Oral Sex and Parenting

I think that all aspects of sex need to be discussed with youngsters, but in an age appropriate fashion.

I agree w/Phoenix, especially since this seems to be the new form of sex w/o losing virginity which is popular in secondary schools now. My friend's daughter came home telling her mom how 'everyone' is going down on the guys. Her response was, what's in it for them, among many other points having to do with meaningful relationships and how wonderful sex is with the right person, etc.
I can imagine this type of conversation cropping up with my own daughter, in about 8 years

I heard on Boston radio (WBZ) this morning, that a girl and boy were engaging in oral sex in the back of the school bus. In the meantime, the rest of the kids stood by and watched and cheered the pair on!

Also heard, that a Rabbi in a Jewish day school found a boy and girl engaged in oral sex in the bathroom. The pair was expelled from the school!

Good Gawd.

I imagine those kids need to learn about sex but their parents should probably also tell them about, let's see: privacy, being the subject of gossip and heck, even school bus safety

It's no wonder the kids don't have time to do any homework!

dream2020- I don't know your age, but this is NOT a new form of sex. In the 1950s we had what were called "technical virgins"- The difference was, that it was done in private, without a cheering squad!

The kids don't think of this activity as sex and thus they consider themselves virgins, while participating in oral sex activities.

New Haven's right, Phoenix. I'm 50, and thought of oral sex as something you learned after you lost your virginity. After all, Master's and Johnson wrote all about it in their bestseller published around the time I was coming into my sexual maturity. To me it was a shock to learn how casually kids think of oral sex now. they don't seem to think of it as a form of intimacy at all.

Dream2020- To me it was the other way around. When I was growing up, virginity was a prize that you kept for the man you married. The other stuff, well........... But one thing that I can say. In my youth, it was never considered a sport!

I'm not sure about this one.
I don't think that I'll ever talk about oral sex with my parents, an I'm 34
I think that there are alot of people that fall back on the "times are changing", "kids are growing up faster", as excuses for "hands off" parenting.
The "it's not our fault, it's society " excuses,..really make me sick!
Kids haven't changed, the rest of the world has...it's our job to hand down good values, common sense and good manners/social skills to our children, and unfortunately, many of us just aren't following through.
To top that off, we've crippled our teachers by taking away any authority from them.
So,..I don't think that the oral sex is the problem, it's a symptom of poorly raised, poorly educated kids.

Our children are 18(not really a child anymore) and 16, we've never discussed oral sex with either of them because it's never been brought up.
Most likely before I'd ever get a chance to talk about it, they already know about it through discussions with peers at school.
We have discussed the topic of sex with our children, along with the emotions that go along with it. Even went as far as having the oldest child sign an agreement with us that she wouldn't have sex until she was at least 17.
I'm proud to say that our teens are more focused on their future then they are with having a romantic relationship with anyone right now.
We've always had an open relationship with our children, and they know if they want to, they can talk to us about anything.

When I was young my concept of sex was that it was connected to love, same as you, Phoenix. However, marriage was secondary, and living with someone before you got married was what we did. What worries me, is what will happen between these kids when they want to have families? Are they going to grow out of the idea of sex as a casual sport, and never be able to form lasting commitments? Or is this oral sex thing a fad, just one more form of risky behavior that every generation of teenagers finds for themselves.

My friend's daughter wasn't one of the kids performing oral sex , but she was with a crowd of the "smart" kids, who were doing it, so it wasn't just the wild kids with nothing better to do. Like Clinton, they don't consider it sex, because it isn't intercourse.

Dream2020- I'm 63, so when I was young, there was no such thing as living together. You married young. Many of the girls in my generation married between 18-20, and were divorced by 25.

I entered my young adulthood during the sexual revolution, before AIDS. Recreational sex was the norm, but we were older, had been married, in our mid to late twenties, and "supposedly" knew what we were doing.

I think that kids were probably performing oral sex at a younger and younger age before the Clinton/Lewinsky brouhaha. I think what that episode did though, was put a stamp of approval on it. After all, if the PRESIDENT had oral sex, and it really wasn't sex (as was blasted all over the newspapers), it's ok for the kids. I think that the whole Clinton episode did a terrible amount of harm to our kids, as far as understanding the difference between right and wrong, and the sanctity of marriage.

So what you have now is a backlash. Next thing, you'll have Victoria's Secret selling chastity belts! (Funny, but not really funny!)

Kids don't know they can get STDs from oral sex.

Frankly I'm terrified of what the lack of care and thought between the sexes could do to the my daughter's character, and her first experiences of intimacy. I enrolled her in a Waldorf school, where among other things they strongly discourage exposing kids to media, and they believe in keeping kids young longer by the way they teach, what they teach and how long children are permitted to linger in imaginative play. She's enrolled in a religious instruction program, and plays the violin, to the poiunt now where she will be able to play in a small ensemble this month. She's in third grade now, and my hope is that she will have too much to do by the time she's a teenager to bother much about sexual sport.

When the time comes, of course kids must know what's going on among their peers, and as New Haven said how it's as much as a health risk as intercourse. Speaking of Victoria's Secret...lots of high school kids buy their underwear there. Teenage girls are just that much into pleasing pubescent guys, who really need no extra encouragement at all. Why do these girls need to please so badly? I thought women's lib would've passed along something besides expectations for equality in the workplace, but it seems not.

By the way, Phoenix, I married young, too, when I was 19. I was divorced at 21 and didn't marry again until I was 38. My daughter was born when I was 41.

Dream2020- I think that you are setting your daughter on a very sound course, by encouraging accomplishment. I know that hormones have a lot to do with it, but many young girls grow up to believe that their role in life is pleasing a guy. That can be very dangerous in the early teens. What I am perceiving in many youngsters nowdays is sophistication without maturity.

I think that the best thing that parents can do is to encourage any strengths the girls have, be it art, sports, writing etc. They need to know that they have the ability to achieve, that they are more than a set of genitals. Parents of boys need to teach them to perceive girls as people, not objects meant for their own physical pleasure.

As far as sex goes, I think that young girls need to be taught that you don't have sex with just anybody, not because it is bad, but because it is too good and precious to hand out like door prizes!

I am in TOTAL agreement that every aspect of
sex, sexuality and most especially - the least
common of topics - the issue of how women do
really need to learn their own bodies, so that
they can then share this information with their
partner. Too many women avoid this aspect of
teaching young ones about sex. For men, it
doesn't seem to ever be an issue - whereas for
females...I think that it continues to be a sore
spot and a touchy issue. Satisfaction for both
parties is a most important issue in teaching
your own young about sex, and since I have 3
daughters ... it was an absolute necessity. At
first they all denied interest in the subject, but
as the years went by and they matured...we
returned to this topic many times, with renewed
and mature interest. The youngest of my daughters
believed herself to be totally incapable of having
an orgasm .... for quite a while. I've always liked
an old Woody Allen line (even tho I can't stand him)
" Don't knock masturbation, at least it's sex with
someone you love". I have found that this line comes
in handy in many a conversation with another woman,
a daughter, whoever, when sex is the topic. How else
is a woman supposed to find out anything about her
own body? Take a chance that your partner/husband
has a clue???? I don't think so.

I believe that the lovely sexploits we were regaled with on the Six O'Clock news every night for almost a year has everything to do with the rise in oral sex among our young children.

I tried for a while to sheild my daughter from the news for a couple of weeks, but it was impossible. I was furious that the President of the United States was at fault for me having to have that conversation with my daughter several years earlier than was age appropriate.

Oral sex, as entertainment, for middle schoolers is repulsive and demeaning to girls. I believe if they hadn't heard about it ad nauseum, and seen how it had no negative effect of Clinton's presidency--and how it was the fodder of good-natured joking, the sudden rise in the behavior wouldn't have happened.