So you think that, because you are the mom, you can’t influence the decisions your teenage son makes about sex? Think again. Your beliefs about sex and what you teach your son regarding those beliefs are more powerful than you can imagine. All mothers need to be aware of the fact that when a son is formulating his decisions about sex and shaping his ideas about his sexuality and the way he sees himself, he will always factor in what you think and what you’ve told him. In fact, the formation of his sexuality and how he feels about it is largely dependent upon cues that he receives from you regarding his value and his manhood.
The development of a boy’s sexuality is a complicated and sophisticated process. We moms would like to see it as pretty straightforward, but, just like healthy psychological development, the maturing of a man’s sexuality is influenced by genetics, the attitudes of loved ones, social pressures, life experiences (including negative ones, such as abuse), and many other factors. As a matter of fact, Dr. Armand Nicholi, a learned and wise professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and author of The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, told me that he believes the complete formation of one’s sexuality doesn’t occur until the end of the teen years. That’s because it is a beautifully complex process, which involves numerous dimensions of a man’s character. Based on my experience with teenage boys over the past twenty-five years, I would certainly agree with Dr. Nicholi.
The sexual identity of a man is defined by how he sees himself as a sexual being. It is a bit different from his broader identity as a man, which defines who he is as a person. For instance, men see themselves as sexual beings interested in sexual activity that connects them on emotional, physical, and intellectual levels to their partners. Their larger identity as men includes their sexuality and encompasses every aspect of who they are. For instance, a man may identify himself as his father’s son, an engineer, a loving father, and a devoted husband. Within those contexts, he is a man deeply connected to his wife through his sexuality. Let’s say that this man had a medical disorder that prevented him from having sexual activity and even lowered his desire to have sex. Would his identity as a man be diminished because he felt that his sexuality was compromised? No. His larger identity as father, husband, engineer, etc. would continue to give him value as a man. Consider priests. They have a strong identity as men who are sons of God, loving, caring to their parishioners, and deeply devoted to the God and the people He calls them to serve. Within their identities as these men, they each have their own sexualities but they choose not to act on their sexual desires. We can see that the sexuality of a man is part of his core identity as a man, but it is not the whole of it.
Teen boys have an emerging sense of who they are as men even while their sexualities are still developing. The truth is, most teens grapple with who they are as sexual beings on a daily basis and this is how it should be. Boys don’t simply wake up one day and know who they are sexually. Sexuality, just like a boy’s identity, takes time to develop and emerge. Most important, a boy’s sexuality is linked to his ability to trust, to love others, to like himself, to express himself, and to regard himself as valuable. It is enmeshed with every aspect of his character: If he is patient, he will be patient sexually. If he is kind, he is likely to express kindness during his sexual activity; on the flip side, if he suffers from rage, the chances are likely that his rage will come out during sexual activity. A man’s sexual confidence will inform his overall personality, as well. For example, feeling sexually confident will make him feel more courageous in other things. In fact, it is difficult to disconnect other aspects of a man’s character from his sexuality. So, when it comes to raising healthy sons, we mothers need to understand that helping them mature into men who feel strong and good about themselves as sexual beings is paramount. The daunting question for us is, how in the world can we do this?
First, we must accept that regardless of whether or not we like it, our role as mom means that we will influence our son’s sexuality. It will happen whether we try to make it happen or not. And since this is the case, we should learn to exert our influence in a healthy, positive manner. The good news is that it’s simpler than one might think. The first thing to know is that we will actually have an easier time of it than will dad, because our son will never compare his masculinity with ours. Because we are women, our sons will not see us as a “competitor,” and therefore will be more accepting of our point of view. Our job is simply to love, direct, challenge, and buoy his masculinity at every turn. And these are things we can do.
The process starts from the time our son is born. Once he enters our world, he will immediately know whether we love and accept him or if we reject him. When we pick him up and he smells the scent of our skin, he learns that smell means Mom and the smell of Mom soothes him. The smell means that he is safe because when he cries, it comes back to him again and again. When he is a toddler, he runs away and waits to see if we watch where he goes and if we’ll come to get him. He turns a corner and wants to hear us call his name. If we do, he feels loved and (depending upon his mood or temperament) will either run farther away to test us more, or come back toward us to be comforted. All he needs to know is that we were paying attention. When we pay attention, he learns that he’s a person who deserves to be cared about.
As our son matures into his early elementary school years, there will be changes in his everyday world. For example, he will learn that he can no longer go into the ladies’ room with us. For many mothers, this can be a terrifying moment. When my son was in second grade, he and I were traveling to Boston and we had a layover in the Detroit airport. I begged him to use the bathroom on the airplane before we landed but he said he didn’t need to. But sure enough, the moment we set foot in the airport, he needed to go. He appropriately refused to go into the ladies’ room with me (even though I offered to pay him five dollars) and insisted on going into the men’s room. I wrung my hands. I told him exactly what to say if a stranger began talking to him inappropriately. For the first time in his life, he strutted into the men’s room all alone, the heels of his light-up sneakers winking at me as he walked away. I stood as close to the entrance as was socially acceptable and made sure to yell loudly. “How’s it going?” Ten seconds. “Need any help?” Ten seconds. “Uh—I didn’t mean that—um—just waiting here. Take your time.”
The poor kid. It’s a miracle he even was able to pee. When he emerged from the men’s room, I made a face and asked if he had washed his hands. He shook his head. Ugh, now I had a problem on my hands. Should I send him back in and go through the torment of waiting all over again, or just live with filthy hands? I quickly found a sanitary wipe and made do with that.
As he matured, I asked my son if he remembered those early times when I fretted over sending him to the men’s room alone, and he told me that he most certainly did. Every detail. He told me that I had indeed embarrassed him but that he also remembered me explaining my fears to him. And now he could understand my perspective. Had I irreparably harmed his sense of independence and masculinity? No. At least, that’s what he tells me now. We can even laugh about it.
A son’s masculinity isn’t shaped by our sitting down with him and presenting our clearly articulated beliefs in a few sessions; it is shaped along the way by everyday experiences. When they see how we react in different circumstances—like how and when we let them use public men’s restrooms—it gives them messages about their sexuality. At eight years old, my son had a very clear sense that he was male and didn’t belong with the girls anymore. He used urinals; girls used toilets. He needed to separate from me and see that I trusted his ability to be independent. As he matured, he was learning that being different from me was a good thing. It made him feel strong. It made him male. I didn’t handle his first (or subsequent few) visits to the men’s room alone well, because I let my fears over what might happen overwhelm my trust in my son. But over time, I learned to be comfortable letting him go. After all, he was fine; I was the one with the problem. And by gradually accepting this fact, eventually I learned to be fine with it, too.
Our sons pass through many different stages as they grow up, both emotionally and physically, and we must teach ourselves to let them take their own steps into their manhood. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a mother who is completely comfortable doing this, but at a certain point, we must put aside our fears and let them do what is best for them. If we don’t, we communicate to our sons that being male is frightening and may even be dangerous. And if we send this message, the health of our son’s sexuality will be threatened. So, as they make their way into the adult male world, the best thing we can do is stand in the wings, and react to their performance in the healthiest way that we can by being supportive, loving, and trusting in their capabilities.
I will be the first to admit that I was more nervous about my daughters being harmed in high school than I was my son. I worried that a guy would slip something into their drink and assault them sexually, or just be too aggressive or demanding. My daughters, while very capable and assertive, seemed more vulnerable to me than my son. When it came time for him to maneuver his way through high school, his six-foot-one frame made me feel secure in his ability to take care of himself. So I relaxed. But I wasn’t paying close enough attention to all the unhealthy messages that he would be bombarded with every day—and many of the messages involved his sexuality.
Take, for example, video games that combine hypersexual imagery with violence. Teenage boys love to play these types of games. The sexual content is bad enough, but when the sex is married to violent behavior, boys get the message that it’s okay to dominate women. Now, the boys themselves, and even parents, may argue that video games are just that—games. That they know what happens on the screen isn’t real, and so playing such games doesn’t affect them. But I don’t believe this is the case.
Boys are hardwired to be visual people. Unlike girls, when boys see sexy images, they have difficulty looking away. That’s why pornography so powerfully affects many men. The pull of sexually graphic imagery can feel so strong that a boy will be unable to break his focus on what he is seeing; and the sex and violence involved in pornography or even in R-rated movies or mature video games can titillate boys to the point of addiction. Because they are highly visual, boys gravitate toward looking at sexual imagery in its many different forms, and unfortunately, many are all too available to them. There are scantily clad women in television ads, in MTV clips, in movies, and on the Internet. Finding pornography or even happening upon it can happen in a click or two of the mouse for most twelve-year-old boys. They can become addicted without even realizing what’s happening.
When I speak to teen boys across the country, I talk frankly to them about how they are wired and I tell them to be very, very careful when it comes to viewing sexual imagery. Adults might think that seventeen-year-old boys would roll their eyes when I say this, but I find that most don’t. Most of them sit up and listen because there aren’t many adults talking to them on an honest level about their feelings toward sex and media. I tell them why they are wired to want to look at pornography. Then I tell them how easy it is to become addicted to viewing and how this can lead them down a very dark path.
Before I leave this topic, I want to add an interesting conversation that I recently had with my friend and colleague Dr. James Dobson. He is a child psychologist who hosts a radio show called Family Talk. We were discussing an interview he had many years ago with serial killer and rapist Ted Bundy, who was sentenced to death in 1979. Before Bundy died, Dr. Dobson was granted a meeting with him. He told me that he will never forget Bundy’s chilling words about pornography. He told Dobson that he believed that pornography was the start of much of his sick and sadistic behavior.
Clearly Bundy was a man with mental illness. Will watching pornography make most boys act like him? No. But let us never be cavalier about the dark influence that it can have, no matter how mildly it manifests itself.
Boys can also become hooked on playing video games whether the games are sexually charged or not. (If the games are laced with sex, the addictive potential of them is that much greater.) Again, this is because boys are so visually oriented. Many become attached slowly. They come home from school and play an hour or two of games just to unwind. Then two hours turns into three or four. If parents aren’t careful, boys can be playing up to eight to ten hours a day without realizing it.
I have seen an increasing number of teen boys addicted to playing video games and there is a growing body of research to support my experience. One study found that almost one-tenth of children and teens who play video games are classified as addicted.1 This means that they need more gaming time to feel satisfied with playing and if the games are taken away, they become highly agitated. Many end up playing well into the night because they say they just can’t stop. Is it the images, the sounds, the violence, or just the act of playing? We don’t know. But physicians everywhere are seeing more teen boys than ever having difficulty tearing themselves away from their screens and consoles. And since this may not be something we mothers naturally understand, we need to be very savvy about the possibility and take steps to prevent it.
Around age ten, most boys become very curious about their bodies. They start to have erections. They begin to feel sexual urges and wonder what they are. It is fairly usual for boys to ask their friends to touch or kiss their penises when no one is looking. Because boy-to-boy experimenting is not uncommon, moms need to know how to handle such situations; what we say and how we react has an enormous impact on sons. And why should it be us, not dad, who handles this type of situation? First, mom is probably the one who gets the upsetting phone call from another mother or a teacher. Second, our sons will likely feel less embarrassed if we discuss this kind of situation with them because we are so different from them physically.
So, if this happens with your son, don’t freak out, and don’t jump to conclusions that are irrational. Boys are curious about their bodies. Having one or two mutually agreed-upon encounters with a boy who is the same age isn’t unhealthy and doesn’t constitute sexual abuse. It simply means that both boys were playing around with their bodies. If you react calmly and talk to your son in a positive, understanding tone, he will listen to what you have to say. If you get angry or cry, he will feel ashamed, and shaming a boy about his sexual interest never leads anywhere good. I encourage mothers to tell their sons that you know what happened may have felt nice and that curiosity is a good thing; then tell him that his body is private and he must protect it. Tell him he is wired to have wonderful sexual or physical feelings, but it’s important not to share those feelings with other boys or girls yet.
If a mother reacts in a positive, loving, understanding way, these exploratory episodes usually pass. But as boys get older, numerous other issues involving sex arise, and again, these are all opportunities for a mother to roll up her sleeves and talk to her son in order to reinforce healthy messages about his sexuality. It’s important to never underestimate the importance of the general messages you offer your son when he is little—you are strong, you are capable, you are independent, and so on—as these messages will begin to shape his sexual identity.
Maybe I’m overly sympathetic to certain issues, but I think the ages ten through twelve are rougher years for boys than their teen years. They still haven’t grown tall. They still don’t shave. Even their voices haven’t matured and at times they probably think they sound like girls. They feel they are getting too old to want to be seen with their mother, but they still love spending time with mom because it feels so safe and familiar. Life is scary. Mom isn’t. More important, the world, which expresses itself and its ills to our sons at this age, feels confusing and a bit gross. Sexual messages and images that they see in television ads, sitcoms, or movies aren’t yet titillating—they’re unfamiliar and confusing. A preteen boy understands that they represent sex, kind of, but he doesn’t really know what that means because he isn’t prepared for that kind of maturity. His testosterone levels are still low enough that he’s not overwhelmed by desire. Yet if he’s not interested in sex, he feels like something is wrong with him because he knows he’s supposed to be interested.
At this age, boys are also exposed to violence, and while he has probably enjoyed playing cowboys and Indians or other war games up to this point, when the violence becomes more specific and visual—such as in movies or video games—it feels disturbing to him that down deep he kind of enjoys the experience. The struggle between knowing that something’s bad for you and wanting it anyway has begun. He knows that you don’t like the images he sees on television or hears referenced in songs, but he likes them and that makes him feel like a bad boy. But he also knows that you can’t really understand how he feels because you’re a girl, so maybe he’s right and you’re wrong. Suddenly you are the enemy. But that feels wrong, too, because when he was little (just a few minutes ago) you weren’t the enemy, you were just Mom, whom he loved to go on errands with.
It would be 200 percent simpler to help our sons navigate the early and teen years if we didn’t have televisions, iPods, or iPhones. But we do. These devices are the “anti-mom” voice and the trouble for us is that they talk to our boys all the time. Some things they say are good, but they can also crush the important lessons we are trying to teach. They are powerful. But we are more powerful. We must never forget this. What we must do, however, is create very clear rules about the use of electronics in our homes. I advocate making all cellphones “family phones,” which are phones shared by parents and siblings, until kids are at least in their junior or senior year of high school. This lets boys know that they have no privacy with phones. Second, parents should have full access to all messages and texts on phones. Make it clear that this isn’t because you don’t trust your son; it is simply to help him stay away from trouble. Third, when it comes to video games, television, or any other “screen time” activity, set firm time limits, say two hours per day, when used recreationally. Many boys need to be on their computers for schoolwork but when it comes to relaxing in front of a screen, limit his use. I promise, he’ll thank you later. Finally, I feel strongly that when boys have computers, they should only use them within earshot of you. Don’t let your son take his laptop to his bedroom, close the door, and spend hours alone there. The temptation to wander into bad territory is simply too great for any boy.
Many young boys measure their maturity level and “coolness” by the ratings of movies they watch. Most in this preteen age group want to watch R-rated movies and think that PG-13 is for little kids. He thinks that if he’s almost thirteen—especially if he feels mature (and what kid doesn’t at least want to feel mature?)—then he should be able to watch R-rated movies. But just think what those R-rated movies expose him to: not only violence and sex, but violence without guilt and sex without love. It’s the same with video games. Boys may begin playing games with some violence and sex when they are ten but by the time they are twelve or thirteen, the intensity of the sex and violence amplifies. All these visual stimuli engage their minds and stick in their memories, steering their sexual development. Who helps them decipher the messages they’re receiving? No one. Even if he’s with his friends, these are subjects he’s not going to talk about in any depth with the other boys. He is alone with his feelings and sensibilities, and it all swirls into a vortex of confusion in his young, malleable mind.
I recommend that as his mom, you periodically tell him that you realize boys his age are running into a lot of sex in movies, etc. and that even if they don’t realize it, the images affect them. Don’t say it with a derogatory tone, but with an understanding one. In other words, you don’t want him to hear unspoken accusations beneath your words like “you kids are all up to no good, watching bad movies with sex,” but rather with a tone that conveys an attitude of “I realize that this is what comes up and I want to help you figure out how it could be negatively affecting you.”
Explain to him why he is so drawn to them (he’s visually wired that way). You can ask what he thinks about the messages in the movies. Does he think the messages affect him and his male friends, and if so, how? That said, many thirteen-year-old boys won’t be quick to open up. The last thing your son wants is to hear you talk about sex, so don’t expect him to respond. But don’t let your son’s lack of engagement deter you from telling him your feelings. They will resonate and stick with him even if he says nothing. Tell him that you don’t like him to watch sexual imagery because you feel that it hurts him. It can make him objectify himself as well as women. Tell him that it leads him to wrongly believe that sex is nonemotional for guys and you know that it isn’t. Tell him that he is a highly sensitive, thinking young man and that most sexual images in media convey that he isn’t. Even if he says nothing in response, make sure that he hears you say that many messages undermine his integrity as a young man.
By fifth grade, most boys have sex education classes. In my capacity as a pediatric doctor and teen counselor, I visit all types of schools across the country and am often asked to review curricula used in sex ed programs. I will tell you that in general, sex education materials are outdated, particularly in our public schools. The process of getting material accepted by the school system—because it must meet specific criteria—takes a long time. In a world where statistics around sexual activity are changing yearly, most schools simply can’t keep up. But even if they could, there’s the war between parents and educators over what is being taught. Some feel that abstinence should be the only lesson; others believe that kids should be given comprehensive sex education and be taught how to use condoms, birth control, etc. Our sons are aware of these disagreements among adults and wonder why sexuality is such a loaded subject. So what we moms say and how we say it matters more to them than what they see written on a blackboard or in a textbook.
Personally, I believe in keeping sex education simple and fun. Because I see what really influences boys’ decisions about sex, I know that moms (and dads, if available) hold all the cards. That being said, it is very important to know what your son is being taught at school. Ask to see the materials before the teacher teaches them. Realize, too, that many sex ed teachers in schools really don’t want to teach that particular class; they’ve just been called upon to do so. (Why do PE teachers always get pegged? Does anybody know?) There will be some points on which you agree with the lesson and some on which you don’t. Since it is your job to tell your child what you believe, don’t bail out on this one. What your son learns about sex at this age is very, very important, so dive in and see what he’s being taught, then adjust what he learns according to what you personally believe.
Most (like 99 percent) of the mothers (and fathers) I have met don’t feel comfortable talking to their kids about sex at any age and often ask me how to go about it. Should the dad talk to the sons and the mom the daughters? Should they both talk? Each partner thinks the other would be the right one for the task. Here’s what I tell them: Though both parents are usually chickens when it comes to talking to their kids about sex, one of them will be the bigger chicken. I usually suggest that the one who is least chicken take on the task. It doesn’t matter whether the parent is male or female—what is most important is that the less uncomfortable one should do the communicating. Your discussions with your children about sex should be free of tension. Regardless of the content of the conversation, if the parent is ashamed, condescending, or defensive, the child will learn that sex is a negative, awkward topic and that an interest in sex and emerging sexual feelings are bad or at least “off-limits” as a conversation topic with either parent.
Though it could be either parent who is most comfortable, in my experience it is mom who is usually more conversant and available—so go for it! Take a deep breath and let your son know that at school he will hear all sorts of things about sex. He may see kids his age fondling one another, kissing, or even having sex. He will definitely come across it on television, and he might view pornography on his computer. Tell him that he will see, read, and hear things about sex that aren’t necessarily true. Then tell him that you are the “go-to” person when it comes to answering his questions. Let him know that, since you are old, you know the correct answers. Tell him you can help keep him from getting confused; tell him you will talk to him about sex anytime, and that you will always do your best to tell him the truth. Even though you might be embarrassed, you need to pretend that you’re not. This is very important because he will be embarrassed anyway. If both of you feel embarrassed, all conversation stops, but you need to keep the conversation going.
Between the ages of ten and thirteen, your son will listen to what you say because he doesn’t feel like a know-it-all yet, especially when it comes to sex. There will come a time when your son is convinced he is smarter than you are and that all of the ideas floating in your brain are terribly outdated. It is crucial to start the conversation before he feels that way.
Knowing this paid off for Heather. When Sean was twelve, he and thirteen-year-old Julio were best friends. Heather and Julio’s mother, Jessica, were also very close friends. As single mothers, they depended on each other for child care while they worked. Over the years, Sean and Julio became so close that they often behaved more like brothers than friends. While Heather worked a night shift at her job in the hospital, Sean would frequently sleep at Jessica’s home with Julio and his two younger siblings. As an only child, Sean told his mother that he liked being there because there was so much commotion.
Both women appreciated their friendship because they not only found comfort and encouragement from one another; they saved money and the angst of worrying about their kids being with strangers while they worked. The arrangement seemed almost too good to be true.
During spring break of seventh grade, Heather took Sean on a road trip. Both were excited to get away from home, work, school, and the boring routines of life. They left on a Saturday morning to go to a nearby city, where Heather made plans to see museums, a play, and a few friends who lived there. She told me that the car ride into the city was fun and that they settled into their hotel and headed off for a nice dinner. During dinner, she noticed that Sean was acting strange. He was quiet and standoffish, and she was concerned that something was wrong. After dinner, she probed. At first, Sean denied any peculiar feelings, but the more he tried to convince her that he was fine, the more she became convinced that he was not. He was acting guilty, angry, and defensive, but she couldn’t figure out the reason.
Heather decided that the best thing to do was to stop asking Sean what the problem was. So she changed the subject. Later in the evening, Sean reopened the issue with his mother. He spoke awkwardly, Heather told me. He stammered and said that he was worried about something but didn’t want to talk about it. After many uncomfortable minutes, she told him to just blurt out what he was worried about. She learned over the next hour that Sean and Julio had engaged in four sexual encounters. Sean didn’t want to give his mother the details, but he clearly needed to talk about the incidents. Wisely, Heather never pressed Sean for more information than he was willing to volunteer. She simply stayed calm and listened to her son to hear what worried him about the situation.
Sean told his mother that the two boys had touched each other and had done some “other things” (she later pieced together that the two boys had had oral–genital contact). Sean’s biggest worry, she said, was that he was going to be physically harmed. He worried that he might not be able to have children and that he might have gotten any number of diseases.
“My heart started pounding in my chest,” she told me as she recounted that Saturday night of their vacation. “So many thoughts spun in my mind. Had Julio forced himself on Sean? Did Sean feel ashamed, frightened, traumatized? What should I say to him?”
“So, what did you say when he told you about the encounters?” I asked.
“Nothing at first,” she replied. “I just stared at him. I was mad, scared, and I felt like a total failure as a mother. I also knew that I didn’t want to say anything that would make him stop talking to me, because I thought that it was a miracle he was even telling me this in the first place. So I listened and tried to act understanding. Inside, though, I felt as if I was being punched in the stomach.”
Although their conversation had taken place two months earlier, Heather’s face still expressed fresh pain when she related all this to me. Talking to our children about sex is tough enough, but talking to a son about an early sexual encounter that might have been traumatic makes the conversation much harder. I gave Heather kudos for keeping her wits about her. In fact, I told her that she did an extraordinary job handling a tough situation. I asked her more specifically about her response, not only over the subsequent minutes of that first conversation, but over the rest of her vacation with Sean.
“Well,” she said, “like I said, I listened a lot. As Sean told me what he and Julio had done, I asked if he had been scared at the time. He said no. Then I asked if they both agreed to do things to one another or if only one of them wanted it. At first, he told me that all of the fondling was Julio’s idea. But after a while, he admitted that he agreed to do things together because it felt good. Throughout the conversation, I was mostly concerned about whether or not he felt violated, or whether this was consensual.”
Heather was completely right in her worries, and right to prod, gently, to find out if her son felt victimized, or whether he had participated willingly. She came to the conclusion that both boys wanted the sexual play and that neither forced the other. This was extremely important because many young boys at this age can feel physically or sexually threatened and the psychological repercussions of that can be quite severe. If, for instance, a young boy is pressured by an older boy to perform sexual acts, he can suffer serious mental trauma. Many boys won’t tell anyone (even their mothers) if such an incident has occurred, because of the shame associated with the event. I have seen boys have all symptoms of sexual abuse even when the trauma appeared mild—he was told to pull his pants down, for instance, but no physical contact was made. So the issue isn’t as much what happens during the encounter as the dynamics of the two involved. If a boy knows that he is on equal footing, psychologically and physically, and the play is consensual, he will not feel abused. If, however, he feels dominated in any way, regardless of the severity of the act he will feel abused. Heather watched for signs of abuse in her son—withdrawal, sadness, depression, falling grades, and anger outbursts, to name a few—and thankfully, found none. He had also never stopped being comfortable or protested spending time with Julio, which led Heather to believe that Sean was telling the truth about the acts being consensual.
The next thing that Heather did right was that she kept her cool and didn’t act judgmental when Sean talked. If she had, Sean would likely have stopped speaking immediately, and more important, he would have felt a sense of shame that might have scarred him for a long time. Heather realized this and responded calmly and kindly. She said that after he told her what the boys had done over the four encounters, Sean was sobbing.
“My heart just broke,” she told me. “He told me about these grown-up things that he was doing and as he sobbed, he looked like a little boy. I just sat with him and hugged him.”
Heather had come to me because she was worried that Sean might have persistent worries or confusion and she wanted to talk to a professional about her concerns. Had she done the right thing, she wondered. In fact, she handled the situation beautifully, I told her. Here are a few of the things that she did very well.
First, Heather made time and space for her son to talk about something that was troubling him. Too often, because we are so busy multitasking, we mothers are too engaged in whatever feels most pressing at the moment, and so we may miss something important. We need to make time to look at our sons face-to-face, to see what they’re feeling and talk to them about it. Then we need to make sure that we’re really present with them during the conversation, relaxed and ready to really listen. Heather was lucky that she’d had this spring break “getaway” planned, giving Sean the opportunity to express himself in an intimate surrounding. But even if it’s not a vacation, some mother–son time away from the house, face-to-face, can be really fruitful.
Second, Heather had proved to Sean over the years that she was trustworthy. Somehow he felt comfortable enough to come to her with something that is extremely difficult for a young boy to speak to his mother about. Some boys talk easily, but most don’t. Therefore, it is imperative that mothers begin at an early age to let their sons know that they can come to them at any time about any problem.
When the conversation happened and Sean revealed his behavior, Heather calmly listened and asked how he felt. Rather than telling him what he should or shouldn’t have done, she continued to draw her son out by asking questions about his feelings. The conversation thus stayed about the boys and never became about Heather, which likely would have been another conversation stopper.
Finally, Heather reassured her son that he wasn’t physically harmed for life. It is very common for boys to believe any myths they hear about sexual behaviors. Sean thought that by having another boy fondle him and kiss him on the genitals, he was not going to be able to have children when he was older. I have had boys Sean’s age ask if masturbation damages their penises. Others have believed that they will go to hell if they masturbate. It is very important for boys to know the medical truth about what will and will not harm them. Not only does reassurance dispel shame; it alleviates unnecessary worry. I am not a theologian, but I do take the liberty of telling boys that they will not go to hell by masturbating. I tell them that every boy has wet dreams as he matures and if God created boys and their sexual functions, He would be a hypocrite to send them to hell for such a reason.
Something happens to sons as they mature from the preteen years into the teen years. Because of the increase in hormones, the psychological maturation, and the cognitive changes they’re undergoing, sons often verbally withdraw from their mothers as they try to assimilate to their rapidly developing minds and bodies. So it’s crucial, as mentioned earlier, that the conversation about sex begin during the preteen years, when boys feel more open to talking—and listening—to their moms. But if you have a son who is already a teen and he has let you know in no uncertain terms that he has no intention of talking to you about girls, sex, or his sexuality, don’t worry, there are things that you can do to get through to him and we’ll discuss these in a moment.
First, let’s look at some surprising facts about sex and modern life. The most recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states the following:
In the United States, 20 million Americans every year contract a new sexually transmitted infection.2
50 percent of these infections are in young people ages fifteen to twenty-four. The same age group accounts for 25 percent of the sexually experienced population. Young people are disproportionately affected.3
People ages fifteen to twenty-four have five times the incidence of chlamydia than the rest of the population.4
Men have 5.6 times higher incidence of syphilis than women.5
Boys fifteen to nineteen have the second-highest rates of gonorrhea in the United States.6
One in 5 people over age twelve in the United States has genital herpes.7
Six million people under age twenty-five get genital herpes every year.8
These numbers are scary, but we need to know them because this is the reality of our kids’ lives. As we help our sons navigate the teen years, we need to know what they are up against if and when they decide to start having sex. And we’re really the only ones who will tell them. They won’t learn the whole truth from sex ed, their friends, television, the movies, or pornography.
Teens and sex is a loaded topic. I know how complicated it is because I have reviewed school curricula, testified at a congressional hearing on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and read and written extensively about the topic. I have personally spoken to thousands of teens about sex and have heard what they think, believe, and feel. The sad thing is, most of the adults in their lives don’t talk to them. And I understand why. Sex is a hot-button issue and most adults don’t want to deal with it. Because if we really begin dealing with serious sex-related health issues with our boys, we will also be forced to confront the companies that aggressively use sex to market products to our kids. If we held these companies accountable (just as we do with companies that market cigarettes to our kids) they could lose billions of dollars. Sadly, we are a country that cares more about making money than about keeping our kids healthy. Abercrombie & Fitch, for example, uses sex appeal to market to teens (many of their posters feature men without clothes on), as do most fashion brands that target young adults. Hollywood knows that all they need to do to increase revenue with any of their movies is to inject a salacious sex scene and kids (and adults) will want to watch. Video games use sex to market their products to boys because they realize that boys are visual and will get hooked on playing if sexy figures, references to sexual acts, and violence are on the screen.
Whenever I speak to groups of teens about sex (usually a mixed-gender crowd), I always talk about their feelings. I ask kids if they like having sex and how they feel afterward. And I have discovered a unique phenomenon: Each and every time I begin to ask these questions, I see girls and boys of all ages sit upright. Usually, the older boys tend to clump in the back of the auditorium, and when I talk about what a boy might feel like if sex goes badly for him, I can see them sliding to the edge of their seats. I talk about the “bonding” hormones that are released during sex in both boys and girls and how these hormones shift the relationship between the sexual partners. I also talk to the boys about why they may feel badly if they have had sex with a lot of partners. I go on to outline the roots of depression and then show them how having multiple partners can lead to depression in young men. As I say these things, I see many young men lean forward. It’s as if a light is going on in their minds. Many of them have never heard anyone talk to them about their feelings and sex.
Almost on cue, as I end my talks, handfuls of junior and senior boys come to me and tell me that they have never before heard anyone address their feelings about sex. The relief I see on their faces over the fact that someone finally treated them as thinking, feeling people is priceless. I wish that every mother could see their son’s responses. Boys need to talk about their feelings. They feel deeply about sex, they want romance, and they worry about the decisions they are making about both. They fall in love, they have regrets, and after a breakup, many boys have as hard a time as girls do—or harder.
In the book Hooked, Drs. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr. and Freda McKissic Bush, both obstetricians, beautifully describe a phenomenon in the brain where certain hormones surge during sex. They cite studies showing that during sexual activity, hormones, or neurochemicals, are released in a boy’s brain that affect how he feels about sex. Dopamine—referred to as the “pleasure” hormone—surges, communicating that the experience is enjoyable. This is the same hormone that is released if a boy gets an A on an exam or wins a football game. Sometimes a dopamine surge replicates the feeling of being high.
Another hormone, vasopressin, also surges during sex. Vasopressin tells a boy that he is bonding to the partner he’s with. When the two hormones are combined, a boy feels that the union is important both physically and emotionally. When it’s over, his mind tells him that this good experience should be repeated. Some scientists believe that these hormones ensure preservation of the human species because they keep the male interested in rebonding with the same individual, increasing the chances of pregnancy. Neuroscience affirms what mothers already believe: that our boys are sensitive, emotional people in all manner of ways, including when it comes to sex.
One might think that with the powerful hormone surge that occurs during sex, a boy would never become depressed afterward. But despite the chemical phenomenon, studies also show that boys who are sexually active have higher rates of depression.9 One startling statistic shows that boys who are sexually active are twice as likely to be depressed as are boys who are not sexually active, and eight times more likely to attempt suicide than boys who aren’t sexually active.10 This seems to fit what I see in my own medical practice, and depression is always complicated, let alone when it is linked to sexual activity. Here’s how it can occur in boys.
Depression is fundamentally about losses that a boy feels are never grieved. Over time these losses get “stuck” in the heart, if you will. One loss compounds on the other and they slowly build up. Sex for many boys can involve loss. For instance, if a boy has sex with a girl and she makes fun of him to her friends afterward, he feels hurt. He loses some self-esteem. Many boys believe in their minds that sex should be a certain way or feel a certain way (they may even compare themselves to someone like Brad Pitt or a football hero who they think is really macho). They then have sex, and if they feel that the experience wasn’t what it should have been (based on some imagined expectation), the boy blames himself for not being “good enough.” Then he feels worse about himself. If a boy has a bad sexual experience, he might think it is his fault that he didn’t feel as great as he believes all his friends feel during sex. This could be another type of loss.
And going back to my belief that boys can take a breakup harder than girls, if they’ve had these experiences—experiences their brain tells them are important and good—knowing they have lost the means to continue having these experiences can cause boys to suffer acutely. A boy may love his partner deeply (particularly if it is his first romance) and if the two are sexually active and then break up, he may feel profound loss. Trust, for instance, can be lost during a breakup. But of course, because they’re boys, they rarely talk about their emotions. And given the way their peers and others around them view sex, the idea that sex can lead to any negative emotion seems unnatural to a teenage boy. So he buries his feelings; but eventually these buried feelings can lead to depression.
So, what’s a mother to do? Studies show that boys who feel comfortable talking to their parents are more likely to postpone their sexual debut and reduce the number of sexual partners they eventually have.11 Also, boys who feel connected to their parents are less likely to engage in high-risk behaviors: having sex, taking drugs, or drinking alcohol.12 Many parents believe that sex is not risky if a boy uses a condom, but this isn’t so. The medical community at large refers to any sex a teen boy may have as high-risk because condoms don’t protect against infections equally. (For more on this subject, see my book Your Kids at Risk.)
The bottom line in figuring out what your son will or won’t do when it comes to sex is that what you think, how you engage your son, what you believe about him, and the conversations that you have with him really matter. We can’t afford to simply shrug our shoulders and hope for the best, because if things go wrong, your son could end up living with emotional scars or a sexually transmitted infection for years to come.
First, you need to make the decision that you will engage your son in conversations about his sexual development, that you will talk to him, and though his decisions will ultimately be up to him, you will figure out how to best influence the direction of his thinking. You will ask yourself, Should I encourage him to have sex as long as it’s “safe”? Or should I encourage him to hold off?
From a purely medical standpoint, the longer he waits to start having sex, the less likely he is to end up with an STD. We know that teens who wait to have sex until they are over sixteen years old have a lower number of lifetime partners, which also decreases their chance of contracting an STD.13 So from the standpoint of disease prevention, it’s all about those two things: waiting as long as possible to start and limiting your number of partners. Of course, your son will decide what he does, and when, but giving him the facts can influence his thinking.
Teenage boys are at least somewhat aware there are dangerous waters out there. They all hear about HIV/AIDS and are told to always use condoms. Pediatricians offer to immunize boys ages nine to twenty-six years old against human papillomavirus (HPV) by giving them Gardasil because the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it for young boys. Personally, though, I feel that it is unethical to give a young man an immunization for a sexually transmitted infection that he is fully capable of preventing in himself, without first telling him what the infection is and how it is transmitted. The larger medical community advocates giving Gardasil because we physicians are trained to believe that since most boys will be sexually active before they’re married, we had better protect them from spreading HPV to their partners. And I understand this because as physicians, our ability to get teen boys to put the brakes on where sex is concerned is limited. And many physicians, like many parents, feel that since “boys will be boys” it is their right to be sexually active. But I feel that it is always important to teach them the risks of what they are doing so that they can make more informed decisions.
I will tell you what I do with my own patients. I talk very openly with boys about sex. I give them some of the above data (though a few numbers go a long way with boys) and then I ask what their thoughts are. How do they feel about sex? What do they want? What are their struggles, concerns? Contrary to what you might think, boys answer my questions. Many say that they don’t know what they want to do sexually. They feel confused but believe that “all” of their friends are doing it so they should jump on the bandwagon. They worry about sexually transmitted infections and read about them on the Internet but still have questions. In general, they tell me that no one really wants to answer their questions because talking about sex is uncomfortable for many adults. So I always encourage one of their parents to be the point person in the family, the one who will answer questions and be willing to discuss sex with the kids. It doesn’t matter if it is mom or dad, but it needs to be someone because boys will find answers.
Once you have decided that you must address this tough topic, you need to know a few “foolproof” techniques that any mother can use to help her son. When you are at the beach with your wonderful three-year-old, make him wear a bathing suit. When he tears his suit off because he likes being naked, tell him that he needs to put his suit back on because his body is private. He should learn at a young age that when he is in public, there are parts of his body that are too special to be seen by others. By telling him that his body is private, he will feel good about himself and realize that he needs to have some “body boundaries.” This is the earliest and best way to begin his sex education. You don’t need to use medically accurate terminology when describing his body, though if you want to, go ahead. The most important thing to do is to make sure he realizes that modesty and privacy are important, and that it’s because his body is good, healthy, and his—not that it’s embarrassing or bad.
As he grows older, keep teaching him about his body. When he goes off to kindergarten, remind him that he should go to the bathroom alone. Also remind him that only mom, dad, and the doctor are to see the private areas of his body, but if he occasionally does need help with tasks like going to the bathroom, he should only ask his teacher, not his friends, for assistance. This reinforces in his mind that other kids shouldn’t be asking to see his private areas. If you know that he may need help, alert his teacher and let your son know that the teacher will be available to help.
Sometime, usually during the second grade, boys will hear about intercourse. If your son has older siblings, he may hear about it even earlier. Mothers often ask what age their son should receive “the talk” from their parents. The best time to do this is when your son’s questions about sex become constant. That’s an important cue to listen for; it means he’s ready to hear some answers. At that point I encourage you to dive in. Take a deep breath and stay in the conversation. Hearing your son ask you questions about sex may make you feel relieved—but also kind of like you’ve been punched in the stomach. It’s good news and bad news. You like knowing that mom has such influence, but you hate knowing because it might mean that you are the one who’s going to have to give him the Talk. But don’t worry—even if that’s the case, it may turn out to be very different than what you expect.
I would have a conversation like this. “Tommy, you may hear things at school about what moms and dads (or dads and dads, moms and moms) do when they love each other. They kiss, for instance. When you hear things that you don’t understand, make sure to come and tell me so that I can explain. I know all about grown-up things and want you to get answers from me because sometimes kids get their answers mixed up. Does that sound okay?” This gives your son permission to listen to other kids and also warns him that someone is going to say something about where babies come from that might bother him. When he hears things, he will be less shocked. Remember, there’s a kid in every class who has older siblings and who loves to shock his friends. And more important, it identifies you as the “go-to” person whenever he has questions about sex.
Typically, when young boys hear the details they’ve been curious to learn regarding intercourse, they make faces and act disgusted. Your son may gag, run out of the room, or tell you to stop talking. This is all very normal and doesn’t mean that he hates sex or that you’re doing something wrong. He just feels a bit overwhelmed. That’s okay. Girls do the same thing. When he makes a sour face, you might say, “Tommy, I know this is kind of uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable talking about it at your age, too. Don’t worry. I can do the talking, and if you get too uncomfortable, we can stop and talk again later.”
As he moves into third grade, stay on the offensive and tell him that he will probably keep hearing odd things about sex at school, soccer practice, or on the playground. Don’t expect him to start coming home and freely offering you information; most boys simply don’t do this. Knowing that your little boy is routinely being sent messages about sex tells you that you may need to initiate the conversation, probably more than once, even after you’ve let him know you’re available to talk. He needs your input even if you think that he’s too young to hear details.
In the middle elementary school years, periodically ask him what his friends are up to. When he is in fifth grade, for instance, casually ask him, “Tommy, are any of your friends interested in girls?” If he says no and moves on, let him. If he says yes and you figure he may be interested in girls, probe a bit. “What do your friends do with girls when they’re dating? Do they talk at school, go to each other’s houses?” The reason this is important is that dating to one boy may mean something completely different than it does to another. Some fifth-grade boys consider dating to be simply writing texts to a girl, while to others it may mean going to movies, etc. If your son seems interested in dating, I encourage you to talk to him about getting to know girls as friends before dating. Tell your son that girls can be wonderful friends to have and that as friends, you get to know them better than if you were dating.
In middle school and junior high, your son will have friends who are not even remotely interested in dating, while others may already be sexually active. There is enormous diversity in sexual interest at this age. It’s very important to always maintain an attitude of alliance with your son when you talk about his friends, girls, dating, and sex. In other words, make sure that your tone of voice, your inflections, and your body language let him know that you aren’t asking because you’re suspicious of him doing something wrong; rather, communicate clearly to him that life is tough and that you are on his side. He can know what you agree and disagree with when it comes to these topics, but always make sure that he knows that you aren’t asking because he’s guilty of something (or will be soon). This is one of the areas where mothers make the most mistakes, in my experience. They speak to their sons as though they are already up to no good and then wonder why their boys won’t talk with them.
As I’ve mentioned before, when he hits age eleven or twelve, you will notice that your son will pull back from you dramatically. When puberty hits, sons withdraw from their mothers because they need to figure out manhood on their own. He will be much less open to talking with you about what’s happening in his life. Don’t take this personally, but don’t back away from him, either. The choices he makes about sex during his teen years are critical to his health on many levels, so you need to figure out a way to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s going on in his life. The best way to do this is to watch what his friends are doing, because chances are good that if his friends aren’t dating, neither is he. On the contrary, if his friends are dating and having sex, there is a good chance that he is, too. Boys like to keep up with their friends. So routinely ask what his friends are up to and what they like to do. Again, don’t ask with a negative or derogatory tone but with one that shows you are sincerely interested.
Since most fifteen-year-old boys don’t want to talk to their mothers about sex, once they reach that age you need to take a different approach to the subject. Or if you haven’t talked to him about sex before, it’s not too late to start, as long as you know what approach has the greatest chance of working. One of the best things that you can do is continue to ask timely questions about his friends, girlfriends, activities, etc. and then, when the two of you are both in good moods, assert your hopes and wishes for him. He will probably not respond and might even pretend that he didn’t hear you, but say what you need to say. When boys see that their mothers are still interested in parenting and protecting them in a healthy way, they feel loved and they will remember your words. In the movie The Blind Side, there is a final scene during which Michael goes to start his freshman year at college. Clearly, his surrogate mother, Leigh Ann Touhy, adores him and wants to continue to help him even as he leaves home. We see the enormous, masculine man saying goodbye to his mother when she boldly asserts, “And Michael, if you get a girl pregnant, I’m going to come down here and cut off your penis.” A bit dramatic and overstated, but you get the point. Leigh Ann was telling her son in a crass but effective way that she had a standard for him. She didn’t want him to throw his career away because he couldn’t control his sexual behavior. After his mother said this, Michael smiled. He knew what she meant, and that was “your life and the future that you will have are very important to me. I believe in your ability to take the high road and stay out of trouble.”
We sense in the scene that Michael feels loved after she has said those words to him because he is certain that she cares about him. This is how your son should feel when you gently assert your wishes for him regarding sex. So even when he’s sixteen or eighteen years old and headed off to college, let him know how you feel. Don’t do it in front of his friends, but quietly, at a time when you have his ear. He’ll listen, because words spoken from his mother’s heart always make a son feel better about himself.
Imagine that you are a seventeen-year-old young man. You drive a beater car, work hard at school, and play on the varsity basketball team. Your grades are pretty good and for the most part you get along well with your family. After school, you go to practice, then come home, eat dinner, and decide to do your homework on your laptop. But before you get started, you peruse a few music sites. Up pop scenes of Madonna or Lady Gaga writhing on the screen. You scan different pages, then decide to play a quick video game before you get down to business. While you play, you turn on your iPod for some background music. The video game involves shooting enemies in a war zone and rescuing women who are busty and scantily clad. The music in your ears reminds you that you are “sexy and you know it.” After fifteen minutes, you decide it’s time to begin your homework.
During those fifteen minutes, you were “told” that being sexy is important and that sex is a great thing. This feels good to you. As you begin your algebra, you struggle with the assignment. You always struggle with math. Your teacher tells you repeatedly that you can succeed in math if you just try harder, and deep down, you believe her. Your coach also pushes you because he thinks you might get scouted if you keep working hard. Your parents trust you when you go out on weekends, and tell you that you’re a good kid. They should trust you because you don’t smoke weed or cigarettes like a lot of your friends and you’ve only had a few beers on a couple of different occasions. Since you are close to your mother in particular, you don’t want to drink because you know she’ll get very worried if you do.
At every turn in your life, adults are telling you that you can be in charge. You can drive, play well on the court or field, succeed academically, and stay away from drugs and cigarettes and drinking. They believe in you, and this helps you believe in yourself. But when it comes to sex, what do you hear? Popular culture around you seems to indicate that it’s great. What do adults say? Do they say it’s great? Are they worried about you? Do they believe that it’s okay for you to have sex or do they expect that you won’t? No one’s really telling you much, except singers, actors, and video games. They say it’s fine. But when it comes to what your mother (and dad) think, you have nothing to go on. As a matter of fact, you get the general sense from adults that you really can’t control yourself when it comes to sex, because sex is “all teen boys want.” At least that’s the message a lot of adult role models in your life seem to convey. If you were that seventeen-year-old young man, wouldn’t you feel down about these conflicting messages that are coming at you? I would. That’s why your son needs your help. Because when it comes to sex, boys get the message that their sexual drives will overtake them no matter what they do.
I was told this very fact by Bill O’Reilly on national television several years ago. I was on his evening show discussing teens and sex and he told me that if I (as one who had worked with teens for twenty-some years at the time) expected teen boys not to be sexually active, I was dreaming (I’m paraphrasing). The bottom line, he insinuated, was that teen boys are out of control when it comes to sex.
How would you like to be told that if you were a teen boy? How devastating must it be to be taught that you are capable of controlling every aspect of your life except your sexual behavior? I believe that this is a travesty on several levels.
First, in order for a boy to psychologically develop into a healthy man, he must transition from being dependent to being independent. This important transition happens when he learns self-control—not over a few aspects of his life, but across all aspects. If he is taught that a very significant part of himself—his sexuality—is out of his control, this will confuse him and stunt his psychological development. True, we have all seen men in positions of influence (Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, David Petraeus) hurt their reputations and their families and even lose their jobs because they seemingly cannot control their sexual behavior. But how cruel for a man to be taught that is his only option.
Second, many teen boys simply feel that they have no choice when it comes to having sex as soon as possible. Thirty years ago, this was not true. Boys were taught that they could opt to have sex with a girlfriend, but if they didn’t, there was nothing wrong with them. Today, that mindset has changed in high schools all across America. Many teen boys believe that sex is something that they have to get started with early if they are going to be masculine in any way. Whether or not it is a good experience or a bad one doesn’t really matter; it’s the act of doing it that’s important.
Yours is the voice of reason. The voice that tells him that the decisions he makes about sex are his—not anyone else’s. We tell our daughters this, time and again—so why do we hold back telling our sons the same? Maybe because deep down we are afraid that they really can’t control themselves. We need to get over this fear. Don’t talk to him as though having sex is a done deal, and so he’d better always carry fifteen condoms with him. When you talk to him about sexual decisions, talk to him as though he is in control. Let him know that yes, he will have very strong sexual feelings and that those feelings are wonderful, but they don’t need to run his life.
You, Mom, are the bright beam of positivity in his world. You can be the one to teach him to live against the current of an environment that can’t see past his sexual drives and as such defines him in a constricting, narrow way. When you give him a strong sense of empowerment, he will become a son you will be proud of, I promise. Several years ago, one of the largest studies ever conducted on teens, called the ADD Healthy Study (it started out looking at about ninety thousand kids), looked at what influences in a teen’s life could help keep them away from sex, drugs, and alcohol. The study found that the number-one factor that kept them on the high road was feeling connected with their parents.14 When he starts having sex, the messages he’s received from you will make all the difference in his world.
Many mothers feel that they are ill-equipped to do a good job talking to their sons about sex. But remember that sons want to know what their mothers think, because deep down, they want to please us and to some extent be like us. You don’t need to know everything about infections, condoms, birth control, etc.; your son doesn’t expect you to be a “sex expert” and in fact, he kind of hopes that you aren’t.
The most common question that parents ask me when I encourage them to talk to their sons about sex is “I was really wild as a teen, so what should I tell my son about my experiences?” My response to the question is always the same. “First of all,” I say, “this subject isn’t about you. It’s about him. Second, you can try to tell your son what you did, but chances are excellent that he doesn’t want to hear all about that. In his mind, there are two people in the world who are never sexually active and his mother is one of them.”
What your son wants to know from you is what you believe about him, what you want for him, and whether or not you like the man that he is becoming. You want the answers to those questions to be clear and positive. Tell him that you believe that he is strong and he is worth protecting emotionally, sexually, and physically. Teach him that his sexuality is wonderful and complex but that it needs time to develop. Let him know that he should care for his body even better than he would care for his car. Tell him that you want him to be sexually healthy. This means that you don’t want infections to be a lasting part of his future. Let him know that if he starts having sex as a teen, the chances are higher that he will be exposed to an STD. Since your job is to help him have a full, long, and good sex life, it might help to put the brakes on when he is young. Whether he is straight or gay makes no difference. He needs to wait because the risks to his emotional and physical well-being are too high to be cavalier with.
It’s also important to tell him about condoms, because he will be taught many things at school about them and unfortunately, not all of the information will be accurate. For instance, if you listen carefully to the medical community talk about disease risk and condoms, you won’t hear the common vernacular of “safe sex.” They will say “safer sex.” The fact is that condoms help reduce the risk of each sexually transmitted infection differently. This is very important because teenage boys feel invincible anyway and when they are led to believe that all they have to do if they want to have sex is make sure they pop a condom on, they feel that nothing bad can happen to them. This simply isn’t true.
Consider a few other things about boys and condom use. A very interesting study found that the longer a boy is in a relationship, the less likely he is to use condoms when having sex.15 This makes sense if you think about it. The longer a boy is with a partner, the more comfortable he becomes, and since he doesn’t see any infections (many don’t have symptoms) he feels that it is safe to stop using condoms. I see this frequently with the teens in my practice. In my book Your Kids at Risk, I write extensively about the pros and cons of condom use in teens. The bottom line is that boys should know that even with limitations, using condoms is far better than not using them, but they aren’t the “silver bullet” that we wish they were.
I feel strongly that boys who are old enough to be having sex need this information. It isn’t meant to shame them or cause them to feel that sex is dirty; on the contrary, it is to give them powerful information. If they choose to be sexually active, they will know exactly what they could be getting into. And if they choose to postpone sex, they will know what they are avoiding.
No one told my friend Jake this. As a teen, he went a little crazy. He loved girls and said that when he was between fifteen and eighteen, he had different types of sex with about ten different girls. He said he was never into drugs or alcohol—he just liked having sex. When he was in his early twenties, he quit having casual sex of his own volition.
When Jake was twenty-five, he met Monique, the woman of his dreams. Fortunately for him, she fell hard for Jake and the two were married one year after they started dating. Before they married, Monique called me. She was the same age as Jake and we had known each other for years because when she was in grade school, she had been my patient. She said she needed to talk to me, so I met her for coffee. She told me about Jake’s sexual history and said that she really loved him but was worried about what she might contract. I told her that they should both be tested and that the only way to have a healthy marriage was to be totally honest with each other. They did and for a while, everything was fine.
Two years later, Jake and Monique were on a trip and my cellphone rang. It was Monique, in tears. She was hurting terribly in her genital area and didn’t know what could be wrong. The symptoms she described sounded like herpes to me, so I told her to go to an urgent-care clinic. She did, and sure enough, she had it. Once she was on medication, she felt much better.
After they came home, Jake called and asked if we could chat. I met him and he broke down in tears. He adored his wife. Why did this have to happen? My heart ached for him.
“I know that this is tough,” I told him that afternoon. “But you can deal with it. Monique can deal with it. You just need to be sure to get really good medical care and so does she—especially when you decide to have kids.”
“Shit,” he cried. “Why was I so stupid? I mean, it’s one thing for me to have to deal with this—but Monique. She’s amazing. The toughest part for me is what I have put her through.”
Sadly, Jake’s story is far too common. In fact, he had a harder time dealing with the herpes than his wife did, because he had the guilt of bringing it into the marriage. The million-dollar question: Could his mother have helped him avoid this? I wanted to know so I asked him. “Jake,” I said, “I have a question and I’d like you to be honest, if you don’t mind. You and your mother have always been close, right?” He nodded his head.
“If your mother had encouraged you to wait until you were older, or even married before you were sexually active, would that have made any difference?”
His response was immediate. “Hell, yes. I adored my mother. I still do. But we didn’t talk about sex. I mean, she might have told me to make sure I never got a girl pregnant, but that was it. She was a single mom and honestly, she didn’t know how dangerous sex had become. And she didn’t really know how to talk about that stuff. Funny, though, we talked about everything else.”
The problem for both Jake and his mother was that she simply didn’t know how risky the sexual landscape was for her son. She told him to always use condoms, but, again, sometimes condoms protect against herpes and sometimes they don’t. Condom efficacy is a complicated issue. Teens ask me all the time, “Do condoms work?” The answer depends on a few things.
First, condoms work best at protecting against infections that are fluid-borne, like HIV, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. If the guy uses them every time (and a lot of teen boys don’t) and correctly (a lot of times they slip off), then they will do a good job of protecting. With other infections like herpes and HPV, their track record isn’t as strong because these infections are transmitted from one person’s skin to the other’s. Second, we know that the longer a young man has been sexually active, the less he relies on condoms. It seems that the more sex a young man has without getting a girl pregnant or getting an infection, the more invincible he feels. This is not only dangerous; it is based on fantasy, because many infections don’t carry symptoms. He may have a disease and not even know it.
So, yes, boys should absolutely wear condoms, but from a practical standpoint, we need to teach them more than just being “safe.” As I said before, the only way to keep them sexually healthy is to do two things: delay the sexual debut and decrease the number of lifetime partners.
After reading all of this heavy stuff, you must be saying to yourself, “Keep it light? You’ve got to be kidding me.” But you can do that. Your whole approach to talking to your son about sex, dating, romance, and all that goes along with each should be fun. Yes, there are serious problems out there. Yes, our sons are getting messages constantly that make our skin crawl. But we must never be intimidated by all of this, because teaching him about sex is one of your most important responsibilities as his mom. Once you get past the initial few talks about sex, it really gets easier. That’s when the conversations can get lighter.
The wonderful thing about kids (and teens) is that they always want to hear about sex. Really. But they don’t want lectures or too many statistics. They want to talk about their lives and their future. And they want to hear how much better life can get as they grow older. Let me tell you a secret that I have discovered in boys: Many believe that the best sex they will ever have will occur before they turn twenty-five. Many feel that once they get past this age, it all goes downhill. That’s why I make sure to talk to all my patients about their sexual longevity. It gives them hope.
I have found that if you talk with your son as though all of the troubles associated with sex are real, but that there is no reason they need to be part of his world, he will embrace what you have to say much more readily. Since he may ask the hard questions during his preteen years, be accepting and responsive, even if you feel it is too soon. If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so. Tell him that you’ll find the answer and you can talk about it later. If you keep the conversations light and simple, he will return to them much more quickly. But if he thinks that the conversations are always going to be heavy, he won’t want to go near them. I remember once when I was on a spring break trip to the Caribbean with my daughter, a high school senior. I was a chaperone with two other parents and since her class was fairly small, we were able to ride the same bus from one place to another once we arrived. I knew most of the kids in her class and many knew what I did (go around town and talk to kids about sex). One boisterous senior decided to ask a few questions while we were in the bus one day en route to dinner. I was sitting at the front when I heard him yell from the back, “So, Dr. Meg. What’s the deal with gonorrhea and guys—why do they get it so much more than girls?”
All the seniors giggled. And then they waited, so I answered his question. Then another question came, and another. Some kids asked silly questions to make light of their discomfort, and we all laughed. But others asked wonderful questions, and by the time we arrived at our restaurant, everyone was having a fun time. We talked about some very serious issues, but when we decided to keep the conversation uplifting, it ended up being uplifting. Once the conversation started, it developed a life of its own. At first, one teen would ask something and I would answer, but after a while, the kids began talking to one another about sex as well as to me.
I have experienced this dynamic on many occasions. Several years ago I was asked to speak to a high school near Los Angeles where the pregnancy rate of the girls was high. Many of the students came from broken homes and drug use was high as well. The week before I arrived, two boys had been killed by school gangs. I will admit I was a bit intimidated, thinking that these students weren’t going to listen to some middle-aged doctor mom who wore a navy skirt and pumps. But once I began asking the kids questions, wanting to know their thoughts and feelings, I couldn’t get them to stop talking. One young man made a comment about how he and his friends viewed some of the “wilder girls” and suddenly many girls jumped up and rebuked him. The girls couldn’t believe what they were hearing. They asked, how could these boys look down on them? Once they began bantering back and forth, the conversation became lively and everyone really got involved.
The only way to get to the point where discussions about sex and dating can be light is to engage our sons early, and then periodically bring up the topic. If the subject becomes familiar, the mystery is dispelled and it gets easier to discuss all manner of topics. And remember, get going before he’s eleven, because once your son hits the teen years, sex will automatically be tougher for him to talk about.
Your son’s sexuality is one of the most precious possessions that he has. Now that you realize how crucial your role is in shaping it, I encourage you to do what I did when I went into that school in Los Angeles. I felt intimidated, old, out of touch (I had never been in proximity to a gang), and convinced that the kids would reject what I had to say. But I walked into the room anyway. And the time I spent with those students was one of the richest experiences I’ve ever had. So, walk into the room with your son and start the conversation. Let him know that you are with him for the long haul and that you will always have his back. And ask yourself, how different would your husband, brother, or significant other have been if their mothers had engaged them at an early age and told them to think long and hard about sex? How many women friends have you talked with who have experienced a lot of emotional pain because their own husbands lacked sexual control either before they got married or afterward? Many wives have a difficult time getting over a husband’s past lovers, and vice versa. Don’t let your son be set up for these problems when he is older.
From where I sit, you have already started the hard work. You have finished a chapter that dealt with many issues you probably didn’t want to read about. But now you know what happens in your son’s world and from here on out, you also know that you are the one who can make his future better. If you are still a bit nervous, think about this: Where will your son end up if you fail to engage him about the seriousness and the beauty of sex? No one has very positive news for him, so you be the bearer of that good news. And I promise, when he is twenty-five, he will love you all the more for it.