In a world that says, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” so many tend to assume that if you don’t flaunt, you ain’t got. The husband whose wife is ankle skirts and blushing sweetness Sunday morning at church and black lace and flirty aggression Sunday night in the bedroom knows the truth, of course, that public displays bear little correlation to raw sexual power and that bedroom finesse is a learned skill anyway, growing exponentially over years of practice.
But how do we teach this to our sons?
They’re dreaming of a wife who will satisfy them. How do we train them so they won’t succumb to the warm desire of in-your-face advertising, so they’ll be wise enough not to require a demo in order to believe that God’s product will run as specified? I know it’s possible. I’ve seen families succeed at raising quality young men. But I’ve also seen a lot of young men I’d hoped were quality fall prey to the ways of the world, and, like Proverbs 7:24 says of the woman with the attire of a harlot, “many strong men have been slain by her.”
So, ladies, especially those of you whose sons are further down the path to quality than my little four-year-old, what’s your strategy, what are you doing to help your sons navigate their hormones and get a clue?
The problem as I see it. Men want women who are sexual. Women vary a great deal in sexuality. Men want ways to assess womens’ sexuality. The modern approach (try before you commit) is a direct solution to the problem, but has several negative side effects including STD epidemics and emotional damage when sexual relationships break up. The modesty culture avoids the problems of try-before, but seems to substitute a Pollyanna-ish “just hope for the best” approach instead. I think it would be better to figure out how to tackle this problem more directly.
My son is only 1, but I work with teenage boys at our church youth group. I think the #1 thing you can do for young men to help them with their sexuality is to speak HONESTLY with them. Let them know that sex isn’t necessarily going to be great right off the bat. Let them know that having sex outside of marriage might seem great off the bat, but it’s going to end in a MESS. Without going into explicit detail, let them know what your own sex life is like. Show affection to your spouse in front of the kids (unless you’re really not that sort of person, and in that case, you might want to ask another trusted adult to do the “sex talking” with your sons and daughters).
Open communication is everything, but be HONEST! Don’t just tell them that “abstinence is best.” I mean, it is, but their testosterone-laden ears don’t really give a darn. And, don’t paint an overly idealistic picture of sex in the honeymoon years, either. Some chaste young ladies, especially, are rather uptight in the bedroom at first; it can take years for them to loosen up, especially depending on their upbringing. (This wasn’t the case with me, but I know it was with a number of my girlfriends until they were a few years into marriage.)
HTH!
Teaching people that we are sexual beings, but we are so much MORE than sexual beings is what we should do for our children. We need to teach our children to appreciate the entire person and look for quality of character in a person. There are so many pretty girls out there, they shouldn’t have to pick one who doesn’t know the Lord or follow him. It says a lot about a guy who is primarily concerned about the external so much so that he would overlook her lack of character to pursue her. Like an ox going to the slaughter, I guess. But she should be attractive to him and he to her. God made the opposite sex to attract to one another. Maybe the girl in the ankle length skirt is genuinely not as attractive as a different girl?
Way back, if I were interested in a fella and he was going for the “fluzies” of the group, I’d probably not be interested in him anyway. Character attracts character.
I’m curious to hear what the experienced moms have to say about raising kids (my experience is zero), but I do know that my husband and I first fell in love through emails and online chat, so while visual issues/hormones do play a part in attraction and courtship, I’m not convinced they dictate the show.
For what it’s worth, I think character is what makes for a happy marriage. So, when we lecture teens on purity rather than teaching them how to identify good character, it’s a lot like telling a person that the best way to achieve a healthy lifestyle is to flee doughnuts. I can agree with you all day that doughnuts aren’t a good idea, but we’re not much nearer to an understanding of what it means to be healthy: of the balance of good food, of exercise, of sleep and social interaction.
Overly complicated metaphor, but does that make sense?
Let’s teach our kids to choose a spouse with the goal of a future where they wake up each morning next to a person whose wisdom, commitment, kindness, and respect make “negotiating sexual expectations” a relatively easy hurdle.
Kathy,
Awesome analogy! “Flee doughnuts”–love it!
Hi, I have a 17 year old son. The only thing that I can say if that he only sees me wearing long skirts or dresses when I go anywhere but he also knows that it is very different when his dad and I are alone. As he has gotten older, he has seen us openly affectionate with each other, knows that we love to go out on dates alone and has begun, I believe, to pick up on subtle hints that we sometimes want to be bothered. While we have warned him about the sin of sex before marriage, we have always followed up with how much he will enjoy it with the right woman when he is married. We also, for what its worth, often throw in something about the happy side effect of sex, our grandchildren. We want him to associate the two concepts together.
Kathy: I’m totally with you on this one. I wish I could have said it as elegantly. Then again, YOU’RE the writer.. Even though we have 3 teenage boys, the issue isn’t really an issue that I know of. We were in a restaurant with a waitress who had large, bursting cleavage. After the dinner, I apologized to my son (18!) for taking him to a restaurant where the waitresses dressed like they were from Hooters. He said, “What?” ” I guess I didn’t notice” and I think he was being sincere. He was having too much fun watching the kids at the table. Maybe the Lord just blinds them? Because I was thinking “OMG” and “GAWW” and “Im sucha horrible mother!!” Here again, character training.
Disclaimer: Rant ahead…
As a twenty-something male, I have no idea how to raise children but I can give you some free tips on how to warp your son’s sense of sexuality for years. Here are a couple of pointers:
1. Male sexuality is a problem to be fixed.
In general, healthy males have a lot of sexual energy starting from an early age. If you want your son to enjoy the benefits of self-hatred for many years, teach him to suppress as much of this energy as possible, because it’s “bad.”
2. All sexual stimulation is evil outside of marriage.
This is a little more controversial, but the fact is, nowhere in the Bible does it say that all sexual stimulation outside of marriage is wrong. But why leave the word of God alone? Go above and beyond! If you want your son to be sexually screwed, make sure to instill a sense of shame in him at all sexual stimuli.
(By the way, I am not making excuses for porn here; that clearly demeans/objectifies women.)
This leads to…
3. Paranoia about sex is the way to go.
The Bible talks quite constantly about people and their dysfunctional sex relationships. But let’s shift the emphasis and act as though sexual transgression is somehow more unmentionable, more “dirty” than all other sins. Let’s forget the inconvenient fact that Jesus’ earthly wrath was mainly directed against the self-righteous, while he frequently interacted with sexual perverts and forgave them.
With any luck, this will lead to…
4. Keeping it secret.
If you’ve worked hard enough at making sex an area of horror for your child, you may eventually succeed in getting your child to live in denial of their sexual nature and to keep it secret–from you, from others, and possibly from themselves. It’s especially ideal if your children are isolated and alone; this might be particularly effective with sheltered homeschooled males who never have any opportunity to discover that everyone else is sexual too.
…
I apologize for the bitter/dramatic tone, but I was an emotional wreck over sex during my adolescence. I kept my virginity, was almost porn- and masturbation-free and was (in my honest opinion) much worse off than many of my “lower quality” peers. I was an absolute disaster zone, feeling incredible paranoia and guilt over anything that was even remotely sexual.
An illustration: I distinctly remember feeling very guilty over seeing young women being “immodest” in my early teens, and some of the images remain in my memory nearly a decade later. I think little of the issue now, to be honest, since I no longer have the same internal patterns:
15-year-old me: Oh, there’s a woman’s cleavage. OH MY ***!!! What just happened? What’s wrong with me? Why am I such a terrible person? Where can I unload this guilt?
20-something me: Oh, there’s a woman’s cleavage. I didn’t need to see that, and yes, it’s mildly intriguing but God’s not going to suddenly hate me because of it. Let’s look at something else.
…So while I am in some ways less obsessively “careful” about my “purity” these days, the problem itself doesn’t seem as insurmountable anymore. Purity is for man’s benefit, not God’s.
One of the best things you can keep in mind is the grace of God. Your son will make sexual mistakes, and nothing you can do will change that.
But, think of it this way–God shows grace to you, and uses your failings to draw you to Himself. He will do the same thing for your children, and nothing you can do will change that, either.
We lived in Africa when our kids were small and it was not uncommon for our children to see nursing women or a breast hanging out waiting for the baby to take it again. Breasts there were not regarded as sexuell, whereas legs and backsides were!
Of course the culture in the West is different, but I think our kids must and can deal with it. We can’t guard them from everything. In olden days a glimpse of an ankle was enough to make men go crazy. The imagination is something you can’t just get away from, it must be filled with other things. I encouraged our boys to play sports, have hobbies and go out with a group of friends, rather than dating and they both married lovely young women with character. You can’t make all females wear the burka, like in Arabic countries, so that men won’t get into temptation. Temptation is always lurking and men must learn the danger of the second glance, and say no! Our example and our prayer for them is all we can do and then leave the rest to God.
I’m no further along in the raising-a-boy arena than you, but I intend on raising both of my children on the principle that if it (or s/he) is easy, then it is (or they are) not worth it. If a girl dresses immodestly, then she’s probably not going to be what they’re really looking for, she won’t be the pearl of great value to him. I’m not going to give him certain standards that he has to abide by (i.e., she must be wearing a skirt that is x” below her knee), but I will give him guidelines and tell him God’s desire for purity as well as the story of how my husband & I courted, dated, and married and pray, pray, pray.
By the way, I appreciated S’s rant and found it very interesting. I’m going to pass it onto my husband.
S.,
Thank you for taking the time to write. Your story is so very sad. It is terrible that you were made to feel guilt over unintentionally seeing a woman’s cleavage. If your 20 something attitude is not to look at a woman to lust after her, but to simply let it go and look at something else, then I think you have arrived at exactly the right place.
When I discuss modesty with my children (and on this blog, for example here and here), I am very careful to point out that women’s bodies are beautiful, that God made them to be exciting to men, and that it’s really fun to look at immodest people, but the reason God made the world that way is to bless our marriages. I read a chapter of Proverbs every day with my children and we frequently discuss Proverbs 5:19 “let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” God wants us to feel ravished. That’s good. If we see something outside of marriage that excites us, it’s a perfectly natural response. That’s how we were made. If we step over the line and actively seek the excitement of looking, if we let our gaze linger (and women can be guilty of this, too) because we like the way it makes us feel, then and only then are we sinning.
A.,
Nice to hear from you! I think one thing that needs to be considered is that sexuality is not an attribute like height that is “out of the box” and permanent. Sexuality is a skill, like cooking, playing the violin, or ballroom dancing. You can’t really “assess” how good a cook someone is going to be if she’s never entered a kitchen. Likewise, you can’t really assess how sexual a wife a woman is going to be before marriage. The biggest influence on how sexual she becomes is how loving her husband is. The more he takes care of her, supports her, respects, cherishes, honors, adores, and revels in her, the more she’ll come alive.
I agree with the poster who talked about honesty. I think that we have to be open with our teenage children that we ourselves are happily married sexual beings. For instance, I mentioned to my son this afternoon that if he were at the neighborhood pool and decided to come home early after Daddy was home he should be sure to call first. Of course he made typical teen gagging noises but he also laughed and thanked me for the warning.
I believe that this specific matter, when dealt with openly and with grace, will fall under an umbrella of being set apart as holy. We want our sons to let their minds be renewed and transformed by the reading of the Word… and a renewed and transformed mind will look at a tantilizing female in a different way than a mind that is driven by the lust of the flesh. I’m not saying that they will be immune to the temptation but rather that they will recognize the temptation and prayerfully flee it and run towards the better gift. We can support them in this lifestyle by talking with the about healthy, holy sexuality the same way we talk with them about healthy, holy eating, exercise, educational pursuits, etc. If our sons know from the time that they can talk that God looks at the heart of a woman, then they will be more likely to focus there as they consider the options available to them.
If anything, I think that beyond having our own dynamic and living relationship with our Creator, being rooted in His Word, and investing ourselves in the marriage that He has placed us in, our next best tool in supporting our sons is to educate ourselves specifically on the topic of marital sexuality: reading books from godly authors, completing Bible studies on the subject, and doing a personally evaluation of ourselves in the area. Teaching something that we don’t personally live is going to be challening. Educating ourselves can ensure that we are not passing on our own hang-ups and insecurities.
I am by no means an expert on the matter; our oldest is just 13 years old. However, I grew up in a family of six kids (two boys, four girls) and I think I understand some things that should be done, and some that shouldn’t.
My parents did NOT talk about sex/sexuality at all. In fact, the subject was taboo in the house. In my opinion, that spells trouble in a big way. Despite the fact that my family was very overtly NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE, four of us did have sex before marriage, and one of us is flaunting that he is “happily living in sin” with a large succession of girls.
I was always very modestly dressed. Growing up in first private schools, then homeschooled, I didn’t even realize until I was 10 that it was okay for girls to wear pants. My younger sisters (10-15 years younger) were all teens during the late ’90′s and early 00′s, and they dressed very skimpily until I (married by that time) introduced them to Joshua Harris’s and Eric and Leslie Ludy’s dating books, and the Secret-Keeper (Power of Modesty) book. Now, they somehow manage to dress appealingly, but not provocatively, in my opinion. I think it’s a fine line to walk, and interestingly, these girls are the only two of my siblings who managed to remain virgins until their wedding nights. I do think it’s possible to dress nicely, even attractively without being provocative.
But it is imperative to talk to our kids about sexuality in an open and honest manner. We have set up a system of addressing this in our family. First, whenever we see anything remotely sexual (even kissing) on TV or in a movie, we stop and discuss it with the kids. We would truly like them to reserve not only the act of intercourse, but essentially all the “intimate” acts for the person they plan to marry. We want them to understand that the more you give away before then, the harder it is to make that 100% commitment. Second, we discuss the deeper issues of sex/sexuality one-on-one. My husband recently took our oldest on a father/son weekend trip to have time to speak frankly about the basics of sex and open up that part of their relationship for communication. Shortly after they returned, I took same son on a mom/son trip to discuss the issue from a female perspective. We’ll do the same thing with our younger son, and then the opposite way (mom/daughter, father/daughter) with our girls. We think it’s critical to have openness about sex in our house, because we both suffered from the lack of it when we were growing up.
I feel as though I’m rambling, so I’ll leave you with this video. I have it, and a few others like it, saved to share with my children as they grow. http://www.strongerfamilies.org/index.php?nid=145298&s=gl
Thank you for this post. I have really benefitted from the honest and varied comments. I have a six year old son and wonder about training and preparing him constantly.
Howdy!
I’m a young man of 17 and have really enjoyed your blog! I thought I’d comment on this one since It’s it’s something I deal with, though not like I used to. From past experiences, I can attest to how degrading porn is. You just feel bad for looking at it, but it’s all you can think about. I think it’s one of satans most potent weapons against men. I’d assume that as with most young men, I have to to constantly guard my eyes, on the internet and in the mall (the latter place I don’t go to very often) because it seems that most of the women there have the “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” mentality.
During this last year the Lord has been working on my heart, and Is working on me so that I can be a worthy husband of the woman He choses for me. I have two Godly parents who have exposed me to great material from Vision forum and the like. That’s all it took, and then I was off! I Love listening to sermons, especially ones that have to do with preparing to be a Godly man and husband.
The Lord has given me a desire to be married, as well as a desire for a Godly woman. Frankly, I don’t find ladies who feel they need to show themselves off appalling. I mean, if that’s what they think it’s going to take to get a guy to notice them, then they probably don’t have much on the inside (Character). We (My family and I) go to a rather small home group where skirts and modest, form concealing clothing are celebrated. I think Dresses and skirts are most lovely on a lady, and I much prefer them to tight pants. I still think things like jeans and shorts are fine on women, just not really short shorts, and not tight pants.
So, more to the point. As pertains to this blog post. I don’t really agree with how you describe the woman who’s in ankle dresses, and is “black lace and flirty aggression” in the bedroom. The Bible says that women are to be meek and quiet it spirit. And that doesn’t exclude the time in the bedroom.
Now I’m not an expert, I’m not even married, but I can say, what I would expect (which may be totally wrong) is a wife, who even in bed is still lady like, though if a different way. The Man offeres himself to the woman, and she opens herself to him. Aggression implies being the initiator, or the head. The point of Black lace as I recall, was so that women in the old days could show off they’re legs with out getting arrested. Now I can’t really see a to the ankle dress wearing lady of God wearing black fishnet tights.
I think the best way to train up a young man to be sexually pure up until and past marriage (they’re still pure after, as long as it’s only with they’re wife) is not to make sex out to be some horrible thing that just must happen to bring about the next generation, but rather as a glorious thing that the Lord has given to two people who enter into a marriage covenant with God and one another. However, teach them that you don’t get married because so that you can get into bed with them, rather that sex is just the icing on the cake. If all you have is icing, then the cake might be good for a few bites, but have you ever just had a buch of mouthfuls of icing? It’s nasty after just a few. But if you married the person for who they are, and for how you can serve them, then Gods gift of sex is a blessed thing. After all, he invented it, so he probably know’s what makes is satisfying. And that’s what ought to be conveyed to our young men, and young women as well.
I home I didn’t misunderstand you, please correct me if I did!
Thanks for such wonderful posts! I really enjoy them.
Paul
Paul L.,
Thanks for your encouragement. It’s a pleasure to “meet” you. Great point on “cake and icing.” You hit the nail on the head.