Oprah and sex educator Laura Berman set a new flurry of startled/delighted controversy into motion last week with a series of shows focused on how, when, and whether parents should talk to their kids about sex.
Of course this is nothing new for either Oprah or Laura Berman, but the show cut interesting ground when it took on the sadly-still-delicate subject of masturbation, with Berman urging parents to be unambiguously masturbation-positive with their kids, particularly with their teenage daughters, and Oprah backing her up 100%.
Berman’s basic argument was that it’s important for teenage girls to learn that they have the power to give themselves the wonderful experience of orgasm, rather than thinking they need to go to boys (or other girls) for that kind of pleasure, or confusing the thrill of their first orgasm with being madly in love with whoever happens to be their sexual partner at that special moment. Berman went so far as to recommend that mothers buy vibrators for their daughters to help them get the most out of their self-pleasuring experiences and discoveries.
Now maybe I’m out of the loop (I’m not an Oprah regular, I confess) but this is the first time that I’ve heard of teenage masturbation being promoted to parents as a way of wresting their daughters away from over-fixation on their boyfriends.
There’s been positive talk in safe-sex education programs about oral sex as a safe alternative to intercourse, with masturbation occasionally mentioned as another STD-free road to sexual pleasure. But promoting self-generated orgasms for teenage girls as a tool to help them make smart choices about how they engage in sex with others is a different tack, one that addresses the touchy subject of masturbation straight on, and one that could reach a lot of sex-phobic parents, in addition to parents whose feelings and perspectives about sex, and the sexuality of their teenage children, is more positive.
What Berman is saying is that lots of girls are going to fall in love with whoever gives them their first orgasm, so why shouldn’t that person be themselves. Why not encourage young girls to explore self-pleasuring at an early age, so that when they begin dating others they can choose whether and how to be sexual with their partners separate from the basic bodily desire to have orgasmic release — so the issue is not whether they want to be sexual at all, but whether they want to be sexual with that particular partner in that particular way? Why not give young girls the power that comes from knowing they can provide this very basic and very wonderful experience for themselves anytime they want, and then, secure in that knowledge, choose when and how they want to share that kind of feeling with a partner?
Parents, Berman was saying, masturbation is your friend.
(It seems to be assumed that boys will find out about masturbation and self-induced orgasms on their own. Clearly there are masturbation issues for boys that parents might address, too, but Oprah and Berman weren’t going there.)
As Berman laid out her position, there was an eerie quiet in the audience. You could almost hear the collective psyche trying to wrap its mind around the idea of masturbation as an ally in the parental anti-sex wars — the obligation most parents seem to feel to restrict and reduce the sexual activity of their teenage children (particularly their daughters) as much as possible. Talk to her about masturbation, even give her a vibrator, in order to keep her from being mesmerized by that sex-obsessed boy she’s been seeing. Hmmmm….
Even when the objections inevitably surfaced — mothers saying they wouldn’t be comfortable talking about masturbation with their daughters, others objecting vociferously to the idea of actually buying vibrators for their daughters, the perennial argument that providing sexual information is the same as sexual encouragement (=bad) — even then the conversation kept its feet on the ground. It was a mutually respectful, relatively reasoned, back and forth discussion involving people who thought this was a great idea and people who definitely did not
Berman acknowledged the qualms that many mothers were expressing, even as she threw the ball back into their court by saying we can only be as open with our children about sex as we are comfortable about sex ourselves. And Oprah supported what Berman was saying in consistent, even tones, choosing a let’s-be-adults-about-this perspective over any number of opportunities to spin the show into fits of audience outrage.
I expected to come away from this show wanting to wash my hands or take a shower. Instead I came away feeling encouraged that maybe, in some places, even in some places that reach large audiences, maybe we’re growing up as a nation, as a culture, and getting to where we can talk about sex with intelligence, calm, and the ability to listen to and learn from each other. It’s a long, hard struggle, but I do believe we’re moving forward.
San Francisco Chronicle, April 24, 2009
Copyrgiht © 2009 David Steinberg
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