Brazilian Waxing for Teens
What Worries Me
I worry about my daughter. In this age of instant fame, instant messaging and instant information, how will I raise her with a moral code that includes patience? When the media reports that oral sex has become as casual as a handshake, how can I drive home the message that a meaningful relationship takes time?
Today’s teens appear to move at a much faster sexual pace than I did at their age. Not to sound puritanical, but after watching an episode of Gossip Girls, I wonder, “What can I do?” Of course there are channel blockers and computer safety programs, but even songs on the radio today have lyrics like, “I want to take a ride on your disco stick,” with 8-year-olds dancing to the beat in hip hop class. Even if my kids don’t understand what, “slapping that thang” means, the casual recanting of these lyrics must have an impact. Do suggestive lyrics desensitize teens to the idea of reverence and respect in a relationship?
A recent conversation with my daughter would suggest that very idea. During a conversation about the seriousness of oral sex, my daughter repeated a conversation she overheard in the locker room. One girl was reporting that her boyfriend wanted her to shave “down there.” My daughter then noticed that a girl was completely bare. The girl responded to my daughter’s stare with, “Tons of girls are shaving so their guys will be happy.” My daughter said the more she looked around, the more she realized lots of girls were either completely shaved or close to it. “Mom, it’s so gross. Why would anyone want to look like an 8 yr. old?” I was relieved to hear her opinion.
But I was shocked on two levels. My women’s lib argument came first. “A man should never EVER tell a woman to change her body in any way, shape or form to please him.” Back in my day, I chose to shave various areas during swimsuit season so that I wouldn’t look like something out of a hippie manual, and the shaving gave way in my adult years to the longer-lasting, yet more painful waxing. Shaving or not, waxing or not is clearly my choice. Is today’s new reality that Brazilian waxing is normal or worse, necessary to get a guy. And what motivates a teenage boy to want a teenage girl to have no pubic hair and to feel entitled to demand it?
Sexual liberation is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, teenagers who understand sexuality and sexual identity seem to be less inhibited about their bodies and about sexual orientation. However, that freedom comes at a price. This casual perception of sex can undermine the ability to see the value of a serious and meaningful relationship. When my daughter can look around a locker room and pretty much come up with an unscientific survey that suggests lots of girls are having oral sex, what message does that send?
My adult perspective interprets this trend to mean that sex acts have become no big deal. Aside from the obvious worries – disease and teen pregnancy – what of self-esteem? What of the intrinsic value of a deep, meaningful, long-term relationship? My husband and I want our kids to feel independent and empowered. We give them permission to speak their mind and make their own choices. And we hope that they will make good decisions. Providing them with the freedom to make choices may be healthy and necessary, but it challenges us as parents. I tell them not to fear the unknown, rather, to embrace it, but where sex is concerned, I’d prefer they embrace that very, very, slowly, however it is their choice to make and that’s a hard parental pill to swallow.
By Lauri Stern
I so completely agree with everything Laurie says. In this modern age of promiscuity with sex plastered all over the media I can only hope that we have educated and shared enough with our children so that they may make the correct choices both moral and personal. Sex has become a casual thing with many teenagers I just hope that mine don’t take it casually!
Our children need to be taught that sex is not some casual encounter that the media has made it to be. It is our job as parents to teach them all of the emotions that are involved and consequences (std, pregnancy) And Lauri your Mother’s argument is perfect. A man should never tell a woman to change. If you want to shave it, or dye it pink you do that for you not because a man tells you to.
Once again I am shocked by the reminder of what today’s teenager’s are facing. As young women, the pressure placed on them by society and young men is incredible. Have I properly prepared my daughter to make the right choices and not cave into what has truly become a society without morals or values?
Your Teen has, once again, raised yet another topic that emphasizes the challenges faced by teens and by parents to help their teens through these difficult times.
Lauri is spot on! She must be a great parent. Her teen daughter shares information with her! She must have started the open communication at a young age. I applaud Lauri for her communication skills with her daughter and with her readers. Keep the topics coming…readers need to be reminded and enlightened about the challenges our teens are facing.
I’m thinking lots is right here, well done for raising a daughter who questions what’s going on around her. but also this: your daughter seems super-smart, and gets that the Brazilian is infantilizing while at the same time erotic. Have THAT conversation with her. It’s NOT black and white. And have that complicated conversation about your own choices when it came to depillitation, which were, by the way, driven by someone else’s expectations (remember your self-consciousness, and desire not to “look like a hippie”…it WAS your choice, but still and all you altered your body for someone else’s gaze. I imagine the shaved girl in the locker room would look at you and square her shoulders and defend her actions as “my choice” too…wrongheaded, but I bet it’s her belief. I’m just saying, it’s not the end of the world to describe your confusion, sadness even, at having to make certain choices to fit in….it might help HER talk about the pressures that weigh on her, which are different than the ones you faced. It might help her to talk about what’s intriguing, desirable about the life of the girls on the other side of the depillitation fence. (because lets face it, oral sex is great, and who wouldn’t want to have it? when I was a teenager a boy giving a GIRL oral sex was unheard of! Lockerroom girl might even claim to be a feminist, getting a boy to perform for her, rather than expecting her to service him!). Anyway, these are conversations to have, layers and layers of conversation are needed around these issues. Better to get closer in to them than let your shock and outrage make you seem like a distant or outdated resource for her.
I don’t know. My own best advice came from my dad, watching me cry after breaking up with a beloved college boyfriend….”it’s just really hard, after you’ve been intmate, to break up. it makes the break up that much harder.” Good cautionary words. I never did take sex casually before that, but it sure helped me not use up my 20′s experimenting with empty encounters.
As a college health professional, I have seen many students (age 18 and up) who have no idea about the risks or consequences of sexual behaviors. They don’t understand that it can only take one time to get a sexually transmitted disease, get AIDS, or get pregnant. We owe it to our children to share our knowledge with them in a non-judgemental caring way.
As parents, we talk to them about other decisions they are making in their lives such as doing their homework, how they are driving, drugs/alcohol use, etc. Please have that talk with your child about sex….When your child knows that they can talk to you about anything, they are more likely to do so and to engage is less risky behaviors.