My mate reckons the sex/consent talk with our kids has become too woke

"Is teaching kids that a woman has the right to decide exactly how and when something enters her body really that shocking?"

Do sex talks ever really go as planned? 

From my recollection, my big sex epiphany came from the iconic illustrated book ‘Where Did I Come From?’ which I discovered in the school library, followed by a furious interrogation of my mum when I got home.  

Did she and Dad do that!? More than once? Even on holidays? 

It’s a conversation you never really forget, and as such, it feels important to get it right. Which is why I was so interested in my friend’s approach when her primary-school aged son came to her wanting to have The Chat.  

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The woman was steering the experience

As a nurse, she has no time for birds or bees or sowing of the seeds and came straight out with this: “When two grown ups decide to have sex with each other, the woman takes the man’s penis and puts it in her vagina.” 

Of course, kids being kids, her son thought this meant he would have to chop off his bits for the girl to keep, and was suitably horrified. 

“No way Mum,” he said. “I don’t care if you want grandkids, I’m not doing it!” 

Bless. 

But laughs aside, what stood out to me most was the very particular way in which she had worded her answer. The woman took. The woman put. The woman was steering the experience, with the control (quite literally) in her hands. 

As a mum to three daughters, I liked this a lot. 

And I thought in this post #MeToo age, everyone else would agree. 

Not so. 

Image: iStock

Upon recounting this story to a different friend, she immediately became defensive. (For the record, she has both a son and a daughter.) 

She thought it was confusing. She thought the pendulum had swung ‘too far’. She thought the message of consent had been lost in gender politics. 

To which I say: seriously?  

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Will our boys somehow be scarred for life?

You only need to look at the result of the US election to think that if there’s any time to overcorrect, it’s now.

Personally I think the fact we are having these conversations with our kids where issues of consent are front and centre is a brilliant development, and even then our journey is only just beginning. 

A new report released earlier this month revealed as many as one in three young Australians are relying on “violent and degrading” pornography to teach them about sex. These kids, on average, were 13 years old. 

Of particular concern to experts and safety advocates is the normalisation of aggression and sexual violence. 

So with that in mind: I put this to you: Is the battle against too much ‘wokeness’ really the fight we should be focusing on right now? 

Is teaching our young children that, with consent, a woman has the right to decide exactly how and when something enters her body really that shocking? Will our boys somehow be scarred for life because we are clear from the start that there are boundaries?

Personally, I know what I’ll be telling my girls when the time comes. 

And if that makes me part of the Woke Brigade, so be it.

Originally published as My mate reckons the sex/consent talk with our kids has become too woke