We asked a consent educator all your burning questions about teens and sex.

Conversations with our teens about sex, relationships and consent can be tricky, awkward, and sometimes embarrassing.

So, we asked our Mamamia community to send us their knottiest questions about teens and sex, and gave them to Founder and CEO of Learning Consent Dr Joy Townsend to answer.

From female pleasure to healthy relationships to even anal sex, Dr Townsend has our tricky teen questions covered. 

This is what she had to say.

1. "How do we educate our teenage sons (and daughters) on female pleasure and self pleasure, when maybe they are still learning this stuff themselves?"

This is such an important part of sexuality education! Because sex (and almost everything) has traditionally been taught and understood via the male gaze, as being something done by women for men. There is so much unlearning and new learning to be done by all genders! So many kids grow up to become young adults who have never heard of the clitoris.

Teaching young people about mutual sexual pleasure is critical. If girls can come to understand and experience sexual pleasure for themselves within their own bodies first, this will no doubt help them to seek out and prioritise mutual sexual pleasure in a relationship. This can be done very early on. Framing conversations about sex with our children around pleasure – mutual pleasure – and having positive conversations about female masturbation, as well as seeking out representations of sex and relationships in popular culture that are body positive, and reflect mutual sexual pleasure is key. This way we can normalise sex as being pleasurable for females, and start to remove the shame and stigma surrounding female sexuality that a lot of women have grown up with. 

I love the work of the late Betty Dodson – an American sexologist who was evangelistic about female self pleasure. Her video chats with Carlin Ross normalise female masturbation and her ebook is a fantastic resource for young and old! 

The site OMGYES is a great resource for adults who care about female sexual pleasure and want to learn more. Users pay for scientifically-proven educational content on female sexual pleasure. People of all genders use the site.

At the end of the day, I think the most powerful source of knowledge and education is other people. If there are safe people in your child’s life who they are comfortable talking about sex and relationships with and vice versa, that is going to be a wonderful educational resource. 

If you as a parent are comfortable with your own sexuality, and have learnt for yourself the importance of self-love [masturbation] and mutual sexual pleasure – then share some of what you have learnt with your child. Perhaps you brought your first vibrator with a few girlfriends when you were younger and you have a funny story about it – tell your teenage daughter. Or perhaps you never learnt about the clitoris in sex-ed at school. Get curious and ask your child if they have been taught about the clitoris and its wonders!

2. "How do we talk about masturbation with our sons in a non cringe way?"

There is a saying within the sex education community: 'Talk soon, talk often'. It is also the title of a fantastic free resource for Australian parents developed by WA Health called Talk Soon Talk Often: A guide for parents talking to their kids about sex.

The earlier we engage with our children in conversations that may be potentially uncomfortable, such as discussing masturbation, the easier and more productive those conversations will be. Children are so wonderfully curious, and the younger a child is the less stigma and shame they will hopefully have attached to sexuality. 

I have a seven-year-old boy, and we are currently reading the book Sex is a Funny Word which is just awesome. It has a section on masturbation which is non cringe and age appropriate. I highly recommend the whole book! It’s a favourite of mine. 

3. "How do we teach our kids that consent is ongoing throughout an encounter, and not a single 'yes' at the start?"

Yes, consent 100 per cent should be taught as something that is ongoing. The NSW Consent laws have recently been updated to reflect sexual consent as ongoing. The fantastic NSW Gov campaign #Makenodoubt includes the following:

Sexual consent is ongoing.

You always need to check consent, whether it’s the first time you’re hooking up with someone or the hundredth time. You need to check consent before and during any sexual activity, including kissing, touching, and oral sex.

Sexual consent can be withdrawn

Someone can change their mind and withdraw consent at any time. As soon as a person withdraws consent, the sexual activity must stop.

The campaign website offers video examples and easy-to-read articles on how to check for consent.  

Listen to Mamamia's podcast for parents of teens, Help! I Have A Teenager. Post continues below.

4. "How do we teach our kids about porn in a way that helps them not feel guilty if they see it, but also understand that it’s not real sex?"

There are two excellent resources we recommend for parents who are looking for some guidance around engaging with their young person on the subject of pornography. Both include content for parents and young people.

The first is Australian website 'It’s time we talked'. The site unpacks the latest research on pornography and young people and has a number of fantastic short video interviews with young people themselves, as well as porn performers, on the subject of pornography. These can be great conversational tools for parents.

The second is New Zealand Government website 'Keep it real online'. It offers tools and advice on the issues of pornography, online bullying and online grooming. As part of their public awareness campaign, they launched a series of ads showing parents and caregivers how to help their children and young people manage online bullying, inappropriate content, pornography, and grooming. We think the pornography one is fantastic, and we use it in many of our consent training sessions.

5. "Are teens aware that anal sex comes with risks? How should we talk about it with them?"

Research is finding that anal sex is increasingly prevalent among heterosexual young people. Yet despite the increasing prevalence of young people engaging in anal sex, it is not addressed in formal sex education programs. In recent research (Hirst et al, 2022), a sexual health professional spoke of the implications of not addressing anal sex as part of sex education programs:

"I’ve had some really disturbing consultations, [with] 18 and 19-year-old boys where they’re like, 'So, I can’t just literally take it from the vagina and then just put it up her bum?' I was like, 'No. Not without asking.'" (Stevie)

To promote safe, pleasurable and respectful sexual relationships, it’s crucial that sex education programs are relevant to young people’s lived experiences of sex and relationships. This means engaging with the reality of pornography’s influence for young people’s sexual practices, and making sure that sex and consent education is applicable to a diverse array of sexual relationships and practices – including anal sex.

For tips directed at teens on how to practice anal sex safely – check out Teen Healthcare and Playsafe.  

6. "How do we teach teen boys to understand the gravity of their actions (if they don’t respect consent) without freaking them out? How do we teach boys that girls do not owe them sex, under any circumstances?"

The best way to guide teens understanding of sex and relationships is to connect with them. Teens want to feel seen and understood. To do this as parents, it’s important we assume a curious mindset – and that as best we can, we park our judgements and fear at the door. Use questions to explore your child’s experience and opinions on the subject. 

And when engaging with your teen over sensitive subjects, choose empathy over advice and 'saying the right thing'. Don’t be afraid to share a couple of stories from your own youth – things you wish you had done differently, or a subject you wish you had known more about. 

If you can, also share some meaningful moments you are really proud of, your first relationship, the first time you told someone you loved them. It’s important that our conversations with teens don’t just focus on the avoidance of the potential dangers of sex and relationships, but that they also focus on the wonderful, pleasure-filled and meaningful moments of connection and intimacy that sex and relationships offer.

I encourage parents to watch the Netflix series Sex Education to get a sense of how young people’s experiences of sex, and the culture around sex, differs from their own experience growing up. There are also some great documentaries on porn and young people - Love and Sex in an Age of Pornography, was on SBS a few years ago and is really great. The more familiar you are with the subject and the reality of young people’s current lived experience, then the more comfortable you will feel engaging with your young person about it.

 The other thing I often say to parents is that it’s okay to not have all the answers. But it can be really great to know the best places for kids to take their questions that you can’t answer. Here are a couple of good sites I recommend:

• The Line is a great Australian website for boys over 14. It provides engaging content on what’s ok and what’s not when it comes to sex, dating and relationships. There are a couple of really fantastic multiple choice quizzes on sexism and coercion for boys to test their own knowledge and attitudes. 
• Youth Law Australia provides free, confidential legal information and help for people under 25 - using straightforward language and scenarios to explain the laws in each state. 
• There is a great site called Get the Facts that has a completely confidential 'Ask a question' service that young people may wish to use. All questions are answered by a qualified health professional within a week. 

 7. "How do we teach our kids to balance traditional concepts of passion (romantic movies/on screen kisses) with our current knowledge of consent?"

At Learning Consent we teach the communicative approach to consent. It is based on the premise that the aim of sex is mutual pleasure. Most consent education centres on the management of risk and danger. The communicative approach to consent is just as much about the pursuit of mutual pleasure as it is about the avoidance of harm or danger. We know from the research that young people are keen to learn about pleasure – so situating consent as a process of negotiating mutual pleasure aligns with their priorities for sexual learning.

The communicative approach to consent is founded on three key principles – responsibility, communication, and pleasure. What is great about this approach is that it is intuitive. These three concepts are familiar to young people from a very early age, and applied in non-sexual aspects of their lives such as play and sport.

A critical part of our high school consent education programs is giving young people the opportunity to apply their knowledge of the communicative approach to consent to representations of sexual consent in popular culture and the media. This enables them to start thinking critically about the way sex and relationships are portrayed in movies and on TV.

One of our favourite TV series for positive portrayals of sexual consent is the Stan series Normal People. In our workshops with senior high school students and university students we show the first sex scene in the second episode to represent the communicative approach to consent. Check it out, it’s a winner!

Dr Joy Townsend is the Founder and CEO of Learning Consent – a leading provider of comprehensive sexuality education programs for schools and universities around the world. Joy is a sociologist whose area of expertise is in the field of gender and sexualities. Her work centres on the lived experiences of young Australians. 

Feature Image: Supplied.