Houston Press blogger Jef With One F is sick of all the modesty/abstinence-only/purity culture stuff he keeps reading about and he’s come up with a fantastic list of ten things he plans to tell his daughter about sex (when she’s old enough to handle it):
I’m not looking forward to it, to tell the truth, but if the alternative is fetishizing chastity while giving Oedipus a handie then by God I’m going in full guns blazing.
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10. That sex is beautiful and fun as hell, but so is driving a car and a bunch of other things that come with responsibilities. You need to ask yourself if you can handle those. I knew I couldn’t be trusted with a car at 16, so I didn’t ask for one. Same with sex. I waited until I knew I was with someone that wouldn’t use me wrong and knew what they were doing. You shouldn’t be afraid of it, but you should respect its possible consequences, such a pregnancy, disease, and just the general mess that sometimes come from sleeping with someone you shouldn’t have.
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6. You cannot be “ruined,” by an act. You can only be ruined if you let shame and self-loathing consume you, and even then there is always a path back into the light. This goes double for someone trying to convince you sex is evil. That person was either hurt badly or seriously misled.
Obviously, he’s not going to sit her down and read her this list, but they represent the values he hopes to pass along to her as she grows up.
Read the whole list. And then pass it along to your conservative Christian friends just to watch their heads explode. Brace yourself for the negative reactions brought about by good, sex-positive parenting.