What Teenage Girls Wish Their Mothers Said About Sex

For one teenage girl, who watched the march on TV with her mother and felt comfortable enough to tell her about a babysitter who had fondled her “creepily” when she was 9, #MeToo was a consciousness-raising moment.

Another said she’d been very affected, first by the stories and then by the march. “I just had no idea how often it happens; I knew it went on, but I didn’t consider it an epidemic.”

For another, it all seemed confusing: What’s the difference, she asked, between assault and harassment? Is anything short of violent rape, against your will, by a stranger or by someone you know, sexual abuse? 

The girls I interviewed agreed on one thing; The conversations they had with their mothers about sex were mostly about the things moms worry about–contraception, protection, STDs, and sexting.  More than a few of them said they discussed the emotional and relational aspects of sex with their mothers too; “My Mom was pretty open and unembarrassed. I think she gave me a very healthy attitude toward sex,” said one.

Jadyn Pando, a 16-year-old headed to college this fall, said she hears a lot of stories about campus rape, but she’s not unduly worried about it. “I have no problem making a very big, loud, public scene if I feel threatened with any version of that.” She’s had enough male attention to discourage it when it's unwanted."If it's overt, I don’t just walk away and pretend it didn’t happen–I will always say, 'Don’t do that,' or 'That’s not okay.'” An older man who hassled her regularly when she was hostessing at a restaurant made her feel so uncomfortable she reported it to the owner (who also happens to be her father), who banned him from the premises. She added that she would have done the same thing if her boss wasn’t her parent, even if it meant losing her job.

The one thing all the young women I interviewed agreed on was that their mothers had not discussed that “in between” territory that most of them encounter in the dating scene,” and that has caused the most concern about the #MeToo movement –the nuances of romantic and/or sexual contact between the sexes–"the Aziz Ansari thing," as it’s come to be called. 

“What I wish she’d told me was how to tell him to stop when you’re okay with making out, even with heavy petting, but you really really don’t want to go further or have oral sex,” said Ms. Pando. “It’s not pleasant, but you do it anyway. Better to feel uncomfortable when it’s happening than feel sorry or ashamed afterward.”

“I wish my mother had asked me, 'Do you know how to say no, clearly enough so he hears it, in any romantic or sexual encounter?'” said another young woman who is one of my clients. A generational difference worth noting; while my own mother gave me a healthy attitude toward sex, she added (as did the dean of women when I was in college):"A lady doesn’t put herself in a position where that kind of thing can happen.” 

It may be that these days even the most liberal-minded mothers have a difficult enough time engaging with their daughters about sex to imagine them actually having it, regardless of changing your mind in the middle. It reminds me of a time when my daughter asked me a question about oral sex after reading Judy Blume's adult novelWifey: "I understand what and how, I just don 't understand why."  A few years later, in the midst of the Blue Dress that got everyone talking about it, I mentioned to her that in my day, sex was thought of in four well-defined stages –first, second, third base and home plate–and oral sex wasn't even in that progression. Her reply then, at 25, was "They've moved the bases since you were young, Mom." Indeed they have, and generally, it's a good thing.

(This  coda to one of my interviews came from a 20 year old man who supports the #MeToo-ers but adds that there’s not enough attention paid to its male victims, and illustrated his point by pointing out that “Even Law and Order:SVU ignores it unless it’s ripped from the headlines; for every 20 episodes they run about female victims, there’s only one about a male victim. “Just sayin',” he concluded. Thanks, Tristan: You're right, attention must be paid.