Sex Positive Parenting

Originally posted 09/08/2021

We don’t talk about positive, pleasure to young people enough. Often when young people hear about ‘sex’ from adults, it’s strictly about safer sex or biology. It’s framed by the themes of fear, danger and taboo when it really should include pleasure and enjoyment. In fact, all conversations about ‘sex’ should include so many of the topics related to human sexuality - listen to this podcast where I explain the difference.

I was grateful for the opportunity to be interviewed by Australian sexual wellness brand, LBDO, that focuses on pleasure and breaking down stigma around sexuality.

Our conversation explored why parents might be scared to talk about sexuality with their kids and how to shift these conversations to not be shameful and highlight the importance of pleasure.

We need to remember that telling kids about sex and sexuality doesn't make them do it, it doesn't give them permission. Instead, it is empowering kids with information about their bodies, which is essential for them to know. What we do have to think about is how we make conversations and lessons about sexuality, age-appropriate and include accurate content and language across their lifespan.

From a young age, children need to learn about body safety and bodily autonomy. It is best to set them up with the foundational knowledge of things like consent, such as learning it in the playground, so that you can continue to build on these concepts as they get older and as things get more complex.

In the article, I spoke about how to explain consent using shoelaces and Lego, here is a video of me giving these examples in a bit more depth. I use these examples to show that consent is a part of everyday life and it’s important to think about your boundaries and someone else’s boundaries from a young age. Getting children to identify when an activity or behaviour from a friend feels good or not is a skill that they will carry with them throughout their life and will only become more important once they reach the age where they become interested in intimacy.

As I mentioned, teaching kids these skills for the playground will help equip them with the knowledge as they grow up and bring those decision-making skills to their intimate encounters later on in life. If you want to learn more about how to have conversations with kids about pleasure or read more about age-appropriate, comprehensive sexuality education, have a look through the resources on my website. If you want to hear more tips on sex-positive parenting and examples of how to have these conversations, you can listen to my podcast.

This approach to parenting is why I created Virtual Classroom the way that I did. It incorporates parents into a child’s sexuality education. They are their child’s main sexuality educator so I want to equip them with the tools to help them have these conversations at home and be able to be a part of what they are learning in their sexuality education lessons at school.

To learn more about what Virtual Classroom offers for parents, teachers and students, follow this link.