Talking dirty: De-stigmatising conversations on sex | Kate Dawson | TEDxGalway

[Music] [Music] I've always been really curious about sex in fact even at five years old before I knew what sex was I asked my mom and dad how babies were made they told me but in order to make a baby a mommy and a daddy had to do sex but then I replied the next time you do sex can i watch so looking back I guess it seems pretty obvious that I would have ended up in sex research that's what I do I research porn as in pornography and I also teach sex education in schools around Ireland and one of the things that happens to me quite often because of my job is that I'll meet a new person and they'll ask what I do I tell them and sometimes within maybe five minutes that person will have told me some of the most intimate details of their sexual lives really intimate things that they've never told anybody else about before from you know relationship issues guilt around watching porn and being unable to tell their partner of ten years what they want in the bedroom but why is it that a person would feel comfortable talking to a complete stranger about these deeply personal issues and not their partner of five or ten years I think it's because we haven't been given that many opportunities to talk about sex or to talk about it in a way that sex just becomes a normal part of everyday conversation it's been really instilled within us to feel a lot of shame discomfort and embarrassment around the one thing we've actually been biologically programmed to enjoy and to share with other people now it might surprise some of you that we haven't always always struggled with sexual expression take the Irish for example before the famine attitudes towards sexuality were actually quite open and sexuality was celebrated but as years went on Catholic our sexual expression became linked with Catholic morality and not even in Ireland but all over the world religious institutions exerts a lot of power over people for a really long time and so these ideas about appropriate behavior become embedded and passed on through generations and they can be really really hard to shake okay well like today we've gotten over the fact that people have sex and that people have sex outside of marriage but now it's the type of sex that you have that's under scrutiny we're stigmatized for not having sex or for being a prude or for having too much sex for being into kinky sex and for being into vanilla sex for masturbating a lot or for not masturbating for seeking help for sexual problems and for simply being happy was not having sex at all and you just you can't win and when there are so many rules it becomes really difficult to express how you actually feel for fear of being judged and this happens when people aren't given opportunities to learn about sex throughout their lives and to talk and to talk about it in a way that just becomes normal I really really could go on and talk about you know all of the advantages that a person can reap from being able to talk openly about sex and the personal and relational issues that can be solved but it is really to the detriment of individuals and societies when we don't talk about sex or when we can't talk about it if we don't talk about sex kids learn about it from the internet and from porn and findings from our recent study in nui galway we found that 60 percent like 6-0 percent of young people see porn for the first time under the age of 13 in ireland and 50 percent say that they use porn as a source of information about sex now although porn can be a very positive thing in some people's lives it wasn't designed to be an educator and it certainly was not designed to be an educator of children if we don't talk about sex patients don't talk to doctors about sexual problems and doctors don't ask studies show that when who underwent treatment for different cancers and then experienced sexual difficulty as a result most of them don't consult their health professionals about us and a 2013 study by dire and there they found that a majority of doctors don't bring up sex with their patients because of personal discomfort lack of training on sexual issues and because they worry about causing offence to their patients if we don't talk about sex couples experience so much frustration and often think that there's something wrong with the relationship if they're going through a phase where they're not having sex when this can be a very normal part of relationships that a lot of people go through and I think most importantly like if we don't talk about sex people are less likely to report sexual violence and some people have such a limited understanding of sexual behavior that the victims of sexual violence get blamed and not the perpetrators so I wanted to talk to you about some of the very simple but effective kind of tips that I've learned from working in sex education and sex research about what really works for people who have successful conversations with their kids and with their partners when it comes to talking with teenagers about sex there's actually a lot of overlap in what they want to know like when we go into schools with the wiser sex education program we give students the opportunity to write down anonymous questions on pieces of paper and then we answer them and the most common questions that we get are from like 14 to 16 year olds around penis size what does penis size matter for a sexual pleasure and inevitably somebody will ask you miss what's the biggest penis in the whole world how do you do certain sexual behaviors and how long do you do them for some of the questions are really specific what an orgasm and how do you have one and a lot of the time we get those questions only from the girls how much masturbation is too much masturbation and every now and again you'll hear a story there'll be a young lad sitting down the back and he'll say miss I heard a friend of a friend his cousin who actually lives in Cerf in his friend went absolutely crazy because he didn't masturbate for a whole year or another story which is usually by this 8le the same student will tell you another story about another about a friend of his or another friend of a friend who gave up masturbating for Lent and his testicles exploded we also get a lot of questions around it is the funniest job it really is the questions are gas we get a lot of questions around how do you get a boyfriend or how do you get a girlfriend and unfortunately some people are still told that if somebody is mean to you then it might mean that they like you when when this is actually a really damaging message to hear which could potentially normalize emotional and physical violence that are really young age I suppose it's it's very obvious that a lot of kids have a lot of questions about sex but the information that they have is often false or sensationalized because they get it from their friends or from the internet parents are really in a unique position to provide their children with accurate information about sex but also to instill beliefs about sex that coincide with their family's values but when when I've spoken to kids and schools and asked them you know do you talk to your parents about sex and relationships most of them say that they don't because they want their parents to start the conversation and that they feel too embarrassed but when I talk to parents most parents feel very confident that their child will come to them if they ever have any questions as as part of my PhD research I interviewed parents of teenagers to find out what were the barriers and facilitators of having these conversations you know on some really tricky topics I don't watch porn all day like people think I do when you tell them that you do porn research but we found that the parents who have successful I mean really successful conversations with their children use real life opportunities to have short and simple conversations rather than sitting them down and having you know the talk so for simpler discussions use opportunities like when you see someone who's pregnant or an ad for tampons or condoms come on the TV or you're sitting in the car even though the kids hate this one because they sometimes they say they feel trapped you're sitting in the car and a segment about relationships and sexuality come on the radio now other parents prefer to give their kids good quality sexual health books or apps and then they check in with them regularly to see what they've learned do they find any parts confusing or if they have any questions the main really the main barrier to communication was that some parents felt ill informed on sexual health topics so if that's the case use good quality sexual health websites like scarlatina and be wiser be wiser actually has a section for parents on kids frequently asked questions and gives examples of how to answer them in an age-appropriate way now when it comes to talking with your partner about sex there actually there are some issues that are common across relationships that are usually left undiscussed and I think sometimes people don't want to bring up issues of you know in relationships about sex if they're worried about embarrassing themselves or if they're worried about offending their partner or if they think that they're maybe the only person who's experiencing an issue one common issue that we see and that is usually left undiscussed in relationships is that a lot of women actually experience pain during sex but then they rarely tell their partner about us some studies show that thirty percent of women experience pain in their most recent sexual encounter now although you know sexual pain can be as a result of a medical condition in some case but in a lot of cases sexual pain can be avoided if women have more time to become aroused and if they use additional lubricants yes you know the vagina lubricates itself you know we all know that but it's not a big lubrication machine you know can do with a bit of help sometimes a lot of people also want to introduce sex toys into their sex play but then they worry that they'll offend their partner by suggesting it but introducing something like a sex toy is about introducing something new and exciting it's not about replacing your partner or replacing your partner's genitals so the next is this is something that you want to do talk to your partner about how a sex toy could potentially enhance your relationship rather than take away from it a lot of people also worry about how their bodies look and how their genitals look when in sexual situations and if I'm talking to people about this it's become really apparent that people love getting genital complements so I know I was kind of surprised when I started to clicking onto this too so keep that in mind the next time you're with your partner boss and I mean boss be mindful of the adjectives that you use to describe your partner's body a friend of mine was recently told that he had a very endearing penis and although I'm sure they meant it in a really nice way it wasn't exactly well-received now like even even as somebody who talks about sex all of the time I sometimes find it difficult to talk to my partner about this especially if there's you know a couple of issues that I want to bring up but what I found most helpful in starting these conversations is to pick just one topic the one that I find easiest to discuss and make suggestions rather than complaints because it's a lot easier to say and it's also a lot easier to hear something like I miss all of the sex we used to have as opposed to why don't we have sex anymore and in most cases you know conversations about sex don't need to be taken too seriously and you know if sex can be great fun and if you're gonna get completely naked with somebody it's important that you'd be able to talk to them about it now I really believe that the more we talk about sex the more children can really be protected the easier it will become to report sexual violence the healthier we can be and the more empowered and fulfilled people will feel in their relationships we're living in a time where there is really great momentum behind the movement to break away from some of these really restrictive and repressive rules around sexuality and all of us can take some small steps to push that even further thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 283,150

Rating: 4.7865515 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Communication, Education, Sex

Id: IpeNt81dgVI

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2019