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I had lunch with Naomi Wolf today.
I love saying that, and I love how when I say it, people wait for the punchline, like "Oh, you read one of her books at lunch?" or "was there an interview of her on television while you munched on your sandwich?" But no, I actually mean it just like it sounds: Today I, along with my two very good friends Katherine and Laura (both of whom I know courtesy of blogging), attended a luncheon where we sat at Naomi Wolf's table. And we even talked about blogging with her. And twitter. And kirtsy. And she was lovely.
But you know what? That's not the cool part that made me want to rush back to my computer and tell you about it.
After lunch, Naomi stood up and spoke to the large group that had assembled for this particular luncheon at this particular venue. The purpose of the luncheon and the venue aren't really important; however, what she said certainly was.
She talked about how 15 years ago, when she wrote her first book, The Beauty Myth, its premise was that the conceptual "ideal" of beauty wasn't actually so much about physical attraction, as it was a societal construct designed to undermine women at a time when women were making groundbreaking strides in equality. She continued by saying that since that time, if anything, the beauty "ideal" has gotten skinnier, cosmetic surgery has become more commonplace, and the stereotype of a size two with (her words) "pneumatic boobs" as being "perfect" was pervasive. And she said that this was horrifying because this unrealistic ideal of beauty warps a girl's sense of self, and "a girl's sense of self has a direct relationship to her sexual behaviour."
Okay, no bombshells there.
She continued by positing that this constant media diet of pneumatic boobs, rump-shaking, luscious-lady-lumping devalued young women's sense of self to the extent that the concept of their bodies and their sexuality as sacred were obliterated. And she used two examples to illustrate: the first was the prevalence of "hooking up," or the practice of young people having sex with partners they barely know first, and then only afterwards taking the time to determine if they even like said partners. Her second example was the shocking part:
She said that when doing research for one of her subsequent books (Promiscuities, perhaps? I honestly don't remember), when she interviewed young women who'd had sex which resulted in a negative outcome (an unwanted pregnancy, say, or a sexually transmitted disease), their most common comment was "It just happened."
It just happened? Sex just happened?
I don't know about you, but I find this really sort of sad. As a mother of a young girl, I'm not so naive as to believe that my daughter will wait until marriage before she has sex (much as I'd love that to be the case). But I think I would be really heartbroken if I found out that her sexual experiences "just happened." And I think I agree with Wolf's theory that the current teaching of sexuality in the context of fear (that is, couched in terms of unprotected sex leading to disease or unwanted pregnancy), while important, isn't enough. I think, in addition, there has to be a way to teach our children -- from a relatively young age -- about how sacred their bodies are, and their sexuality is a powerful integral part of their whole person, to be cared for with as much attention as they care for any other parts of themselves.
Or maybe I am naive.
Anyway, I've done a little online searching, and really, there's not much in the blogosphere discussing how parents are teaching their children about sexuality -- although I did find this great book review by Just Five More Minutes on the book So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, that looks like an interesting read. Also, I found this somewhat heartening post by Ladyblog, featuring a study that seems to indicate that kids are actually having less sex than they used to. Stlll, I'll pose the question here: how do you talk to your children about their sexuality -- not the actual mechanics, but the psychology and emotions related thereto?
Karen Walrond is a writer and photographer
