Let's Talk About Sex

Recently several of my Facebook friends posted a video on my wall. The video showed children being taught and encouraged to dance in a fashion that simulated sex. As you might imagine, people were outraged. They wanted to find out where these children lived and call their local Child Protective Services. When I looked at the video, I have to admit I wasn’t ready. Then again…….yes I was. When I consider today’s Rap/Hip-Hop/R&B music videos, dances that simulate sex is normal these days.

I also had to ask myself, when did sex become shameful? A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to hear an interview with Lois Hollis on Party 934. She was discussing and promoting her latest book, Sex and the Shame Factor. She spoke openly about sex and how not only the act has become taboo, but the word itself. She discussed how sex is now being seen as shameful. How we’ve gotten away from the spirituality of sex and turned it pornographic.

I’m not sure about you, but when I was growing up, my ‘birds and the bees’ lesson went a little something like this……”Don’t do it til you’re married”. Well, that didn’t tell me a damn thang. I didn’t even know what birds and bees had to do with sex anyway. And what the hell was ‘it’? I was sheltered, very sheltered. And I realized early that if I were going to learn anything about sex I was going to have to read a book. But sex is not something that you learn from a book. Sex is to be experienced. And in my opinion, I think that’s how it was meant to be learned.

I also learned shame at an early age. It was shameful to even think about sex and you certainly could not ask questions. No one wanted to openly discuss sex. Not my parents, not my grandparents, not my teachers, not even my spiritual leaders. That is one of the reasons I openly discuss sex with my children. Because I know that if we don’t talk about it, they will find someone who will. And usually that someone is a peer who is looking for answers themselves.

As a mother, I feel it my duty to teach my children about self-respect and to respect others, self-love and to love others. I firmly believe that when we instill in our children self-respect and self-love, we will find ourselves living a different world. When we teach them to love and respect their bodies and the bodies others, the number of teenage parents will drastically decrease, HIV/AIDS will no longer have bodies to infect, and we will see a more spiritually developed world. So, let’s not keep our children in the dark….

Let’s talk about sex,

J-licious