THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 17, 1995 TAG: 9501170282
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: The Subject is Sex
DAY 3
How should we talk about sex?
SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 175 lines
Reagan Reeves of Virginia Beach didn't expect she'd have to tackle issues of pregnancy and parenting with a 5-year-old daughter.
Then a 21-year-old woman who worked at her daughter's day care got pregnant, and she wasn't wearing a wedding band.
Reeves thought about moving to another sitter, because she was worried about the values her daughter might glean from daily interaction with a pregnant, unmarried woman. Instead, she and the day-care teacher gathered the kids around to explain the entire pregnancy and birth.
She still isn't convinced she made the right choice. ``So far, I haven't had any repercussions from it,'' said the 31-year-old. ``It puts you in a situation where you don't want to tell your child that it's a bad thing to have a child out of wedlock. Then again, you want them to know that it's preferable to have another person in the house when you have a baby.''
How should we pass the lessons of sex and sexuality to the next generation?
Through teaching such values as honesty, commitment, communication and intimacy, according to conversations with 40 people from across Hampton Roads.
The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, in conjunction with WHRV radio, held four community conversations - one each among teenagers, heterosexual men, heterosexual women and homosexuals of both sexes - to discuss the ways in which they've come to understand sexuality.
When it comes to knowledge, conversation participants agreed that it may be best to get all you can.
But a dialogue on sex begins to break down when people ponder just how much should be taught, when, and whose values should make the curriculum.
Group participants agreed that sex education should begin at home with parents as educators and models of positive behavior. But they couldn't agree, or weren't sure, what should happen when parents are missing or simply don't care.
They agreed that the church and schools must step in. They had different thoughts on how far those institutions should go.
They didn't always have definitive solutions. Sometimes, participants were left with more questions:
Intimacy: What should kids see?
Adults said children need to see signs of affection between parents, to understand how to build relationships. Sometimes, the message is so subtle that children may not understand what they've learned until years later.
Scott Taylor, 37, grew up as a ``Navy brat,'' traveling around the world with a close-knit family that talked a lot, hollered some, and didn't mind a big hug to make up.
His wife grew up in a world where parents spoke and children listened obediently. ``There was no intimacy inside the house,'' he said. ``My wife has told me she has never seen her parents touch.''
Now, the two of them sometimes struggle to reconcile their different styles, and give their three kids a lesson in how to build an open, loving partnership.
``I believe in touching and handling. I feel her pull away from me at times because she doesn't know how to handle it,'' Taylor said. ``But with my children, it's not that way. I can interact with my kids and they know how to deal with it. I see the difference. It starts at home.''
Sometimes, the home is a place where the learning is frightening and painful. George Bright, 42, saw things that terrified him, and is still dealing with his sexual confusion.
At age 3, he says he saw a relative making love, ``and it hurt me because I didn't understand it.'' At age 5, he was imitating what he'd seen, and by the time he was 10, he was trying it.
Now, he has four kids of his own. How does he avoid passing on the messages that he got in a family that did it all wrong?
``I had to make some changes from my upbringing, from what I learned and how I learned about my sexuality,'' he said. ``I'm having problems dealing with my own sexuality and then I'm supposed to train the kids? My kids?''
Honesty: What do we tell our children?
Margie Sullivan of Virginia Beach remembers the evening her 7-year-old daughter approached her while Sullivan prepared dinner. Her daughter, Kathleen, asked about a family friend who was adopting and why the biological mom wasn't keeping the baby.
``Well, she had the baby because she got pregnant,'' Sullivan said, busying herself with carrots.
``Well, why did she get pregnant?''
``Well, because to get pregnant you do something that really feels good.''
``Mom, does it feel better than getting your back scratched?''
Sullivan said that conversation, begun in the kitchen, continued for years.
``It was just one of those golden gifts that we get from time to time where the situation was just sort of handed there,'' Sullivan said. ``I was able to use it to open up the conversation and let her say, yeah - this is a part of life.''
The teenagers in the community conversations wish their parents were as open. Most said their parents dismiss them too easily with, ``You don't need to know about that right now.'' Inadvertently, adults are quick to spew the myths of teenage sexuality - that teens think the world revolves around sex, that teens are promiscuous, that they have sex to relieve boredom.
``They say just because you're young you don't know anything about it,'' said Augustus Garrett, a senior at Lake Taylor High School.
``But we're young adults and we pretty much have the same feelings about sexuality as adults do. Maybe more intensely.''
Honesty was the key to Loen Arrington's acceptance of her homosexuality. Arrington grew up in the Methodist church and internalized the belief that she was an immoral being. As a teenager, she tried to commit suicide. She later became a Methodist minister, but after 20 years was forced to turn away from the church of her youth, and into another ministry that accepted gays.
``Honesty is what the relationship is built on,'' said Arrington, 49.
``If we're not honest with each other, then we don't know each other and we can't build a loving relationship.''
Communication: Who should pass the values?
Participants in the discussions acknowledged that if parents don't talk to their children about sex and sexuality, other institutions need to help.
Kenny Bryant, 32, a minister at Tabernacle Church of Norfolk, is married and has two children. He wants to see churches teaching parents how to be better parents, including how to talk about sex.
``I think the church shirks its responsibility in this area,'' he said, ``but it is their responsibility to help equip the parents to be good parents in a lot of areas other than sex.''
Many of the adults supported some form of family life education - the state-mandated sex education program in the schools. There wasn't agreement on the extent and content, however.
Several teens said it should begin in kindergarten.
``I think it needs to start early and progress after that,'' said Albert Whitley Jr., an 18-year-old I.C. Norcom student.
``But they never ask the kids how they feel about this, only the parents and politicians. They never talk to us.''
Bryant had a different view.
``I don't want to send my child to school in second grade to have the teacher to tell them about the mechanics of sex, the same way I wouldn't want to send my child to church and let the Sunday school teacher . . . ,'' he said.
Reeves suggested a class or session for the parents.
``It would be nice to know what they're teaching the next day so we would be prepared to answer their questions when they get home,'' Reeves said.
Sometimes, all the lessons - the honesty, the communication - come together in one magical moment.
In that moment, the silence is broken.
Sandra Brown, then 15, remembers the night she walked into her mother's bedroom with a romance novel and some questions.
``Mom, is this what sex is like? Really?''
Her mom sighed as she took the book away and patted the blanket beside her. Sandra had tapped on the bedroom door around 9 p.m.; they finished talking as the sun dawned the next morning.
``I really believe it was the best thing she could've ever done for me,'' said Brown, now a freshman at Old Dominion University.
``We didn't talk about the mechanics. I knew that stuff. She told me the real stuff - that sex isn't always pretty, people don't wake up with their hair neatly combed in the morning, you'll sweat, you'll make noises, he'll make noises that will scare you. Sex won't always be what you want and sometimes you won't care.
``But in all its rawness, sex and everything that comes with it can be a very beautiful thing.'' ILLUSTRATION: TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff photos
Reagan Reeves, 31, is the mother of 5-year-old Erin, left, and 3
1/2-year-old Tyler, right. After Erin's teacher became pregnant,
Reeves worked with the teacher to explain pregnancy and birth to
children at the day-care center.
Chart
[For a copy of the chart, see microfilm for this date.]
AGE AT FIRST INTERCOURSE
A comprehensive national survey released this fall by the University
of Chicago shows a steadily declining age at which teenagers first
have sexual intercourse.
SOURCE: "Sex in America"
JANET SHAUGHNESSY/Staff
KEYWORDS: SEXUALITY by CNB