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Intersections – About Sex

D'ish Decatur

Intersections – About Sex

Nicki Salcedo
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Nicki

Nicki Salcedo

By Nicki Salcedo

I need to talk to my kids about sex one day soon, before they read about it in a book or see it in a music video. I’ve been avoiding the subject, and I need to study up on it.

When I was a kid my mother handed me a book about my body and puberty. It was a book about a girl’s body. It wasn’t a book about a boy’s body or my body and another person’s body. The puberty book didn’t explain sex.

We learned a little about sex at school. They sent us to the old Fernbank Science Center in fourth and sixth grade for Sex Education. I grew up in the scared straight sex generation. I learned that my body does these weird things. Then I learned that the body of the opposite sex does even weirder things. Two people having sex equals getting a disease. If you don’t get a disease, you will definitely get pregnant. They showed you the miracle video of a baby being born that will scar you for life.

I actually learned about normal sex from fiction. I read romance novels. Sure the men had swords for man parts and ladies had flower petals for lady parts. That all made sense to me. Those books weren’t about sex. They were about love and the ramifications of sex. That’s what you learn in fiction.

It used to be: No sex until you are married. But I think this is better: No sex until you have a M.D. or you’ve voted in two presidential elections. Or better yet: No sex until you are fluent in Middle English.

Have you read “The Canterbury Tales?” Chaucer knew a lot about sex.

Things are different now. If I really have to talk to my kids about sex, it will be about how boys might end up in jail and permanently listed as a sex offenders for having sex, even if they are caught having sex with their girlfriend.

I will talk about the emotions of sex. No matter how equal we think we are, one person in a relationship will inevitably attribute more meaning to sex than the other person. Someone will be hurt. Maybe this situation is best illustrated in fiction. A textbook can’t show this. What kind of diagram would I draw to show a broken heart?

I buy my nieces all kinds of books for young adults. Some of them have been banned. Some from authors who like to push the envelope.  Kids are smart, but not wise. We’ve got to be both as adults. We need to be honest about sex.  We need to remember what we were like at that age.

I knew I could ask my mom anything. And I did ask her everything. Poor her. Lucky me. I hope my nieces and nephews and my kids understand that I’d rather talk to them about Star Trek, but I will talk to them about sex when I need to. I’m not one to be controversial or overt. I know the difference between what’s said to shock and what’s said to start a conversation. I know what’s funny because it’s embarrassing and what’s funny because it is the truth.

Hopefully, they will ask me any and everything. Yes, I am panicking. Yes, I am a prude. Yes, the worst word I’m prepared to type or say is “nipple.” But I am not afraid of the truth. My poor kids. Lucky me. They will find out what I know when they ask me.

Nicki Salcedo is a Decatur resident and Atlanta native. She is a novelist, blogger, and a working mom. Her column, Intersections, runs every Wednesday morning. 

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