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.