Talking About Sex and Sexuality to Your Adolescent

• Inner drives. Normal adolescents — even yours — have sexual interests and feelings. They also deeply need love and affirmation. As a result, they can become emotionally and sexually attracted to others around them and drawn toward physical intimacy. Sadly, our culture practically drowns kids in sexual temptation.
• Seductive messages. Virtually all popular media (movies, TV, videos, music, the Internet) as well as educational, healthcare and governmental organizations have been influenced by the sexual revolution of the 1960s. As a result, unless they live in complete isolation, adolescents are regularly exposed to sexually provocative material that expresses immoral viewpoints, fires up sexual desires and wears down resistance to physical intimacy. Even in the “safe” confines of the classroom, a teenager’s natural modesty may be dismantled during explicit presentations about sexual matters in mixed company.

The majority of teenagers keep a mental tally of reasons for and against sex.

• Lack of supervision. Because of fragmented families, complex parental work schedules, easier access to transportation and at times, carelessness among adults who should know better, adolescents today are more likely to find opportunities to be alone together for long stretches of time. In such circumstances, nature is likely to take its course, even when a commitment has been made to wait until the wedding night for sex.
• Overbearing, overprotective supervision. Adolescents who are smothered in a controlling, micromanaging, suspicious environment are strong candidates for rebellion once the opportunity arises. Ironically, a big (and dangerous) rebellion may represent an effort to break loose from an overabundance of trivial constraints. Parents can set appropriate boundaries while still entrusting adolescents with increasing responsibility to manage themselves and their sexuality.
• Peer pressure. This ever-present influence comes in three powerful forms:
  1. A general sense that "everyone is doing it except me."
  2. Personal comments from friends and acquaintances — including disparaging remarks like "Hey, check out Jason, the last American virgin!"
  3. Direct pressure from another person who wants a sexual experience or an invitation from a willing potential partner. Come-ons, smooth talk and outright coercion by men who want sex with a woman are timeworn negative behaviors. Resistance to them may be lowered by a need for closeness and acceptance and the mistaken belief that physical intimacy will secure a man's love. In recent years a turnabout has become common: A young man is informed by his girlfriend that she wants to have sex with him. In a situation like this, personal convictions that sex is intended for marriage will be put to the ultimate test.

• Lack of reasons (and desire) to wait. The majority of teenagers keep an informal mental tally of reasons for and against premarital sex.

  Adolescents with a shaky self-concept may be vulnerable to sexual involvement.

  Inner longings and external pressure pull them toward it, while standards taught at home and church, medical warnings and commonsense restraints put on the brakes.

For many teenagers (even those who intend to abstain until marriage), decisions about sex tend to be made based on the drift of this internal “vote count.” When the moment of truth arrives, the tally may be close — or a landslide in the wrong direction. Adolescents with a shaky or negative self-concept may be particularly vulnerable to sexual involvement when one of the reasons is the possibility of winning approval from their peers. Therefore, without being overbearing or obsessive, make an effort to have ongoing dialogues with your teenager about the many compelling reasons to postpone sex until the wedding night.

It should go without saying that you should be talking to your teenager about many things besides areas of concern and danger. If your communication is smooth in other less volatile areas, it will likely flow more easily with a sensitive topic such as sexuality.

—Adapted from the Focus on Your Family booklet, Talking About Sex and Sexuality to Your Adolescent, an excerpt from The Complete Book of Baby & Child Care (Copyright © 1997). Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2000, Focus on the Family.
All rights reserved.
International Copyright Secured.

Last updated: May 2005

Do you have thoughts, questions, advice on this topic? Post your stories and comments in the forum for other parents to respond to. Enter the forum now.

On This Topic

• Introduction • Preparing for Puberty • Continuing the Discussion • It's Hard to Resist • Reasons to Resist • What Leads to Sex • Preventing Sex • The Role of Identity • Unhealthy Relationships • Pointers for Parents