Thread by @cavaticat

Big, personal thread.

I was 16 when my folks found out I'd been having sex for a year.

They were upset. But not for the reasons you'd think.

I'd asked The Question when I was 6 years old. My mom calmly, clinically, honestly answered all of my questions. I remember her pulling out a yellow legal pad and sketching the pear of a uterus, the tadpole of a sperm. She gave me a copy of Lennart Nilsson's "A Child is Born."

I didn't understand all the words in the book, but I was fascinated by the pictures. I wondered what it might be like to GROW a PERSON.

But sex, the act, wasn't interesting. At 12, I swore I'd never do it. Mom laughed in my face—and reiterated we could talk if I changed my mind.

My parents have always connected knowledge with making good choices. I'm sure if they'd had their druthers, their three kids would've waited as long as humanly possible to have sex. But, mostly, they wanted us to feel safe, prepared, and supported when we finally made the choice.

I was also lucky to go to schools with good sex-ed programs, where we'd watch the videos and then talk about what we'd seen, and ask our questions, and watch the demonstration with the condom and the banana.

By puberty, I knew the risks—and had NO interest in taking them.

Then I turned 14. I met a boy. (Online! In 1997! I was a pioneer.)

At 15, after a year of fooling around, working up our nerve, we did the deed.

I don't even really remember it, because losing your virginity is, ultimately, awkward and anticlimactic.

I didn't tell my parents.

For a year after that, we tried to be careful. We always used condoms, and spermicidal suppositories that I hated because they were messy but that I was too afraid to go without.

But we were sneaking around. I hated it, but teenagers are scared and tremendously stupid.

One day, we'd run out of spermicide, and just used a condom.

Which, we discovered after, had broken.

First, we freaked.

Then we remembered: if you were 16, you could go to the the Washington, D.C. @PPact without parental consent. We could get a morning-after pill.

In 1999, we only knew a morning-after pill was even a THING because we'd both had good sex education.

We also knew I couldn't be on the regular pill because of a familial predisposition to clotting disorders. (Mom had told me.)

But we had to do something! So we went to @PPact.

They gave me my first-ever pelvic and breast exams, and a prescription, and a shot in the hip of Depo Provera, which they told me I would only need once every three months. To remind me when I'd need it again, they gave me a calendar to put in my pocket—because, again, 1999.

The pill made me so sick. So, so sick. I spent a whole day alternately puking and sleeping, and telling my mom it must have been something I'd eaten.

But I didn't get pregnant.

And, in my delirium, I also didn't take the calendar out of my pocket.

Mom came in, gathered up all my laundry, went away again. I slept.

The next morning, she opened the door, sat on my bed. Put the little calendar on my lap. She asked, "Do you want to tell me what this is all about?" Her eyes were hard and hurt and shining.

I burst into tears.

Of course I was embarrassed I'd been caught. But I could see that she wasn't angry I'd been having sex—she was hurt that I'd deceived her. That I'd had some ordeal that I felt like I couldn't tell her about, when she loved me and would do anything to help, even if she was angry.

After that, my parents sat me down.

I don't know if they blamed themselves. I feel like I remember telling them, "Don't blame yourselves." But what they wanted me to understand was that trust, once violated, has to be earned back. Worked for. So there were new rules.

No more going to his house. If we were alone in a room together at my house, the door was to be left open. If we were outside, we were always to remain within sight of a window. We would always be chaperoned.

It sucked. I hated it, my BF hated it, my parents hated it.

After a few weeks, we reconvened. I laid it out: I wanted to keep having sex. But I wanted to be safe about it. I didn't want to sneak around. I would abide by their rules, but I wanted them to pay for my birth control in the meantime.

They didn't like it. But they agreed.

I'm 36 years old now. In 21 years, I've never had an STD, never been pregnant, never had an abortion. I HAVE had lots of conversations with my mom—and, to a lesser extent, my dad—about what was safe and smart and healthy.

They've never demanded my fucking pelvic exam results.

Sex ed didn't make me have sex. Learning about the biology of sex didn't make me have sex. Trying to understand the appeal of sex didn't make me have sex. Nothing and no one MADE me have sex. I didn't even WANT to have sex—until I did. I made a choice. An informed one.

Having my parents hovering over me would not have changed my choice. It might have delayed it, but it probably also would have made it seem taboo and exciting.

Even WITH their support, I was sneaking around. How would I have defied and avoided them if I'd feared them?

Teenagers lie. All teenagers lie. Yes, your angelic honor student with an 8 p.m. curfew lies. Teenagers need structure, they need to feel secure and like someone's in control, but in every other way, their brains are fractured and irrational and impulsive.

If you TREAT kids like criminals, all they'll learn from you, their parents, is that you're not someone they can talk to WHEN they fuck up. They WILL fuck up. They WILL lie. They're just never, ever, ever going to talk to you about it. They will fail alone.

I can't imagine how I'd feel if my dad—my DAD, not even my mom, not even someone who knew what it was like to be a young woman growing into her strange body—had, in those fragile years, demanded access to proof that I wasn't being a lying little slut. Violated, probably. Ashamed.

And by the time I was finally ready to experience sex, I'd probably be frightened of it, and of my partner. I'd make avoidable mistakes that could cost me my health. I'd deny myself pleasure and joy.

It wouldn't feel sacred, it would feel tawdry and bad.

Your kids owe you the truth.

They don't owe you their bodies. They don't owe you their mistakes.

No one asks to be born. Shame isn't some tax we pay our parents for deciding to create us, or for living in bodies that experience desire.

Might delete all this later. I dunno.

I just felt like, after some of what I'd read today—from men AND from women with daughters—I needed to be on the record that this toxic, invasive, possessive attitude towards sexuality ends badly for everyone.

No one owns anyone. Period.

And, for the record: I do not endorse having sex at 15. I was a year below the age of consent. I'd already waited A WHOLE YEAR and felt like OMG I MIGHT LITERALLY, LIKE, DIE IF I WAIT ANOTHER ONE.

But it's young. Real young. And illegal. I'd have a real hard talk with past-me.

Also, donate to @PPact, holy shit.

@PPact thank you to everyone saying “please don’t delete”! I’ve had to mute the thread because I was getting toooo many notifications, but we’re 3,000 likes into the top level tweet and all your comments have been positive, so I think we’re safe OH NO I’VE JUST JINXED IT HAVEN’T I

@PPact CHARLOTTE’S MOM WEIGHS IN, a mini-thread addendum:

1/2

“It makes me sad to think that so many parents aren't being frank and open with their kids about these things; it's all part of life and the entire parental package of protecting your children with frank information.”

2/2

“You teach them how to count, you teach them how to go potty, but you don't teach them about reproduction? Anyway, I'm glad to know that your thirty-something self might instruct your fifteen-year-old self with additional insights into all the stuff.

xxxooo”