The following is a translation of an article previously published on 20 November, 2020.
“I am not in my own body”: How do parents speak about sexuality?
Host:
Tetyana Troshchynska
Guest:
Anna Lenchovska
Our Guest is Anna Lenchovska, psychologist, executive director on the NGO “Space of Toleration”, co-author of a course on sexual education, and participant of initiative groups for the creation of the comic I Am Not Your Kitty: A Small Book for Girls on One’s Own Boundaries.
Troshchynska: “Here is the latest survey from CEDOS regarding sexual education.”
“In 2018 a survey was conducted of teenagers in Ukraine, Europe, and South America. In that survey, every fifth teenager declared that they had entered into sexual intercourse.
“Parents need to form circles of trust with their adolescents, to have “a mate”, a friend within the family so to speak. Instead, parents will rather speak awkwardly on such topics. A solution would be to converse with a mature person, who is friendly, open-minded, and ready to discuss different topics, even those of short skirts or the age when our sexual lives begin.
“Modern research now is now concerned with teenagers throughout their adolescent years in relation to sexuality and orientation. On Tik-Tok, there is now quite a lot of topics associated with encouraging transgender individuals, acknowledging homosexuals. But it is also the task of the family to be a centre of encouragement. I read, somewhere five years ago, of this research organization, “Insight.” They were very serious interviews with transgender people. There wasn’t one interview that did not feature violence, physical or psychological, when a young person reported that ‘I think I am not in my own body.’”
“A child is born unto us, we educate them, and have various experiences with them. But DNA, culture, society, and other things impact one’s personality.
“If we want to raise a personality which is capable of standing on its own, to critically wonder, to defend their own dignity, to be happy, and to be safe, parents need to have supported their child, to have taught them various things (for example, to identify emotions), to have built a circle of trust, that “you can come to us always.” Even if you drank too much somewhere at 14 years old. You will know that the child will come to you.”
“When would it be normal to begin one’s sexual life? At 17-19, we actively formulate our pre-frontal cortex (the zone in the frontal lobe of our brain which is responsible for weighing risks, responsibility, ethics, and admitting decisions). At the same age we are able to vote.
“Parents are often in shock to find that their children are watching porn. But why can this be harmful? It is necessary to complement porn with literature and film. It is necessary to complement it with aspects of relationships. This is the Platonic stage of infatuation, followed by the erotic stage, it is just what is so adolescent about it. However, since they already see the same process of sexual activity in a majority of porn videos, they absolutely do not see the Platonic process that builds up to the act.
“Sex in real life is absolutely not the same as in porn.”
“This is not about sex altogether. Eyes will be melancholy. Depression masks itself under bravado, under the same protesting behaviour. But there is no pleasure here from this protest, and it is unfortunately a big problem that will require a child’s psychiatrist, to receive qualified medical help.”
Translated by Logan J. Borges