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This article courtesy of www.extatica.com--Enjoy!
In this months featured interview, Karyn Beckerman talks with 17-year-old Chad who shares his thoughts on everything from losing his virginity to safe sex.
Karyn Beckerman: Okay. So I'll tell you about my experience, first of all. My mom had told me my whole life that she wanted me to tell her when I decided to have sex, and so I did. I told her the day that I decided. It was very casual and laid back and not a big deal. My dad just ignored everything. Almost all of my friends had a situation similar to that. Almost everybody was having sex by the time we were seniors. I didn't think there was probably much difference between our experiences, considering it's only been 10, 9 years since I graduated. But enough about me—let’s get started! Do you think more of your guy friends have had sex than your girl friends?
Chad: No, actually, not very many of my guy friends have had sex. More of my friends who are girls have.
Really?
Interestingly enough.
It used to be great with all my guy friends. We used to have all these philosophical conversations about how it wasn't fair, because the girls could have sex whenever they wanted to, and the guys had to wait for someone to decide they wanted to. So, do you think that's the reason why most of your guy friends haven’t had sex? Is it because they haven't met anyone, or because they have philosophical objections to having it yet?
For the most part, they haven't met anyone. I think you're right, it is easier for girls. But it's also possibly that girls are having sex at a younger age than guys, because girls tend to have sex with older guys. At least some of them do.
Do you have any girls who you would consider one of your best friends?
Yeah, I have two girls that I'm very close friends with.
In your experience with them, have they been closer to their moms, or to their dads, or do you guys talk about that?
Moms, both of them are closer to their moms.
In your case, are you closer to your mom or your dad?
It's different. In terms of sex?
Yeah, just talking about it. How did they ever first bring up sex with you?
My dad would always be really technical. “Well, a man sticks his penis into the vagina, and that's how it works.” And he'd go and explain things, in a very technical, scientific kind of way. My mom would always talk about the emotions involved, sort of the stereotypical way of women thinking about sex versus men. Although, my dad wasn't like, “so you fuck that bitch.” So, he wasn't the stereotypical father. He never gave me the birds and the bees discussion. But he'd always answer any question honestly in a very straightforward kind of way. My mom would talk about other things involved. She would say, make sure that you're emotionally ready for sex; and make sure that the girl is ready. You should talk about it, because it might mean different things to each of you. And I paid attention to that.
Is there anything that you would change about how they talked to you about it, or approached you about it?
No, I think having two different perspectives is good. I don't think it would have been quite the same with just one.
Yeah, I can see that. Do you feel that they felt uncomfortable when they talked to you about it? Or did they seem comfortable?
They seemed comfortable, actually.
So I think a lot's really changed.
Yeah. I guess most of my friends' parents are uncomfortable talking to them about it.
Are they?
Yeah, I'm just lucky that my parents are comfortable talking to me about that stuff.
That's really cool. So, did you guys start having sex education in 9th grade? Did you have it in Health?
Well, I've had sex ed since 5th grade.
How did they approach it in 5th grade?
They told us what it was. The first thing I remember was, I had a teacher who was very eccentric, but an excellent teacher. She realized she couldn't say penis without everybody in the class rolling in laughter. So the first thing she did was to stand up on the table with another teacher and they screamed Penis! Penis! Penis! Vagina! Vagina! Vagina!, until everybody just stopped laughing, until it ceased to be funny, and made sense. It totally worked. Then she could talk seriously about all that sex was. And I got that bit of education all through out middle school.
The first time I actually had sex ed class was a class called Social Issues. I was a freshman in high school. What we talked about was sex and contraceptives, and a little bit about relationships. Nothing I really wanted to know about sex. I mean, it was good to learn about birth control, because that's really the only thing I got out of it. And, you know, I would never have sex without birth control, not at my age, not until I was married. I've been confronted with opportunities like that and even as a guy, I turned them down because we didn't have birth control. I'm not willing to have sex without a condom, and I guess I have sex ed to thank for that. I have my parents to thank for that too, now that I think about it. But I think that it’s important for kids who don't get it from their parents, to learn about birth control, and to have them learn that a condom is absolutely something that they need to use.
Other than that, though, I never really learned anything good about sex, not in school. Basically, what I really learned about sex, I learned from experience, and a little bit from my parents.
It sounds to me like you're saying that having sex ed in school is good, for the birth control information.
I think it's good early on. I might have chosen to have sex much earlier, had it not been for sex ed in middle school. I know kids who are having sex in middle school. One of my close friends in eighth grade had a lot of sex, and sex with much older girls too. And he didn't always use birth control. We always said, you know, you're supposed to use a condom. He was like, yeah, whatever, as long as she's not getting pregnant. I worry about him. I went to a private school and learned about sex ed earlier than most kids. I think most kids didn’t get sex ed until eighth or ninth grade. So I think it's important to learn early, especially from parents. Had he learned more about sex from his mom, he would have been more careful.
One thing I notice as I get older is that people seem to have a complete forgetting about what it's like to be younger. It's an interesting phenomenon. The older people get, the more they think kids don't know anything. Then they think that they need to protect kids from themselves, because they're really just not that bright, or they're going to wander in front of a truck. You know what I mean? Like the people who said they shouldn't teach sex ed in school, because they think it will actually encourage people to be promiscuous. It’s as if they think that if you even mention sex, that kids are just going to lose their minds. Have you experienced that with older people? Like in your school, with your teachers or any of your sex ed classes, where they didn’t seem to be treating you like you could actually think about the subject?
Uh-huh, I think so. The stuff that I would have really liked to learn about sex in school, which you know they could never teach in a public school, unfortunately, is things about sexual techniques, things about just what the G spot was. They didn't teach us how to enjoy sex more. Really what they were teaching, or rather "preaching," was abstinence. They would show us birth control and the mathematical figures - condoms, 94 percent effective - diaphragm, 87 percent effective - birth control pills - 99 percent effective. They'd have all the statistics. And then they'd say, abstinence, 100 percent!
Right!
You'd get those triple digits in there, and that's absolute. The only thing is you'd have to avoid any genital contact! And I think it's just ridiculous, because no teenager in their right mind, well no teenage guy at least, is going to really avoid all sex. I'm sure there are some, but not many. So, that's not really the best way to go. They don't really give any good reasons for abstinence, except to prevent pregnancy and AIDS. But we already know about pregnancy and AIDS, so that's not really the best reason to avoid having sex. If they really wanted to teach us sex, they'd talk more about the emotional aspects of sex, which I think would be much more effective than teaching us to avoid pregnancy and HIV. People think, well, as long as I'm using a condom, then it's okay to have sex with whomever I want and whenever I want, and they don't think about other stuff that they probably should have been teaching in school.
Right.
I think that maybe older people think that we aren't ready for understanding the emotions of sex. But, the problem is, we have sex, and then we suddenly encounter those emotions. And we're pretty much screwed, no double meaning intended!
Right. Well, that was something that I always thought was strange— mainly the denial of the fact that biologically we're designed to mate after the ages of like 12 and 13. And a couple of hundred years ago, you were married at 15 or 16—not that I’m for that, or anything. But there wasn't this false divide, where you were supposed to stay childlike for so long, and deny your more adult feelings. I think that we are forced to stay in an unnaturally long adolescence. It just seems unhealthy to block the emotions and feelings. You're 17 right now, right?
Right.
So I just don’t agree with the idea that you're supposed to be immature, and you don't really know anything, and you don't know what's going on, just because you are a teenager. And like what you're saying about the sex ed teachers trying to keep it dry and only teach you about statistic—it doesn’t seem very responsible. In a sense, they're not bringing up, the true nature of attraction. It’s not that clinical, and not that casual. It's just not. And it can be much more casual for guys than girls, I know. But I don't know very many girls who can be casual. It's a rare girl who can be super casual about sex. They can pretend they're being casual, but they still care.
Right. I know some girls who pretended it was casual, and then realized they did care, and that they were only doing it casually to get attention.
Once they realized it, did they stop?
No.
When did you decide to lose your virginity? How old were you?
It was a little more than a year ago, 14 months, maybe. I had a girlfriend who I was in love with, and I had been going out with her for over a year. About 11 months into our relationship we decided we wanted to have sex. But she told me that she had promised herself that she wouldn't have sex for at least a year. So we waited until after that. And then we did have sex, and it was very loving. I always thought that being in a relationship was the best way to have sex for the first time. I wanted to make sure. You know, I told myself that the way I wanted to lose my virginity was being in love, and I think that's rare among guys. But I'm very glad I did it that way. Even though I broke up with her about a month later, I'm very glad I did have sex with her, because I really was in love with her, and she with me, and I think that's a good way to do it for the first time.
Was it her first time too?
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s a really good way, I think, almost ideal, actually.
It was. It was perfect, I suppose.
It sounds wonderful. Have you had other girlfriends or had sex with them since then?
Yeah, I had another girlfriend after her. And I had sex with this girlfriend, and it was very different. It was more of a fun, wild kind of sex, all the time, different places, different ways. It was more out of lust than love. But that was okay with us, because neither of us were virgins. So, I felt more free to experiment, not being a virgin, as I was. She was the only other girl I've had sex with. It's hard to say what's better--being in love, or just doing it for fun. It was monogamous, so that made it more okay, to have sex like that.
I got married a year and a half ago, and I've been with my husband for two years. And it's been really amazing, because this is the longest I've ever been with anybody. Obviously we like each other--we got married. It's been amazing, because the experience of making love is going so much deeper. It's so different than when I was younger.
It's more than physical.
Yeah, it's so much more. I was exposed to pornography since I was really young. I found my first Playboy when I was in second grade, saw my first porn film in fifth grade. It was always around, one way or the other. And now, I'm discovering that I feel like the experience of having pornography thrust on me so young really shaped my views, in a way that I don't think is positive, because it showed the male and female relationship as one that was really devoid of emotion. What do you think of pornography— obviously it's fun—but beyond that, what do you think of the influence it has on kids, when they see it?
I think, on the positive side, it opens people up to possibilities physically. I think it can be educational. But you're right about it being devoid of emotions. 99 percent of the time, it shows sex as being purely physical. But generally, since it's only guys that look at pornography, guys are the ones who start to see sex as being purely physical. And they'll say to their friends, “you know, yeah, I fucked that bitch, and it was pretty tight, that was good shit.” Just like they'll talk about anything else. No girl would ever say that. If a girl said, “oh yeah, I just fucked this guy and it was so great,” she'd be a slut. But a guy doesn't have that. So, maybe, in essence, the problem with pornography, if there is a problem at all, is that only influences men, and not women.
All the girls that I knew were really into sex, in the sense that they enjoyed it and they liked it, and they had it, and it wasn't an issue for them. There wasn't a good girl/bad girl thing. If they wanted to, they did; and if they didn't, they didn't. And I came to discover that that was much rarer than I thought. So, in your experience with girls, do you think that they're more casual about sex than they once were? Not necessarily having it, but just their attitude towards it, in talking about it.
More casual than they were, as far as I know, 50 years ago, or 30 years ago.
Yeah, like your mom's generation.
Yeah, definitely much more open. At least more open in talking about it. The girls I know, for the most part, are open about talking about it. I think that's good. Same with the guys. But I find that it's easier to talk to girls about sex than guys. And maybe that's part of the porno coming in there. I mean, I find it hard to talk to guys about emotional issues anyway. They just think it's weird. And maybe they're afraid to talk to me about that kind of stuff, because they think I think it’s weird.
So you end up talking to your girlfriends about that kind of stuff?
Pretty much.
Do you think that guys think that girls who talk about sex are more slutty? Do people still call people sluts?
No. Guys never call girls sluts. It's girls that call girls sluts.
Really!
Yeah. Girls are so vicious! I can't even believe it. I mean, if there's a guy I don't like, I just won't associate with him. But if a girl doesn't like another girl, call her bitch and a slut and a whore behind her back and a whole bunch of really horrible things, like stupid skanky cum-guzzling queen.
That's impressive.
[Laughs.] I actually heard that one. It's not good. So, I think it's really the girls that judge each other, not the guys that judge girls. I don't necessarily think it's good for a girl to be a virgin. I don't want to date a girl who's a virgin, because virgins tend to be more willing to have sex. And I prefer to have a relationship in which I sleep with my girlfriend, so ….
Are any of your friends allowed to have their girlfriend or boyfriend openly spend the night, and not just for convenience sake?
No, I don't think so.
I had two friends whose parents did that, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
I think it's good. I think it's very good if parents were willing to do that, simply because, when a guy and a girl spend the night together, if they're actually sleeping with each other, then that raises the comfort level. And that really leaves room for the more emotional part of sex, you know. Having sex and then sleeping together, there's something special about that that a teenager rarely gets to do, because of parental restrictions. And I would like to do that, but it's not really possible for me. My girlfriends' parents in the past haven't been okay with that. So, then what happens is you just have sex and then one of us has to leave because of our parents. So, by our parents restricting us they're not stopping us from having sex, which is their ultimate goal. What they're really stopping is the intimate part of it.
I hadn't thought about it quite that way.
I think if kids really understood the emotions involved, they'd wait longer and be more careful. I think that's why I waited longer than I had to, not longer than most of my friends, but still, longer than I had to. Because I wanted to be involved in the emotional part. Had my parents not talked to me about that, I might have had sex earlier in a more risky situation, and not enjoyed it as much, even. So, I think that by parents talking with their kids more about the emotional stuff, the emotional issues, the kids will actually make better decisions regarding sex.
When you talk about the emotional issues, what emotions are you referring to specifically that have to do with sex?
Love is one. Generally, either it's passion, lust, or love, and there's also issues that happen afterwards. You know, there could be anger and fear—anger for having sex at a bad time, fear of pregnancy, disease—if people don't discuss it first. And sadness or being upset, because maybe it didn't mean anything to the guy, and it did to the girl, or vice versa. That's quite possible. For me, if I slept with a girl that I really liked and it didn't mean anything to her, I would be hurt. So, there's that. I think the more parents talk with their kids about that kind of stuff, the better off the kids are going to be, and the smarter the decisions they’re going to make.
After you lost your virginity, did you feel like you were a different person?
Definitely. I remember walking around that next day at school like, “oh I had sex! Hey, have you been to Tibet? Well, I have, yes! Yes, I'm at the top of the world today!” And ever after, I suppose.
Yeah. Did it almost feel like you were inducted into the adult society—like suddenly everything made more sense?
Definitely.
Maybe part of it, too, is that before you have sex, you have just never been that close to another human being, not in that way. Not that intimately. And you're right. They don't teach that in sex ed at all. No, they don't even touch upon it. It’s like in my mom’s experience. Her parents didn't talk to her about it all. They maybe mentioned it once, under duress. Then, if you had sex, you were a bad girl, and if you didn't, you were a good girl. And it was completely confusing for her.
You were a prude or a slut.
Right, absolutely. And so, that was my mom's experience. And I know that she wanted to be sure and not do that with me. And that's one of the reasons why that my mom talked to me the most, compared with all my friends and their moms. My friends’ parents wouldn't talk about it, or were uncomfortable. And I think it's because they weren't comfortable with themselves, in a sense. I think you really have to be comfortable with yourself to talk about sex. So that might be one reason too, like you were saying earlier, that guys don't want to talk to other guys, too.
Yeah. I'd be comfortable talking to other guys, but generally, other guys aren't that comfortable talking about it. And, you know, I'm okay with that, because I could talk to a lot of girls about it. I think girls have a better perspective on it anyway—or at least they're more willing to admit their perspective. I just had a thought. We haven’t talked about the mix of drugs and sex, or alcohol and sex. I think that is important to discuss.
Do you think that a lot of kids that you know ended up having sex because they got drunk and it was easier to have sex?
Here's my theory on getting drunk and having sex. For guys, they just like the feeling of being drunk. Although, I can't imagine why any guy would want to have sex all drunk because it can cause impotence and embarrassing things. And as far as girls go, it's always surprised me - why a girl would drink at a party, or in a situation where it's quite likely she'll end up having sex with somebody while drunk. I know a lot of girls that that's happened to. And, although most girls won't admit this, a couple claim, and many guys claim, that this is the case. That a girl will get herself drunk or stoned so that she can have an excuse to have sex, or to have had sex. So she can say, oh yeah, I did sleep with him, but I was drunk, so it's okay. Then, people don't judge her for having had sex. They don't say she's a slut; they just say, oh, she was drunk. I think it's ridiculous. I've never had sex drunk or high. Maybe it's something I should try, but it's not really my style. I think there's too much involved in sex, to do it while under the influence. But, I don't know yet. Maybe I'll try it sometime.
Is sex on X still popular?
On Ecstasy? Oh, I've heard it's really bad to have sex on Ecstasy. One of the reasons I've heard is that because your pleasure sensors are already stimulated, it may be such an overload that it just makes you depressed afterwards, like nothing could ever be that great again. That could get you really addicted to both sex and Ecstasy. I think that's a bad combination. Perhaps that has the same result as heroine, whereas the first trip is always the best, and then you strive forever after to try to get back to that first high. But I think it may be just too much of an overload of pleasure, to have sex on Ecstasy. But, people do. They're also damaging their bodies. It hurts your nerves, as far as I've heard. I don't really know. I've never taken it, or been interested in taking it. Although some people I know have. I remember one guy said, “yeah, I took E the other night. And I'm a changed man.” And he didn't have sex or anything. He just felt differently. So I don't know if it screwed up his head or something.
When I was younger, they had “Sex on X” T-shirts, and people would wear them at clubs. I think it was right when X became illegal. So, it was definitely something to be aspired to, sort of a legendary status kind of thing. I’d say at the time, most people in that scene believed they should try sex on X, at least once in their life.
How about sex on spiritual ecstasy?
Well, that's the thing. It's interesting, because I had my share of sex in altered states. But the older I get, the more I really notice the difference. And it's not about technique. It's the inability to connect, literally, chakra to chakra. It’s the strangest sensation, to be that physically close but not be able to connect. I would agree that people sometimes purposely remove themselves from a situation, so they're numb, so they can do it.
Mentally numb.
Yeah, they're mentally numb, so they don't have to actually experience it. So let’s see, there were a few last questions I wanted to be sure and ask. So, did your conversations with your parents change over time, about sex? Like with your dad, did it stay technical? Or did it evolve at all?
Oh, no, it evolved. Once I had sex, he told me a little bit more about it. But, it's hard to remember exactly what he said. I think my dad eventually talked more about love than sex, and all that. And I think he's even more open about it now, than he was in the past. I told him I was having sex when he just asked one day. I didn't go up and tell him. I didn't tell either of my parents. But I never lied to them. When they asked me if I was having sex, I said yes. And I think that's fine. I didn't really feel like I wanted to go up to them and say, Hey! Guess what I did! But once they asked, I might as well tell them. And I guess I'm glad I did, because they both told me more about stuff.
How about your girlfriends? Did they tell their parents when they had sex?
My girlfriends? No.
No?
Neither of them did. Certainly, my first girlfriend did not, and perhaps her parents still don't know. Her parents are very conservative, and I think her parents would not have tolerated it at all. As far as my other girlfriend, her dad did find out that we had sex, because he found a condom in the trash can. That was bad. He called my parents, and he was like, oh, I found this used condom in the trash can! I think it was my mom he talked to, and she was thinking, well, at least they used a condom! I guess my girlfriend's dad had the idea that he could just stop his daughter from having sex. And that is an impossibility. Just like a prison rarely rehabilitates an inmate, a parent telling their kid not to have sex is simply not going to work.
Any last thoughts?
I think the worst thing a parent can do is to completely disagree with their kids, because kids have a natural tendency to rebel. If their parents told them “absolutely not, for any reason, it's not up for discussion,” then the kid's just going to go ahead and rebel. That's exactly what kids do, and that's what adults do too. Everybody likes to rebel. It's a necessary part of human nature. But if the parent is willing to compromise and really talk with their kids about whatever the subject is, and find some commonality, some level on which they can talk with their kids about it and not be so opposite, then that's much better. The kid will start to listen, because it's harder to rebel against someone whose ideas are just like yours.
That's great. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.