When it comes to fostering self-confidence in your teenage daughter, giving her a sex toy might not be the first thing that springs to mind. But Australian sex blogger Nadia Bokody thinks parents should do exactly that – and suggests buying girls vibrators to help them learn about their bodies.
She defends her unconventional approach as a “safer, more gentle way for a young woman to engage in sex”. She adds: “Given the choice, wouldn’t you prefer your daughter touch her own body first, before letting another person touch it?”
If the thought of handing over something from Ann Summers to your child gives you a serious case of the shudders, you’re not alone. It gives me palpitations (and a sense of relief that at seven, my daughter isn’t ready for that chat yet).
But beneath the discomfort, there’s a serious point here – one that goes to the heart of how society treats women.
Female sexuality, in the mainstream, is still largely ignored – and certainly minimised. As Bokody points out, school sex education focuses on “boners and wet dreams” for boys, while girls are taught about “menstruation and preventing unwanted pregnancy”.
And there’s a clear discrepancy between the way “wanking” references are fairly mainstream among boys – even as far back as the classic Adrian Mole books – while nobody dares talk about (shhh, whisper it) female masturbation.
When I was growing up in the early nineties, my friends and I would excitedly gather around the latest Judy Blume novel (if you were a teenage girl around that time, you’ll remember ‘Forever’), but the messages about female pleasure were so heavily veiled – or so uncommon – that they simply didn’t register.
For years I assumed the “special place” the heroine of Blume’s book ‘Deenie’ had been rubbing was her back. I tried it and it felt good... but not that good. As an adult, I now know why.
Yet, unpalatable as it may seem (at first), I’m definitely open to the idea of a discussion about female sexuality with my kids – when the time is right. And I don’t think I’ll stop with my daughter. It’s just as important my son learns that women have the right to pleasure too.
And I want to talk to both of them about pornography, long before they see it: statistics show show 65% of British children aged 15 and 16 have watched porn, and 53% of boys thought it was “realistic”, with 40% of girls feeling pressured into rough sex or sending sexual images of themselves.
I wholeheartedly agree with Bokody when she says, “the reality is kids are having sex, and simply burying our heads in the sand and pretending it isn’t happening” won’t do anything to stop that.”
[Read More: Should Schools Teach Kids About The Female Orgasm]
With that in mind, giving our daughters vibrators (when they’re old enough, and it’s appropriate) really doesn’t sound that bad an idea. After all, you can’t catch an STD from something with batteries. And if we empower young girls to know exactly what works for them, and give them the confidence to talk about it, we might just save them from a lot of heartache (or at least, bad sex).