An Interview with Chad
In this months featured interview, Karyn Beckerman talks with 17-year-old Chad who shares his thoughts on everything from losing his virginity to safe sex.
Karyn Beckerman: Okay. So I'll tell you about my experience, first of all. My mom had told me my whole life that she wanted me to tell her when I decided to have sex, and so I did. I told her the day that I decided. It was very casual and laid back and not a big deal. My dad just ignored everything. Almost all of my friends had a situation similar to that. Almost everybody was having sex by the time we were seniors. I didn't think there was probably much difference between our experiences, considering it's only been 10, 9 years since I graduated. But enough about me—let’s get started! Do you think more of your guy friends have had sex than your girl friends?
Chad: No, actually, not very many of my guy friends have had sex. More of my friends who are girls have.
Really?
Interestingly enough.
It used to be great with all my guy friends. We used to have all these philosophical conversations about how it wasn't fair, because the girls could have sex whenever they wanted to, and the guys had to wait for someone to decide they wanted to. So, do you think that's the reason why most of your guy friends haven’t had sex? Is it because they haven't met anyone, or because they have philosophical objections to having it yet?
For the most part, they haven't met anyone. I think you're right, it is easier for girls. But it's also possibly that girls are having sex at a younger age than guys, because girls tend to have sex with older guys. At least some of them do.
Do you have any girls who you would consider one of your best friends?
Yeah, I have two girls that I'm very close friends with.
In your experience with them, have they been closer to their moms, or to their dads, or do you guys talk about that?
Moms, both of them are closer to their moms.
In your case, are you closer to your mom or your dad?
It's different. In terms of sex?
Yeah, just talking about it. How did they ever first bring up sex with you?
My dad would always be really technical. “Well, a man sticks his penis into the vagina, and that's how it works.” And he'd go and explain things, in a very technical, scientific kind of way. My mom would always talk about the emotions involved, sort of the stereotypical way of women thinking about sex versus men. Although, my dad wasn't like, “so you fuck that bitch.” So, he wasn't the stereotypical father. He never gave me the birds and the bees discussion. But he'd always answer any question honestly in a very straightforward kind of way. My mom would talk about other things involved. She would say, make sure that you're emotionally ready for sex; and make sure that the girl is ready. You should talk about it, because it might mean different things to each of you. And I paid attention to that.
Is there anything that you would change about how they talked to you about it, or approached you about it?
No, I think having two different perspectives is good. I don't think it would have been quite the same with just one.
Yeah, I can see that. Do you feel that they felt uncomfortable when they talked to you about it? Or did they seem comfortable?
They seemed comfortable, actually.
So I think a lot's really changed.
Yeah. I guess most of my friends' parents are uncomfortable talking to them about it.
Are they?
Yeah, I'm just lucky that my parents are comfortable talking to me about that stuff.
That's really cool. So, did you guys start having sex education in 9th grade? Did you have it in Health?
Well, I've had sex ed since 5th grade.
How did they approach it in 5th grade?
They told us what it was. The first thing I remember was, I had a teacher who was very eccentric, but an excellent teacher. She realized she couldn't say penis without everybody in the class rolling in laughter. So the first thing she did was to stand up on the table with another teacher and they screamed Penis! Penis! Penis! Vagina! Vagina! Vagina!, until everybody just stopped laughing, until it ceased to be funny, and made sense. It totally worked. Then she could talk seriously about all that sex was. And I got that bit of education all through out middle school.
The first time I actually had sex ed class was a class called Social Issues. I was a freshman in high school. What we talked about was sex and contraceptives, and a little bit about relationships. Nothing I really wanted to know about sex. I mean, it was good to learn about birth control, because that's really the only thing I got out of it. And, you know, I would never have sex without birth control, not at my age, not until I was married. I've been confronted with opportunities like that and even as a guy, I turned them down because we didn't have birth control. I'm not willing to have sex without a condom, and I guess I have sex ed to thank for that. I have my parents to thank for that too, now that I think about it. But I think that it’s important for kids who don't get it from their parents, to learn about birth control, and to have them learn that a condom is absolutely something that they need to use.
Other than that, though, I never really learned anything good about sex, not in school. Basically, what I really learned about sex, I learned from experience, and a little bit from my parents.
It sounds to me like you're saying that having sex ed in school is good, for the birth control information.
I think it's good early on. I might have chosen to have sex much earlier, had it not been for sex ed in middle school. I know kids who are having sex in middle school. One of my close friends in eighth grade had a lot of sex, and sex with much older girls too. And he didn't always use birth control. We always said, you know, you're supposed to use a condom. He was like, yeah, whatever, as long as she's not getting pregnant. I worry about him. I went to a private school and learned about sex ed earlier than most kids. I think most kids didn’t get sex ed until eighth or ninth grade. So I think it's important to learn early, especially from parents. Had he learned more about sex from his mom, he would have been more careful.
One thing I notice as I get older is that people seem to have a complete forgetting about what it's like to be younger. It's an interesting phenomenon. The older people get, the more they think kids don't know anything. Then they think that they need to protect kids from themselves, because they're really just not that bright, or they're going to wander in front of a truck. You know what I mean? Like the people who said they shouldn't teach sex ed in school, because they think it will actually encourage people to be promiscuous. It’s as if they think that if you even mention sex, that kids are just going to lose their minds. Have you experienced that with older people? Like in your school, with your teachers or any of your sex ed classes, where they didn’t seem to be treating you like you could actually think about the subject?
Uh-huh, I think so. The stuff that I would have really liked to learn about sex in school, which you know they could never teach in a public school, unfortunately, is things about sexual techniques, things about just what the G spot was. They didn't teach us how to enjoy sex more. Really what they were teaching, or rather "preaching," was abstinence. They would show us birth control and the mathematical figures - condoms, 94 percent effective - diaphragm, 87 percent effective - birth control pills - 99 percent effective. They'd have all the statistics. And then they'd say, abstinence, 100 percent!
Right!
You'd get those triple digits in there, and that's absolute. The only thing is you'd have to avoid any genital contact! And I think it's just ridiculous, because no teenager in their right mind, well no teenage guy at least, is going to really avoid all sex. I'm sure there are some, but not many. So, that's not really the best way to go. They don't really give any good reasons for abstinence, except to prevent pregnancy and AIDS. But we already know about pregnancy and AIDS, so that's not really the best reason to avoid having sex. If they really wanted to teach us sex, they'd talk more about the emotional aspects of sex, which I think would be much more effective than teaching us to avoid pregnancy and HIV. People think, well, as long as I'm using a condom, then it's okay to have sex with whomever I want and whenever I want, and they don't think about other stuff that they probably should have been teaching in school.
Right.
I think that maybe older people think that we aren't ready for understanding the emotions of sex. But, the problem is, we have sex, and then we suddenly encounter those emotions. And we're pretty much screwed, no double meaning intended!
Right. Well, that was something that I always thought was strange— mainly the denial of the fact that biologically we're designed to mate after the ages of like 12 and 13. And a couple of hundred years ago, you were married at 15 or 16—not that I’m for that, or anything. But there wasn't this false divide, where you were supposed to stay childlike for so long, and deny your more adult feelings. I think that we are forced to stay in an unnaturally long adolescence. It just seems unhealthy to block the emotions and feelings. You're 17 right now, right?
Right.
So I just don’t agree with the idea that you're supposed to be immature, and you don't really know anything, and you don't know what's going on, just because you are a teenager. And like what you're saying about the sex ed teachers trying to keep it dry and only teach you about statistic—it doesn’t seem very responsible. In a sense, they're not bringing up, the true nature of attraction. It’s not that clinical, and not that casual. It's just not. And it can be much more casual for guys than girls, I know. But I don't know very many girls who can be casual. It's a rare girl who can be super casual about sex. They can pretend they're being casual, but they still care.
Right. I know some girls who pretended it was casual, and then realized they did care, and that they were only doing it casually to get attention.
Once they realized it, did they stop?
No.
When did you decide to lose your virginity? How old were you?
It was a little more than a year ago, 14 months, maybe. I had a girlfriend who I was in love with, and I had been going out with her for over a year. About 11 months into our relationship we decided we wanted to have sex. But she told me that she had promised herself that she wouldn't have sex for at least a year. So we waited until after that. And then we did have sex, and it was very loving. I always thought that being in a relationship was the best way to have sex for the first time. I wanted to make sure. You know, I told myself that the way I wanted to lose my virginity was being in love, and I think that's rare among guys. But I'm very glad I did it that way. Even though I broke up with her about a month later, I'm very glad I did have sex with her, because I really was in love with her, and she with me, and I think that's a good way to do it for the first time.
Was it her first time too?
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s a really good way, I think, almost ideal, actually.
It was. It was perfect, I suppose.
It sounds wonderful. Have you had other girlfriends or had sex with them since then?
Yeah, I had another girlfriend after her. And I had sex with this girlfriend, and it was very different. It was more of a fun, wild kind of sex, all the time, different places, different ways. It was more out of lust than love. But that was okay with us, because neither of us were virgins. So, I felt more free to experiment, not being a virgin, as I was. She was the only other girl I've had sex with. It's hard to say what's better--being in love, or just doing it for fun. It was monogamous, so that made it more okay, to have sex like that.
I got married a year and a half ago, and I've been with my husband for two years. And it's been really amazing, because this is the longest I've ever been with anybody. Obviously we like each other--we got married. It's been amazing, because the experience of making love is going so much deeper. It's so different than when I was younger.
It's more than physical.
Yeah, it's so much more. I was exposed to pornography since I was really young. I found my first Playboy when I was in second grade, saw my first porn film in fifth grade. It was always around, one way or the other. And now, I'm discovering that I feel like the experience of having pornography thrust on me so young really shaped my views, in a way that I don't think is positive, because it showed the male and female relationship as one that was really devoid of emotion. What do you think of pornography— obviously it's fun—but beyond that, what do you think of the influence it has on kids, when they see it?
I think, on the positive side, it opens people up to possibilities physically. I think it can be educational. But you're right about it being devoid of emotions. 99 percent of the time, it shows sex as being purely physical. But generally, since it's only guys that look at pornography, guys are the ones who start to see sex as being purely physical. And they'll say to their friends, “you know, yeah, I fucked that bitch, and it was pretty tight, that was good shit.” Just like they'll talk about anything else. No girl would ever say that. If a girl said, “oh yeah, I just fucked this guy and it was so great,” she'd be a slut. But a guy doesn't have that. So, maybe, in essence, the problem with pornography, if there is a problem at all, is that only influences men, and not women.
1 of 2 Next page...
