Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Should You Give Your Daughter a Vibrator?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Bites, where I tackle your most asked questions and requested topics. These episodes are designed to be fun, quick, and to the point. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. So stay tuned till the end of this video because I'm going to share my honest opinion about what is in the best service of your girls when it comes to their sexual development and self-stimulation,

Starting point is 00:00:39 especially with a vibrator. Should you or shouldn't you give your daughter a vibrator? That's what we're going to talk about in this episode. My thoughts on that issue, the benefits and the possible disadvantages of teaching your daughter to take her pleasure into her own hands, literally and figuratively. You ready? Okay. So here's the deal. I got in a lot, a lot, a lot of trouble years ago on the Oprah Winfrey show when we did an episode about sex education of children. And one of the things that came up was that I said that I thought it was a good idea, especially when your daughter was getting to her mid-teen years, to give her a little external, not internal dildo, but external vibrator. Woo-wee! Did America go crazy? Mostly Gayle King

Starting point is 00:01:36 went crazy. Oprah agreed with me, by the way. But Gayle King got very offended because her story, which a lot of people's story is, she's not alone in this, and we're going to talk about this, is that if you give the daughter a vibrator, you're basically telling her that it's OK to be sexual. Yeah, it's OK to be sexual. Guess what? We are born sexual. In fact, in ultrasounds, they have documented babies self-stimulating in the womb. All right. We come out. That doesn't mean that when we're babies, we're thinking about sex the way adults do, but it means self-stimulation is a natural part of life. And it's a birthright. It's something we're born with. And of course, when we're little and babies, we do it more for self-soothing, you know, and for

Starting point is 00:02:25 self-love and self-exploration. But by the time you get to your teenage years, you're not going to stop your kid from being sexual. Okay. That is very different than being sexual with someone else or having a sexual experience with someone else. Those are two totally different things. Parents and to some degree society mistakenly thinks that, oh, if we just like don't talk about it and we don't give them any permission to be sexual beings

Starting point is 00:02:58 and we don't normalize the fact that their bodies are being flooded with testosterone and they're having sexual feelings and drives and thoughts and arousal without any intention of doing so, this is what's happening to them developmentally, right? That somehow if we don't acknowledge that or we don't allow that or we don't teach them how to work with that, that somehow that will keep them safer, which I am here to tell you is a complete myth. And it is a myth based on irrational fear because the truth is, and Oprah agreed with me

Starting point is 00:03:37 at the time when I explain this, that she's going to have these sexual feelings either way. Do you want her to understand her own body, know what her own pleasure cycle is, be able to take care of her own sexual needs, or do you want her to do what happens 80% of the time of first sexual experiences of women? That they're in a scenario where they're making out with some guy or they're half drunk or they're fooling around with someone and they have so much desire already in their bodies and that person is stimulating them in a way that they don't even know what's happening they just know it feels really good and they want it to keep going and that is why 80 percent of first sexual experiences of women while not forced were not planned were not necessarily wanted and

Starting point is 00:04:29 certainly weren't intended and she's less likely to use protection and she's less likely to make a conscious decision about who she's going to have sex with. And if she doesn't understand her body, she's less likely to wait because it just feels good and she gets carried away. Right. Now, the other scenario is that you do what a lot of communities do, you know, especially religious communities in certain religions and some families do, which is to try to shame the crap out of the child, to teach them that these normal feelings and urges are bad, wrong, dirty, evil until you get married. And until you're with someone of the opposite gender, then it's okay, right? And so we're somehow supposed to flip a switch on our wedding night after all of this repression and

Starting point is 00:05:14 shame built into our sexual beings and be able to enjoy a positive, wonderful sex life with our partners. Half my practice through the years has been filled with people who were raised with those inhibitions and that sexual shame, and they can't shake it. They can't just flip a switch. They have to go through therapy to actually release some of the inhibitions and shame that they've been raised with. So I don't think that is a healthy way or productive way to keep your child safe or to keep your daughter safe. Now, if you were to teach your daughter, really teach boys and girls, everyone from around age nine or 10 about puberty, about what happens in girls and boys bodies with adolescents about sexual development, normalizing that this is going to happen because,

Starting point is 00:06:03 by the way, the average age of menstruation beginning now is nine years old in America. OK, so by the time a girl has started menstruating, she definitely has a lot of sexual thoughts and fantasies that she may not even understand or be able to make sense of. And she's developing sexually in ways that don't match her emotional maturity level. So if she understands ahead of time, I'm not saying you give her a vibrator at nine by any means, but if she understands ahead of time what's going to happen to her body and that it is normal to have these thoughts, these feelings, these ideas about sex, especially as these hormonal changes start happening, that there's a reason for that. And then if she has already gotten her period and she's 13, 14,

Starting point is 00:06:53 15, certainly by the age of 16, if she, you know, it's clear that she's sexually developing from her breasts and her hips and her pimples and the way you can tell when your kid is going through it, you explain that you give her a little teeny external clitoral vibrator and you say, look, you are developing you probably have all sorts of thoughts and feelings and fantasies and I want you to know that it's completely normal and I already taught you because hopefully you taught her at 9 10 11 about what the different parts of the genitals are and where her clitoris are is when I teach 9 10 year olds about sexual anatomy or you know reproductive anatomy we do it very matter of factly. I show them a map of a woman's genitals and inside of her uterus and her fallopian

Starting point is 00:07:48 tubes and ovaries. And I show a picture of what's inside a male body or a boy's body. And then I explain what happens, the changes that happen, how semen starts getting produced in boys. And in girls, I talk about menstruation. But I also, as I'm explaining the external genitals, I point out the clitoris. And I say, this area is very rich in nerve endings and feels good to be touched. boom, that's it. So I introduced that very early and I don't go say, go home and check it out, girls. I'm just sort of informing them because they're going to check it out. They figure it out already with their teddy bears or their pillows or the stair banister or something else. So eventually, if you give her a vibrator and at the very least, if you're not going to give her

Starting point is 00:08:36 a vibrator, teach her and normalize self-stimulation. Why? So she can use her hands or a showerhead or something else or a vibrator. But if you teach her to take her pleasure into her own hands, then she is in control. If she goes on a date with someone who she thinks is really hot and or is hanging out with someone who she's really attracted to, she doesn't have to get sexual with them. She can come home and think about it and get sexual with herself. Release that energy herself. Explain to her that sexual energy is a buildup of energy. And at this age, it's going to build up and you're going to want a release. And the key is not to release with someone else yet. Insert your own family values here. We really want you to wait until you're a certain age or

Starting point is 00:09:26 until you're married or until you are in a monogamous relationship with someone who only wants to be monogamous with you or until you're in love, right? Each family has their own values and should have their own conversation around the right time. Okay. So we want you to wait until X to have sex with someone else. But in the meantime, it's really helpful and important and healthy to learn about your body, to learn about what pleasures you and to take your pleasure into your own hands. And you can do that with your hands, with your fingers, with a shower head, or you can try this little external vibrator that's it so I am a fan at the very least teaching your daughters unequivocally every single child starting at around 10 11 12 should definitely

Starting point is 00:10:13 know about the clitoris and should know that self-stimulation is normal and to know that taking your sexual power into your own hands and understanding how to work with that is not only good for your health and your future sex life, but it also helps prevent sex too early. It helps prevent unwanted pregnancies and it helps prevent sexually transmitted diseases or infections because you can transmute that sexual energy that you may want to express with someone else. You can take care of it yourself. So that's my feeling about giving your daughters a sex toy. you can tell me how you feel. I know this is controversial. I'm just speaking to you from 30 years of experience of dealing in my office, not only with young women and even girls, but so many

Starting point is 00:11:04 adults who, because of the mistakes they made or the decisions they made when they didn't understand their sexual power and their sexual expression, and when they didn't know how they could take it into their own hands, the difficult decisions and repercussions that happened as a result. So I am telling you, teach your daughters at the very least that self-stimulation is normal, natural. It's having sex with someone you love. It's healthy. And if you're willing, give them a little sex toy to have some fun with as well. Let me know in the comments whether you agree with me or not, it's fine to say I'm crazy. I don't mind. I want to know your thoughts. And if there's any other topic that you want me to talk about, you know, I'm always here for you.

Starting point is 00:11:52 Just let me know. I'm here to help you learn to love and be loved better. I wrote me a prescription

Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Should You Give Your Daughter a Vibrator?

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