"Daddy, what's (insert sexually explicit term)?"

Hi SD,

I don’t have any kids. But I always wondered the appropriate response to this specific type of question. This is not “Where do babies come from?” which I think is an easier question to address. This is, “What’s a blowjob?” Or “One of the kids at school was talking about gangbangs. What is that?” I understand the answer should be to be honest without being needlessly graphic, but when you are discussing activities only done for pleasure, how do you keep your children from wanting to do it themselves or being curious about it? Can you say convincingly “Wait til’ you’re older?” I mean, you tell a kid that they are forbidden from doing something many people find pleasurable, especially when other people their age know about it and they don’t, they are even more interested and excited about it.

I guess a follow up would be: what is happening to the concept of children and innocence? What will today’s children be like in the future?..in the age of social media, everything is accessible. What will today’s children think of us and how we grew up with “hidden playboys under the bed” and peep shows?

Is the loss of innocence and the slow death of Puritanical thought a beneficial thing for children and society?
Thanks,

Dave

It used to be the case that there wasn’t one, at least with regards to sex. Children used to see the animals rut. Children used to see their parents rut. Sexual imagery used to be widespread. Look at the wall-paintings of Pompeii. Looks at the carvings on Indian temples. And so on.

It is a real issue. My 10 year old daughter got caught watching hard-core porn with a friend at a sleepover. Both the hosting parents and I had to restrict internet access for a while but that isn’t something you can undo. There isn’t a whole lot you can do to prevent it. You can put parental controls on their own devices but there is no way to control the world. They are going to use unrestricted devices at some point and they will run across porn if they do it long enough or if they want to.

I am not raising Amish kids so I just answer whatever questions come up in the most factual way possible and I have gotten the blowjob question - “Why would anyone want to do that?” in a shocked tone was the specific one. If I don’t tell them, their friends will - probably badly.

It really depends on the child. It never came up with my oldest daughter. She knows what sex is but hasn’t seemed to care much about the details yet. My youngest one is all over anything that is new to her and seems shocking.

I don’t think any of the children I’ve known who would ask me such questions would have wanted to try a gangbang. “It’s when a bunch of guys force one person, generally a woman, to have sex with them, even though that person really, really, really doesn’t want to.”

There are some kids I’ve known who I could imagine wanting to take part in one - but they’re not the ones who would ask me, and I frankly think they were broken in other ways.

Gangbang implies rape? What do you use when the woman is a willing participant?

the notion of “childhood innocence” is a recent invention. anyone who believes in it has simply forgotten (or was a perpetrator) how vicious and cruel they can be towards each other.

I’m a retired teacher. Our School ( for 10-18 year olds) gave sex education starting just before puberty.
I also had individual pupils ask me such questions.

In my experience Shagnasty is correct: “just answer whatever questions come up in the most factual way possible.”
If you don’t answer or make it sound mysterious, then kids will try to find out about it for themselves (often using bad sources or perhaps even just experimenting.)

Kids generally ask questions when they are ready to hear some sort of answer. However, if they’ve heard a word out of context, they may not really know what they are asking and may not want even a bland, factual answer. You have to know your own kid. For example, if my 5 year old asked what a blowjob or a gangbang was, I’d start with “It’s a grownup thing” and see if he’d let it go. I very strongly suspect that he would.

We were watching the end of a movie at a diner. The hero and and his girl jump in bed and she takes off her shirt from under the covers. My six-year-old son. who hates wearing pajamas, wanted to know why she got to do that.

He wasn’t interesting in sex, he just wanted to know when it was OK to sleep in the nude.

“Ask your mother”.

Also, make sure you know what they’re asking about. After a long detailed clinical explanation for the question “Where did I come from?” your child may tell you “Oh. Well my friend Johnny says he came from Cleveland.”

I think detailed information is the best approach. Picture books, even videos, that make it clear that sex is desireable and enjoyable, and how to do it well should be in use. That’s mainly to make sure that the kids don’t think there secrets being kept that they have to discover on their own and there can be more concentration on avoiding pregnancy and disease and forming healthy relationships.

My daughter wasn’t usually one to ask. (I’ve told this story before, but for those who don’t read my every word…) One time when she was around 8 or 9, she and I were in the car and I had NPR on the radio. The discussion involved something about virgins, and I thought it could be a good teaching moment, so I asked her if she knew what a virgin was. She said no, and I explained it was a girl who hadn’t had sex yet.

To which she responded “Oh, I thought that was a lesbian!” Which led to teaching moment #2.

I have no idea how she came to that conclusion, but I’m guessing it involved misinformed playground conversations. Considering how badly my mother delivered “The Talk” to me when I was 10-ish, I was determined that my daughter would have facts, not the confusing pronouncements with heavy religious overtones. I spent years confused how unmarried girls got pregnant, since I was told babies were a gift from God. How did they fool God??? :confused:

In conclusion - age appropriate truth, always.

‘‘Gangbang’’ has been used to describe gang rape, but it’s also just a general descriptor of one woman having sex with a bunch of men at once. It doesn’t necessarily imply a lack of consent. That’s how it is in the US, anyhow - not sure about other variations of English.

A woman on another website said her 6-year-old son wanted to know what abortion was, and she was criticized for responding that way. :rolleyes: I, and a few other people, said that no matter what her opinion may be on that subject, or how she plans to explain it to her children, it’s not something that a 6-year-old would have the life experience to understand.

I’m a (former) enlisted Sailor. Senior NCO. I told 'em striaght out. No sugar coating, no attempts to go for the cheap gross-out. My kids are smart, and non-neurotic, and extremely well-informed on the kinds of things that people do to each other for pleasure (or not pleasure, depending). I also told 'em all the ‘guy lies’ - so my daughter would be alert to them, and my son would know what’s coming his way if I ever catch him trying 'em out. Yup. Completely demystified sex for them both. Yes, I are evil. But my kids don’t act like jerks to other kids, and they don’t make dumb decisoins about sex.

Dumb decisions elsewhere? You betcha. But at least I’m not a young grandfather. :stuck_out_tongue:

I have followed the approach of being honest, but also of not throwing more details in there then they may be asking for.

8 y.o. - what’s a blowjob?
Me - it’s something that people do during sex. Why do you ask?

I take it from there. Sometimes they want to know more. Sometimes they heard someone else use the word and just didn’t understand it.

I never want my kids to feel like they can’t discuss things or ask questions. I also don’t want to jump to conclusions about the context of conversations. Like Tranquilis we have tried to be upfront about sex and drugs and life questions. Last week’s fun one was “nothing you post on the Internet ever really goes away or is private.” My daughter is still struggling with that one a bit.

I’ve always stuck with the philosophy that if one of my kids was old enough, and curious enough, to ask me a question about something sexual, they deserved an honest answer. I always kept it age appropriate, with no more details than I thought they were able to understand, depending on the age.

The end result for me was that I raised two kids (a son and a daughter) who were never hesitant to discuss (sometimes very personal) things with me, and always knew that I would be honest with them.

Looking back, I think the most awkward question I ever got was from my daughter, who wanted to know what masturbation was. She caught me off guard on that one, while we were in the middle of shopping. I couldn’t really answer that one on the fly…I didn’t want her to think it was something inherently wrong, but I also didn’t want her to think it was okay to do in the middle of the store, either. I bought myself some time by telling her that I honestly wasn’t sure how to explain it, and wanted to give her an answer that made sense, so I needed to think on it for a while.

Imagine my horror the next evening, when I bumped into a (male) neighbor at a local restaurant while we were both waiting for a takeout order. We waited together, and made small talk for a few minutes. During a lull in the conversation, my daughter seized the moment to chime in with, “Hey, Mom, don’t forget that you still need to tell me what masturbation is.” Sigh. I figured there was no time like the present, and explained it to her…and my embarrassed neighbor.

Her response? “Oh, okay.”

Kids.

When I was about 10 years old, I read an article about Jack the Ripper (!) :eek: and later asked my mother, in front of a neighbor, what a prostitute was.

She replied, “They’re bad women. Why are you asking?” I replied, “Oh, I didn’t know what the word meant.”

I know now that they’re not bad women. They are, however, women (and men too) who have had bad things happen to them. It wasn’t until a few years later, when some junior high classmates started a rumor that I did it, that I found out what it meant. :mad: I sure didn’t do anything like that, ever. However, knowing what I do now, it would not surprise me if at least some of the girls who started and spread that very persistent rumor turned tricks at some time in their lives, maybe even that early in life and most likely in exchange for drugs. :frowning:

I learned it as always referring to rape and “gangbanger” as a guy who takes part in mass rape, but then, Miami’s English may not necessarily count as US English.

When there is a single receving participant, I’d say they’re running a train, but only if I wanted to be specific. If I was speaking to for example my mother I’d just call it an orgy, no need to get into details of who is doing what to whom.

Julia Sweeney talks to her daughter about sex.

During the Monica Lewinsky affair, some of the details made it into the elementary school (apparently). At the dinner table, my 2nd grader asked: “Dad, what’s a blowjob?” I looked across at his mom and said: “Dunno, I can’t remember.”

The glare from across the table made it clear my memory wouldn’t be refreshed anytime soon. (What can I say? I thought it was funny.)