It is common knowledge that young girls experience incredible pressure pushing them towards and pulling them away from sex. As if girls do not have a choice or their own vote on their sexuality. In reading 17 lies we need to stop teaching girls about sex by Julianne Ross, I am reminded of just how many ways young girls are influenced and pressured to meet the needs of others, whether that be their father, mother, friends, clergy or boyfriends. It’s time we collectively begin teaching girls the truth about sex and their own sexuality. The lies we teach them are not productive, nor in their best interests.

 

I remember as an adolescent boy thinking that there was something wrong with me because everybody was having sex except me, or so it seemed. Thoughts in my head included thinking I was ugly, stupid, unmanly and just generally undesirable to girls. As time went on, these thoughts became self-fulfilling prophecies, I manifested my own fears. We know that thinking you are ugly and unattractive, can make you unattractive, maybe not physically, but certainly energetically and socially. In my early twenties, these inward negative thoughts began to turn into anger, and eventually rage. What was initially anger at myself, became anger and hate at girls, especially attractive ones. This defense mechanism prevented me from being hurt or rejected by girls. If I did not allow myself to be attracted to a girl, she could not reject me.

 

An interesting aspect that complicated matters further, I was a very popular and well-known DJ. In college, everybody knew who I was and everywhere I went the popular and attractive girls were three steps behind me. I even got the reputation for being somewhat of a ladies man. Of course, I knew this was a complete fraud, but did nothing to alter this false reputation. All this time I was working with the myth that girls don’t like sex and that alcohol and lies where the only way to “get” them to have sex. Here again, perception and reality were far apart because I never really “got” girls, it just looked that way.

 

 

I wonder if I was a young man today with the knowledge that not only do girls like to have sex, they may like it as much if not more than me, what my experience would have been with girls? What would my experience have been as a young man if I did not think verbally abusing and harassing girls was a natural and expected behavior? What would it be like for all boys and young men to know the truth about female sexuality, virginity and their bodies? I recognize that this article is written about the 17 lies we need to stop teaching girls about sex but boys often are working with the same lies!

 

17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex by Julianne Ross

1. Virginity exists.

2. Hymens are a sign of virginity.

3. All women are born with vaginas.

4. The first time is going to hurt — a lot

5. If someone buys you something, you owe him or her sex.

6. Too much sex will stretch you out.

7. Women don’t think about sex very much.

8. Women don’t like casual sex.

9. Boys buy the condoms.

10. “Frigid” wives make cheating husbands.

11. You have to wax.

12. You can’t have sex on your period.

13. Sex is supposed to hurt sometimes.

14. Once you start having sex, you’re not allowed to say “stop.”

15. Women don’t watch porn.

16. Sexual harassment is normal.

17. Everybody’s doing it.

“The average American loses his or her virginity, for lack of a better term, at age 17. Plenty of people don’t start having sex until later (or earlier) in life, and that’s okay, too. Some people don’t have much of an interest in sex at all. Being sex positive isn’t about encouraging everyone to have tons of sex all the time; it’s about understanding that sex should be safe, shame-free and above all, based on informed, personal choices.”

 

 

When I go to the YMCA to work out, there is a sign next to the elevator and stairs going to the second floor that says, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” I assume the person who wrote this quote was referring to public education. Imagine if we took the same mindset about teaching girls about sex being healthy and natural, desire is normal and you decide what, when and how you have sex and with whom. Imagine if we started teaching girls about sex, and that their body belongs to them and they decide everything related to their body. Imagine if girls were not feeling pressured and persuaded to meet other people’s wants and desires for them, what it would be like to be a young woman in that world. Imagine her strength, intelligence, courage and sense of self-worth. Imagine the degree of respect that boys and young men would learn from meeting and spending time with these woman. What would boys and young men think of the strong, grounded, young women whose self-esteem is built on their accomplishments, not other people’s opinions about them?

 

 

It’s time us men, fathers and teachers, brothers and husbands, stand for our girls and their right to be a whole person. We are the voices that matter, men will listen to other men. We are needed to step forward, as the women in our lives have done for us time and again.They need us to stand with them and teach them how amazing and powerful they are. To encourage them to find their inner strength, to not be something somebody else wants them to be. Stronger girls, make stronger women, make a stranger community. We gain through their strength too. Don’t believe fear, and the men who tell us we need to keep women in their place (like we ever could), they are just scared and threatened.  Girls growing-up incredible is not something to be threatened by, it is something to embrace! Nobody loses when teaching girls about sex positively and healthily.

 

What do you think about the 17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex? Which other myths do we need to teach girls besides, the 17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex?

 

Other posts you may enjoy:

 Doubt

 The Relationship Blame Game

 Stop Stalking and Start Talking

Life Lessons Learned from Akeelah and The Bee

 Listening as an Art and Skill to Improving Relationships

 Does Kindness Make You More Attractive? Research Says Yes

 Things Your Couples Counselor Already Knows About Your Relationship

 

Michael Swerdloff

Providence Holistic Counseling Services

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