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Reorienting the Sex Talk is an invitation. It offers parents, teachers, and counselors the possibility of reorienting. We tend to think of sex as reproductive and risky when most sex is about pleasure and driving is riskier. Sex happens within relationships - of all kinds. We can start there. We can speak the truth about cultural norms - theirs and ours. We can talk about all of this - and we can listen.
Katharine McCarthy taught Sex Ed for ten years. The annual question "Does sex hurt?" never stopped surprising her. Reorienting the Sex Talk is McCarthy's best answer to a question no one should have to ask. This book helps parents, teachers, and counselors be more at ease and more effective when talking about sexual relationships.
We can reorient.
1. We don't have to start these conversations by talking about genitals and babies.
2. Sex is about pleasure and so much more.
3. We can discuss the uncomfortable cultural norms shaping our behaviors. When we don't, it's like teaching someone to fly without explaining aerodynamics.
4. We can be willing to learn about dating and sexual activity as it is now. We may not like what we hear, but we need to know so that we can offer guidance.
5. We can claim our truths while respecting the truths of our kids.
We can help our kids become wise and wonderful sexual beings.
About the author
Katharine McCarthy's work emerges from deep roots of curiosity about the body as a source of power, pleasure, and wisdom. She counseled clients dealing with somatic symptoms of sexual trauma in the 1990s. She taught Sex Education to parents and kids from elementary through high school. She trained older women for multi-day wilderness backpacking trips during the 2000s. She has worked with her hands as a massage therapist since 1980. Listening as best she could to all the humans she works with inspired her to write this book. The persistent motivator was the annual question from an 8th-grade girl in Sex Education class: "Does sex hurt?" Reorienting the Sex Talk is her best answer to a question no one should have to ask.
