MOLI VIEW™

Listening to This American Life's show on "How to Talk to Kids" reminded me of a eureka moment I'd had years ago. I'd been spending a lot of time thinking about teen pregnancy while running a program for teen mothers in Durham, North Carolina. I was astonished how these young women, who are among the most stigmatized people in our society, still somehow managed to find other teen mothers to stigmatize themselves. As one teen told me, "We not like the girls in the other school [the girls who did not enroll in the special program for teen mothers] who be gettin' pregnant just to be gettin' pregnant, cuz they think it's cute."
There's a whole school of thought out there that young women get pregnant "on purpose," supposedly to get attention, to get welfare, to get a boy, or to get a baby who will love them since no one else does. This last theory was expounded by Babies Having Babies, a book out at the time by a reporter from the Washington Post (sorry I don't remember his name and can't find any references online — that was in pre-digital times, 17 years ago!). Only problem was, the writer interviewed teen moms after their babies were born and asked if they'd wanted to have the baby. Of course, they said yes. What else could they say?
Anyway, the message for teens then, as now, is that having sex or not having sex is all about "responsibility." Make a responsible choice and don't get pregnant. Be responsible and don't get sick. You'd be hard pressed to figure out why anyone would want to have sex in the first place.
Which brings me to the epiphany. While on summer break from the Durham teen moms, I went to Buenos Aires where I met — more teen moms. I started hanging out at what's called a materno, a home where teen moms and their babies go to live when their families are too ashamed or too financially-strapped to support them. I talked to experts on the issue to see how it was understood in Argentina. What stuck out was a minority opinion: I'll never forget sitting in one psychologist's office who told me that whenever she speaks to teens about sex, she always emphasizes pleasure. That's right, not "responsibility"; "pleasure."
By harping on about pregnancy and disease, we unconsciously deliver a message that those risks are in fact the price of sex. That sex is bad and teens who do it deserve what they get. So too many teens forgo contraception and STD protection to dutifully take their punishment. On the other hand, if you can convey that sex is about pleasure, and there are these simple things you can do to avoid serious consequences, then teens are more likely to just do those simple things, and enjoy their budding sexuality. Wow!
The segment on talking to kids about sex drove this point home for me again. Host Ira Glass interviewed a group of teen editors from Sex Etc. is a national magazine and website written by teens for teens about how parents talk to kids about sex. The verdict was awkwardly, vaguely, or not at all. The possibility of pleasure, in the act or in the communication between parent and child, never came up at all.
That's a symptom of the way teen sex still is treated in our culture in general. If anything, with rise of "abstinence only" movements, the link between sex and doom is stronger now than when I first started working with teens (and certainly than when I was a sexually active teen myself).
Typical is the Stay Teen campaign, launched by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Teens submitted videos of their great, teen lives — winners 1) were chased around the yard by chickens; 2) played in a hardcore garage band; 3) proclaimed their fabulousness in a city street; and 4) jumped on a trampoline — all ending with the tagline: "This is my life. I'm not going to mess it up with a teen pregnancy." That's the equation: get pregnant = mess up your life.
From there the site gives lots of information and links about abstinence, then a little bit of lip-service to contraception, with links that lead to nowhere informative about how to use it or get it. Certainly not to direct and informative sites like Sex, Etc. or the extensive and detailed information provided by Teenwire, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America site for teens.
Even Sex, Etc. and Teenwire emphasize the dire consequences, reenforcing the link between sex and responsibility. But in Sex, Etc. there are glimmers of brighter possibilities. Supported by the Center for Applied Psychology at Rutgers University, Sex, Etc. teens share their own sexual experience frankly and call on experts for more information, including one Beverly Whipple, PhD, RN, "who is Professor Emerita at Rutgers University and an expert on sexual pleasure."
Here's what the Sex, Etc. teens glean from Dr. Whipple:

There's a lot more at stake here than orgasms.
If girls feel they aren't entitled to enjoy sex, then they are less likely to say "no" to sex or to use contraception if they say, "yes," experts say. That's because they see sex as someone else's decision. They do it to please their boyfriends — or to make their boyfriends love them, rather than because they want to have sex.
"Girls need to be given the message that they can be in control," Whipple explains. "It's really important for them to be empowered to say when something does or doesn't feel good."
They also need to hear positive messages, like, "You're worthwhile. You have a lot to offer. You have a right to pleasure," says Whipple.

That's right, Dr. Whipple. Let's not just talk about sex; Let's talk about pleasure.


Celeste Fraser Delgado is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Worthy Causes.

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