Member-only story
An Open Letter to My Son about Sex
Your greatest challenge will be to honor the erotic feelings and desires that will come up inside you while also staying fully present and respectful.
I simply cannot be quiet anymore. Amidst the silence that has always surrounded sex even when the billion-dollar industries it fuels scream loudly in your ears (and mine!) day and night, I must speak to you in a voice you can hear. I’ll not embarrass you by having this conversation in your presence, I can already feel the strangled mix of emotions that arise in you when the topic comes up at all. I will respect your privacy by saying what I have to say to you in this way, so you can have your feelings without witness.
I ask of you only one thing: that you read my letter from start to finish. I cannot scream as loudly as the pictures and jokes and sly games that mark the passage into the sexual aspects of boyhood in this culture. I have to speak in a normal voice and I have to request, as your mother and a woman who has lived nearly 50 years on this planet, that you simply read what I need to say all the way through.
♦◊♦
First, I want you to know I like and have always liked sex. The feelings and touching that goes…
