How should we as parents handle questions asked by our teenage kids about perverted sexual acts seen on internet porn e.g. group sex, anal sex etc?
It is the parent’s job to create a safe and honest environment for discussion with their teenage kids, should the need to address such questions comes up. Don’t be afraid. Your hesitation can often be sensed by your kids. Don’t forget, just as you think you know your kids, your kids have known you all their lives too. Very often, children hide their confusion or queries from their parents out of fear and shame. This is usually the biggest impediment to having such questions addressed.
While parents vary in their capacity for insight or verbal dialogue, it is not unusual for them to try and engage the services of a sex educator who could help disburse age appropriate and factually sound information about sex and the human body to their kids. Unfortunately, the Indian school curriculum doesn’t pay much heed to sex education. There’s still an archaic belief that any talk on sex is ‘immoral’ or ‘incorrect’ or ‘polluting the minds of youngsters’. Sex is a universal phenomenon and it must be embraced with a spirit of ‘scientific inquiry’. It’s perfectly alright to not have all the answers. Parents are human beings first and should be expected to be encyclopaedias.
If questions come your way, I’d encourage you to try to accept the questions without judgement or bias. There is nothing wrong with the curiosity of a growing mind. Most philosophers and great leaders would argue that the mind never stops growing and that they’ve learned their most enduring lessons from experiences and knowledge that they picked up along the way.
If you do not know an answer, be honest with your children about that. Also, assure them that they are not in trouble for having questions and that you will look into a way to have their curiosities appropriately addressed.
Group sex and anal sex have been a reality in society through the ages so it would be well within reason for them to wonder about it and have questions. Perhaps you’d like to educate them about how multiple partners (as in group sex) can lead to the proliferation of STDs and that the ‘depersonalised’ experience of the ‘group sex – public scenario’ is an outrage of one’s ability to initiate and sustain a healthy and private relationship that is based in mutual respect and trust. Anal sex has been covered in an earlier section of this book and you are welcome to share an excerpt from that section with your kids should the need to discuss the topic arise.
Without value judgement or shaming your child for having questions in the first place, you’d be surprised at how far you can get with a simple empathetic and clearly worded parent-child conversation.
(Aman R Bhonsle is a qualified Psychosocial Analyst and a Professional Youth Mentor with specialisation in Transactional Analysis and REBT. He is available for consultation at the Heart To Heart Counselling Centre.)