questions are welcome by the parent, he or she will continue to ask questions throughout the years.

The question of how much to say is probably one of most commonly asked questions by parents. It's one that we should think carefully about. There is a lot of anxiety in our culture about giving too much information too soon; it's really misplaced anxiety. It implies that sexual knowledge has an enormous amount of power that we have to be very careful about.

When information is given to a child by a sensitive and caring adult, it is simply just that — information. We really don't have to fear giving too much. If the child has a question, then it is always appropriate to respond. If a child continues to ask a question, there's no reason to stop at any point.

Just as with all other questions, once their curiosity is satisfied, they'll be ready to move on to another topic. In other words, it's just like teaching them any other kind of information.

Michelle asks:
At what age do you believe it is appropriate for teens to initiate ANY kind of sexual activity? What do you tell a teen who "feels they are ready for sex?" What if they are only 13 but believe they are ready?

Deborah Roffman
First of all, we have to define what we mean by "sex." When most people use the word sex, they mean or imply sexual intercourse. In regard to sexual intercourse, what I say to kids of all ages is that this behavior is the most fundamentally powerful behavior on the face of the earth because it has the ability to do the three most powerful things there are — to give life, potentially to take life away and to change life forever. Therefore, it is best explained as grown-up behavior and individuals need to have reached an adult level of responsibility before even considering it.

Most parents understand and accept, however, that some kinds of sexual behavior are age-appropriate for some teens under some sets of circumstances. So they may consider that it is acceptable for a middle-school age child to kiss another person in a sexual way, for example. What's important is for the parent to explain that any kind of sexual activity should occur only when certain values are in place, such as caring, honesty, privacy, responsibility, respect, etc.

So parents must decide what levels of intimacy, if any, they think their particular child is able to handle emotionally and socially. Share that with the child. And also, reinforce the interpersonal values that the parent feels are important under all sexual circumstances. So, for example, it's not OK to kiss and tell. It's not OK to use another person. It's never OK to treat another person like an object. It's never OK to do something or make another person do something they really don't want to do.

If we teach our children this way of thinking about sexual activity in their very earliest experiences, they will know how to apply it as they grow older and their sexual relationships become more involved. It's also important to teach both boys and girls the same messages about readiness and about values.

Without knowing a particular child or family's values, it's tough to give hard and fast rules. But even more important is to teach your child how to think about sexual decision-making and what values you expect them to apply, no matter what the particular behaviors might be.

Darylen asks:
How would you suggest that we combat the Bush administration's push for "abstinence only until marriage" education and the billions of dollars he has poured into it?

Deborah Roffman
I think perhaps millions is more accurate than billions at this stage. People talk about sex education as if it's highly controversial in our society. The truth is that far more than 80 percent of adults, both parents and teachers, are in favor of a much more comprehensive approach in our schools. That level of consensus would be hard to reach on most issues in our country. It is more the perception of controversy than the fact that there is widespread disagreement.

Having said that, we have to wonder why political pressure at the federal level, and in many cases at the state level, is pushing us in the other direction. One of the most important reasons is that American parents tend to be undereducated about what information their children are really receiving — or not receiving — in their schools.

If parents are unhappy about what they find out, they must lobby and speak up as loudly as those who favor a very narrow approach. Nothing will change until that begins to happen.

Lee asks:
Why are so many educators out there like yourself sending a double message to teens? You tell them to wait, because sex is an adult behavior, but then attach a condition, if you can't wait, then be "safe." Why not believe that today's teens CAN wait, and encourage them to the healthiest standard — ABSTINENCE until marriage.

Deborah Roffman
I absolutely agree that young people are able to engage in self-discipline — and I don't think we give them nearly enough credit for their ability to do that. For many families in the United States, abstinence until marriage is a dearly held value, and I work carefully with parents in those families to frame that message for their children in the most effective way.

There are many, many other American parents who would not necessarily agree that abstinence until marriage is the only healthy approach for their children. And I respect their family values as well.

For those parents, the most important issue is not chastity until marriage. They view sexual intercourse, for example, in developmentally based terms. In other words, they want their children to wait until they are developmentally ready to deal with an adult-level of responsibility.

For them, talking about contraception, for example, is not a mixed message. Their message is: "I love you, I want you to be safe and healthy and a good person and to treat others in a caring, respectful and responsible way. This behavior will not be appropriate for you until you can meet all those requirements."

My job as a parent educator is to help all families clarify their own values and expectations, and communicate with their children as effectively as possible.

Susan Roumelis asks:
There have been countless studies on the effect of violence in the media on children and teens. However, most of the studies on sex in the media have been confined to content analysis. Do you think the amount of sex in the media (television, music, music videos) has an effect on teenage sexual behavior — especially young girls? (For example, Britney Spears' song/music video "I'm a Slave for You" and Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty"?)

Deborah Roffman
What an important question. I absolutely believe that media has a hugely powerful effect on young people and that the issue is perpetually worsening. The number of sexual references on television alone tripled during the 1990s.

I believe that at some point the level of saturation in our culture reached a critical mass that changed our society in fundamental ways. In other words, children in the latter 1990s were growing up in a fundamentally different culture than children in the early 1990s. So the issue is not merely quantitative but qualitative as well.

I became extremely alarmed in 1999 when I heard reports from high school juniors and seniors in my classes that they simply did not recognize the social life of their middle-school age siblings. Things had changed so quickly in our culture that a mini generation gap had been created.

What is also different about today is that younger and younger adolescents and even children are being targeted with these messages directly by advertisers and merchandisers. The lines between childhood, early, middle and late adolescence and even adulthood are becoming increasingly blurred.

This is incredibly unhealthy for our young people. It is something that many adults are blind to, because things change so quickly that we don't even notice it. We must start paying more attention to this phenomenon.

Alicia asks:
I was a middle school student who was involved sexually as were my friends. This was back in 1997/98. It harmed my judgment later on in high school. I ended up getting into the party scene and ended up getting pregnant due to a date rape. My sister is headed down the same road I hear her talking with her friends (she's 12 now) and it sounds all too familiar to me. She's talking a lot about sex. I don't know if I should say something to her and if I do, what?

Deborah Roffman
Thanks so much for sharing about yourself and your family in such a personal way. As a sibling rather than someone perceived as more of an authority figure, you are in a very good position to influence your sister in a positive way. By sharing your own experiences from your heart, you will give her support and permission to take better care of herself.

Unfortunately, she is having to navigate social waters that neither she nor you have the power to change. Even if she understands your messages fully, being popular and wanting to fit in is a normal developmental need at her age.

Unless all caring adults in children's lives — including teachers, parents, clergy, youth workers and powerful institutions such as the media — begin to understand and take action against an extremely insidious and dangerous popular culture, very little will change except for individual kids who are lucky enough to have someone like you in their lives.

Christine asks:
Hi Deborah, I'm the mother of a 12-year-old girl. I was abused sexually, emotionally and psychologically by boys in my teen years and date-raped at 16. Would it be wise to share this painful past with my daughter to help her understand the dangers and long-term effects of age-inappropriate sexual activity?

Deborah Roffman
Again, thank you so much for sharing in such a personal way. I would think carefully about the level of personal sharing you do with your daughter. Certainly you want to help her understand the pitfalls that may lie ahead for her. But if you share too intensively about yourself, particularly about the date rape situation, it may overly frighten her and also cause her to worry about taking care of you because you have this terrible incident in your past.

You, like most parents I know, want to help their children think about sexuality in the most positive of terms. So in the process of pointing out the negatives, you want to make sure you communicate those positives in an equally clear way.

Having said that, the largest issue, I think, in the story you tell is not so much about sex but about gender. A large part of what me must address with young people, and with the larger society, are the very unhealthy messages we give to both boys and girls about gender and sex.

We are still encouraging boys to think in terms of sexual conquest. There is still very much a sexual double standard in place. Girls as a result often feel as if they're in an endless no-win situation — in which in order to succeed socially, they must make sexual decisions based on somebody else's terms, not their own.

Until we address these problems, there will be a continued power imbalance in the vast majority of teenage relationships.

We must also worry equally about how our young men are being shaped and what they are losing in this process. If they are learning to look at girls and women as sexual objects, that makes them objects as well in ways that are demeaning to both genders.

Matthew asks:
We see so many stories about how girls are [or aren't] being taught to respect themselves and defend against inappropriate sexual activity; there seems an absurd lack of attention paid to teaching BOYS how to be respectful. What can we do on a large scale about changing the message boys hear with respect to what's cool vs. what behaviors are not acceptable?

Deborah Roffman
The first thing we have to do is give up two phrases: "Boys will be boys" and "Boys and their raging hormones." In both instances, the message to boys is the same: We cannot count on you to engage in thoughtful, sensitive and responsible behavior. And how demeaning is that!

As a result, our expectations are so insultingly low that many boys grow up not expecting very much of themselves. Look how we rob boys of their self-respect. If we expect them to treat other girls and other boys with respect, we will have to begin to treat them with much more respect.

Joette Dunnington asks:
I watched the show. You missed something. Boys are not always the aggressor. You portrayed the girls as being innocent. I will tell you that it is the girls in middle school that almost always initiate sexual activity. We have two boys and have talked to them extensively about sex, the moral issue, and have gone into the specifics about the consequences, including STDs and responsibility of creating a new life before they are ready for marriage. My son was called "gay" by a very popular girl because he wouldn't have sex with her. The middle school girls are very aggressive. You missed an opportunity to get this message to parents.

Deborah Roffman
Thank you — and I share your concern. We actually did spend a good bit of time in my interview, for example, talking about these very issues. We have to be careful about the tendency to stereotype girls as victims and boys as predators and to think that girls are the only ones who need our help. As I said above, these stereotypes do not serve anyone — boys or girls.

I do want to say that part of what's wrong in our culture is that we have a very limited and in my opinion wrongheaded view of what it means to be "sexually liberated." Too many girls, for example, have come to conclude that being powerful means emulating some of the most unhealthy aspects of the stereotypical male gender role.

We need to help them understand that aggression, no matter who it comes from, and disregard for others and their feelings in no way makes one liberated. It is only indicative of poor character.

Liberation also does not mean doing whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it — a definition I often hear from young people. We have to get across that the flip side of freedom is always responsibility.


Moderator
Eric writes: "I didn't see anything about gay youth on the show (maybe I missed it). Actually, I never see anything about it anywhere. In school they never talk about it in sex ed. I certainly don't feel I have a place to go to find info. I always see issues about teen sex and how you shouldn't do it because you or your girlfriend might get pregnant ... and hear the pressures girls and guys have. It's like people think we don't exist."

Why isn't there enough information out there for gay teens?

Deborah Roffman
Thank you so much for pointing out the bias in our culture about these issues. Sexual messages are almost always given in a "heterosexist" context in that the assumption is almost always that all teenagers (or adults) are either heterosexual or should be.

Many many people are struggling with the same developmental issues of trying to grapple with sexuality in healthy ways with even less support than the average teenager because they are gay. This is a tragedy in our society and it also demonstrates how unsophisticated we are in the ways we think and talk about these issues.

Please know that many of us working in my field of sexuality education are working very hard to make sure that all young people, regardless of sexual orientation, feel visible, acknowledged and supported.

Moderator
Deborah, thanks for joining us today. Can you suggest some good resources for parents and teens on these issues?

Deborah Roffman
Of course I would be very pleased for people to read my own book, Sex and Sensibility. The book offers many practical pieces of advice for dealing with sexual issues and sexual development among all-aged children and adolescents.

I also try to help parents develop a new way of looking at kids across the developmental spectrum that will help them in virtually any situation to deal more competently and confidently with sexual questions and issues as they arise. Mostly I want parents to really look forward to — and not dread — this aspect of parenting.

I have also recently published a new book for parents of children 6 and under: But How'd I Get In There in the First Place?: Talking to Your Young Child About Sex.

For children themselves, I always recommend the wonderful books written by Robie Harris, including It's Perfectly Normal for puberty-age children and Isn't That Amazing! for younger children.

I also strongly urge parents to read books on the subject of gender because that's such a central part of sexuality. My favorites are Raising Cain by Michael Thompson, Real Boys by William Pollack and Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters by JoAnn Deak. And of course there's Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, which is a classic in the field of girls' development.

Moderator
Many thanks to all those in our audience who submitted questions. And a special thank-you to Deborah Roffman for her thoughtful replies.