How can protection be harmful to minors?
Protecting children is one of our chief duties as adults, whether
we are parents, professionals, or friends. But we also have to
ask: What are we protecting them from? My book says that sexuality
is a fact of life, and a potentially wonderful part of growing
up for children at all stages of their lives. It's not sex itself
that is harmful to children, but the conditions under which they
might express themselves sexually that can leave them vulnerable
to harms like HIV, unwanted pregnancy, or sexual violence.
In our country, there are people pushing a conservative religious
agenda that would deny minors all sexual information and sexual
expression. They're the people behind abstinence-only education,
the child-pornography laws that get people arrested for taking
pictures of their babies in the bathtub, or laws that make abortion
risky and traumatic for young women. These so-called protections
are more harmful to minors than sex itself.
But most people don't have an agenda. They're just nervous thinking
about children as sexual beings and they're worried that
something bad might happen to a kid they love. I'm not saying
we should stop caring. But let's care realistically. Do we really
want to strip sexuality out of young people's lives?
Are you saying there are no real sexual dangers to children? What about pedophiles on the Internet? What about AIDS?
One of the main points of Harmful to Minors is to separate
the real risks from those that are exaggerated or even invented.
So let's look at these two examples.
Pedophiles on the Internet: In spite of sensationalist press coverage,
there is little evidence that the Net is crawling with child molesters.
Yes, kids do from time to time encounter unwanted sexual chat
online (though you never know if the sender is 15 or 55). The
question is, is this dangerous? A recent study published in the
New York Times showed that kids can deal with these messages.
Most just don't respond, and the vast majority say they don't
find them troubling or scary. It's like the flasher you might
have encountered in the park when you were a kid. Those guys were
usually pitiful. But when they were scary, you got out of there
fast. In other words, you figured out the risk and dealt with
it. Chances are, you didn't get put in therapy, or on the witness
stand -- if you even told anyone about it.
Should men flash little girls in the park or send dirty messages
to kids' chat rooms? No, of course they shouldn't. Should people
be punished for molesting children? Absolutely. Anyone who forces
sex on any person of any age should be punished. But we have moved
beyond appropriate responses to serious offenses to hyperbolic
responses to offenses with unproven harms, such as the assumed
harm to a child of involuntarily glimpsing a penis, or reading
sexy language online.
How do we know what's harmful to kids? I think a good start would
be to ask them what their experiences feel like, instead of always
assuming we know. There's almost no research that asks kids what
they do, what they feel, or what they think. We must help kids
when they're hurt sexually. But it does a child no good to be
told she's been terribly victimized when she may have undergone
a merely unpleasant experience.
What about AIDS?
AIDS is a grave danger to youth. New HIV infections
are rising among teens, and AIDS is the leading cause of death
in people from 25 to 44. These infections and deaths are highest
among poor people of color, especially women and gay men. Almost
a third of gay black men in their 20s are HIV-positive.
But sex does not cause AIDS. Certain behaviors, such as unprotected
vaginal or anal intercourse with an infected person, do. I heard
Deb Roffman, the sex educator, say that the expression "sexually
transmitted disease" is like calling TB a "breathing-transmitted
disease." We don't blame breathing for "causing"
tuberculosis.
Our current policies aren't helping young people protect themselves
from AIDS. Just the opposite. For instance, the federal government
is now funding -- to the tune of nearly a billion dollars -- abstinence-only
education in public schools, which specifically denies students
all information about contraception or condoms, except to say
they can break. Teachers in abstinence-only classes must tell
students that the only safe, acceptable form of sexual expression
is between married heterosexuals. Where does this leave sexually
active teens, especially gay or lesbian teens? Certainly not safer.
Your book says that kids need more sexual information, not
less. Won't that encourage them to have sex?
All the research shows that sexuality education does not encourage
kids to have sex earlier. Nor does knowing about sexual feelings
or behavior. In fact, kids who learn about contraception use it
when they do start having intercourse, whereas kids who get the
classes without that information also have intercourse -- but
they don't protect themselves when they do. And kids who understand
more about themselves sexually are better at making the right
decisions for themselves.
The fact is, most kids will say yes to sexuality at some point
during their childhood or teenage years. Our choice as adults
is whether or not we will help make those experiences safe, consensual,
and happy.
I'm a parent. How should I teach my kids about sex?
It is common to hear from professionals that parents are the
primary sex educators. In a general way this is true: children
learn a lot about sexual relations at home, even if their parents
never talk about sex. They see if their parents are respectful
and affectionate to each other, whether they're relaxed or uptight
about sexy language, jokes, or TV shows. Children are touched
lovingly (or not) by their parents. And kids may be the victims
or witnesses of sexual violence at home. That's education, to
be sure.
Concrete information about sexuality is a different story. Most
parents say they'd like to be their kids' main source of such
knowledge, but only a few manage to provide it. In poll after
poll, moms and dads admit to being tongue-tied when it comes to
actually talking the talk. As for kids, they tell pollsters they
wish their parents would talk with them more about sex. But when
their parents do it, the kids admit to turning off because they
feel their parents are prying or preaching, or just don't get
it.
Maybe we should stop blaming ourselves for doing it wrong and
accept that moms and dads aren't necessarily the optimal sex educators
of their own children. I think this has to do with the incest
taboo. You don't tell your kids about your sex life -- that would
be kind of icky. And once they've got anything like a sex life,
your kids probably don't want to tell you about it either. This
built-in reticence is the reason school-based sex ed was invented
in the first place! Parents shouldn't give up on trying to talk
plainly about sex. But they can also support their children's
sex education by standing up for comprehensive programs at school,
uncensored public libraries and computers, and by encouraging
them to form close relationships with trustworthy adults other
than their mothers and fathers.
Speaking of parenting, you have no children. What got you interested in this subject -- and what right do you have to talk about it?
I've been reading and writing and doing political activism
around sexuality for 25 years. I saw how bigoted attitudes about
women's sexuality had hurt women and girls --for centuries. Remember,
women were once considered "innocent," which meant we
were supposed to not want or enjoy sex. Finally, women stood up
and said, "We're sexual! And thank you very much, we'll look
after ourselves." Children were the last "innocents"
to protect.
As I said, we do have to protect children from real dangers. But
that doesn't mean protecting some fantasy of their sexual "innocence."
I have a niece and nephew and many friends who are children and
teens. I've taught freshmen in college. Maybe because I'm not
a parent, kids sometimes feel more comfortable talking to me.
Besides, as a famous (and childless) children's-book editor once
said, "I was a child myself. And I haven't forgotten a thing."
Parents are doing the toughest job in the world. It's understandable
that they are scared, and that they feel that no amount of protection
is too much. These feelings must be respected -- they're at the
heart of some of our best instincts about children. But we also
should respect children and teens, which means giving them some
privacy and some room. If we let them, I think kids can be emotionally
smarter and more responsible than we usually give them credit
for.
You say we should give kids a chance to be responsible. What about being moral?
That's a crucial question. Humans are not like other animals.
We don't just have bodies, we have minds and feelings and cultures
and laws. For us, sex always has a moral component.
That said, I think the teaching of "sexual morality"
is a redundancy. We may want kids to protect themselves yet accommodate
others, feel pride in their individuality yet tolerate difference,
we may hope they can balance spontaneity and caution, freedom
and responsibility. These skills require learning respect, cooperation,
and caring -- moral values that apply to all realms of their private
and public lives, not just sexuality. Sexual morality doesn't
boil down to "Just Say No" or "Just Do It."
It means learning how to make decisions in complex and sometimes
ambiguous situations -- like life.
But let's be honest about the moral value of pleasure, too. Sure,
Americans can be prim about pleasure. But the Puritans weren't
our only ancestors. Happiness is such an all-American value, it's
in the Declaration of Independence: Life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. And though I don't believe Thomas Jefferson mentioned
this, part of happiness is sexual happiness.
Are you saying to kids, "Just Say Yes?"
Simply standing up and cheering for pleasure isn't enough.
For adults to be moral about children means creating the conditions,
in families and as a nation, that allow every child to thrive.
The same conditions that prevent thriving in other ways also contribute
to a failure to thrive sexually.
For instance, poverty. Eighty percent of teen moms come from poor
families. Poverty is even a major correlate of sexual abuse. Not
that middle-class kids never get abused, or that poor people are
sexually craven. But poor families suffer more stress, they're
less educated, and have less stable living situations. All that
leaves children vulnerable, sexually and otherwise.
Sexism is another social condition that affects what sex is like
for girls and boys. Deborah Tolman at Wellesley has found that
girls who are most concerned about acting feminine are least likely
to use contraception or withstand unwanted sexual pressure, while
those who own their sexual desires and who don't care about being
"girly" seize more control over their sexual lives.
Boys, meanwhile, are taught that masculinity means always being
ready for sex and never getting too emotionally involved. That
might give boys more chance to express their sexuality, but it
also deprives them of experiencing it more deeply. Sexual equality
would let girls and boys say no -- or yes -- when they really
want to and are ready to, and discover what sexuality means to
them.
Introduction from Harmful to Minors
Excerpt on censorship from Harmful to Minors