[2011-Jun-14] Conversation stopper?

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ReggarBlane
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[2011-Jun-14] Conversation stopper?

Post by ReggarBlane »

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2276

So... When is a kid old enough for "The Talk" (the one explaining about sex) and just how much information should one disclose at which times? What about when a kid asks about it?

I would guess that the kids already know some of the basics in most cases.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by smiley_cow »

My mom explained sex to me when I was six. I don't think it damaged me in any way.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Apocalyptus »

Well my parents just told me when I asked where babies came from at about age 3, and when I started asking more detailed questions gave me one of those 'when a married couple loves each other very much' books that pretty much explained all the mechanics. I know they must have been uncomfortable when I started asking about it, but they never gave me any indication it was something taboo to discuss even though they were both church-attending Baptists at the time.

I think it's not really something kids suddenly get 'old enough' to know about. It's a part of life, and certainly not one that can be explained by just one talk. Maybe just make sure children know about it from a young age and the fact that it's a normal thing that most people end up doing, and then continue to discuss dangers/responsibilities etc with them as they continue to grow older.

I definitely think that sex education should continue all through school, because the most I got was two classes saying 'here is where everything is, and here are the types of contraception'. Making the assumption that that's the only information young people want or need is asking for major trouble, in my opinion.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Sahan »

I never got the talk, I stumbled upon the mechanics of it all from a biology textbook I found when I was 12, and fit the rest of the jigsaw puzzle in my head. Also found a guidebook for parents with teenagers a couple of years later that answered a few more of my questions. My parents just assumed I'd find out sooner or later, so they never bothered to discuss it with me.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by DonRetrasado »

Sahan wrote:My parents just assumed I'd find out sooner or later, so they never bothered to discuss it with me.
Same here. Although most of what I learned came from the internet. I also definitely never got any legitimate kind of sex ed in school.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Oldrac the Chitinous »

Also ditto. But I think in my case it was less a failure on the school's part and more a case of willful ignorance.
I do remember wondering at some point in high school whether nudists had to worry about getting pregnant from bumping into each other on the street.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by DonRetrasado »

I still wonder how much of a faux pas it is to have an erection in a nudist colony.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Kimra »

Surely they see it as something natural that can't actually be avoided at times. The rest of us conformists can frown at you, but I think the nudists have no right to complain.

Also, no sex talk from the parents, hell they told me nothing. But we did have a great set of books about where babies come from, physical changes when growing up etc with diagrams and everything in my house my whole life (they were aimed at kids). That book scared me for a good ten years, because I read it when I was about three and it had a picture of a devil coming out of the toilet (I have no idea how that was relevant to anything) and I got it in my head that there were evil monsters in the toilet. I used to have nightmares.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by GUTCHUCKER »

Full sex ed thingy at school. Complete with silly cartoons and lots of skipping around how the deed is actually done.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Felstaff »

DonRetrasado wrote:I still wonder how much of a faux pas it is to have an erection in a nudist colony.
This will never happen.

I've seen televisual programmes about nudist colonies, and the nudists who fre-quent them.

This will never happen.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Childish »

DonRetrasado wrote:I still wonder how much of a faux pas it is to have an erection in a nudist colony.
Have you ever seen any nudists or been to a nudist colony? Erections would be the least of my worries!

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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Gangler »

Personally my parents just told me when it was relevant. Around fifth grade or so, body's are starting to develop, people are getting interested in the opposite sex, that whole shtick. Told me the basics of puberty and sex, gave me a pile of literature to work through and then opened it up for a Q&A period. I don't know where my brother got the knowledge. He might have gotten a talk. He might have pieced it together from conversation. Maybe I told him. I certainly don't think I was secretive about it after I learned, and he was definitely at a curious age.

My sister I honestly can't remember a time when she didn't know about sex. In fact there were multiple occasions during my teenage years when this girl in a single digit age bracket would unnerve me by knowing more than me on the subject. I genuinely don't see knowledge of sexual matters as harmful, and I don't think my parents ever have either. It's really more a matter of when you're comfortable talking to the kid about it tempered by when you think it'll be harmful to the kid not to know.

Sodomy? I don't think we need to go into kinky stuff in the talk. If we took time to go into every fetish and deviation from standard missionary intercourse we'd be here all day, and frankly I think it would be more than a child could effectively retain in a single session anyway. Best to just keep it medical. There's no harm in the kid knowing about these things though. If the child asks what bondage is for example there's no reason to withhold information. It just doesn't need to be in the talk is all. I suppose with sodomy specifically though it could come up naturally if you want to include sexual orientation in the sex talk. At that point it's a purely mechanical concern and could actually prove quite necessary.

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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Kaharz »

When my brother and I were about ten and eleven we were on a long drive to visit my grandfather with my dad. About half an hour in he attempted to the start the talk. After about fifteen minutes of stammering, stalling, umming and aaahing, we figured out where he was headed. His extreme discomfort clearly recognizable, I piped up that they teach us all about it in school now and he just said, "Thank god" and we spent the remaining two hours of the drive in silence.

I would think it would be best to at least lay down the basics pretty early. Some of the ridiculous stuff I heard when I was a kid could have led to at least great embarrassment if I hadn't been educated otherwise at early age. This was all pre-internet. I don't know if the internet would have made it better or worse, I'm guessing worse in most circumstances. The sex-ed in my schools was not fantastic, but they started with basic human biological reproduction stuff in 5th grade (9 to 10 years old). They didn't really get into the more serious stuff like STDs and family planning until we were 14 or 15 though.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Edminster »

Gangler wrote:Sodomy? I don't think we need to go into kinky stuff in the talk.
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Re: [2011 June 14] Conversation stopper?

Post by Lethal Interjection »

I don't remember when I had sex-Ed in school. I just remember that I happened to be sick for one of the two days. Mostly I was self taught.

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