Teen sexuality topic of Kiggins talk

An old joke goes that sex was invented on or around the release of the first Rolling Stones record.

But the sexual culture of yesteryear’s teenagers is nothing like the one their children — and grandchildren — are growing into today: inescapable social media, ever-sharpening identity politics, gender-transition facilitated by modern medicine. Parents raising children in this new, strange, hyper-complex landscape may feel like there’s good reason to be freaked out.

But is it really so different? Sex has been around longer than Mick Jagger, reportedly, and it’s always been a complex and confusing business; but now, it’s become the focus of major attention. That’s long overdue, said L. Kris Gowen, a sexuality researcher and educator based at Oregon Health & Science University.

“It may seem more complicated to some of us now, as more people get comfortable embracing a broader range of identities and developing language to fit that,” Gowen said.

Gowen is the author of “Sexual Decisions: The Ultimate Teen Guide,” which covers everything teens need to know in order to make health choices for themselves — from basic anatomy and the value of abstinence versus safe sex, to social media and gender identity. Gowen will give Wednesday’s “Science on Tap” talk, at downtown Vancouver’s Kiggins Theatre, on “The New Adolescent Sexuality: Life, Lust and Learning.”

She’ll start with some very basic basics, she said: dating and relationships, sex and virginity (a common kid question: “What actually counts as sex?”). Then she’ll move on to today’s news: modern technology, the newly fluid matters of sexual orientation and identity.

That fluidity may seem like strange new stuff to some, but it’s not, Gowen said. “The gender binary was always an artificial construct.”

Happy, healthy, scary

When she was a high school student, in the 1980s, “there were some people who were gay and lesbian, and there was some experimentation with gender, but it definitely stayed quiet,” she said.

Public opinion has shifted dramatically since then, said Stephen Herndon, who works at Children’s Home Society with its Triple Point program for gay and trangender teens. “In the 1970s, it was illegal to be gay,” he said. “It was considered a clinical disease.”

Today, he said, positive gay characters in media and enlightened policies at some school districts have started making a difference; so has the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in favor of marriage equality.

“There are so many identities, so many forms of sexuality,” Herndon said. “Kids are challenging gender norms. They’re trying new hats on. They’re bucking the system.”

“I think there’s a lot more space for young people … to have more options and get good quality information” via the Internet, Gowen said. “Young people are more able to express how they feel, gender-wise, and who they’re attracted to. That’s a healthy thing.”

Ultimately, she said, young people today only want what everybody has always wanted: a strong, secure sense of self and happy, health, consensual relationships.

But change is always scary for families, Herndon said. “When a kid says they’re gay, the family’s first reaction may be, they won’t be safe. The second reaction may be, this doesn’t fit our (religious, political, other) agenda.”

But the reality may be: “They just don’t like queers,” Herndon said.

Parents may cling to the idea that their child’s gayness as “just a phase,” Herndon said — but that’s a destructive attitude.

“We need to redefine the word and use it as a healthy sign of growth,” he said. “Heck, life is a phase.”

Work-arounds

The Internet and social media can be sources of misinformation, harassment and harm too, Gowen said — but parents should work with, not against, their kids on this.

“Monitoring and censoring tend not to be effective,” she said. “There are great work-arounds for that and kids know them.”

The best work-arounds for those work-arounds is open communication and trust, Gowen said. That’s why her talk is aimed at parents who’re hungry for open dialog with their kids — and kids who wish they could talk to their parents — but feel embarrassed or unsure because they know they don’t have the answers.

You’ll learn some answers here; you’ll also learn some ways of keeping the dialog going even when everyone is feeling awkward.

“It’s difficult to navigate as a parent,” Gowen said. “I don’t want to undermine that.”