Talking Dirty – and growing up.
I think it was a FoxTrot cartoon, about 18 years ago, that made a very telling point with me. A girl doing homework at the kitchen table comments. “Some of the parents are against our Sex Ed class. They think if we learn about it, we will want to do it. Didn’t work that way with Math.”
lisaq at 20-forty writes about a moment of embarrassment in her post, “Overcoming Sexual Inhibitions“. lisaq found herself blushing in front of her computer, trying to describe what she would have found comfortable with, with a partner during an intimate encounter. She blames much of her reticence about talking or communicating about sex, outside of an intimate encounter, on her rebellious acting out, sexually, during high school – and on the subsequent taunting she received from other girls.
There is a more universal component, too, I think. Most families I know teach their infants not to refer to breasts and genitals by any name – anything the kid has learned to say is likely to be said in an inappropriate way, in an embarrassing social setting.
As we enter puberty we start becoming aware of our sexual nature, but are never taught appropriate, common terms for what we deal with. We learn ‘vulgar’ euphemisms and terms from seeing what our parents hide from general use, and what we have to hide from parents and teachers in school.
That is – we are taught that talking about sex is shameful, something to hide. Anyone hear the term ‘first base’ used outside baseball?
Many people find their way past the ‘don’t touch’, ‘don’t stare’, ‘don’t talk dirty’ restrictions, but everyone does so through their own experiences and in their own time. Many of our peers retain more of the rules and less understanding of meaning and when to use explicit terms, and that social pressure extends the pressure to avoid ‘talking dirty’ and extends the shame our parents used to avoid being embarrassed.
And that brings me back to high schoolers taunting their peers.
It seems that we become our parents before we really even begin to vow never to be as awful as our parents were.
We live and enforce the social rules – the ‘truth’ – we learned as infants, toddlers, and children on those around us. We first get used to being criticized as our parents correct our behavior into social norms – as we learn to criticize our own behavior and those around us.
It takes repeated experience – practice – to replace old rules with new rules. Some of us learn to replace criticism with tolerance and acceptance. Some of us learn to overcome prohibitions about touching, about talking with strangers, and about crossing the street. This modification of earlier rules takes place as we encounter new people, new situations, and find new examples of behavior.
I have no doubt that lisaq will, with practice, learn to balance clear and frank sexual discussion with appropriate use in appropriate circumstances.
Excuse me, now. I have to find the area of the isosceles triangle that the last patch of grass contains. I mean, I need to finish mowing.
In high school I took a parenting and child development class. I specifically remember my teacher telling us that teaching our children to call an area of genetalia but any name other than what it is can be confusing to them.
By knowing what their “parts” are, they become more aware of them and are better able to determine levels of appropriateness concerning their bodies. Teaching our children correct terminology goes hand in hand with educating them about sex. The more knowledge they have about the repercussions, the better able they are to make informed decisions when the time arises.
Kira,
I remember a few years back, before Steve Martin made his movie ‘Parenthood’, that there was evidence that talking ‘baby talk’ to infants stumped their growth and personality development.
In the last couple of months research was announced that found that talking ‘old folk’ to older people does the same thing – suppresses thinking, dulls perceptions, increases stress and frustration and isolation and anger. And shortens life.
I am not sure about the complete accuracy of your teacher’s statement. Using euphemisms instead of names may confuse the child – but the child may also be confused because the parents are confused and ill-informed. This might be another chicken-and-egg kind of situation. Is the child’s confusion because of random and multiple names, or because the parents are confused? The results are similar, the remedy starts with the parents in either case.
Thanks for visiting!