Sex! It can be an action, orientation, or physical state
Sex! It can be an action, orientation, or physical state. Learn about all of the different aspects of sexuality in the Crash Course video below.
The first time I heard about sex was in third grade. My best friend told me that sex is when a worm goes in your belly button and makes a baby... even more horrifying was when she told me that a girl could get pregnant when she started bleeding out of her vagina every month! The shock, the outrage.
Then came middle school... oh, middle school. Scarring children for life since 1900. One of my best friends believed that girls got pregnant when they French kissed a boy and a bit of his tongue fell off into the back of her throat, and traveled down to her stomach to make a watermelon grow from the tongue seeds. Said friend was having unprotected sex with her boyfriend but would not French kiss him. By then, I knew better, but just shook my head.
The truth is, the more we know about sexuality, the better the choices we can make. .
From a young age, some children realize that they are different. Before they even realize what homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, or pansexuality are, they can tell that they feel differently than other children. Yet, many of these same children lack the words to make sense of it. As they learn about sexual orientation, they begin to understand that they are different because their sexuality is different.
Other children begin their life feeling different because their body doesn't fit the way they feel on the inside. Perhaps a child was born with the biological sex of a boy but he preferred girly things and felt that "he" was actually a "she." As the child grows, this might cause great confusion. Are they gay? Are they a boy or a girl? This is gender--and biological sex and gender are two different things.
Yes! You can be born a boy, feel like a girl, but still like girls. If this child decided to dress and act like a girl outside of play, that child would be a biological male, trans-female, and would be considered straight--sexually. It can get rather complicated...
What can I say? People are complicated, and a one-size fits all doesn't work. Even though sex, sexual orientation, sexuality, and gender might intimidate us as adults--and it might be tempting to tell them a "watermelon" or "worm" story, it won't help them in their lives.
When we don't give our children the words or the understanding for sex and sexuality, this can lead to confusion and bad consequences such as an unwanted pregnancy of a sexually transmitted infection (STI). In order to help our children, we need to first start by educating ourselves. Begin today with the video above.
Happy learning!
