A Sex Note: Would You Want One?

The other night, on my pillow, I found a short tender letter written by my 17 year old daughter. In the letter, she got straight to the point and told me her and her boyfriend of nearly a year had had sex for the first time. She assured me they were responsible and safe. She said they hadn’t really planned for it to happen, but it just kinda’ happened. She said they were being responsible, and she just wanted me to know. I think they were both virgins (but it’s hard to be certain). I cried after I read the letter – first, because of her loss of innocence (She’s grown up too fast!), second, because she was choosing to keep me informed of her most intimate secrets (Holy smokes! I thought she semi-hated me most days!), and, third, because I worried I might be responsible for nudging along the process (!). Just the week before, I told her she needed to get out more and have some fun while she was young. She doesn’t go out much. She’s never in trouble. She plays the flute. Her grades are incredible. And I have been getting her birth control for the last three years – not because she’s been sexually active but because she has awful heavy periods (a curse that runs in the family).  I suggested them to make her less miserable. Did I give her a green light? Should I throw up a stop sign now?

During a phone call, I told my older sister about this endearing letter. Maybe I was bragging a little, fluffing up the idea that my daughter and I have a relationship which consists of some near-to freaky trust and honesty. Of course, for all I know I suppose my daughter could’ve had sex with her boyfriend months ago. When I was a horny teenybopper, either I told my mother absolutely nothing or I lied impulsively, sometimes even when I didn't need to. Given the note, however, I think it's safe to call the bottom line more important (i.e., The wonder of the fact that she told me anything at all.).

Maybe I wanted some big sisterly advice on what to do now. My sister is five years older than me, and seeing as we grew up with a working single mother, my sister did a lot to mother me herself. She’s survived one hardass life; she’s in a better place now than she’s ever been – finally divorced from an dumbass and affording her rent. But she still works 40+ hours a week as a temp when she deserves the rank of an admin. She’s a good mother of four, including two exhaustively moody teenage daughters, and has recently become a grandmother.

I told my sister, “My daughter told me her and her boyfriend had sex.”

My sister responded, “And she felt compelled to dump that information on you?”

I laughed off her response. She wasn’t meaning to be funny, in fact, she was feeling kinda' end-of-the-day sleepy/grouchy. Still, her response made me think. We parents of teenagers are ever-haunted by these concupiscent heebie jeebies. It's hard to watch our big-eyed babies become creatures of curves and angles driven by lust. I was a teenage mother, so I fear I may have overcorrected. I bring up the myths and truths of sex, the responsibilities of birthing people, maintaining self-confidence and control amidst gender stereotypes, etc., at least once a week or more, and I've been doing this since my daughter first budded boobies (age 9?). I've always believed the sex talk sure as hell doesn’t end with the Birds and Bees speech or with the official display of whatever illustrated version of the “Tell Me About My Body” book otherwise hiding on the shelf.

So I ask fellow parents, would you want a little informative letter on your pillow? Would you pry for it? Would you hide from it? How much could you bare to know and what would you do with that information if you got it dumped on you?

Well, are we pro-choice or not?

This topic has been knocking around in my head for a bit now, and with Thursday’s news and the assholes it brought out of the internet woodwork, I had to say something.

Michelle Duggar suffered or is suffering a miscarriage. Duggar was pregnant with #20. I’ve never watched the show and I have not followed this family at all. I know they are very conservative Christians and that they don’t believe in birth control, that god plans their family size, that they are the Above Rubies and Quiverfull type of family. And that’s it. That’s all I know about them. And you must know I’m pro-choice, which is why it pisses me off to no end that self-proclaimed pro-choice feminists 1)Criticize her reproductive choices and 2)Are either out and out cruel or offer fake-ass, back-handed sympathy (“I feel bad for her, but every ejaculation does not need a name.”)

Some women have been arguing that maybe Michelle Duggar doesn’t really want these children, she only thinks she does because she’s brainwashed by her religion. I don’t know about that. And really, neither does anyone else, even someone who’s been in a very similar place. We don’t know if she’s under some kind of religious or spousal duress to keep having children. We don’t know if the older children’s lives will be ruined forever by having to help out with the younger children. We don’t know if they’re the happiest and most well-adjusted family on earth. WE DON’T KNOW. Whatever the Duggars have going on in their household is their business. Reproductive choice is reproductive choice, and she’s made hers. If she’s not really happy in her life, well damn, that’s pretty sad. But again, we just don’t know—we can only conjecture. And to say that she can’t possibly be happy in the life she’s living, well that feels about as condescending as when someone wants to outlaw abortion for women’s own good.

Now. If we call ourselves reproductive freedom fighters, if we believe that parenthood is a choice, if we trust women, we have to respect ALL reproductive choices. There is no picking and choosing. It’s not “I support reproductive rights, but she’s had enough kids.” No. Disagree with the woman all you want, but don’t say she doesn’t have the right to have twenty children. Don’t say she’s selfish for having children—I don’t give a shit if she’s on welfare or not. Even if she was, guess what? Still none of your business how many kids she has. It’s not a sign from God to stop having children (who are you to interpret the signs, anyway?) It’s time to pick a side, and please, pro-choicers, let’s all be on the same side. The side where we trust women, and the side where, for fuck’s sake, we don’t say “maybe she needs to be mentally envaluated, and then we they do the D & C, take her baby parts away because this is beyond enough” to a woman who has lost a loved and wanted child. You don’t get to be pro-choice with a BUT. The pro-choice crowd doesn’t want to see your but, so if you must have it, keep your but to yourself. Because if we see your but, we may start to think you’re not actually pro-choice after all.