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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Your book is mostly about building relationships, and then fitting sex into it. Is your book meant to promote long-lasting relationships?
I think it encourages more real and special relationships. My first time was with a girl I didn't even know, I mean I had never even seen her before and after it was over I never saw her again. Afterwards I was left with an empty feeling and an awful experience. The difference between that time and a couple of years later when I had a girlfriend all summer, and we went from talking to walking her home, to holding hands, to kissing, making out and then finally at the end of the summer we ended up being lovers was a world apart. For years I called that experience my first time. I still hold it in a special place in my heart.
I'm trying to tell young guys that it's all about connection. I don't think the first sexual experiences necessarily lead to marriage, because it takes a while to find the right person. But I think that it leads to wonderful relationships with people, because you were real with each other. Nobody is discussing how you talk about real issues that come up, how to develop intimacy, what relationship really means.
And the message is also that sexual intimacy is really fun. A lot of parents are so afraid of their teenagers getting STDs or AIDS, or getting somebody pregnant, that their message is "just don't do it." But this runs contrary to everything these kids are feeling. Their bodies are telling them this is the direction to go in. And it's much more respectful to them to honor that, to say "Yes, that's what your body is telling you, and this is what the territory looks like. These are the decisions that you're going to face, and if you go in, do so with your eyes and heart open."
Were women involved in writing the book?
I wrote the book, though of course my viewpoint is a product of the many women in my life who have been teachers and partners. I sent out the first draft to many women for reactions, and had a teenage "ambassador" for the second one. She contacted many teenagers, after getting their parents' permission, to give me feedback on the language and content.
How much of kids' impressions of sex come from the media these days?
The media has a tremendous impact on kids' expectations about sexuality and love. A lot of kids think that it's about being swept away into a perfect romantic entanglement. They're disappointed when they have a relationship and find they're not swept off their feet. The media tends to either foster such romantic fantasies, or trivialize sex by presenting it as a subject for jokes and innuendos, or portray it crudely, outside the context of a relationship.
The media has done a good job in one area: discussing sexually transmitted diseases and birth control directly. This can help foster a dialogue between parents and kids. But the media's overall poor treatment of sexuality is a high price to pay. I'd like TV programs or movies to show real relationships -- people getting to know one another, finding out likes and dislikes, and gradually progressing to intimacy or ending it because it doesn't feel right. I wish the media would get to the heart side.
Isn't advising abstinence the safest course in the age of AIDS?
I was shocked to read a study indicating that half of all new HIV cases in the United States are kids between the ages of 13 and 24. But the problem is that studies also show that half the young people who take abstinence vows break them within a year or so. And a lot of them are much more likely to have unprotected and unsafe sex because they don't know what else to do, how else to follow through.
A 1995 study, the National Survey of Family Growth, found that 51 percent of kids were sexual by age 17 and that boys and girls are almost equally active. Given figures like this, I'm saying that it's best to give the kids all the information about this territory they're entering so they can make better decisions. I feel there's a strong possibility my son is going to be sexual before he is married, and I'd like it to be in a relationship in which he cares about the person. I'd like it to be something he can actually feel good about and, even if it doesn't work out, where he can still be friends with the girl afterwards.
But a lot of parents would say that your approach encourages kids to have sex.
Studies of over three dozen sex education programs have shown that the kids who have more information make better decisions, and that increased sex education does not lead to increased or earlier sexual activity. My book is going to give kids real information so they'll make much better decisions. It seeks to help them realize that it's a big decision, and they should not just let their hormones, Internet or television drive them. They should really think about themselves and go at a pace they're really comfortable with.
