Many young children learn where babies come from, writes Justin Cascio, but teaching about their bodies and pleasure remains taboo.
I’m the older of two children. When my little sister was born, I was three and a half years old, and I got some version of the story of where babies come from.
Later, when I was old enough to be curious about puberty, I read a lot of books and pamphlets about sexual reproduction and a very few about sexuality. It was here that I first learned about masturbation.
I think we can do better at educating children about their sexuality, in several ways. We can begin by teaching our children to know their bodies. It’s part of mastery of such skills as comforting oneself to fall asleep, eating to fullness, knowing when you’re going to sneeze, or have to go to the bathroom. In similar ways, we teach our kids emotional mastery: to trust their “gut sense” that something is wrong, to know when they’re in a rage and how to calm down.
Touching our genitals for pleasure and comfort is a universal human phenomenon. Children, even infants and fetuses, appear to enjoy touching their own genitals. This should come as no surprise, since they are so richly sensitive to touch. Yet when we talk to our small children about their bodies, we don’t usually talk to them about pleasure, of any kind, or of their felt experiences in their own bodies. And the way we direct these conversations affects how children see themselves: as girls and boys with human desires. We talk about penises and vaginas, the tab A and slot B of sexual reproduction. We don’t talk about penises and clitorises, the homologous organs of sexual pleasure.
We do this on the grounds that it is age-appropriate, but sexual reproduction is not yet part of the lives of small children. Young children are concrete: they are best prepared to understand what they can touch and see, not things and processes that are invisible or hypothetical. There are countless books available for parents to read to their preschool-age children, explaining sexual reproduction. We teach little kids more about how we sexually reproduce than we do about digestion, or sleep. We could teach our children so much more about how to listen to their bodies, and how to talk about them with their parents and trusted caregivers.
We must teach our children about their bodies, both to protect them from predators who prey on shame and confusion, and so they can grow into sexually healthy adolescents and adults. This includes the knowledge that their bodies are their own, and that they may touch any part of themselves out of curiosity or pleasure. That every part of the body belongs, has a name, is natural and good.
If you’re uncomfortable talking to your children about touching themselves for pleasure, you can begin by talking about the subjective experiences of our bodies in other ways. You could talk about the digestive process with a young child who has just eaten a sandwich. Why do we eat? What tastes good? How does it feel to eat? To be full? These are questions a three-year old can learn the answers to, and that you can talk about from your own experience. These aren’t lessons in biology: they’re lessons in how to have a human body.
We’re anxious about children’s sexuality, because their sexuality is taboo to us. Unlike eating and even going to the bathroom, sexual touch is not something we may ever appropriately teach children through demonstration. Men, particularly, are considered sexually dangerous to children, making it more difficult to break through the fear of doing something wrong while teaching our kids some of the most important lessons they’ll learn in their whole lives. There are few tools to help parents talk about sexuality to children at very young ages. Early childhood includes potty training and teaching children limits on when and where they may take off their clothes or touch themselves. If learning to potty train a child without conveying messages about being dirty is difficult, teaching them about touching their genitals can be that much harder, if you’ve been brought up with shame around masturbation.
Children’s sexuality is something that we can and should talk about with our kids. Instead of worrying that you can’t properly explain conception to a three-year old, at least masturbation is a topic you can speak about from personal experience. Everybody masturbates, even three-year olds. There is nothing wrong in telling your child that they can touch themselves, that it’s okay to touch yourself in ways that feel good. There’s nothing wrong with admitting to your child that everybody touches themselves this way. In fact, teaching them this might make them more secure than you were about your desires and your body when you were growing up. It’s a risk worth taking.
How do you talk to your kids about their sexuality? Know any good books for children? Share in the comments.
—Photo lovarakotomalala/Flickr
About Justin Cascio
I hope this piece is being satirized. We seem to have penchant for that on here.
This is the most irresponsible and ludicrous piece of advice I have heard in a long time. This one takes top razzie award.
I disagree about it being irresponsible and ludicrous, Taylor, but I’d be interested to know more about why you think it is. Do you object to parents teaching their kids (by talking about, not by demonstrating) that their bodies can feel good, and that can be a normal, healthy thing?
Exactly. You’re only going to make it shameful for your kids when they’re older. Kids are not as sensitive as people think they are. They’re quire resilient. We are not born naturally ashamed of ourselves. We only get that way through social conditioning.
I couldn’t agree more.
This is especially topical with all of the sexual abuse in the news recently. It’s impossible (and questionable parenting) to watch our children 24/7 until they’re 18. We must equip our children to respond to and defend themselves from sexual abuse, as well as to enjoy sexual contact in a healthy, safe way.
Many make morality arguments against such teaching. Yet it’s rather established that abstinence only / reproduction only education leads to things such as unwanted pregnancy. Also, it means your kids are learning about sex from the media, porn, and their peers. Kids will seek out information and learn about sex. Period. It will happen. Sex is one of the core human experiences. Of course they want to learn. It’s vital that we ensure our children’s sexual instruction is healthy, safe, and empowering.
I really hate scare tactics and fearmongering. Such is not my intention when I say sheltering your child in ignorance empowers potential sexual abusers to manipulate and coerce your child into being sexually abused quietly for years. Also, in our current culture it makes sexually curious daughters much more vulnerable to rape / date rape.
When concerned parents talk about teenagers having sex, often the assumption seems to be that their kids are doing it because of peer pressure or to explore what it means to be a grownup or because they are brainwashed into doing by their culture. You’d never know that teenagers might do it because it feels good. That part is much more difficult to look in the face and harder to talk about with your kids, as necessary as it is. Easier to think it’s just peer presssure and they don’t really actually enjoy it.
Yeah, wellokaythen, and I think the assumption often goes even more for girls–that they must only be doing it for approval, through manipulation, or due to pressure (not that boys don’t face their own stereotypes and pressures).
I didn’t masturbate until I was over 18 and a half years old. Sure I touched myself occasionally, but I never knew what an orgasm was until my boyfriend explained it to me and gave me one. When I tell people that, they seem shocked, but I had such a limited knowledge about my body and sex. I knew vaguely that masturbation was dirty and I knew from science class the dry details reproduction, but I’d never connected them with the act. It didn’t do me too many favors to have such a lack of understanding of my body for so long. Freshman year of college, there was a period of time when I masturbated 10 times a day, and after my boyfriend and I broke up the next year, I became rather promiscuous and experimented a lot. There’s nothing wrong with that, but not understanding didn’t keep me from eventually going out and discovering it myself.
My parents never gave me a sex talk of any kind and never really mentioned sex around us kids. So, when I discovered masturbation, I thought for a while that I had discovered some long-lost secret or had uncovered a well-kept secret on the scale of extraterrestrial contact. I think I even imagined that I invented masturbation, so cut off was I from any information about it. I thought, “wow, how come no one ever tried this before? It’s so obvious! I must be a genius….” (No, I didn’t get out much.)
I think ignorance about something combined with unexpected pleasure leads to a distorted view, which is true for sex in general. If there’s no pre-existing mental framework to conceive of it, it seems even more miraculous that it really should, and it distorts reality. That’s why I think sexual repression often backfires.
It reminds me what many older people said about the Sexual Revolution and free love movements of the 1960’s – the older people scoffed, “kids today act they *invented* sex.” Well, of course they thought that, their parents didn’t tell them very much about it.
Parents should demonstrate sex by actually doing it in front of their kids; I’m sure little kids have encountered parents having sex before but just thought u daddy was hurting mommy. Instead of hiding this act – show them the penis goes into the vagina and that’s how babies are made and it’s very fun. Also show them what masturbation looks like and guide them to do the same to their bodies. Don’t forget to name each sexual body part. Play Simon says if it’ll help the child learn faster. Make this a family educational affair; kids are very visual learners, so best that they learn it from parents first hand.
I had sex ed in the fifth grade. I don’t know where people are saying they were deprived of sex ed until 18 years old and didn’t know about masturbation. Masturbation is natural — it’ll come when you’re horny…so you weren’t horny until 18? Nothing wrong with that…sexuality comes to people at varying ages. Just because someone became sexual earlier or promiscuous, doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you. That’s the problem I have with people who think pushing and teaching sex early to kids is supposed to be a positive thing and an over other kids. What’s the rush? Let kids be kids! Why make them grow up so fast? Once they learn about sex from mommy and daddy, that will encourage their imagination and creativity – next thing you know, they’re Googling sex and porn at 5 years old and touching the genitals of every kid at his/her birthday. They’ll learn how to spell sex and porn before their own names.
So at one extreme of the sex education spectrum, there’s not teaching kids anything at all about sex — anatomy, risks, benefits, emotions, etc.—and letting them figure it out on their own when they’re old enough to feel horny. At the opposite extreme, there’s your (nobody’s) sarcastic suggestion to teach everything, primarily by demonstrating sexual acts while kids watch, or even on the kids themselves. Do you suppose there’s any reasonable middle ground between those extremes? I do, and I think that’s what Justin is suggesting.
You say yourself that “masturbation is natural”. Is it so hard to imagine teaching that attitude to a child through age-appropriate communication, with no demonstration involved? You don’t go around masturbating in front of people to show how natural you think it is, so why do you think parents who advocate teaching kids bout sexuality are suggesting voyeurism or pedophilia as the means to accomplish that?
I also think your confusing being curious with being sexual. If one of my toddler points to her vulva and asks what it is, that’s not a sexual question. It’s a vocabulary question, because she knows what lots of other parts are called, so what’s this one? If I answer, “You don’t need to know that one yet, it’s not polite to talk about,” or ignore the question altogether, then I am laying the groundwork for making it, and eventually sex, a shameful, taboo subject. I would expect that to trigger even more curiosity (and confusion) than if I just answer the question matter-of-factly. I won’t answer with some long monologue about sexuality that she’s completely unprepared to understand or process, but as much as possible, I’m going to try not to project my own adult sexuality onto every question she asks that eventually has some connection to sex.
If it makes you feel any better, we’ve already started work on teaching them to spell their names. It could be a tight race, though, because “sex” and “porn” are awfully easy to spell.
You took that out of context. I said masturbation is natural when you’re horny…and when you are, you’ll naturally learn to do it – it’s instinctual; just as it is to address and subdue the itch in your ears with your finger, or pick your nose, or scratch yourself where it itches. Nobody should need to teach you these things. My God. You don’t give people enough credit.
Masturbating comes from being sexually aroused. Toddlers at that age cannot physically experience horny, therefore shouldn’t be masturbating or touching themselves in sexual manner. They can be curious, sure, and touching themselves to see what’s there, but they shouldn’t be encouraged by parents to masturbate or do this routinely as this article seems to advocate. That’s NOT normal, not healthy in my view.
I remember my 8 year old relative, a boy, because of exposure and influence from media forces (youTube videos, sexualized music/images) – he started grabbing his crotch, rubbing, shaking and pulling at his crotch in my presence. He thought this was hilarious and funny and mocked and sang to this vulgar parody which he had seen on youTube.
In my presence as well, he also grabbed his 3-year old sister’s crotch, she was in diapers at that time; wrestled her down and rubbed at her crotch. The innocent thing, she thought that was funny and played along and allowed him to do it – giggling and laughing; this encouraged him to continue to assault her in this manner. I stepped in, pulled him away from her and gave him a good talking. He seemed unfazed and continued his crotch grabbing tactics to rile me. I know his parents never taught him masturbation, but because of media influences making it funny and fun, and a GOOD thing to do – he learned to do it to himself and HIS 3-year old sister.
So yeah go ahead and teach babies, toddlers and little kids to masturbate.
He’s 9 now. I’m afraid of what he’ll do and experiment with when he is in his tweens and not under his parents watchful eyes 24/7. His sister is much younger and delicate. Because of the behavior I have seen him capable of, it worries me. I’m already praying he doesn’t sexually assault or rape someone when he grows older or do something awful to his baby sister.
MEDIA MESSAGES ARE VERY POWERFUL.
His parents are on his case for doing poorly in school and comparing him to his female cousin at his age, who’s been excelling in school. The way these two kids handle their sexuality are polarized. The female cousin handles sexuality with maturity, while the boy cousin can’t handle it at all and mocks it. So does the theory girls mature faster than boys explain this difference?
As far as I can tell, nobody, your central point seems to be that mass media – including youtube videos, Internet porn, and other more modern variants – has a powerfully negative impact on children’s sexuality. I’m sure you could find lots of people to agree. It’s unclear to me what you think that has to do with anything people are saying about *parents* (not media) teaching their children about masturbation.
You keep trying to equate that with teaching children *to* masturbate, but I haven’t seen anyone advocating that. “Horny” may be something that isn’t really possible at a young age, but even toddlers discover things that feel good and things that don’t. If a parent notices their little boy/girl idly fondling themselves, for example, I think it’s okay to explain that there’s nothing wrong with making themselves feel good that way, but it’s not polite to do it front of other people and it’s not okay for anyone else to do it for them. Depending on their language skills, it might even make sense to tell them it’s called “masturbation”, which is okay to do, but it’s a private thing, like going potty. See? It’s about communication and attitude, not demonstrations and how-tos.
Your young relative does sound troubling, but you made a point of noting that his sex education seems to have come from mass media, not his parents. Do you not think that more parental involvement along the lines that Justin suggests would be a good thing, given the alternative of letting mass media take care of sex education?
Toddlers do not understand what “feeling good” is at their age. It’s CURIOSITY (why are we mistaking it for masturbation?). It’s the same thing when they’ve discovered they got an ear, because they keep tugging at it, and not because they have an ear infection which some parents mistake it for. They tug at their ear or touch their genitals because that’s the process of discovering and not due to feeling “good” about doing those things repetitively.
You wouldn’t want your son/daughter to keep tugging at their ears would you? So why would you encourage them to massage their genitals or masturbate when clearly they are not physically mature enough to be aroused?
I’ve seen a segment on tv where this baby specialist told parents it’s okay to massage their babies – massage their hands, arms, legs, bellies…but i didn’t hear genitals; to improve circulation, and give babies sensation in those body parts so that they’re aware of them. I have no issue with that. That is massage, not masturbation. I equate masturbation with hormonal activity as in puberty and sexual arousal.
What is it that you’re disagreeing with, nobody? The masturbation education you keep arguing against isn’t what Justin or anyone in the comments has advocated for. You seem to acknowledge that kids will touch themselves out of curiosity, but haven’t said how it is that you think parents should handle that. What is the alternate approach that you favor when it comes to toddlers touching their genitals out of curiosity? How ’bout a few years later when they can reason more and communicate, but haven’t reached puberty? And when they do reach puberty? Describe your healthier alternative, and maybe we’ll learn something.
Parents should do nothing when toddlers touch themselves. Let them discover themselves…it’s part of their learning process. We do not need to interfere with natural processes. If they are able to articulate questions to you, then by all means provide answers to them.
I have an issue with CURIOSITY being labeled as “masturbation” for children under age of puberty. We need to stop making shit up. Curiosity… tugging and discovering that you got an ear is not masturbation; touching and discovering you got genitals is not masturbation. However, being 12 years old, getting growth spurts and growing pubic hair, AND feeling sexually aroused – yes, you can use masturbation to address that.
So if I’m hearing you right, you don’t think parents should shame their pre-sexual children for touching themselves in ways that would be considered sexual if an adult did it, and as they grow into their sexuality, it’s good for parents to address that. That sounds pretty close to what Justin (the author) said.
“Instead of worrying that you can’t properly explain conception to a three-year old, at least masturbation is a topic you can speak about from personal experience. Everybody masturbates, even three-year olds. There is nothing wrong in telling your child that they can touch themselves, that it’s okay to touch yourself in ways that feel good”
Based on the above text, Justin advocates masturbation for 3 year olds – “to touch yourself in ways that feel good”.
I’m tired of explaining my point.
Obviously, you are seeking approval from Justin and trying twist my opinion to make it appear the same as his – which it is not. (You’re GMP contributors, you guys will never be seen on here in disagreement with each other – hardly).
Three year olds do not masturbate! When they touch, tug and discover they have an ear – that is not masturbation. Discovering their genitals and touching them is not masturbation either – that’s all curiosity.
The dictionary definition of masturbation is: “Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person’s own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm.”
Based on the above definition, no parent should be encouraging their 3 year olds to masturbate! I hope the dictionary term helps clear up the confusion!
I masturbated when I was very young. I brought myself to orgasm- that is not curiosity, that is masturbation. I know many other people who did the same. Read some freud. Children are fully capable of masturbation from a very young age.
As for sex in front of the kids:
I wouldn’t advocate trying to have sex in front of your children or forcing your kids to watch you have sex.
That being said, most humans across history lived in tiny communities where privacy did not even exist as a concept. Your average preindustrial farmhouse was one room shared by 5-10 people. Your average kid would have seen/heard adults having sex just as part of everyday life. Somehow civilization didn’t collapse, great works of art and literature still got produced, the bacon cheeseburger still got invented, etc. I don’t think seeing adults have sex is by itself educational. The children growing up in those societies could still get a deeply screwed up idea about sexuality. But, it’s not the end of the world, etither.
Obviously (at least to me) ‘nobody’, you didn’t pay much attention. The whole point is that sexuality is NOT something only for grown-ups; that it is something that kids do/like too. Your rude and stupid diatribe about inappropriate sexual acts w/children mascerading as proper and thoughtful and healthy teaching is clear proof of your insincerity. If you refuse you refuse to engage with us in a descent and thoughtful manner than go back into your ignorant shell and shut the hell up! (yeah I know, I’m being indescent but not ignorant. I’m tired of stupid, thoughtless responses!)
“Your rude and stupid ”
Moderators, where are you???
You should review the commenting policy. Be civil and do not name call. That is cheap, I will not stoop to your level.
The moderators flagged one post for calling Sarah Silverman an idiot and have since put my email address on radar and delayed all postings from me. They should treat you no different if they abide by their own commenting policies.
Please engage me with your tantrums and name calling. That is very childish. I can hear the stamping of your feet. I’m ignoring the ignorant and rude people on here.
Actually he said that the diatribe was rude and stupid. ‘Your rude and stupid diatribe…’ is different than saying ‘YOU’RE rude and stupid.’ The word ‘stupid’ probably shouldn’t be used in these conversations, but ‘nobody’s’ comment was still sarcastic and ignorant.
You don’t have to agree with my posts. But it’s ignorant of you to name call. Some others would be quick to call you ignorant for discovering your clitoris at 18.5…you yourself suggested that in your post. See who’s laughing last.
I didn’t name call. I simply said the post was sarcastic and ignorant to the issue. YOU are not ignorant as a person, but the post was aggressive and didn’t address the issue in a constructive way. It was pretty ignorant of me to not have discovered that, but I’m not an ignorant person. I put my personal story out there as an example of why it might have been nice to have a better knowledge of sex and the pleasurable qualities of it than I did by that age.
Did someone put you in charge of moderation? Who are you to judge whether that post was constructive or not, next are you going to flag me for sentence fragments?
How RUDE to tell people to “shut the hell up” and admitting to rudeness does not make it right. You must be a little kid, hiding behind a screen name, and who can’t even spell indecent. Go back to grade school.
If the discussion gets to hot for you to handle in the kitchen, then get out. If you don’t agree or can handle debate and criticism – then that’s your problem, not mine. Stop making this about you and one-sided perspectives.
I was definitely horny before 18. noboby, I just didn’t know about orgasms and had learned touching myself is dirty. I didn’t know what a clitoris was for. I had said previously that I didn’t know that semen was supposed to come out when a man orgasmed until I gave my first boyfriend a blowjob and got very surprised. I did have sex ed earlier, but it just focused on how men were going to pressure and use you and that you’d get AIDS and pregnant if you did it.
“I said masturbation is natural when you’re horny…and when you are, you’ll naturally learn to do it – it’s instinctual.”
Ok, maybe that’s true for a lot of people, but it wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t my experience. I didn’t know that a body was capable of orgasm or that I had a clitoris until I was 18 and a half. Even at that age, and after I’d had sex, I thought I’d done something so dirty the first time I masturbated and spent the following year compulsively masturbating and feeling guilty about it. I had still been horny all the time in high school over the littlest things.
I also don’t think anyone is trying to say to teach a toddler to masturbate, just, at that age, if they point to a part and ask what it is, be honest. Be honest that girls and boys have different genitals. When the time is right, be honest about where babies come from. Later, don’t just tell them that sex is AIDS and comes only from peer pressure. Justin is just asking to be honest at age appropriate times. I was told babies came when you get married. So when we had a house guest who was on birth control pills, and I asked her what she was taking–my mind was blown. She wasn’t married, why was she taking pills to prevent babies?!?! I had been convinced that babies only come when you’re married.
You are right that media is powerful, though. I think we all need to be aware of that.
That’s okay, nobody should make you feel bad about discovering your clitoris at 18 or feel bad about anything else that’s part of your body. Just like nobody should judge you based on your appearance, no one should judge you based on your level of sexual experience either or influence you when you’re not ready to give up your V-card to just anyone. If they do, they are not your friends. This is what we need to teach adolescents, so they have a strong sense of self and not just follow the crowd for the sake of fitting in.
There’s a series on tv called the “Virgin Diaries”. It’s a show about these real life forty something year old virgins. If you feel bad, check out this show…you’ll feel better after watching it
Seems to me that the important issue that seems to be woefully under represented in both schools and ‘family life’ is the importance and cultivation of intimacy in relationships. This article and its comments are only refer to self-exploration and masturbation, which is not relational to another human. The classic “Birds and Bees” is a plural statement, meaning that these creatures need their own to survive. A single bird is not a nesting bird so will live out it’s life alone, plucking itself. In my opinion, our society has become a great mass of unrelational masturbators who avoid intimacy much better than we avoid STDs. Very sad, I’d say. The good news is that the human repopulation numbers could be lowering because we don’t seem to know how to have meaningful relationships, whether hetero or otherwise. Strange times.
I would argue that one can have a healthy life and a fulfilling sex life even if he/she has sexual encounters that are not emotionally intimate. Humans have a complex relationship with sexuality, and sex does not just boil down to deep emotional intimacy between two people. I don’t think we should tell kids that if you’re not cuddling afterwards you’re not doing it right. For some people, the intimate aspects of sex are really crucial, and for others it’s not as important, and sometimes these are both true for the same person at different times in life.
Besides talking about stuff in sex-ed in same sex groups, reading Judy Blume and teen magazines were helpful…because sex is not all just about the clinical stuff…. it’s about relating to other people and negotiating the land mines that come with close relationships: jealousy, obsession, empathy, and fairness…
I remember reading a “Dear Abby” type advice column in a teen magazine about a girl who was complaining about the put-downs and nasty comments her boyfriend would make at her…at age 12, that was bewildering to me (if you loved someone, why on earth would you insult them and try to bring that person down?)….It seemed obvious to me that if someone is that nasty to you, then you don’t bother going out with them….then it happened to me….luckily I nipped that one in the bud before it got too far…if someone is abusive, there are red flags right away…only if you ignore them, then you go forward in peril….