Speaker 1: Next Question with Katie Kuric is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Katie Kuric Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Next Question, where we try to understand
Speaker 1: the complicated world we're living in and the crazy things
Speaker 1: that are happening by asking questions and by listening to
Speaker 1: people who really know what they're talking about. At times,
Speaker 1: it may lead to some pretty uncomfortable conversations, but stick
Speaker 1: with me, everyone, let's all learn together. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: about sex, and you may not want your kids to listen,
Speaker 1: but you definitely should, and not just your run of
Speaker 1: the mill missionary stuff. We're talking about scary sex. And
Speaker 1: I'm using the words scary because a recent study showed
Speaker 1: that nearly a quarter of women in the United States
Speaker 1: say they have felt scared during sex. That's because there
Speaker 1: seems to be a culture of coersion going on where
Speaker 1: expected and sometimes unwanted sex like anal sex and choking
Speaker 1: is happening more and more, and experts believe it has
Speaker 1: to do with porn and how it's shaping heterosexual relationships.
Speaker 1: In particular. I felt like I was hearing about this
Speaker 1: everywhere I went. I was having coffee with a friend,
Speaker 1: and she told me that health clinics on campuses, we're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of college students with anal fissures. I
Speaker 1: even casually asked my gynecologist about these new and yes scary,
Speaker 1: sexual trends when I was getting a pap. Smere how appropriate,
Speaker 1: and she answered with an emphatic yes. She told me
Speaker 1: she hears this from her patients all the time, and
Speaker 1: she had just had this very conversation with a young
Speaker 1: woman the other day. So here's my next question, What
Speaker 1: the hell is going on here? I'm all for consenting
Speaker 1: adults doing what they want, but where is this sexual
Speaker 1: pressure coming from? So I asked my doctor if she
Speaker 1: was willing to put me in touch with that patient.
Speaker 1: He told me that the harder I choke you, you'll
Speaker 1: have a better orgasm. He's like, haven't you ever seen
Speaker 1: one of those videos where the guys choking the girl
Speaker 1: and she just has the best orgasm of her life.
Speaker 1: And I said no, He's like, believe me, you will.
Speaker 1: That's the patient my doctor had told me about. Trish,
Speaker 1: a thirty year old therapist studying to become a psychologist.
Speaker 1: She just ended an eight month relationship with her boyfriend.
Speaker 1: There were certain things that I felt very uncomfortable with.
Speaker 1: When it came to sex. He enjoyed sweet sex, but
Speaker 1: there was also a side where he wanted to have
Speaker 1: rough sex as well, which made me feel a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: When you talk about rough sex, what do you mean
Speaker 1: by that? Rough sex? Meaning that he liked to choke,
Speaker 1: he liked to pull hair, he liked to do anal sex,
Speaker 1: which I've never done before until recently. And he just
Speaker 1: wanted to almost do a porn like kind of sexual
Speaker 1: intercourse almost which didn't feel very authentic, but felt kind
Speaker 1: of acted out, almost like he was performing somehow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like he and he was performing like and he wanted
Speaker 1: me to perform with him as well. Did you talk
Speaker 1: to him about it? No, I didn't. When he would
Speaker 1: do certain things, I always expressed a little discomfort. He
Speaker 1: would always say, I'm not going to hurt you. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel like I could talk to him about it
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to be that girl, you know,
Speaker 1: that girl that doesn't want to please her boyfriend, that
Speaker 1: girl that's you know, just kind of like a wet
Speaker 1: blanket almost. You didn't want him to think you weren't
Speaker 1: game or fun, yeah, or adventurous and wanted to be
Speaker 1: sexy for him, wanted to please him, and that's how
Speaker 1: he like to be pleased during sex. Were you surprised
Speaker 1: when this happened when he asked for anal sex. I
Speaker 1: was surprised. Even when I told him that I wasn't
Speaker 1: comfortable doing it, he said that we're going to have
Speaker 1: to get you used to it sounds terrible. I think
Speaker 1: he had a lot of influence by porn and watching
Speaker 1: what's going on in those videos, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: act it out with me. Did you talk to him
Speaker 1: about porn? Did he ever discuss it with you? He did.
Speaker 1: He did tell me that he does watch it when
Speaker 1: I'm not home or when I'm not around. One day,
Speaker 1: I was on the computer and I went through the
Speaker 1: history and I saw that he was watching it when
Speaker 1: I was at home, and I saw a name of
Speaker 1: a video called Brunet Girl Gets Punished. I didn't bother
Speaker 1: opening it because I can only imagine what's that video.
Speaker 1: But I could imagine there's a lot of anal sex
Speaker 1: going on, rough sex, hair pulling, and everything that he liked.
Speaker 1: I think it turned him on to see a woman
Speaker 1: almost telling her boyfriend or whoever she's having sex with. No,
Speaker 1: I don't want to the first time he tried to
Speaker 1: choke you, did he ask permission or did he just
Speaker 1: do it? He just put his hand around my neck
Speaker 1: and started gripping it. I was on top and he
Speaker 1: was just looking at me, and he just put his
Speaker 1: hand around my neck and he started gripping tightly, and
Speaker 1: I could feel his grip getting tighter and tighter, and
Speaker 1: then I put my hand on top of his and
Speaker 1: I pulled it away and I told him, easy, don't
Speaker 1: choke me like that. I don't like it. And then
Speaker 1: he eased his grip. But that wasn't the last time
Speaker 1: he choked you. He continued to yeah, but gently over
Speaker 1: the next few weeks. Did you ever feel like you
Speaker 1: couldn't breathe? Yes, there was a time where he was
Speaker 1: behind me and he put his arm around my neck
Speaker 1: and he was almost gripping me in like a in
Speaker 1: a chokeold and he was going a little too tight
Speaker 1: where I felt like I had to use both my
Speaker 1: hands to pull him off, And he was just so
Speaker 1: into it that I don't think he realized how hard
Speaker 1: he was going. Where I had to scream his name,
Speaker 1: and I told him get off of me, and then
Speaker 1: I just I was like, I'm not doing this, and
Speaker 1: I had a fight with him and that was the
Speaker 1: end of that. Do you think porn shaped your boyfriend's
Speaker 1: view of what sex should be. Yes, I believe so,
Speaker 1: because sex is, in my opinion, it's supposed to be intimate.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be between two people who love each other,
Speaker 1: and it's supposed to feel comfortable for you both. It's
Speaker 1: not feeling comfortable for the other person. Are you really
Speaker 1: having sex? What are you doing? Are you acting out
Speaker 1: of fantasy, which I felt like, what was what was
Speaker 1: going on? Or are you replicating what you've seen? Yes?
Speaker 1: I think he was replicating what he was seeing on
Speaker 1: those videos. It was heartbreaking to listen to Trish, and
Speaker 1: I wondered how many other young women were experiencing this.
Speaker 1: I asked her if this was something she talked about
Speaker 1: with her friends. I don't discuss anything with my friends
Speaker 1: like that because I don't even know where to begin
Speaker 1: and tell them that my boyfriend is doing anal sex
Speaker 1: with me and he wants to put his hands around
Speaker 1: my neck. It's almost embarrassing to say. I have great friends,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, I feel like my friends
Speaker 1: would be like, what are you doing in this relationship?
Speaker 1: If you're not happy or if he's doing this to you,
Speaker 1: you know it's not respectful. He doesn't love you. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear those things because I do
Speaker 1: believe that he loves me. It's just those are the
Speaker 1: things that he likes. I remember one time when we
Speaker 1: were having sex, I was like talking to him in
Speaker 1: a very vulgar way, and I told him, I want
Speaker 1: you to put your hands around my neck, just to
Speaker 1: see what he would say. I've never seen him look
Speaker 1: so excited when I told him to do that. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to see what he would say and what
Speaker 1: his reaction would be when I said that, and it
Speaker 1: turned him on like crazy. Did that give you pleasure?
Speaker 1: It didn't give me pleasure when he was doing it,
Speaker 1: but it gave me pleasure to see that he was
Speaker 1: enjoying it. I can't imagine someone doing that to me.
Speaker 1: I would be terrified and more than uncomfortable. I think
Speaker 1: I would be afraid. But this was something that you
Speaker 1: were willing to do because you saw that he liked it.
Speaker 1: Even if you didn't, do you feel this was consensual
Speaker 1: I'm going to say yes, because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I still allowed him to do it, not
Speaker 1: because I wanted to, but I wanted to please him.
Speaker 1: So in me, I still allowed him to choke me.
Speaker 1: I still allowed him to do anal sex with me.
Speaker 1: I could have easily said no and fought with him
Speaker 1: and expressed my concern and that's not what makes me comfortable.
Speaker 1: And we should make each other happy. It's not just
Speaker 1: one way. But I didn't do that. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but I was completely floored. Here's an attractive,
Speaker 1: educated woman who allowed herself to be subjected to this.
Speaker 1: Clearly porn played a big part in Tricia's relationship, which
Speaker 1: she did eventually end. So why is this happening? To
Speaker 1: find out, we tracked down the foremost expert on the
Speaker 1: effects of violent porn. If he gets his kicks out
Speaker 1: of choking you, I'm blocking off your passages while he
Speaker 1: is aroused. I would be a big concerned about being
Speaker 1: around with such a person now in today's culture. Of course,
Speaker 1: he's learned that from Paul. We'll have more on that
Speaker 1: right after this. Tricia's story was unsettling, to say the least,
Speaker 1: but not isolated. As we've mentioned, a quarter of women
Speaker 1: are experiencing sex with partners that frightens them. So where
Speaker 1: is this coming from? When I was growing up, if
Speaker 1: a guy would have said to me, would you mind
Speaker 1: if I ejaculate on your face and choke you as
Speaker 1: I'm having sex? I would have thought she was a
Speaker 1: psychopath and run. That's Dr Gail Dines, a professor of
Speaker 1: sociology and women's studies. She has spent over thirty years
Speaker 1: studying porn and sexual violence, and she's also the author
Speaker 1: of porn Land How Porn has Hijacked our sexuality. Okay,
Speaker 1: so my question to you would be, you know what
Speaker 1: quote your interest about this topic. I was at a
Speaker 1: conference in California. A man came up to me. We
Speaker 1: started talking. He said, you know, you should really look
Speaker 1: into doing something on the effects of porn on young men.
Speaker 1: We had a speaker at my son's school and she
Speaker 1: really shocked the parents because she asked them questions about
Speaker 1: certain sexual acts that their kids were probably experiencing, or
Speaker 1: that people were pressuring their kids into doing. Do you
Speaker 1: know what those three sexual acts are? What we know
Speaker 1: from studies is that the three major sex acts in
Speaker 1: porn is number one ejaculating on a woman's face and
Speaker 1: increasingly in her eyes. The second major sex act is choking.
Speaker 1: First is choking with a penis to the penis so
Speaker 1: far down the throat that she begins to gag. The
Speaker 1: third major act is one of them of these called
Speaker 1: a t M, which actually translates to ask to mouth,
Speaker 1: where the penis goes into the anus and then into
Speaker 1: the mouth without washing. This sounds extreme. It sounds like,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to go spent fifteen minutes looking
Speaker 1: for these. These are the things that in eleven year
Speaker 1: old boy when he puts porn into Google, this is
Speaker 1: the only thing he's going to see. I don't want
Speaker 1: to even instruct people how to do this necessarily, you know,
Speaker 1: but Google it so it's ubiquitous and it's accessible. When
Speaker 1: we're talking about porn hub, which one, but he's free
Speaker 1: and he's accessible within six seconds, five seconds, four seconds.
Speaker 1: You just put porn hub in and there you go.
Speaker 1: And this is where the boys first go to because
Speaker 1: it's free and because he's so accessible, and he's anonymous,
Speaker 1: and that's drives demand. We spoke to one boy who
Speaker 1: had this to say, I am fourteen and the age
Speaker 1: that I discovered what pornography was was probably around tennish.
Speaker 1: It's not very difficult at all. I mean you can
Speaker 1: find it on almost any browser anything. You can find
Speaker 1: a way to get it. It's all anonymous and it says, oh,
Speaker 1: you're the eighteen plus, But I mean there's nothing to
Speaker 1: verify it, like, there's not even a like slider to
Speaker 1: put your age or anything like that. No other industry
Speaker 1: is as unregulated as the porn industry. This is one
Speaker 1: of the things I want to ask is how have
Speaker 1: we managed to have this multibillion dollar a year industry
Speaker 1: which is virtually unregulated completely. It is an outrage that
Speaker 1: this has happened. Just let that sink in. Instant anonymous
Speaker 1: access to hardcore porn, seven millions of hardcore videos and
Speaker 1: no age verification whatsoever from your phone, laptop, tablet. And
Speaker 1: here are the scary statistics. A third of young people
Speaker 1: have seen porn by the time they're twelve years old.
Speaker 1: Eight percent of top rented or downloaded porn contained scenes
Speaker 1: depicting violence against women. How have they been able to
Speaker 1: stay under the radar? I would say through complete willful
Speaker 1: ignorance on the part of adults who have been charged
Speaker 1: with taking care of teens. I have lobbied politicians along
Speaker 1: with some very very powerful child lobbyists who've worked with me.
Speaker 1: The porn industry is actually targeting young boys. It's not
Speaker 1: like the politicians don't know. There is no desire in
Speaker 1: this country to go after the porn industry. And let
Speaker 1: me just say one thing. Giving out free porn to
Speaker 1: kids is the equivalent of me standing out in middle
Speaker 1: school giving out free cigarettes. I wouldn't be allowed to
Speaker 1: do that. I wouldn't be allowed to stand outside and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll be here tomorrow and tomorrow. Porn
Speaker 1: harb gets more visitors than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined.
Speaker 1: Porn is about a third of the Internet. But you
Speaker 1: could say it is one of the largest above ground
Speaker 1: industries in the world that is trading on misogyny and
Speaker 1: violence against women. So a lot of the boys and
Speaker 1: young men who are being brought up on pornography are
Speaker 1: playing porn sect out on these girls. The women and
Speaker 1: girls are the collateral damage of the porn industry. It
Speaker 1: sounds to me like it's this tragic alchemy of violent pornography,
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity, low self esteem for women, and a hook
Speaker 1: up culture, and I would add in I think loss
Speaker 1: of real feminism, because once you have a feminist analysis,
Speaker 1: it gives you, as a woman a sense of understanding
Speaker 1: the world like nothing else and a sense of agency.
Speaker 1: My experiences with young women is that they've got nobody
Speaker 1: to talk to, nobody has helped them navigate this. They
Speaker 1: feel like they're drowning and yet been socialized in this
Speaker 1: culture to think that you have two choices. You're either
Speaker 1: fuckable or invisible. You heard Trish's story, she was so
Speaker 1: honest about it. I'm sure you've heard stories like hers
Speaker 1: before when you listen to Trish. Was that a fairly
Speaker 1: typical Yes? I mean I hear those stories, and I
Speaker 1: hear them from younger women. By the way, I've increasingly
Speaker 1: been speaking in high schools and I hear them from
Speaker 1: high schoolers as well. Very very typical. Now, this is
Speaker 1: the norm of what's going on, and I think it's
Speaker 1: hard for older women to really know what it's like.
Speaker 1: Trit initially thought it was consensual. She liked pleasing her boyfriend,
Speaker 1: and she's talked about him getting incredibly aroused when she
Speaker 1: suggested he choke her. So was it consensual? No? Because
Speaker 1: like all women, and I'm all of us included here
Speaker 1: is that we are socialized to please men. And I
Speaker 1: cannot believe that any one of us, given a socialization
Speaker 1: where we felt truly liberated in this world, would agree
Speaker 1: to being choked and being fearful in sex. But you
Speaker 1: say yes because really what's on offer, no doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: So you have to say yes to what you can stand.
Speaker 1: And saying yes and negotiating to what you can stand
Speaker 1: is not consent. It's just survival. It's women surviving in
Speaker 1: a toxic, patriarchal poorm culture. So no, it is not consent.
Speaker 1: And we have unfortunately trained our girls not to really
Speaker 1: understand the way in which we have had our voices
Speaker 1: taken away from us, our sense of power taken away
Speaker 1: from us. Not only are we traumatizing our girls through
Speaker 1: porn culture, but we are traumatizing a whole generation of boys.
Speaker 1: We now know that most boys across the Western world
Speaker 1: use pornography as their major form of sex education. What
Speaker 1: does it mean to that eleven year old boy to
Speaker 1: masturbate two images of sexual violence? This is a much
Speaker 1: deeper issue of traumatizing our boys. And when you traumatize
Speaker 1: our boys, sexually and you work into their sexual template
Speaker 1: hardcore porn, then what you do is you traumatize our
Speaker 1: girls because they then play that out on the girls.
Speaker 1: So we are basically laying waste to a generation of
Speaker 1: girls and boys through mainstream hardcore free pornography. We wanted
Speaker 1: to ask some teenagers about their experiences with porn. This
Speaker 1: is what they had to say. I'm fifteen years old
Speaker 1: and I'm a sophomore in high school. The first time
Speaker 1: I remember seeing porn, it's probably when I was twelve
Speaker 1: years old. I'd say the first time I was very
Speaker 1: disturbed by um. An image in porn was probably a
Speaker 1: reference to like rape. For the most part, women are
Speaker 1: portrayed as the almost like the vehicle for the dudes.
Speaker 1: Um it sounds weird, satisfaction or whatever. I'm fifteen and
Speaker 1: I'm currently a freshman. I believe I was either eleven
Speaker 1: or twelve when I first discovered prenography. I know of
Speaker 1: videos of like gang bangs or raping women on those sites.
Speaker 1: It's is really just not a good thing. It signs
Speaker 1: real light them what some people could describe as entertaining.
Speaker 1: I know of rumors that girls do like to be
Speaker 1: choked but that's not I know for a fact that's
Speaker 1: not all of them. The anal sex intrusion thing, I
Speaker 1: honestly think that's just messed up. That's probably pretty scared
Speaker 1: you a god just assumes that's what they want. I'm
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. I'd say I first started to understand
Speaker 1: what pornography was in fifth grade. I'd say I first
Speaker 1: saw porn around maybe six or seventh grade. I would
Speaker 1: have been twelve or thirteen. In porn, females are usually
Speaker 1: depicted as the main focus is their body. That's pretty
Speaker 1: much it. In the majority of porn, the guys and
Speaker 1: not necessarily asking permission to do anything. I just expected
Speaker 1: that the woman will go along. I think that it
Speaker 1: can lead to like men having that attitude towards women
Speaker 1: are just having misogynistic thoughts. There are definitely a lot
Speaker 1: of guys that are watching like violent horn. Wow. I
Speaker 1: know it's pretty overwhelming and such graphic language. But where
Speaker 1: do we go from here? It seems like the genie
Speaker 1: is out of the bottle, right, But don't worry, there
Speaker 1: is hope, and it comes from a surprising source. A
Speaker 1: sex ed teacher at a Quaker school. More on that, right,
Speaker 1: after this, So what are you supposed to do with
Speaker 1: all this? It's hugely depressing and if you're a parent,
Speaker 1: you probably want to crawl into a hole right now.
Speaker 1: Alvernacchio is a teacher in Winnwood, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, and
Speaker 1: he has what he thinks is the best solution for
Speaker 1: dealing with this porn culture. What happens today is that
Speaker 1: young people, because of the great vacuum of information or conversation,
Speaker 1: they encounter this material and they are curious, and they
Speaker 1: are turned on, and they are hungry for information, and
Speaker 1: they think, well, nobody's talking to me, this must be it.
Speaker 1: We need to be able to not only counteract that message,
Speaker 1: but start at a much younger age saying, when you
Speaker 1: see stuff like that, that's actually not what sex is about.
Speaker 1: That's not what relationships are about, that's not what intimacy
Speaker 1: is about. That's performance. That's fantasy, and not even fantasy
Speaker 1: in terms of the good, helpful fantasy that can teach
Speaker 1: you something useful, the fantasy that is sort of corrupting
Speaker 1: and that gives messages that are the opposite of what
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be trying to do as human beings.
Speaker 1: How do you do that, though, would you say to
Speaker 1: a boy when he's eight years old or nine years old.
Speaker 1: We've heard how young they are when they first are
Speaker 1: exposed to porn. Hey, there's this stuff out there called pornography, boys,
Speaker 1: and I want you to be aware because if you're
Speaker 1: trying to pre empt this kind of cultural conditioning, if
Speaker 1: you will, or visual stimuli, you have to introduce it
Speaker 1: at a very young age. Absolutely, And parents and carrying
Speaker 1: adults might choose to actually talk about pornography with eight
Speaker 1: year olds, I don't. What I talk about with eight
Speaker 1: year olds is gender equity. And let's look at the media.
Speaker 1: What are eight year olds looking at their watching cartoons,
Speaker 1: they're playing video games. Let's take a look at the
Speaker 1: way that characters are portrayed in those games and are
Speaker 1: treated based upon their gender. And are they seeing messages
Speaker 1: that male characters are always in charge? Are they seeing
Speaker 1: messages that it's unusual to see a group of superheroes
Speaker 1: that's largely female dominated. It's usually a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: and one or two women. And just beginning to ask
Speaker 1: questions about what do you think that's about? Why do
Speaker 1: you think there aren't more women's superheroes that you're looking
Speaker 1: at in your comic books. What's that saying about the
Speaker 1: place that girls and women have in the world. We
Speaker 1: begin with what's in one of them, and we help
Speaker 1: them begin to ask questions so that when they do
Speaker 1: encounter material like hardcore pornography, there primed to ask that question.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, that woman is being used completely as
Speaker 1: an object. And I've already been told that whenever we
Speaker 1: treat a human being as an object, that's disrespectful, that's devaluing.
Speaker 1: So what are the transferable skills that we can do
Speaker 1: in sexuality education early on that when they get to
Speaker 1: be high school kids in my class and I can
Speaker 1: talk to them explicitly and frankly about pornography, that I
Speaker 1: can say, you're not just hearing these ideas for the
Speaker 1: first time. We've been talking about it for years in
Speaker 1: our classes. You know, remember what I said when you
Speaker 1: were in nursery school about who gets to be a princess? Well,
Speaker 1: that has applications when we look at material like this.
Speaker 1: The problem is our culture is oh afraid of talking
Speaker 1: about human sexuality, is so afraid of sexuality education because
Speaker 1: they don't understand what it really is. That we run
Speaker 1: from it and I think parents, and I don't fault
Speaker 1: parents for this. Parents don't have training, parents don't know
Speaker 1: how to begin these conversations. So part of my job
Speaker 1: is also to be with parents and to say this
Speaker 1: is how we can do this. These are some questions
Speaker 1: you can ask, these are some conversations you can have,
Speaker 1: and helping them feel empowered to be able to talk
Speaker 1: to the young people in their lives. I think it's
Speaker 1: so funny because I'm a progressive sexuality educator, but a
Speaker 1: lot of the things I talk about sound like what
Speaker 1: people used to refer to as like, you know, good
Speaker 1: wholesome values. Because what is healthy sexuality. It's pleasurable, it's respectful,
Speaker 1: it's authentic, it's honest. None of those things are about porn.
Speaker 1: And so those messages alone are really instrumental when they
Speaker 1: then hit this material. So they have some sense, some
Speaker 1: critical awareness to be able to say, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I'm not just going to get swept up in this
Speaker 1: and just be carried away by it. I'm going to
Speaker 1: at least have a moment where I can say what's
Speaker 1: going on here. So part of your curriculum is really
Speaker 1: values education, absolutely, and you set the table so that
Speaker 1: when young men and young women encounter this kind of material,
Speaker 1: they can be critical thinkers and analyze it. But you
Speaker 1: also talk about porn informed sex ed. And that means
Speaker 1: that when they are of the appropriate age, or when
Speaker 1: they start to understand that this kind of material is
Speaker 1: out there, you talk about it pretty openly. Sure. So,
Speaker 1: for example, in my ninth grade class, one of the
Speaker 1: questions that I want to ask, and that conversations I
Speaker 1: want to have with kids is what does it mean
Speaker 1: when we say have sex with somebody? How is that defined?
Speaker 1: Because what are culture says, and what the porn culture
Speaker 1: certainly says is that sex is about, you know, conquest
Speaker 1: and power and penetration. Yeah, a lot of the conversations
Speaker 1: about sex, you know, have some kind of requirement of
Speaker 1: penile penetration. Right, So I say to kids, if you
Speaker 1: are defining sex solely by behavior, you know, a penis
Speaker 1: goes into this body part, that's what counts as sex.
Speaker 1: What does that definition mean? Look at what it doesn't say.
Speaker 1: Doesn't say anything about consent, doesn't say anything about mutual pleasure,
Speaker 1: doesn't say anything about connection. So then I get to say, well,
Speaker 1: what if we made a definition of sex that wasn't
Speaker 1: about what we did, but about the way we did it.
Speaker 1: What if we said sex was a consensual, mutually pleasurable
Speaker 1: sexual activity that help people connect. If that's a definition
Speaker 1: that you grew up with around what sex is supposed
Speaker 1: to be, then when you come to look at porn,
Speaker 1: you're going to say that's not sex. Well, that's not
Speaker 1: the definition of sex that I learned now. I know
Speaker 1: that's a radical shift, but I think part of what
Speaker 1: good sexuality education is about is confronting those assumptions that
Speaker 1: we don't want to talk about in society and saying, no,
Speaker 1: let's reframe that, let's look at it a different way.
Speaker 1: And when we do that, we really can create opportunities
Speaker 1: for insight and awareness and for kids to grow in
Speaker 1: authentic directions that aren't just guided by these sort of
Speaker 1: ruts that they want to get forced into. Are you
Speaker 1: an anomaly or do many teachers now use this approach.
Speaker 1: I'm not an anomaly. Many of my colleagues are doing
Speaker 1: this work, but we are few in number. In the
Speaker 1: United States, only twenty states currently mandate any kind of
Speaker 1: sexuality education in schools, and only thirteen of those states
Speaker 1: require that the education be medically accurate. What Yes, only
Speaker 1: three states specifically say that you cannot promote religion in
Speaker 1: the teaching of sex said, even our legislation is so
Speaker 1: far behind and gives us so little support in doing it.
Speaker 1: I happen to work in an independent school. I think
Speaker 1: that's where you're seeing a lot of progressive sex said,
Speaker 1: Although certainly I have colleagues working in public school systems,
Speaker 1: and I get called into a lot of public schools
Speaker 1: to give talks to students and to faculty and to parents,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to do that. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think where Gail is working really at the level of
Speaker 1: a lot of the power brokers. You know, my work
Speaker 1: is really a lot in the grassroots. I'm talking directly
Speaker 1: to parents and to kids and to teachers and just
Speaker 1: trying to say to them, here's ways where we can
Speaker 1: all be having these conversations and we can have an
Speaker 1: impact on kids, a really powerful positive impact, And why
Speaker 1: aren't we doing that? Sadly, we all can have an
Speaker 1: al bnachio in our lives. So we're going to close
Speaker 1: things out by bringing Gail back in and having al
Speaker 1: stick around. What can parents do? What can be done
Speaker 1: about the peign culture? We find ourselves then okay, well,
Speaker 1: this was the question we asked ourselves, a culture reframed
Speaker 1: what can we do? And what was very clear when
Speaker 1: we brought together public health experts, pediatric nurses, at lesser psychologists,
Speaker 1: sexual health experts, is we need to educate parents. All
Speaker 1: public health research shows that the more educated and the
Speaker 1: more skilled parents are, the more robust and the more
Speaker 1: healthy their kids will be. So when we looked around
Speaker 1: and we thought, well, you know what's out there for parents,
Speaker 1: to my absolute shock, there was nothing. There was no
Speaker 1: online program to help parents. So what we did is
Speaker 1: we brought together eight of the top consultants in the
Speaker 1: field multiple fields pediatrics, adolescent psychology, sexual health, and we
Speaker 1: built a thirteen module online program for parents to teach
Speaker 1: parents about puberty, about pornography, about st d s, about
Speaker 1: how to even have the conversations with you. Because you
Speaker 1: really have a how to website for program. The whole
Speaker 1: program set out where you can go on for five minutes,
Speaker 1: five hours, twenty hours, is free. You just have to
Speaker 1: sign up and anyone can access it. And it's for
Speaker 1: parents of tweens. At this moment, we are now about
Speaker 1: to build the parents of Teens program, So we started
Speaker 1: with nine to twelve year olds because we hope that
Speaker 1: you could get to them before the point industry could.
Speaker 1: That's up there, fully finished, and then in January the
Speaker 1: Parents of Teens program will be up. All I know
Speaker 1: this is something you're trying to do not only teach kids,
Speaker 1: but you're also trying to equip parents. Absolutely. In my book,
Speaker 1: which is called for Goodness, sex Changing the way we
Speaker 1: talked to young people about sexuality, values and health, it's
Speaker 1: really written for parents and caring adults who want to
Speaker 1: get better at talking to young people about healthy sexuality.
Speaker 1: It has examples of things you might say, It has
Speaker 1: ways to answer questions. It talks about pornography specifically in
Speaker 1: one of the chapters, so that's a resource. I think
Speaker 1: they're also amazing resources that are there. Amazed dot org
Speaker 1: is a terrific website that is doing very short animated
Speaker 1: films for parents of middle schoolers, talking about everything from
Speaker 1: body image to consent to pornography. So there's good information
Speaker 1: out there. We have to help parents get to that information.
Speaker 1: What I would say to a parent who wants a
Speaker 1: quick solution and this is not my idea comes from
Speaker 1: Debbie Roffman, who's an amazing sexuality educator, is lose the
Speaker 1: idea of having a big talk around the dinner table.
Speaker 1: You know, it's always better to have a hundred one
Speaker 1: minute conversations with your kid than having one minute conversation
Speaker 1: with your kid. My dream would be to be able
Speaker 1: to write those one minute conversation and get them online
Speaker 1: so parents can say, here's a woman at conversation about
Speaker 1: body image, here's a one minute conversation about consent, here's
Speaker 1: a one minute conversation about porn. Because they're all kind
Speaker 1: of they're kind of entwined, aren't they. From what I
Speaker 1: heard today from Trish, her willingness to do things that
Speaker 1: she didn't feel comfortable about that were shaped by porn
Speaker 1: that was consumed by her boyfriend. And so it all
Speaker 1: seems to be connected, doesn't it. And you have to
Speaker 1: work on these core values. But when it comes to
Speaker 1: porn itself, what is the best thing a parent can do, Gail,
Speaker 1: in terms of really being an antidote to the violent
Speaker 1: porn their kids might be consuming. Well, I think the
Speaker 1: most important thing is to talk about gender equality. And
Speaker 1: when we say respect, it's not just about respect for women.
Speaker 1: It's self respect for boys as well. We have put
Speaker 1: the bar very low on how boys think about their
Speaker 1: own bodily integrity and their own bodily boards. And we
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time in the program and culture.
Speaker 1: If I'm talking about how do you teach a boy,
Speaker 1: then in fact he's got his own boundaries and boarders
Speaker 1: to respect, not just also respecting girls boundaries and boarders.
Speaker 1: And I think the most important thing is what Al
Speaker 1: said is you scaffold you start at an early age.
Speaker 1: You obviously don't talk about one which is a five
Speaker 1: year old, but you can talk about the factors. What
Speaker 1: right does somebody have to touch somebody who they don't know,
Speaker 1: And then as you go up develop mentally, that becomes
Speaker 1: around sex and what right do they have to do that?
Speaker 1: So you have to have many conversations. And I have
Speaker 1: to say this porn culture gives you a thousand teachable
Speaker 1: moments a minute. You're just going down the stream and
Speaker 1: you've got this big picture from Victoria's Secrets of a
Speaker 1: woman with barely any clothes on. There's a teachable moment.
Speaker 1: Ask your kid, how often do you see a woman
Speaker 1: walking through the street like that? And why is it
Speaker 1: a woman? Up there and not a man. What do
Speaker 1: you think that says about the difference between women and men?
Speaker 1: You have that conversation and then you move on. You
Speaker 1: don't do these long lectures because then, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: you could think, to your most stupid person in the world,
Speaker 1: abound eleven or twelve, and it doesn't want to hear
Speaker 1: too very long. So use everything you see as a
Speaker 1: quick teachableman, and then move on and go and get
Speaker 1: an ex screen. But use the culture and all the
Speaker 1: toxic things the culture offers you to basically reframe it
Speaker 1: in a more progressive feminist way. And conversely, al you
Speaker 1: have to have positive Well that's what I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say. The other thing that I want to add
Speaker 1: is boys are learning so much today about toxic masculinity,
Speaker 1: which is really important. But we also need to teach
Speaker 1: boys about what does positive, non toxic masculinity look like.
Speaker 1: So we want to help we we want to absolutely
Speaker 1: make sure boys know when they're straying into or when
Speaker 1: they're being socialized into toxic masculinity. But what does masculinity
Speaker 1: look like that's not toxic. I don't know that we're
Speaker 1: doing a good enough job to help boys know that
Speaker 1: so that also have that model and help parents kind
Speaker 1: of give their boys the values that will teach them
Speaker 1: how to respect girls, their boundaries, all the values that
Speaker 1: you want to impart on them. That is the job parents,
Speaker 1: once you have a kid, Your job is to take
Speaker 1: on the culture in all of its greatness and all
Speaker 1: of its ugliness, in order to make sure and protect
Speaker 1: your children. That is really your job as a parent,
Speaker 1: And you know what, it's a job also of every adult,
Speaker 1: because really they're all our kids. Your kids are my kids,
Speaker 1: my kids are your kids. We are in this collectively,
Speaker 1: and the next generation is only as healthy as our kids.
Speaker 1: Gail and Al, thank you both so much. I've learned
Speaker 1: so much, and I think this is such an important conversation.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough. Wow, are you as freaked
Speaker 1: out as much as I am? I guess kids are
Speaker 1: naturally going to be curious about sex. A friend of
Speaker 1: mine told me recently she had found some hardcore porn
Speaker 1: that had been downloaded on her desktop. She found out
Speaker 1: it was her eleven year old son, and he had
Speaker 1: shared it with his nine year old brother. The good news, though,
Speaker 1: is they had a conversation about it. The bad news
Speaker 1: most kids are doing this without their parents knowing. I
Speaker 1: don't think we're going to ban porn on the internet,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even sure laws will work, but clearly
Speaker 1: we need to be talking about this with our kids,
Speaker 1: and as our guest Trish showed us, with our partners too,
Speaker 1: and I think porn informed sex said is absolutely imperative.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, everyone, and until we meet again,
Speaker 1: make sure to follow me on Instagram. I'm at Katie
Speaker 1: Curik and sign up for my daily newsletter is called
Speaker 1: wake Up Call, and you can do that by going
Speaker 1: to Katie Currek dot com. Next Question with Katie Curic
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Katie Kuric, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Julie Douglas,
Speaker 1: and Tyler Clang. Our show producers are Bethan Macaluso and
Speaker 1: Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. Associate producers
Speaker 1: are Emily Pinto and Derek Clemens. Editing is by Dylan
Speaker 1: Fagin and Old Berlante. Our researcher is Barbara Keene. For
Speaker 1: more information on today's episode, go to Katie currect dot com.
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