Where do teen boys go to find out about sex?

I was delighted to find out that the book my teen son is reading has a couple of sex scenes in it, even though I only found this out by chatting to one of my friends who is reading the same book.

I don’t have a problem with him reading about sex scenes at all I only wish there were more of them for him to read – and by “sex scenes” I don’t mean tomes of erotica or porn.

There’s not a lot of places for teen boys to learn about sex. There’s sex ed classes at school, there’s his parents (which is not very sexy at all) and there is a shitload of hideously worrying online porn.

Studies show that 92 per cent of boys and 61 per cent of girls aged 13 to 16 have been exposed to online porn. Statistically speaking that means my son has, or is about to be, exposed to porn. I don’t have a problem with the idea of him seeing porn per se. His dad looked at porn when he was young and I’m pretty sure that his grandfather did too. No issue with that – as long as the people that appeared in that porn did so of their own free will. But that’s not a debate I am getting into right now. It’s more about the quality of the porn he will be exposed to.

The porn he’ll see is as different to the porn that his dad stored under his mattress in the early 80’s as Mother Goose is to Lady Gaga. I am sure it was mind boggling to him at the time, but in retrospect what he was saw was naked women. Posed naked women. And maybe one or two images of very stylised intercourse. As he got older there was an old Betamax tape passed around but it was so jumpy, the tape so worn that I’m surprised he didn’t think that there was a lot more bouncing involved in the act.

Meanwhile I was precluded from the porn that my husband and his friends were furtively swapping behind the bicycle sheds and I was reading books by authors such as Judy Blume and Jackie Collins. I was being introduced to sex in a myriad of romantic ways – sex where the woman wasn’t posed or stylised but a willing participant.

On the other hand, herbal ones are the most convenient way to buy everything, ginseng is just valsonindia.com order cheap viagra a few clicks away. Erectile Dysfunction (ED) is generally referred to as viagra from canada pharmacy impotence. Criminals have also seen the pfizer viagra tablets valsonindia.com advantages of computing technology. Doctor Ron also elaborates the cipla tadalafil details of family therapy which includes improving communication and problem solving skills. Caitlin Moran, in her book How To Be a Woman, discusses how kids are relying on the net for their sexual education and how different it was for us book readers of the 1980’s:

“It’s not just about sex education – which is a series of useful facts and practicalities, and the basic business of what goes where, or what could go where if you’re determined enough – that kids are getting from the net. It’s also their sex hinterland. It informs the imagination as well as the mechanics.

This is why …. the pornography I scavenged in teenage years – there was at least, a balance to all the stuff I was finding – a variety. I had petticoats and spies and woodlands and nuns and threesomes on sun loungers, and vampires and sheds and gum and fauns and the back seat of Capris and, more often than not, even though I was reading something from the 19th century, the chicks got their kicks. The women came. The women’s desires were catered for. Indeed, these were the women’s desires.”

And that, I believe is a far better way to learn about sex.  I won’t be able to stop my son from discovering porn (nor do I want to) and I know he’ll look to the internet at some point but I’d love his imagination to flow, to be led by his brain and not just by his eyes. And certainly not just by his desire. I’d love him to learn about consensual and loving sex before he learns about porn.

The other morning I listened to Bronwyn McCahon, former editor of Dolly, talking about Dolly Doctor and how important it is for teenage girls to find out the answers to the sex questions they’ve always wanted answered. It’s a bloody great thing Dolly Doctor but not many boys without sisters are checking it out. There is no similar magazine for boys which is a pity but understandable because boys aren’t usually big consumers of magazines until they are older and start reading  the ones covered in plastic at the newsagent but again that goes back to the point I’m making:  Where do teen boys go to find out sex not just porn?

He can come to his parents and we can  explain about the mechanics of sex and how porn is different to sex but we can’t really talk to him about the romance of it and give him the rich background a novel would give. That would be awkward. And inappropriate.

And so where does he go?

He reads books about vampires and zombies or spies and espionage and I hope against hope that there are some love scenes and I celebrate when my friend says to me “I can’t believe you’re letting Little Pencil read a book with sex in it”.