Woman's Hour - Parenting: How should you to talk to your teenagers about losing their virginity?

Episode Date: December 12, 2019

How should you talk to your teenagers about losing their virginity? How do you even approach the topic with them? Jenni Murray is joined by Flo Perry, the author of ‘How to have Feminist Sex’, and Rachel Fitzsimmons, sex educator and lecturer in sexual health at the University of Central Lancashire. They have plenty of tips on how to have these often difficult conversations when the time is right.

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Hello, Jenny Murray here, welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for parents. How does a parent begin to approach the question of virginity with a son or a daughter? What virginity means and at what point it's okay to lose it? Well, Rachel Fitzsimmons lectures in sexual health at the University of Central Lancashire and joins us from Liverpool. Flo Perry is the author of How to Have Feminist Sex. Flo, how would you define virginity? For me, virginity, it shouldn't be thought of, I don't think, as one occasion. I think losing your virginity should be just about gaining sexual experience over time. And we have many virginities. We're all losing virginities throughout our lives.

You know, the first time that you have sex with the person you marry, the first time that you have sex with anyone, the first time you do oral sex, the first time you have sex outside. All these different types of virginities. Neither one needs to be more important than the other, I think. You make a comparison in the book with eating your first chocolate croissant how did that idea work? I'm very passionate about pastry and sex so naturally these things are always on my mind. I think that what I wanted to make the point with that is that you have a

variety of chocolate croissants in your life and they vary in quality sometimes you have some really terrible chocolate croissants and sometimes you might have some bad sex but this doesn't need to be they don't need to be the ones you remember you can have some amazing chocolate croissants and some amazing sex and what your first chocolate croissant is like doesn't matter because you have a whole life of chocolate croissants ahead of you of varying quality rachel how would you define virginity? I love Flo's chocolate croissant analogy. That's perfect.

I think she's right. If we put so much pressure on this one event, particularly for young people, that could be just too much pressure. So I like this idea of gaining experience over time. Definitely. It's too complicated to define as well. It's very heteronormative, isn't it?

Our traditional view of virginity as being a male and female penetration thing, where actually sexual activity is so much broader than that. And I try and get young people to sort of view it that way as well. What do you make, though, Rachel, of everything that's written about your first time? That it's going to be painful, you will bleed, you won't have an orgasm, the hymen will be broken,

it'll all be horrible. It sounds horrific, doesn't it? So, I mean, I do a lot of sex education in schools as well as the lecturing, and we try to sort of shatter these myths. I mean, yeah, there can be bleeding, there can be pain, but actually, and that's talking very much about females' experience of first sex as well, but actually, if you take it back to basics and strip it down to, do you feel safe? Do you feel respected? Are you in a healthy relationship? Does it feel exciting? Does it feel, to be more positive about sex and actually think about who we're actually experiencing it with, and that will shape your experience more than often the physicality of it. And what,

Rachel, would you say it means for boys, the mere concept of virginity? I think we, historically, parents have treated sort of boys' virginity differently to girls, I think. We're very protective of our child's virginity and for girls we seem to think it's coveted, lock up your daughters. And for boys it's seem to think it's coveted. Lock up your daughters. And for boys, it's more, you know, don't get anyone pregnant. Sow your seeds. So actually, I think boys feel a lot of pressure because no one's talking to them about their thoughts and feelings.

Whereas actually in the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyle, it was very evident 40% of young women said that they did, sorry, 50% of young women felt they could not make an informed decision the first time. And 40% of young men also felt they could not make an informed decision the first time. So they're experiencing this too. Flo, what about the whole question of pornography, which has proliferated in recent years, and dealing with unrealistic expectations, if you've watched it. I think that's a really that is actually a very important conversation that parents should be having

with their teenagers. I think that you can't stop pornography it's everywhere it's not going to go away anytime soon. I think that what we need to do is talk about it more and tell our teenagers that it's not realistic and comparing your sex life to pornography is like comparing your civil service job to being James Bond. Porn is entertainment, it's the movies, it's made to look good not feel good and that normal sex, well not normal sex but sex you will be having is not like that. Rachel when do you reckon is the right time to start these kind of discussions about embarking on a sex life and and you know a lot of parents will find these discussions about pornography actually quite hard. Yeah they will find them

hard and I think that the mistake we make as parents is we we leave it a little bit too late and I spoke to you about this before on the show where I think the younger we make as parents is we leave it a little bit too late. And I spoke to you about this before on the show where I think the younger we can sort of open that dialogue. As parents, it's our job to establish and maintain a meaningful dialogue. And I think if you build those communication skills with your family, your parents, you're actually equipping your child to have really good conversations with their partner and their friends. And that will help and pornography yeah if you just go straight in when they're 14 so pornography it's going to be a bit intimidating they're going to go shut up mom go away um but yeah if you've already talked about consent uh our bodies our rights our responsibilities then it's a natural progression

to sort of talk about you know it's very personal virginity it's very natural progression to sort of talk about, you know, it's very personal virginity, it's very personal your actual experiences about sex. But actually as a parent you can talk about reading your gut instinct, do you feel safe, do you feel respected and all those things. They're kind of safe things for parents to talk about and your kids will learn from that and adapt it to their situations in life. Flo, how do you reckon parents can take some of the pressure off the children and themselves in this whole vital but often difficult discussion? I think that it's a great thing to do is to focus on the joy that is sex and to make sure your child, especially your daughter, knows that sex is meant to be fun because we have, there's so many messages that girls get that sex is going to be painful and scary and all of these things. And I think that it's important to remind your children that you're meant to be enjoying sex and if you're not, then something's wrong. And make sure that they can come and talk to you if something goes wrong and that sex isn't a source of shame for them.

Rachel, how can we help them deal with peer pressure and that idea that everybody's doing it, so I ought to be doing it? Yeah, I think the pressure that often young people are putting themselves under is often from themselves. We've got this sort of perceived norm of everybody doing it, when actually the average age of first sexual experience, sort of losing virginity, if you like, is still 16. And that's not really changed too much over time.

But when I ask young people, when do you think people are having sex? They'll tell me, oh yeah, 13, 14. So their perception often puts themselves under pressure. I think young people have this sense of, not so much peer pressure, but peer belonging. They want to fit in. They don't want to be the only virgin in their group, but they might not be the only virgin in their group.

And I think boys in particular, you know, if you listen to every boy, they're all having sex a lot earlier than they really are. So what basic differences are there then in the way the subject should be approached with boys and girls Rachel? I think it's the same you know I think it's about we need to teach our young people it's almost like a checklist am I ready for sex do I feel ready does it feel right do I feel safe do I feel respected do I love my partner do we feel the same way about each other have we talked about condoms STI prevention have we talked about do i feel able to say no if i want to stop at any point if i want to change my mind but it's also about you respecting that in the other person and almost respecting that they've got to go through that

checklist as well so it's about communication really so i think the same in that respect flo what if your child is not heterosexual? How do you approach the subject with them? They may be out, they may not be out, but you may suspect. I think that you just should let them lead. I think you should answer any questions that they have as honestly as you can. And if you don't know the answer, don't feel like you're lacking in some way. You can help them research together. Or maybe you can give them some resource, like a book,

that they might learn their own way of doing things. But I think there's too much pressure on parents to be the sole source of information when, like Rachel said, conversations with their partner and their peers and their teachers are that all of this information contributes to their idea of sex. How would you recommend, a parent approach a sexuality that may not be heterosexual should they leave it to friends to sex education at school or should they try and handle it themselves? I think a bit of both like Flo says I think there's lots of people around a

young person parents teachers youth workers, youth workers, peers, that can all input in that debate. I think if you feel that your sexuality is your sexuality and you have the right to explore that, I think it flows right being sex positive and really inclusive in the way you talk about sexual experience, that it might not necessarily be with males, females or either. And that's, I think we just need, our attitudes are really heteronormative.

We really need to sort of be more inclusive and talk about the feelings and the experiences. I mean, stressing about, you know, such as whether you're a virgin or whether you're straight or whether you, it is way less important than how you feel about your sexual experience. So I think we need to sort of have those conversations. Flo, what about the consent question how would you say parents should make sure they know it's okay to say no i think just make sure your child knows that sex is meant to be something

that's enjoyed and if they're not enjoying it they can say no and give your child a sense of confidence and if they have that confidence that they they can say no. And give your child a sense of confidence. And if they have that confidence that they are worthy of love and respect and a good sex life, then they're going to feel like if they're not getting those things, they can say no. And just make sure that they know that you're there for them if something does go wrong and that you won't shame them and it won't be their fault if something goes wrong. And what about, Rachel, contraception and understanding about pregnancy risk and ST infections I mean you still hear kids saying oh you can't get pregnant the first time. I know I know they're still out there these myths I tackle this sort of every week

um yeah we need to let them know about contraception the choices out there but we can know all about how to use condoms properly we can know about how the pill works but if we don't have the communication and confidence like flo said the confidence the self-worth to kind of negotiate that with your partner and have that conversation i think that's really really important but yeah you do need to get rid of that some of those you know if the withdrawal method you know that that will work or or that you can you know you can't get pregnant the first time. Those myths are still out there, so I think it's about factual, but also it's communication skills again.

Just a quick definition of what you mean by feminist sex. For me, feminist sex is about having the sex that you want to have, whatever that looks like, with maximum pleasure for you, rather than the sex that you feel like you should be having because of what society or your parents or your partner is telling you so go your own way yeah but listen to your parents sometimes um i don't know maybe it depends what they're saying listen to yourself most of all flo perry and rachel fitzsimmons thank you both very much indeed and we would of course like to hear from you if you're a parent how have you

dealt with it um and if you're a teenager what did you make of what your parents said and of course if you have any ideas about things that we could discuss about being a parent, do contact us. You can email us or you can tweet us or you could even send us a letter. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

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