Way back in my teen years, I was involved in a peer counseling group, and part of being one of these peer counselors was taking huge amounts of classes and workshops covering a ton of general topics having to do with counseling and psychology, and then there were tons more having to do with the gritty details of topics that people in our age group (teens) would be tackling with. Which meant that we ended up with a really in-depth knowledge of human sexuality in all its forms, with issues arising from sexual choices, social impact, even epidemiology and contraceptive technology.
All of this information was timely for us, and we were charged in a lot of way to disseminate the knowledge whenever possible. In our new time, the internet is one of the best ways to educate and entertain. I still have a few years before I start having these discussions with my girls, but I’ve noticed a lot of parent-bloggers making posts about how they talk with their kids about sex.
I’m not talking about the birds-bees-let’s-get-it-overwith talk that’s been bandied forvever and parodied ad nauseum. I mean real, ongoing discussions of the full range of sexual topics.
The first such post was over at Angelika’s blog, where she says “Life has an NC-17 rating”.
As an aside, I’d like to say in response @ Angelika’s post: A lot of things happened in my coming of age, and at my age, I did know about all the deprived things that go on out there…. Those things didn’t just materialize out of nowhere.
I usually stay brushed up on these topics on one level or another, and am always on the lookout for more sources of good information.
Back in early November, Mouseclone won an iPod device with video capability, and later began a sortie into the current podcast landscape, mostly with tech-related podcasts, but also found a video podcast that I’d like to share here in the hopes that anyone who wants/needs/is mildly interested will benefit:
The Midwest Teen Sex Show Is a video podcast. If you have no idea what that means, it’s a video blog. If your eyes are glazing over, don’t worry. The best way to understand is to watch a couple of episodes. When you hit the link here, You will see three columns. In the middle column, find the spot with the “Episodes” heading, and go ahead and hit episode #1 (may as well start at the beginning!).
You can watch the videos right there in the page. It being a podcast makes it possible for you to use a tool that will automatically download new epidoses for your portable device, etc…
The show is open and informative, it is clean, doesn’t skirt topics, and although it is serious, they are never too serious to make the topic fun, even at the peril of poking a little fun at themselves. This is a brilliant jumping off point for discussions with the kids. If you are a teen and don’t have anyone to talk with about any of this, the show is very helpful, but please do find someone you can trust who you can talk with candidly if your parents are too uptight or bashful about sexuality. It’s for your health, and you need good sources of information, and you really need to be able to talk about what’s real out there and on your level.