Introduction

‘Mum, how does the man stop the wee from coming out when he is putting the seed in the vagina?’

Would you know how to answer this question, from a five-year-old? I didn’t – even though, at the time, I was a sexual and reproductive health nurse with more than 15 years’ experience, and a university lecturer in human sexuality! I’d literally had tens of thousands of conversations about sex and sexuality, including the basics with my kids, but I still wasn’t prepared for my young son’s question. In that moment I realised my clinical and educator experience hadn’t prepared me to talk to little kids about this topic, let alone tackle the complex parental responsibility of having conversations about sexuality with my older children one day. And if I was struggling, how did parents without my knowledge have any chance of meeting their kids’ needs?

That insightful question from my son, 13 years ago, led me to start my business: Talking the Talk Healthy Sexuality Education. I have had the absolute privilege of teaching sexuality education (‘sex ed’) in schools and universities at all year levels, ages five to 21, and now focus on teaching and supporting educators, parents and carers.

Why read this book?

Your children are getting a sexuality education every day from the world around them. But is it the one you want them to receive?

I have written this book to help you have important conversations with your kids about sex, or more accurately: human sexuality, respectful relationships and consent. I like to call it HSRRC.

Whether you like it or not, HSRRC education is your children’s right and your responsibility. One of your most important accountabilities as a parent is to be the main, trusted source of comprehensive, age-appropriate information, giving children the best opportunity for a safe, healthy and happy journey through life.

After more than 25 years working in sexual health at organisations including Kobler Centre London, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and Austin Health Melbourne, and educating postgraduate students at the University of Melbourne, I decided to dedicate the next phase of my professional life to the current generation of children. My aim is to empower them with the essential education and tools they need for safe and positive development and relationship experiences — and to support as many adults as I can to be the main source of HSRRC information for children.

We have to ensure that children’s basic human right to knowledge is upheld via education that supports age-appropriate development and wellbeing for a lifetime. HSRRC education underpins a deep and empowered sense of self, as well as helping children foster relationships and experiences that are respectful, fulfilling, enriching, pleasurable, joyful, healthy and safe. According to UNESCO (2018), comprehensive and accurate human sexuality education can:

• increase adolescents’ confidence and ability to make informed decisions
• encourage respect, acceptance, equality and empathy
• delay the initiation of sexual intercourse to a later age
• help young people to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate information found online
• help prevent sexual abuse
• increase the use of contraception
• prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
• provide additional opportunities for young people to learn about and discuss relationships and sexual health issues outside their homes.

It’s also strongly supported by the majority of parents (Hendriks et al. 2023).

How will you ensure you are the first person to educate your children about HSRRC, before the media, advertising, popular culture, porn, online games, the internet and the schoolyard? When will you need to begin in order to be the first to tell them about each topic?

In my experience, most parents feel unprepared for these conversations, and uninformed by their own sexuality education experience — and therefore lack confidence in their ability to meet their children’s needs for knowledge around sexual health and wellbeing. Many adults tell me they never received adequate or accurate information around sexuality and relationships, yet they find themselves responsible for their own children’s sexual health, wellbeing and safety. They know they must provide their children with adequate, accurate information in a positive and useful way, but they’re not sure how to go about it, or when to start.

Many adults were brought up to believe these topics were not ‘safe’ to talk about. There may have been hushed tones or a complete lack of discussion, even about the basics of puberty. In most cases there was certainly no mention of pleasurable and consensual experiences or intimacy in relationships. We commonly carry that shame, fear and taboo, and resulting embarrassment, into our adult relationships. Many of us lack the ability to converse about these topics with our adult sexual partners, let alone talk to children about them. Parents play the biggest role in, and have the greatest influence over, this aspect of health, safety and wellbeing, yet important opportunities to make a difference are often missed.

I wrote this book to support you in having these essential, lifealtering conversations with your children. My aim is to dispel the myths, misinformation and fears I hear from adults time and time again. Along with my professional knowledge I’ll share stories of my own experiences and those of other parents. You might recognise some of them as resembling your experiences; I often hear very similar stories from multiple adults. I have changed details in all of the stories to protect privacy. 

I hope this book provides information and answers you never received yourself. However, this is not a textbook. I have described the very basics of the key topics in simplified language and provided resources so you can dive in deeper if you want to. I’ve also included conversation starters, scripts for answering curly questions, opportunities for self-reflection and suggested topics you should research further for your family conversations.

Who do you want to tell your child about each topic related to sex, human sexuality, consent and respect?

Who do you want to be the main provider of this information?

Hopefully the answer is you. 

If so, when do you need to start to ensure you get in first?

Throughout these chapters I offer my thoughts, opinions and examples based on my knowledge and experience, current research and contemporary literature, and the tens of thousands of conversations I’ve had with adults and children about sexuality. I also give you contemporary alternatives to the language we currently use that no longer serves us (and often never did). However, all families and experiences are diverse, so please make space for your own opinions, values, parenting styles, faith, culture and judgements. At times you may disagree, but let’s respect others’ opinions, especially when publicly
commenting online.

I hope you’ll find the book to be a simple guide that empowers you to support your kids to write their own unique version of their sexuality script for life. After all, sexuality is a core aspect of being human, from birth to death. I acknowledge that it is a huge shift to reject embedded, pervasive sexuality scripts and gender norms, but global evidence points to the benefit of rethinking these unhelpful and often harmful discourses. Our children deserve better, and we must get started and turn these inaccurate and damaging expectations around.

Congratulations on making the effort to access this book . I invite you to be expansive and open in your thinking and learning as you go through it.

After all, there is one thing we can all agree on: ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of children.

 

Answering the curly questions

At this point you may be wondering, what did I tell my five-year old son when he essentially asked me about orgasm and ejaculation? Well, the best response I could come up with on the spot was, ‘He does a wee first.’ Which is sort of, partly, not really correct!

Five years later my son came home late from sport and was eating his dinner while I sat with my laptop, preparing my slide presentation for the parent session I was running at his primary school. He said, ‘Mum, what is on your first slide? What do you say to get them interested?’ I’d been meaning to get his consent to use the question he had asked as a five-year-old, so this was the perfect opportunity.

I said, ‘I tell them a story of a five-year-old asking his mum how the man stops the wee from coming out when he is putting the seed in the vagina.’ My son replied, ‘Oh, good question. I know! He does a wee first!’ I kid you not: he remembered!

We went on to have a deeper age-appropriate conversation about the brain being the most important sexual organ, and how it sends a message to the bladder to block off so that only one fluid passes through and out of the urethra at a time.

Thinking about your parenting style, how would you have answered this question from a five-year-old? Perhaps you’ll have some more ideas once you continue through this book .

Change is uncomfortable, but it is necessary. Parents are key to the next generation’s lifelong health, happiness and wellbeing in regards to their sexuality. This is an opportunity to expand your learning and increase your skills for a better future for our kids. It is possible, and I hope this book makes a difference.

 

Self-reflection

• Thinking back, how did you learn about this thing called ‘sex’? What do you wish you had been taught about sexuality and relationships when you were growing up?
• What age are your children? What sexuality education have they had so far?
  
• Where do your children currently get their sexuality messages from?
  • Me
  • Other parent(s)
  • Other carers
  • Family members
  • School classroom
  • School playground
  • Friends/peers
  • Pornography
  • Social media (TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat)
  • Society
  • TV
  • Advertising
  • Music videos
  • Books
  • I don’t know
  • Other
• Where do you want your children to get their sexuality messages from?
  • Me
  • Other parent(s)
  • Other carers
  • Family members
  • School classroom
  • School playground
  • Friends/peers
  • Pornography
  • Social media (TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat)
  • Society
  • TV
  • Advertising
  • Music videos
  • Books
  • I don’t know
  • Other
    
• When your child is an adult, how do you want them to describe their learning about these topics and your parenting around them?
  
• When you hear the word ‘sex’, what do you think it means?

 

Vanessa Hamilton

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Buy Vanessa Hamilton's book, Talking Sex here.