Comments on: Where Do Babies Come From?

By: MayB

MayB — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:45:43 +0000

I didn’t know you linked to my post on this. Awesome!

I feel bad for that poor kid. Really, there are age appropriate ways to talk to your kid about sex. No point in lying to them. Then you look like a tool.

By: Godless Girl

Godless Girl — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:22:02 +0000

I suppose mostly, yes. But it’s still a message taught to adults–especially in more conservative and religious circles. Ideas like “she was asking for it” or “what did she expect?” in relation to abuse, harassment, and rape. And look at many Islamic nations where a woman is blamed and punished for causing a man to sin.

Speaking of responsibility, I find that saying no to sex is often impressed upon women much more than men. Boys will try to have sex with you (because they’re just being boys!) but you have to be the strong one and say no! You have to stay pure because you’re a woman! And on and on…

By: Roof Woofer

Roof Woofer — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:23:42 +0000

@godlessgirl Did you get that “the girl has all the responsibility” from your upbringing?

By: dartigen

dartigen — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:35:26 +0000

Ahaha. Oh man. It’s never going to work if that kid is anywhere near proactive about his research. You can get medical books at most public libraries these days that will tell you everything you need to know (and more) – and they’re going to need a deity if they have an Internet connection, because he’s going to find out very quickly.

They’ll have to lock him in the basement. Wild horses couldn’t stop a curious child.

By: Christian H

Christian H — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 04:38:51 +0000

Probably TMI, but I can’t recall a time when I didn’t know what boys’ and girls’ reproductive organs were (general idea, not specifics) and what one did with them to make a baby (general idea, not specifics). It drove me nuts when my parents were so insistant on talking about these things, as it was so weird and gross and embarassing. Among other things, because I had no idea what was common knowledge and what wasn’t, I said stuff that was completely inappropriate to the context. For instance, in grade three, I used the word “vagina” when describing how I was born by C-section in a presentation in front of my classmates, much to the shock (or confusion) of all involved but me. I remember being asked to explain what a vagina was, but in retrospect that part of it could be confabulated.

Now I’m glad of this education, despite having turned out pretty tightly-wound anyway; most of my less-educated friends seem healthy, but you never know what’s going on behind closed doors.

My family is Christian, if that helps paint your picture of the situation a little better.

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:30:38 +0000

Ha, LOVED the Stewie clip! PERFECT response. Seriously, WTF are people thinking???

By: Godless Girl

Godless Girl — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:25:31 +0000

The unreasonable responsibility placed upon women is something I struggled with too! You worded it so well. What was most frustrating to me was that female sexuality was always wrong, dirty, abnormal, and over the line…. but when men went too far, lusted, or had sex, it was an unfortunate byproduct of them “being male”. “Boys will be boys” was the spoken and unspoken rule of bad male behavior and mistakes. I and my fellow ladies took the blame even though we don’t control anyone else’s actions or thoughts.

Ugh. I’m getting steamed up just thinking about how twisted my sexuality was for so long. I’m not even fully recovered from that yet.

By: Andrew Hall

Andrew Hall — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:19:36 +0000

Dear Amy,

I tell my 8 year old that he came out of my wife’s belly and if he doesn’t behave we’ll send him back in.

Is that a problem?

Signed,

Deranged Lunatic

By: madness_dreams

madness_dreams — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:14:41 +0000

1. That is hilarious. And sad. And WTF.

2. I happen to have spent a lot of time the past few days talking to friends about the absolutely dismal sexual education I had. I find it hilarious now, but it caused me so much guilt and confusion as a kid/teenager.

My favorite story is the sex talk I got on a retreat. See, all Catholics know SEX is forbidden before marriage, but where the line is between OK and NOT OK isn’t really clear. The speaker’s [a priest] contribution to the question of “how far is too far” is that, once the the guy has “pitched a tent,” he is ready to “stay the night”. Once you have gotten a guy to “pitch a tent,” you have been unchaste. There were definite implications that 1) usually, the girl is largely the one responsible for controlling the guy’s arousal 2) the girls arousal is either nonexistent or unimportant 3) once you’ve gotten a guy hard, you pretty much owe it to him to let him finish. in fact, you can’t even blame a guy for pushing for sex at that point, because it’s just how his body works, poor thing. At the time, I was somewhat aware that this was a disproportionate amount of responsibility to place on the girl, but because I was completely inexperienced at this point, I was mostly glad to have a clear physical indicator for what “too far” was.

So you can imagine my surprise {and guilt} later when, during one of the first times I made out with my boyfriend, I felt him get hard up against me. Guilt from two directions too: on the one hand, I was being unchaste and a bad catholic, and on the other, I was getting my poor boyfriend excited and then not letting him get off. And in addition to all that, I was trying to deal with my own… frustration… following our intense makeout sessions, which was something I was completely unprepared for.

Of course, later said boyfriend and I had a discussion about the origins of my guilt about sexual activity, and he laughed and gently informed me that it doesn’t take much to give a young teenage guy an erection. In fact, if that was really my criteria for being “unchaste,” I had probably been unknowingly and unwillingly chaste with guys that had happened to brush up against me or get a good look at my cleavage.

But then, I suppose that’s what I get for getting relationship/sex advice from a single celibate dude.

By: Godless Girl

Godless Girl — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:16:19 +0000

Holy smokies, can you imagine a baby getting shoved up your…. nevermind.