The XX Factor: What women really think.

The Teen-Sex Talk That Wasn't

Hanna, you said you tear up remembering Tami's sex talk with Julie from Friday Night Lights. But the television teen-sex talk that always gets me is the one that wasn't. In a truly spectacular episode of My So-Called Life, Angela, under pressure from Jordan Catalano to, you know, go somewhere, cries out silently—futilely—for someone to intervene. The family doctor is too distracted by delivering the "safe sex" message to tell Angela that she shouldn't have sex—even with two forms of birth control—until she's ready. The dad's too oblivious to pick up on her desperate offers that maybe she should just stay home that night. And her proudly slutty best friend Rayanne is too excited for her to join the post-virgin club to whisk her away from the abandoned house where Jordan has taken her to do the deed (and where Rayanne has gone, we assume, for something similar). One of the trickiest parts of being a teenager is admitting when you need boundaries—and one of the trickiest parts of raising one is decoding that need. That's an arena in which Tami shines: she often butchers her shot at being the "cool mom" (or cool principal) by being stern and saying no. In Angela's case (though she surely wouldn't have admitted it aloud, especially not to her mother), a stern sex talk was exactly what she wanted.

I don't actually agree with Emily that Tami's message about sex is inconsistent. She told Julie to wait until she was ready. It's pretty clear Julie followed that advice by the calm, mature way that she describes to Tami her loving relationship with Matt—a far cry from her cold affect two seasons earlier when, while squeamishly thumbing through sexy underwear, she tells Tyra she just wants to get the first time over with. Still, I'd say risking inconsistency by switching from a mantra of "don't" to a reassurance of "it's OK" is a far better play than being consistently silent.

Is the Teen Sex Talk Different for Sons and Daughters?

Hanna, I think you hit the nail right on the head. Most modern moms are profoundly ambivalent about their daughters' sex lives (sons too, but we'll get to that in a second). I would find it incredibly creepy if a mother told her barely legal daughter, "I'd love it if you were sexually active!" And what about from a daughter's point of view? I didn't want my mother's approval or disapproval when I became sexually active; I didn't want her involved at all. This is something that young adults need to navigate for themselves, for the most part, but of course parents should be there for questions and problems should they arise. My own mother handled this situation well, I think, and of course it still mortified me. I was a freshman in high school and was quite far from wanting to have sex. My mom came into my room bearing a brown paper bag and said, "Your father and I don't condone you having sex in high school, but if you're going to have sex, we want you to be safe." With that she opened the paper bag and left me with a pack of condoms. The message was certainly mixed; but it didn't sway me towards continued virginity or desire to lose it. All it made me want to do was bury my head in my pillows and die.

Emily, I wonder if mothers' attitude to their sons' sex lives is the other side of the Tami reaction: they worry, not just about their sons getting hurt, but also (assuming their sons are heterosexual) about their sons being insensitive towards their girlfriends. They remember all the jerks they dated and pray that they have not spawned a scumbag. Would any mothers of sons care to weigh in?

Teen Sex, In Defense of the Mixed Message

Tami: So do, you  love Matt?

Julie: I love matt

[Tami smiles]

T: Does he love you?

J: Matt loves me

Then she asks about birth control, despite Julie's resistance. Then, through her tears, she says:

You know, just because you're having sex this one time doesn't mean you have to have it all the time. If ever you feel taken for granted, you can stop anytime. And if you ever break up with Matt, it's not like you have to have sex with the next boy.

J: Why are you crying?

T: Because I wanted you to wait. Not just because I wanted to protect you. Because I love you and I want to make sure nothing bad ever happens to you.

God, I tear up just typing it.

Scripting the Great Teen Sex Talk

Great points, Jessica, about the many and complicated ways in which teen sex plays out. Agreed that broader questions, like whether kids can imagine good futures for themselves, can matter more than what parents say to them about sex per se. Still, I want to probe this a little more. OK, so we encourage teenagers to wait 'til college (I'll go with that timeline for the sake of argument) and then give them access to birth control if they ignore us. But what else do we say when that happens?

 
In writing our way through this season of Friday Night Lights, Meghan and Hanna and I were all struck by the great sex talk the mother character on the show, Tami, has with her daughter Julie when she finds out that Julie has slept with her boyfriend. He is sweet and kind. They love each other. They are 17 and in high school. Like many parents I know, Tami dealt with sex by saying don't do it, don't do it--and then reassuring her daughter that it was all OK after she went ahead anyway. Isn't that sort of schizophrenic, or at least incomplete? Is there another more consistent set of talking points for parents here? And shoot me for asking, but is the answer different depending on whether you're talking to a son or a daughter?