Talking to Kids about Sex

The sex is unavoidable.

It's there, on your street corner. It's the billboard, the condom wrapper, the outfit that just walked by. It's the ad on the side of the bus, the lyrics bellowing from a passing car. It's in your living room, screaming at you from television and computer screens, teasing you from magazine and book covers, daring you to look. See. Desire. Act.

It's the images bombarding your kids from every direction, day and night, whether you like it or not. It's the curvaceous female vixen in the video game, the padded bras on hangars in the girls' clothing department, the teen themes delivered by adult actors for tween audiences...on the Disney channel.

How and when do you initiate the conversation about sex with your kids? How soon is too soon? When is it too late? And where does one begin?

Enter Sharon Maxwell, Ph.D. and her straight-shooting, practical and practicable how-to book entitled The Talk: What Your Kids Need to Hear from YOU About Sex.

This is not a book about sperm and eggs and fallopian tubes - the scientific explanation of human sexuality that has dominated sex ed curricula for decades.

Instead, this book charges at the pink elephant in the room - sexual desire and the power of sexy - and teaches parents how to engage in meaningful, responsible, empowering sex talk with their kids. Fearless Dr. Maxwell holds our quaking hands as she offers up eleven principles of ethical sexual conduct to get us thinking in the right direction:

1. Your body, and the decision about how to use it, belongs only to you...
2. How you choose to use your body and how you choose not to use your body become part of who you are...
3. Any kind of sexual behavior that involves another person is an expression of intimacy...

[from Maxwell, The Talk, Appendix 4]

She hones our focus on the hypersexualized culture in which we live, and gives us the tools to talk to our kids about the stuff that really matters, including:

• the power of sexual energy and desire - and why self-control is important
  
• sex and the internet - what parents and kids need to know about surfing and sex talk online
  
• the way sex is used as a commodity in our culture
  
• the value of intimacy and personal responsibility
  
• your own personal code of ethics, without being preachy
  

It's all good, people, and not a moment too soon. Are you ready to talk to your kids about sex?

The Talk is available for purchase online at Penguin Group and other retailers. I received no compensation (except for a copy of the book) for writing this review.