By Rebecca McHood
I’ve realized the world including human sexuality and monogamy are not as black and white as I once thought they were. The more time I’ve spent reading articles from the anti-porn and the pro-porn movements the more I’ve become disillusioned with the debate. Ultimately few minds will be swayed by the fight and potentially many people will come away from interaction with either community feeling betrayed by the propaganda that uses twisted research and statistics to support divisive agendas.
In my recovery work, I’ve learned to challenge fear: to remember who I really am, to celebrate my goodness, to let go of the things I can’t control, and to love without reservation. I’ve seen the damage that black and white thinking has caused myself and others. I’ve experienced the power of connection, honesty, and vulnerability and I’ve also experienced barriers to those powerful experiences. Among the barriers to a life filled with love, safety, and happiness—which is what I most want to provide for my children—are fear, shame, perfectionist thinking, and the abdication of personal responsibility. When we participate in acts of vilification on either side of this debate, we feed into fear and shame. But even more troubling, we submit to the idea that something outside ourselves can make us do things that cause us to feel badly about ourselves. We also fall into the trap of believing that someone else should address the behaviors we don’t like. We waste precious time and energy that could instead be spent communicating with the intention of understanding and loving one another.
It’s likely true that pornography will lead some people toward violence even though crime statistics show otherwise. It’s also likely true that, for others, pornography will satisfy base desires in ways that avoid potential harm to others. It’s true that some people find helpful tools and paradigms within “addiction” models of treatment and recovery while others feel harmed by the labels or use them to excuse their poor behavior. Some people benefit from sexual abstinence and some people benefit from guided work on sexuality within their partnership. I believe that all people however, benefit from sexual education without fear and that increased sexual education can even prevent some of the barriers to a fulfilling life from forming in the first place.
I’ve talked at length with dozens of men and women whose work with sex addiction and/or sex therapists has helped them to overcome trauma, fear, disconnection, and even compulsive behaviors. Many of these people had missed opportunities to learn about human anatomy and sexuality. Some of them were children whose parents refused to sign their permission slips to attend the sexual education provided by their public schools and grew up in households where sex was a taboo, or even fearful, topic leaving them to gain their only sexual education through discussions with peers or by viewing pornography. Some of them were taught that their sexual organs were dirty or gross. Some grew up thinking that sexual pleasure was only for men. Some were so chaste that they learned to shut off all sexual thought before marriage and then suffered trauma as they tried to turn it all back on during their honeymoon. How much of this trauma and miseducation could have been avoided if their parents had provided a safe environment for learning, questioning, and exploring sexuality?
There are many ways to begin these conversations without fear. The books are a great place to start a conversation and to keep it going by creating a safe space for our children to ask their questions and to receive answers from parents. As parents, we have found several books to be very helpful as our children learn about their bodies: It’s So Amazing and It’s Not the Stork by Robbie M. Harris and Michael Emberly, The Care and Keeping of You by Valerie Schaefer, and Some Secrets Hurt by Linda Garner. We try to calmly answer any questions that come up and are making an effort to begin these conversations more frequently.
Recently we asked our kids what they knew about sex to try to establish a baseline. The responses they gave us were actually fun! My favorite was when their dad asked if they had seen or heard people talking about naked bodies on the tv, phones, or internet: one daughter shot me an accusing look and said “Mom talks on the phone about it all the time!” Which is true—I’m an activist and sexual exploitation is my area of focus! As my husband and I talked about the conversation later, he shared how it was so much less scary than he thought. We laughed about the conversation and realized how grateful we are to have tools such as the books to help us keep these important conversations going.
If we only focus on the “evil” of pornography, or if we are afraid that seeing a picture of a naked person or touching their own private parts means that our kids are addicts on the road to being a menace to society, I think that we would be much more likely to cause harm. We want to avoid influencing a self-fulfilling bias. So we are making an honest effort to be loving and accepting no matter what “confessions” or questions come our way. When our intentions are clear—to provide a safe and loving environment for our family—then we have an easier time creating the opportunities for any questions and all conversations. Especially the ones that might feel uncomfortable.
We hope to provide our children with a knowledge base that will help them to make informed choices about what they do with their bodies and will alleviate any surprises as puberty arrives. We hope that our conversations and our reactions to their comments, concerns, and questions will encourage them to come to us first. Their peers have searched for body parts on the internet and some have already been sexually assaulted. Our hope is that they will talk to us about what they see and ask us about things they are curious about before they enter “dangerous” terms into Google. We hope that their knowledge of anatomy, autonomy, consent, and sexuality will also help them to be aware of dangerous situations and not be afraid to talk to a trusted adult if they are ever harmed.
We believe that our best hope in achieving these objectives is to be a safe, nonjudgmental, and available space where our children can open up to us and trust that we will provide them with medically accurate information. I believe that part of that trust will come as we avoid the conflicted debates surrounding pornography and choose instead to talk about the reality of the world and how very loved our children are no matter what. We will help them to get appropriate help from trained professionals for whatever problems—sexual or otherwise—would benefit from such help, and we won’t ever judge them as being defective or damaged because of anything they see, do, or experience. We will encourage them as they celebrate all that is good within themselves, including their sexuality, without fear.
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Curious to learn more about starting these crucial conversations? Check out our books, , How to Talk to Your Kids About Pornography, which is also available in ; and .
Need Help with Tough Topics? We got you covered!Rebecca McHood is a mother of two in her thirties, with a bachelor’s degree, personal experience with betrayal trauma, and 5 years experience with recovery and advocacy work surrounding sexual exploitation and compulsive sexual behavior. Several of those years have involved activism in the “anti-porn” community.
