The Talk

The late afternoon sun warmed the car as my daughter tossed her backpack on the floor and slid into the passenger seat, with the disheveled hair and rosy cheeks of a kid who hasn’t yet outgrown recess playtime. “How was your day?” I asked, eager to make the most of the brief fresh-from-school window for a recount of her day, which will be inevitably forgotten by dinner time. “Good”, she replied, seemingly much less eager for conversation as she dug the remnants of a half-eaten sandwich from her lunch bag. I pulled away from the curb assuming we’d leave the mother-daughter talk for another day.

“Mom,” she said with a questioning tone a few minutes later as we turned into our neighborhood, “what is sex?” I inhaled slowly realizing that there would be far more mother daughter talk than I’d bargained for on school pickup between my afternoon zoom calls. With the completion of fifth grade puberty ed and plenty of friends with older siblings, I knew that the seed for this question had been planted. I’d even politely smiled and laughed over glasses of chardonnay as other parents recounted their unpracticed stumbles through this territory. But somehow I, a notorious over-planner, had managed to show up utterly unprepared for the inevitable birds and bees moment with my trans daughter.

While I continued driving and breathing, I sensed my response forming instinctively, as if someone had unlocked an overstuffed closet in my brain, its contents spilling across my mind; relics from “the talk” I’d had with my own parents so many years ago and ingrained through hundreds of conversations and experiences over the years that followed. As I prepared to launch into the birds and bees talk that most of us know all too well – penis, vagina, intercourse – I? felt momentarily confident in my unrehearsed approach. Until it dawned on me, somehow shockingly, that the intercourse definition of sex that I was about to deliver was not only irrelevant to my daughter, it entirely rejected what her future experience might be.

As I reflected on her question over the weeks that followed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way traditional notions of sex had impacted me as a straight, cis woman. Growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, sex meant one thing: “going all the way.” Girls who “did it” were branded sluts, while boys were celebrated. And after years of trying to do it, avoiding doing it or just obsessing about doing it, many people found their early experiences with intercourse to be ironically anticlimactic, or far worse. No attention was paid to intimacy outside of intercourse. I can’t remember a single discussion devoted to how to enjoy, safely prepare for or consider the emotions associated with non-intercourse sex. I remember struggling quietly with confusion and shame about the intensity of my emotions around these encounters.? Much worse, countless friends attempted to laugh off experiences of coercion and assault.? All of this was swept under the rug and treated as little more than a joke.? Because as conventional wisdom told us, there was no intercourse so “nothing happened.”

When I share these reflections with my forty and fifty-something friends, they react with the same sense of wonder, and the realization that a more flexible and expansive view of sex would have revolutionized their early and even in some cases current sex lives.? The traditional idea of sex as intercourse doesn’t just exclude my daughter’s experience as a LGBTQ person, it rejects a huge portion of almost everyone’s experience.

Much of the conversation and debate around LGBTQ people and especially young people is fueled by fear and a desire to stifle anything different.? This is playing out in the shocking movement to ban books and art, the absurd label of “groomer” branding LGBTQ people who dare to share their experiences and identities, and the criminalization of teachers and health care providers who discuss or even acknowledge the existence of the LGBTQ community. This resistance to change isn’t relegated to the extremes in our society. People I know, who count themselves as liberal, show a certain reluctance, a roll of the eyes when faced with a new idea skirting the boundary of discomfort. After all, it’s easy – almost instinctive – to lean into the embrace of outdated, but familiar conventions.

However, venturing into unfamiliar territory, pushing the boundary of comfort is often what it takes to reveal a better view. Revisiting my own awkward and neatly repressed sexual experiences has been uncomfortable to say the least. And reimagining the sex talk with my tween daughter is embarrassing and, to borrow one of her favorite words, downright cringey.? But facing all this awkward cringeyness has opened my eyes to a more complete and honest understanding of my own experience with sex and intimacy. Certainly, my younger self thanks me for this new and improved perspective.

Coming back to that school pickup, I have come up with a more inclusive response to the question “what is sex”, though it’s still a work in progress and our conversations are still awkward for us both.? More than anything though, I am so thankful for the opportunity to consider this question from the perspective of my trans kid.? Because of her, I have a more expansive and frankly, honest perspective on sex that is not only more inclusive and relevant to LGBTQ people but also to me, a straight, cis woman.? I hope that having the proverbial “sex talk” in this new way will help my daughter to embark on this journey someday, aware, unashamed and better equipped to protect herself physically and emotionally. And I look forward to all the moments in the future when I will once again find myself underprepared, and the gift of being her mom will allow me another chance to get a little uncomfortable in order to see something with fresh eyes, in a new and better way.