The Sex Talk

This one’s going to be a doozy. And for your grandparents, they might want to look away; we’re going to talk about sex. So strap in, or strap on, whatever floats your little man in the boat.

At some point, we’ll have a you-and-me version of this talk, where you’ll have to listen to me struggle through this stuff while you suffer soul-crushing embarrassment. But, since this blog is about writing down things just in case I don’t get to explain them to you, I’m also going to embarrass you in writing.

We’ll skip the biology lesson, because this isn’t that kind of sex talk. You know, about fallopian tubes and seminal fluid. Although, you should learn what those are before 6th grade. Otherwise, you might end up like your Dad, who at the urging of Scooter Bailey, told Lee Raymer to “suck my Fallopian tubes,” in a cutdown fight on the school bus. Not surprisingly, your Dad lost that cutdown fight.

But, this is not a talk about fallopian tubes. This is a talk about consent, responsibility, emotions, accidents, and consequences. So, without further ado, here we go.

First, let’s talk about firsts. Some people wait for marriage to have sex for the first time, either because of their religion, their personal beliefs, or maybe because they haven’t found the right person to do it with. If you want to wait for marriage, that’s okay. However, I’m not going to expect that you will or demand you do so. What I do expect is that when you decide to have sex, you understand the decision and consequences associated with that choice, and make that decision together with your partner. More coming on those consequences below.

Side note: anal sex is still sex, and if you have anal sex, you and your partner are not virgins. And while it won’t get you pregnant, you can still catch feelings and/or STDs. Also, virginity is a social construct, and you are not damaged, less valuable, impure, or less worthy of being loved if you are not a virgin. That’s a common idea in some abstinence campaigns (mostly pushed on girls and women) and it’s trash. Having sex doesn’t make a girl a whore or a slut anymore than wearing glasses makes someone smart. Don’t buy into that nonsense.

Moving on, having sex with another person has consequences. You can get that other person pregnant, you can catch an STD, and you and/or that other person might catch significant feelings for each other. And while I can’t give you a statistical breakdown, those are the three most likely consequences of unprotected (heterosexual) sex. Homosexual sex has two of the three consequences but pregnancy is off the table. That isn’t to say one of those three things always happens, rather, any or all of them can happen, so you need to be prepared before you take your pants off.

I’ll start with the most likely outcome, catching feelings. Having sex is an incredibly intimate, powerful, and overwhelming experience. While there are some people who have and enjoy casual sexual relationships, my experience has been it’s very hard to separate the feelings from the experience. When it’s good, it’s a real good fucking time, (pun intended.) Not only does it affirm your love for your partner, but it releases endorphins and oxytocin (feel-good hormones) that create intimacy, relax you, and help fight anxiety and depression. It’s also pretty fun.

You’ll never be prepared for these feelings until you’ve felt them. And even then, they’re still big, big feelings. You’re in an incredibly vulnerable state, you’re with another person, and they’re in the same incredibly vulnerable state. Once you’ve felt these feelings, you’ll spend a lot of effort, time, and money trying to feel them again. Because having sex with someone you love is fantastic.

And this is how a casual sexual relationship can lead to a very non-casual sexual relationship. Which can be good or bad, depending on the willingness and emotional readiness of you and your partner. Because while you might be physically ready to have sex at 14, you might have all the working parts, I would tell you that you are very not ready for the emotional parts of that relationship, and extremely not ready for the other possible consequences.

Like STDs. You do not want to catch an STD. Way less exciting and enjoyable than catching feelings. Lovesick people can make bad decisions, but syphilis sick people can go blind. And while STDs won’t kill you (mostly), they are embarrassing and uncomfortable. Although, they may have some new ones that will kill you in fifteen years. So, avoiding STDs is a good reason to be careful, use protection, and demand honesty from and be honest with your partners.

Babies are the third possible consequence of heterosexual sex. That is not to say that you will always get a girl pregnant when you have sex, but you can always get a girl pregnant when you have sex. Birth control is great, but not perfect, mostly because of human error. Condoms break, girls forget to take their pills, etc. I’m sure they’ll have some new stuff by the time you need it, but unless it’s administered by robots, human error will still be a factor. Most of the time is not all of the time; unless your chosen type of birth control is 100% effective, a baby can happen.

And until you’re ready to be a father, that’s a bad idea. Because if you make a baby, you’re responsible for that baby. Raising a child is awesome, amazing, and harder than anything I’ve ever done. And I’ve only been doing it for four years. I waited until I was in my forties to have you for a variety of reasons, but that afforded me the opportunity to go to college, go to film school, figure out what kind of career I wanted, and chase it through a few states before I needed to devote most of my waking hours to taking care of you. Give yourself the same opportunity to have some fun, do some stuff, and go some places before you have kids. You’ll be glad you did.

On to consent. Always, always, always make sure your partner consents. What does that mean? I like this definition from RAINN.org:

Consent is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. Consent should be clearly and freely communicated. A verbal and affirmative expression of consent can help both you and your partner to understand and respect each other’s boundaries.

Consent cannot be given by individuals who are underage, intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or asleep or unconscious. If someone agrees to an activity under pressure of intimidation or threat, that isn’t considered consent because it was not given freely. Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee or student, also mean that consent cannot be freely given.

With that stated, my follow-up is that no one owes you any kind of physical relationship, ever. Doesn’t matter what they’re wearing, what they said about your sweatpants, or what you want. Consent should always be freely given, and if you’re in doubt about your partner’s ability to give consent, they can’t.

Sex is a big deal, and it’s something I’d bet you’ll really enjoy doing. It’s great! But, you don’t need to do it until you’re ready. When is that? When you’re ready to handle all the consequences that come with it. There will be a time when some of your friends start having sex. Some of them will talk about it like it’s the best thing ever. Someone you know might get pregnant and/or have an abortion. For me, this happened in high school. Some of your friends will even pretend they’re having or have had sex, even though they aren’t and haven’t. Teenagers trying to impress their friends are like that. Don’t let their enthusiasm and your hormones steer you down a path you’re not ready for. It’s your body and your choice, but remember, they will also be your consequences. Make sure you’re ready for them.

I love you,

Dad

Sep 23, 2022

Time for everything, time for anything

I originally planned to finish this series in twelve months, intending to write one entry a week for 52 weeks. But, other things came up and I didn’t have as much time as I thought I would. We moved, you started a new school, I had other projects, etc. But finally, I’m starting my last entry in September, nine months after I’d planned. Which is the perfect intro to this one.

Time is funny like that. It marches on like a metronome, indifferent to how much you wish it would slow down or speed up. It offers no do-overs, no matter how frivolously you spend it. And it gives zero fucks what you planned to accomplish in the time you had. Once that time is over, you’ll get no more. But, it also stretches out ahead of you into an unknown future, offering untold possibility and infinite choices.

Which is why I hope you both learn to make choices about how you spend your time and understand what those choices mean. Because while there’s never enough time for everything, there’s still enough time to do almost anything.

Sep 9, 2022

On rules: the good, the okay, and the ones that suck

I have no doubt that I will someday regret giving you the advice I’m about to give you, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. That’s because like all the shit I’ve included so far, it’s important, and I want to make sure you know it.

This advice is about rules.

Some rules are good, and should be followed.

Some rules are okay, and can be bent.

Some rules are bad, either for being unjust or for being stupid, and depending on the consequences and the nature of the rule, deserve your ire, to be broken, or at the very least, followed with extreme disdain.

The hard part is figuring out which rules are which.

Jul 15, 2022

Heaven is for real. Or it isn't. And nobody knows which.

Let’s talk about God.

Wait, don’t go.

I know invitations to talk about God have shut down countless conversations and gotten hundreds of thousands of doors slammed in Jehovah only knows how many well-intentioned faces, so before you stop reading, let me tell you what I’m going to tell you.

Of all the advice I’ve given you, this one might be the least instructive. It touches on God, religions, and what I believe.

But.

More important is what I’m not going to tell you.

Jun 16, 2022

A personal account of incredible kindness

Last week, you knocked a top front tooth out, again. You knocked out the top front left in 2020, mid-pandemic. This time is was top front right, but as awful as the experience was, it also gave us the opportunity to meet two incredibly kind people who went out of their way to help us when you (and I) really needed some help.

I’m going to tell you that story and why I hope theirs is the kind of behavior you grow up to emulate; because more than anything else you can be in this world, I hope you grow up to be kind.

Jun 9, 2022

Be Humble

Be humble. Because no matter how much you think you know or how much you actually know, the list of things you don’t know will always be way the hell longer than the list of things you do know. As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s also a list of things you think you know that you’ve got wrong.

Trust me, those things you think you know are just waiting out there in the world to make you look like an asshole as soon as you open your mouth to declare something you’re sure of. And I’m not telling you this to say I know more than you, or that I’ve got it all figured out. In I have no idea what I’m talking about, I was pretty clear that I don’t know everything. What I’m telling you is that you don’t either, and you should act accordingly.

How? Be humble.

Mar 24, 2022

Choose Discomfort

Your Mom and I are making ourselves uncomfortable on purpose, which sounds like a terrible idea. It’s not, though, and I’m going to tell you why it’s good for us and good for you.

Late last summer, a recruiter contacted your Mom about a job. After lots of emails, phone calls, interviews, and soul searching, she decided to take a job as the VP of Sales at Sierra Nevada Brewing. This also meant we’d relocate from Cincinnati to Asheville. Which all sounds great, because who wouldn’t want to work for the brewery that started the craft beer industry and live in the mountains of North Carolina where they got married? And we’d be closer to my family. What could be uncomfortable about that?

You have to consider what we’re leaving behind.

Mar 8, 2022

Sam Vines on boots and money

Let’s talk about money, why the idea that “you get what you pay for” is almost always true, and why not having money can cost you money. To set the stage, I’m going to share the Samuel Vines theory of Economic unfairness. Who is Sam Vines? Sam is a character in Terry Pratchett’s 1993 book Men at Arms.

He says, “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

Feb 19, 2022

The Sex Talk

Jan 25, 2022

Don't Text Important Sh*t

When it comes time to talk about important shit, pick the right way to do it. Text messages, email, and written letters have their places and their uses, but when it comes to conversations that really matter (about things like relationships, sex, money, legal contracts, etc.) get to face-to-face, or at the very least, get on the phone. Yes, it’s less convenient, but you’ll be less likely to miss important details, misunderstand, or miscommunicate. You’ll also be 100% less likely to be autocorrected into telling someone to “shave the date,” or ordering “Egg rolls with fuck sauce.”

Don’t think I’m anti-text/anti-email. Especially because it’s possible text messages won’t even be a thing when you’re old enough to read this. We will have certainly developed new ways of communicating short snippets of information by then, who knows, maybe we’ll be sending mini-holograms back and forth. But, unless that technology manages to perfectly replicate every nuance of in-person communication, it will still be imperfect. More importantly, it will be at least one step removed from in-person communication, which by design, reduces the emotional immediacy and impact of that communication. What’s that mean? The further removed you are from a person, the easier it is to say something you wouldn’t say to their face.

Jan 21, 2022

Listen up, Mom has the mic.

When I think about the qualities I want you to emulate and share with the world, I think about kindness, empathy, respect, hope and love. As I reflect more on what is at the root of these qualities and behaviors, the art of listening comes to the center and forefront. I’m not sure I’m qualified to write to you about this as it’s something I struggle with every day. So, please don’t always follow my actions in this regard (although I try to get better with practice each day) but do try to cultivate and practice active listening.

Listen is a verb – it’s active, it requires energy and focus. The Merriam-Webster definition includes three parts:

To pay attention to sound
To hear something with thoughtful attention: give consideration
To be alert to catch an expected sound

I think the second part is the most critical. To me this speaks to not just active listening BUT also listening with a willingness to be influenced.

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