Let’s Talk About S-E-X (and Pizza) w/ Al Vernacchio

values and health. I first heard his genius on Katie Corex podcast and I was like, I gotta get this guy on Katie's Crib because I have no idea how to talk to my child about sex. Um, and you are really good at talking kids and people about sex. Welcome to Katie's Crib. Al Bernacchio, thank you so much.

I'm told really excited to be here. I feel like this time has been really interesting because, um, We've done a lot of episodes on Katie's Crib this season about talking to our kids about race, and a few times during those episodes, I've said, you know, it's crazy, my parents didn't talk to me about race. My parents didn't talk to me about sex and this is not good.

This is a problem. And I feel very lucky that I use Katie's Crib as a platform to teach listeners how we can do a better job and practice these language skills that it requires to start talking to our children about things that maybe weren't discussed in our household, or maybe they were discussed in a poor, shameful, um not loving fashion. Can you first tell me what's the distinction between sex and sexuality? Oh? Sure, that's a great

question to start with. UM. A lot of times when people think about sex, they either automatically think about sexual activity to sort of what parts you have and what you do with them, or they think about gender and sort of who you who you are inside your skin. Um, But sexuality is much bigger than that. Sexuality involves all the parts of our body, including our sexual parts, but it includes also our emotional capabilities, our relationship capabilities, you know, body, heart, mind,

and spirit. If that's part of your belief system. Every minute of the day, we're sexual. People were not sexually active. But our sexuality is not something we can ever divorce ourselves from or or put aside or leave at home.

When we go out to school or to work. Um, to be human is to be sexual, and to be sexual is to be human and so but unless we have that kind of integrated view, it is really hard to talk about with anybody because you're left thinking that you're gonna be talking about really intimate personal, specifically sexual activity kind of things, and people get freaked out about that. I totally understand that, right. So you work mostly with

high school students, correct, I do. I'm My title is on the nursery through twelfth grade Sexuality Education Coordinator at my school, So I'm in charge of doing sex said for everybody, from our youngest students who are three years old up to our oldest students who are eighteen years old. But I do spend most of my time working with the high school students. But you know, on the person my ship right now. Hold on a second. Is this a title that exists in schools now? Because I don't

think it existed when I went to school. No, it exists in my school because I'm there. It was an interesting confluence when when I went to my school. When I was hired twenty three years ago, I was actually hired as a full time English teacher because that's another

thing that I do. UM. But I came to the school having already gotten a master's degree in human sexuality education, and I asked my school if they thought I might be able to use that degree in the service of our students, and so I sort of looked around the school and did some needs assessments, and very slowly I've been there twenty three years, and that title only became

really official in the last few years. But I've been slowly building and doing sexuality education um, starting in the high school and then moving to the middle school and moving to the lower school, all through that time, step

by step, you know, program by program, UM. And there are some schools that have people like me in it, not a whole lot, But unfortunately, in many schools, you know, sexuality education is left to either science teachers, or health and pe teachers or religion teachers, all of whom are lovely people and who I'm sure love kids as much in the same ways as I do. But they're not trained to do this work. And I'm specific we trained

to do it. And we're talking about like sex education versus what you just defined is the difference between sex, which yes, we all need to learn the mechanics of the whole thing. But sexuality is such a huge, huge topic for hormonal teenagers. But also starting now, I mean with my three year old. When you say that you've talked to three year olds about it, like, what am

I supposed to be doing? I mean, I would like myself and our listeners to who a lot of them have little ones to do our part in raising little people who are um woke when it comes to consent and respectful of other people's bodies and things like that. And I don't even like know where to start. Yeah, of course, you know, nobody who becomes a parent suddenly gets imbewed with the the information or the skills to

do this. It's and that's part of why I also work a lot with parents, because parents need help and I totally get that. Um So, for little ones, I'm going to take a cue from a guy named Danny Horne, who is a sex educator that I've known for a long time, and he says, with little ones, you focus on three f's family, fairness and kind of fairy tale love.

So for for a little three year olds, when I go into the kindergarten in the pre k in my school, I bring story books that talk about diverse kinds of families, that everybody's family is different, and everybody's family is about love, about fairness, that nobody should be treated differently just because they're a boy or a girl, or their transgender or their cis gender, or they have two mommies or they have two daddies, skin color, or a different ethnicity exactly exactly.

And then the third one about sort of the Disney fairy tale love, is that everybody deserves to love and be loved, and that that's all kinds of love. Everybody, you know, someday if they want, gets to have a sweetheart, and that sweetheart can be a boy or a girl or anybody that somebody loves. Everybody is worthy of love from their family, from their friends, and someday from their sweethearts.

So families, fairness and fairy tale love is a great place to center when you're working with with little ones. And that's the kind of work that I do. And of course, you know, now we do need to talk about things like consent. There are some great um books out now, even little board books for teeny ones about consent um. You know, it's a little bit different than the good touch bad touch. That's also information we always

have to do. But consent is more about body positivity and a sense of ownership and a sense of developing the beginnings of agency, about who gets to interact with your body. Um, and those are things we can do with little kids, not in a sophisticated way, but in

a some away. I definitely have moments now where I'm trying to practice, like, you know, one of his little friends, Um, you know, he'll just go up to her or him and you know, really like aggressively squeeze the ship out of that person, right like he's so excited to see that person. And I just try to intervene and say, hey, let's take a step back and let's ask can I

hug you? Would you like to get hugged or something like that, you know, And then and then I say, he'll ask, and sometimes that kid says okay, and I'll be will give a hug, And sometimes that kid says no, and then Alby does it anyway, and then I have to say up, up, up. You know, they said no, which means they don't want to receive a hug right now, Like is that the sort of bait, like we can start. There's an amazing lesson and that's a perfect way to

do it. It's exhausting. My kid is like like the King of like, oh, let me just invade your personal space. I'm just like, well, I mean, all little kids are little kids. You know. Little kids are about about love and connection and belonging and they just and so teaching them that it's really important to ask people if they want to hug, or if they want to play or you know, if they want to high five or a fist bump. And practicing that with them is an amazingly

important skill to start. And then you know, we sort of transfer those skills as kids grow to more complex situations about this fairy tale love? What do we do about fairy tales that are you know what I'm gonna ask, boy, girl,

you know the same thing all the time. I'm sure that we are hopefully getting better here that there are board books that exist where people are falling in love that aren't a blonde girl with like a small stomach and boobs and some yeah, absolutely, and there there are plenty of beautiful books that are written today for little kids that have all kinds of relationships and all kinds of love depicted, so it's not that hard to find

them if you if you look for them. Um. But I think what's really important, A really simple thing, for example, is when we're talking to little kids, I very de liberately use the word sweetheart instead of boyfriend or girlfriend, because I want to model that those aren't the only two asticating right on that anticipating or expecting that their sweetheart is going to be any particular gender or have

any particular body. So um, and then I like to point out, so you know, Uncle Dave and Uncle Joe are sweethearts, and mommy and Daddy are sweethearts, and you know, and and that way they begin to understand that term and the multiple ways that term can be applied. Um. So even the very choice of our language is key when talking with little kids, because we're modeling the kind of inclusivity and the kind of of openness that we're hoping to develop. You developed an alternative approach to sex

education Before we get into that, can you share? I thought this was fascinating in your TED talk that there are two sex said models that listeners may be familiar with but haven't analyzed. There's the disaster prevention model and the porn model, right, can you explain those two things? Sure? So the disaster model is the way a lot of people, um, in my generation I'm fifty six, grew up, which is hearing messages like, um, sex is a beautiful thing, but

if you do it wrong, gonna kill you. And um, you know, sex is perfect when it's with the one you love in a beautiful married relationship, but anything else is going to leave you with like wards and scales and horrible diseases. Um. And it was a lot about fear and a lot about we can't tell kids the joyful parts about healthy sexuality because that's going to lead them to do things are not ready for. So we make this disaster model that tries to scare kids and

they're not having sex. And of course that never worked. All it did was make us doubt adults were telling us the truth about anything. Um. But a lot of us grew up with that model, and it it's in City as Lee sort of inserted itself into a lot of our media, a lot of our education, a lot of our parenting. So we have to be on the lookout for that, you know, when are we conveying negative messages out of fear. Um, if we're doing that, we're

following the disaster model. The porn model has always been there, but really has come to light obviously with the advent of the digital world and the Internet and the easy accessibility of pornography and sexually explicit material. And the porn model says that kind of no matter what you're doing, it's somehow going to lead to sex, which I don't know about your life. My life. Every porn is like, oh, we're in a desk office situation. Oh, whoopsie, dipsy, I

have to change my tire. Up here we go, we're cleaning out the refrigerator. What else we got? It's like up and now we're yep. And then the other thing the porn model says, which I think is even more damaging, is that the sex that people have have isn't integrated or connected to the rest of their lives in any meaningful way. So, like, you know, as an English teacher, I can say that most of the sexually explicit stories

I've seen are not big on plot. You know, there's not a lot of like character development, and uh, I don't know who these people are. I don't know the kind of lives they have, I don't know what their interests are. And and for healthy sexuality, we have to integrate our sexual lives into the fabric of the rest of our lives. So my high school kids, I often ask them this question. I say, well, so, if you've ever seen material like that, did you ever wonder what

the people in those movies are doing? Twenty minutes after the camera turned off? They don't write, you know, do these people grocery shop? Do they have kids? Do they go to church? Do they have parents? I mean, the answer to that is some of that's true for most

of those people. But porn doesn't show us that focuses our lives solely on the sexually active part of our lives, and it isolates that part, and it also sort of fetishizes and fantasizes those parts because you're seeing bodies that don't look like typical bodies, and you're seeing sex that isn't like the sex that most people I know have.

I mean, I always tell my high school kids that you know, there there is nothing more fumbly and funny and awkward than being sexual with somebody, and that that's that's part of the magic of it. You know, it doesn't ever work like it is on TV and in the movies because that's staged and constructed. Oh I know, it's the worst. Let me tell you, it's awkward for

us to when we do sex scenes. It's like, oh my god, I have to like literally make out with someone in front of a hundred and fifty people that I've never made out with before, and I'm well aware that it's not going to look great. It's going to be weird. We have to have conversations. Thank god, there's intimacy coordinators now, but like conversations about like are you cool with tongue? Are you not? Like are we making sound? Are we not? Because I don't want to be lift

out to dry out there. I mean, it is so awkward. But that's just a side note for any of you actors listening who feel me. But I heard correct me if I'm wrong. At the average age now for kids to see porn, and a lot of times violent porn, like is eleven? Is that true? That's true. That's that's the average. Some kids are seeing it younger than that,

some kids older. But you know, by the age of eleven, we can assume that most kids have seen some example of often violently sexually explicit materially and it's not ques there looking for it. It's caused their online and they fumble into it, or they friend picked it up and everybody they misspell things into a search engine, all kinds of ways. Absolutely. I can remember in my age, I had like one the first computers. Um, My girlfriend came over and we googled. This is how far we've come. Guys.

We googled Michelangelo's David and zeroed in on on the penis and like that was crazy. Do you know what I mean? It's like, we have come so far? How are we supposed to prepare our kids for that inevitable? Like anyone listening who's like, that's not going to be my kid, You're crazy. Let's just accept your kids going to see some crazy, freaky ass porn around the age of eleven. What do we do if an amazing Albarnakio

is not in our school? So the first thing you have to think about is what kind of conversations have I been having with my kids about just general media, about what they see on TV, about what they what they see in cartoons? Um, are we talking about the way gender is portrayed. Are we talking about real versus fake? Are we talking about how what we're watching is often constructed and really different from the way it happens in real life. If we started those conversations, the porn conversation

is just an extension of that. It's just saying this is material that sort of goes in many ways to the extreme, with the um fake versus real stuff that it looks like. I mean, yes, these are real naked people and they're really kissing or they're really doing sexual things, but there are camera people, and there are scripts, and there's lighting and there's a whole bunch of things that are creating it to look like it's natural when it's really not. Here's the difference of what it looks like

when it's sort of natural. And I don't mean showing kids that, I mean talking about those differences. You know, I say that, um, thinking that you can learn how to have sex from watching porn is like thinking you can learn how to drive by watching The Fast and the Furious. Totally, that's a great analogy. So a really simple language like that can help. And I also think it's really important that we and this is really hard, so we sort of summon our courage and we sort

of lean into this. UM. We don't want to shame kids for being curious, because a lot of kids, especially younger kids who are looking at porn, are really curious about bodies and about sex and about relationships. And so we also need material that we can offer to kids. So websites like sex etcetera, or amazed dot org or if they're a little older, Scarlet Team. There are plenty of really good websites out there that are designed for

young people that give clear information about this. I mean, one of my favorites these days is amazed dot org. There are these tiny um animated videos there are three, four or five minutes long about everything from consent to pornography, to periods, two bodies to your first kiss. And they're amazing and beautiful and so carefully done. UM. And so to say, look, if you're curious about something, I want to actually help you find out what you want to know.

This is not the best way to learn about that. Let's try this. UM Now. I know that a lot of parents may feel discomfort around that, you know, and I think the key is really being able to find websites and books for all different ages that that people can look to. And I think it's really just a matter of not if you're going to have that conversation, but when and how have you been leading up to that conversation in what you're doing. You have to really make it an add on to what you're doing. It

can't just be a whole new conversation. It's gotta have It's like all these little building blocks that have been placed along the way, and you might feel embarrassed, but you have to put that aside and say something like, hey, dude, like I I really want to talk to you about this stuff. I'm going to go think about it for a minute and come back to you, you know, tonight or tomorrow. We can talk about this, you know. But it's like really making sure you can be open to

the opportunity when your kids ask questions or are curious. Yeah, my friend Deva Rothman says it's much better to have a hundred one minute talks with your kid than one minute talk, right, And they don't all need to be like heavy, deep and reel, just a just a comment that shows you acknowledge and you're observing. Wow, that's not the way that I think about women when I think about them the way this music video shows them, something like, that's a conversation, right, it doesn't need to be a

whole big deal. That's really great. I my parents never talked to me um about sex, even though we were a very um like open household. I grew up in a house that only had one bathroom and there were four of us, and so it was like non negotiable that, like everybody was in there at one time in bras underwear. It's like like it was the reality of the situation.

Like they were very open, but they never talked to me about sex until my cousin got pregnant at sixteen and my mom came burst into the bathroom and was like, are you practicing safe sex? Do you use a condom? Like it was so it was like insane um And it was the first time we'd ever talked about sex, and it was aggressive and scary. And I already knew all that, Like I was already sixteen, already knew about condoms,

already new about sex. I already lost my virginity, like it was, you know what I mean, it was already at old that but like she freaked out because it became a reality to her that I could get pregnant. You know, Um, when are people suggested to to have conversations with their daughters about birth control? Or like, are we supposed to wait for them to bring it up? Or do we bring it up in these little versations along the way. Well, like most questions, there's not one

definitive answer. Some people feel more comfortable kind of waiting until the kids bring it up. That's not my favorite strategy because I think we need to be giving kids messages all along. So even if they're not bringing it up, I think it's important for us not to say, like, are you having sex? And do you know how to use a condom? But um, hey have they talked about condoms in school or when you're watching TV? Hey? Do you know when people say having sex? Do you know

what that means? Um? And I think putting it also in the sense of I want to make sure that you can have the most positive, healthy, you know, enjoyable experiences that that you can have when it's time to have them. This is one place where Europe just does so much better than we do. You know, Europeans are much more calm about talking about sex with their kids. They're much more at ease thinking about older teens as becoming sexually active and that that's sort of a natural,

normal part of the life cycle. Um, and not every kid is, but a lot of them are. You know, if you're seventeen and you live in Denmark, for example, it's not unusual that your parents will say to you, you know, you have a sweetheart. I know that maybe you're thinking about being sexual with them. I'd so much rather if you're going to have sex, you bring your sweet heart home and you have it here in your own bedroom where it's safe and comfortable and there's people

who you love around you. You know that sounds crazy to a lot of American parents to think they would totally freaking my god. My dad would be like, are you just like then on my little girl, like not in my under my roof? And I get that, and I get that, and you know, those values are important and we can talk about those, but um, but you know, at what point are we really thinking about the reality of our kids and our kids lives and how do we help them. We don't want them to be heatonists.

We want them to make really good, value based, healthy decisions. They can't do that without information totally. They can't do that without practice in decision making. So how are we helping them move towards those more adult decisions as they grow up and as we talk to them. It's funny as a nanny, I've become like certain moms in betweens where like, like the moms have been like, hey, can you just find out if my kid is doing stuff?

I don't care if they are. I want them to be like living their best life, but just please let me know if they're not happy or something like that. And I'm like so relieved because one of the girls is sexually active who I used to babies it for, and she feels great about her choice, So I feel so great, do you know what I mean? Like, I'm like, oh my gosh, thank God, because I know how bad it can go. The most we can hope for is

that they feel empowered by their choice. Man or woman, trans whatever you are, that you just can look back on that memory of being in your first loving relationship or the first time you were sexual with someone or whatever it is and look back and be like psyched about I totally get it, and it's it's my goal too. I mean, how many of us look back on our early sexual experiences with real fondness or with joy or think, wow,

that was awesome. You know, many of us fumbled into things we weren't really thinking about, ready for, psyched about. And you know, the saddest thing in the world is when I hear kids tell me, you know, they had sex just to get it over work or that, or they tell me like, well, it has to hurt the first time, Like, no, it doesn't, and we can talk about that and if it does, you know, we can do something about that. Genius. I'm so glad you exist.

So tell me about your developed alternative approach to sex education. So it's you know, pretty common in America that when we talk about sex we use baseball language like sloppy second I mean, oh my god, does that still exist. It does now exist more with younger kids. It's more of a middle school kind of thing. But the problem is that once you start talking about it that way,

that model sort of stays in your head. And so even though high school kids don't talk about first base, second base, third base, you know, they still have that model that sex is this kind of competitive game that's

kind of like me against you offense and defense. Um, and that really sets up some bad stuff, and especially if you're talking about heterosexual sex, because in the baseball model, you know, very often it's the it's the male bodied, you know, boy identified person who's rounding the bases, and the girl is the field that the game gets played. Yeah, you don't get the second base by touching a guy's boob and everybody would know that. Um, So that model

is really destructive. But I have to say that model is packed with power and privilege and patriarchy and is not going anywhere because there's a lot of people really invested in it. So what I think we have to do is give kids the ability to think of an alternative model. So I come up with the p some model that instead of thinking about having sex like rounding the bases, we think about it like having pizza. A

couple of differences that are important. So when you play baseball, you don't always get to decide when it's time to play, right. There are certain times and seasons and events that just require you to play baseball. Pizza Ideally, you have it when you want to have it, when you're hungry for it, when you have an internal yen or desire for it. So it starts in here, not out there. Baseball's competitive,

pizzas cooperative. Baseball's sort of strictly bound by rules. You go to first, then you go to second, then you go to third. Pizzas about choice. What do you like, what do you want? What tastes good to you? What are you feeling now? And that can be different and different experiences. Baseball is about winning and losing, scoring a lot of runs, winning the game. Pizzas about feeling satisfied.

You get to decide when you stop. You don't have to have the entire pizza to have a good pizza experience. Um so it's a whole different model and way of thinking. Pizza is much more about variety and choice and is much more sensual, like appealing to the senses right now, and I can't. I'm starving, like you're My mouth is like sorry, you're talking about things. I'm just thinking about pizza.

Keep going and that's fine. Kids do that. Every Every Wednesday in my school is Pizza Day and literally is hystorical about that. Um, you know, pizza is much more The pizza model is much more inclusive because you don't need a bat and a ball in a glove. Right. I work in a school that has a very large Jewish population, So during Passover we have mazza pizza in the cafeterias, Pizza that's legit in the same way that the same way that bagel pizza is legit, in the

same way that a vegan pizza is legit. It's about preference and choice, and you know what works for you. So we need to give kids a model that's much more like that than a model that's restrictive and that's very rule bounds, competitive based, and goal oriented, because that's just gonna lead to really bad sex for most people, and that's not the goal. The goal is to really have people feel good. Have you found that this model

resonates with young people? It does. I mean, it certainly resonates a lot with young women because they realize the flaws of the baseball model resonates a lot with LGBTQ folks because they feel included in it um And you know, even straight guys who really want to be good partners and are thinking about their partners not just a glorified sex toy, but as as a human being. They want to interact with they really get how even what their

intentions are can change the impact of what happens. So they may they may want to be really affirming and and not boxed in, but they feel so freaked out that they resort to this very easily accessible model and it winds up not providing what they are they're sweethearts really want, right, So yeah, there's definitely been an openness to it. We talked a lot about language and it's funny, I heard myself even say it, I said, lost my virginity? Oh God, what do we do about that? What do

we do about the language of losing your virginity? Also, you've talked about having sex, like how can we make waves parents listening with young children about changing the language around this stuff. Sure, a lot of the language is is old, a lot of it's very sexist, a lot of it's very heterosexist. So so, for example, losing virginity, you know, the whole concept of virginity, which I don't want to throw the whole concept out because there's some

positive things about the idea. When you look historically at what virginity meant, who it was important for. I mean, it was from the time when marriage was a business transaction, and you know you've got you got more goats for a woman who was pure a virgin. Yeah, and you know what did that actually mean? That meant not penetrated vaginally, as if that somehow magically and for pureness no matter what the person had done, and with it conferred some

sort of like damaged goods. Um. So we have to be really honest about where those terms came from, what they're about. A lot of my work and sexuality education is about reframing concepts. Here's the way we've looked at it, here's what's problematic about it. Let's try something else, and the new thing might not work the first time, so you keep trying it until you get something that really works.

So for reframing virginity, you know, I like to not think about losing virginity because it's not something you have to lose. I also don't like the idea of like giving virginity, because that feels like it's some kind of prize that people. You know, there's not real good language for this, So I say that my definition of virginity is tied to my definition of having sex. So I don't like the definition of having sex that implies just

vaginal intercourse or an intercourse. It says nothing about consent, nothing about pleasure, nothing about intention, nothing about desire. So my definition of having sex, which kids hate, by the way, because it's complicated and long, is you know, consensual, sober sexual activity that's mutually pleasurable, and that includes reproduction if you want it. That's that's kind of a mouthful. And kids are like, well, how do we know what people did? Why do we have to know what people do? Well?

How that's the big thing in school. It's like he made it to third base and what's his name's bar Mitts, vote whatever, and your back to baseball's room to base, and that's how we all find out how far they got right, And nobody ever challenges like, hey, what does that matter? Why do I need to know that? How is that my business? And if that impacts the way I'm going to look at this person? What does that say about me and about the way I think about right?

Oh gosh, it's so interesting. Um, okay, your kids masturbating, you walk in, what are you supposed to say? You say excuse me and you walk You know, it seems pretty right. You know, we're not in trouble. Actually, right, actually I have. That's that's in my book. It's one of the things I address is what happens if you walk in on your kid having sex, your kid masturbating.

And it depends what your house rules are, you know, Like if I'm allowed to be alone in my room with the door closed and I'm a teenager, I might very well be masturbating. And if you walk in, then you know and I'm doing that. If you freak out, what's the message I'm going to learn from that? If you say, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you want a private time whatever, that's a whole different message, right. I always say to parents, try to access your hopes,

not your fears. So when we react in shame based ways, we are acting out of fear something's wrong with my kid, my kids doing something that's going to create a bad life. Right, Well, masturbation is totally healthy, and if we react to it as a normal part of development for many kids, then we say, oh, okay, right, yeah, it's not something I want to see. But you know you're old enough you

get to have private time. Maybe we need to figure out, like, if you really don't want me to come in your room, you put a sock on the door, or we have a knock three times rule or something like that that tells me you might need some private time. The whole shame around sex thing, I think that this is hard, This is really hard. I think it's tied to some people with their religion, with with their parents. Shame is a reaction to feeling like not I've done something that's wrong,

but I am something that's wrong. You know, Bernie Brown talks about that time is I am a mistake? Guilt is I've done something wrong? And and when it comes to sexual shame, that just creates such unhealthy sexuality in people because it makes who we are fundamentally an error. You know, if if if you get shamed for being gay or trans or left handed or blue eyed or whatever, that makes you a mistake. And it's really hard to access healthy relationships when you feel like what you're bringing

to the table is a mistake. Now guilt, which is I've done something that violates the value or violates a rule that's not always bad. And I'm Italian Catholic, like shame and guilt or my middle I grew up with my whole life and you know, sometimes guilt can really be like, oh, I kind of screwed up and I need to think about that. But shame is never a good thing. And so whenever we are tempted to react out of shame, it helps to ask ourselves, like, what am I afraid of in this moment? What's my fear?

And then where's the positive? Where's the hope, where's the good? Because I don't think any parent, I mean, I'm not a parent, so I can't speak to this, but I think you want your kids, someday, when the time is right, for them to have really amazing, loving, pleasurable, great sexual experiences. Right. You don't want them to feel terrible about their bodies or ashamed of everything they do, or that somehow they're creating evil when they're trying to connect with somebody in

a really intimate way. So again, how do we encourage

that hope? How do we help kids walk towards I'm going to have healthy, open, honest, consent based pleasure, aware of relationships, not I'm going to get around breaking the rules and I'm going to get around, you know, sneaking around so that nobody knows what I'm doing this, right, I can remember my sister in law, who she's such an amazing mom, she's a daughter, and we were talking about her being sexually active, which of course was like you it was like jokes and you know, just like whatever,

and she just came out of left field with the again baseball guys. Wow, she came out of left field with like um, with just a really profound It struck me. I still think about it. She just was like, well, whenever, you know my daughter is actually active. I just hope she's safe and comfortable enough where she can be vulnerable, and I hope she has a really good time, and I hope she really enjoys herself. And I was like, whoa,

that is the coolest mom answer I've ever heard. Like I never even thought about that as an option, you know, right, that doesn't even make the list when we're thinking about it, awful, Like, of course you want them for your children. How do we teach our kids to practice safe sex, not just wearing a condom or taking birth control? And how do you teach your kids about consent? Okay, so those are

two big questions. So consents a conversation that has to exist around far more than just sex, right, we have to think about everyday consent. For me, consent is required whenever we interact with somebody else's body, property, or reputation. So if I'm going to interact with somebody else's body or somebody else's stuff, or if I'm going to interact with somebody's reputations say something about them that's going to impact the way other people see them, I need consent.

So whether it's borrowing a French fry, or you know, can I give you a high five? Or hey, guess what I heard about somebody? All those are consent situations. The better we are everyday consent, the better will be as sexual consent. Partly why we're so bad at sexual consent is we're not focused enough on consent in our everyday lives. And that doesn't mean walking around with like

legal contracts and clipboards. It just means being aware of how I'm interacting with people and how much choice I'm giving people, being aware of my own actions and interactions, and being aware that other people are people and they deserved have agency and choice. So of course you want that. When it comes to sex, which is one of the most intimate things people can do together, it doesn't have to be, but often often we want it to be.

But kids often get kind of legalistic about it, especially high school kids, like, you know, do I have to ask about every single thing I do? Well? I mean ideally, yeah, but in most situations that doesn't happen. Does non verbal consent count well? Yeah, we communicate verbally and nonverbally, but verbal consent is usually a lot more clear and a lot more easy to understand. So if you're not sure

about the signals you're getting, ask a verbal question. Um. So, consent is bigger and and needs to be practiced from when we're little kids all the way up and then safer sex. Again, it's so much bigger than how to use a condom. So one of the things I do is I ask kids, take any experience riding a bike, driving a car, jump off a roof. You know, what are all the kinds of things that can make that

experience safer? You know, Protective equipment is one thing, but so is like believing you're vulnerable, reading the instructures, not feeling pressured, um, doing it with someone you trust, so that we we fill the whole, you know, whiteboard with all these different things that can make something safer, and then we say, okay, safer sex. How are all these things part of it? So I may know how to use a condom, but if I don't feel vulnerable, I

might not think I need to use it. Or if I'm too freaked out to say I think we should use a condom because I don't trust the person that I'm with enough and I'm afraid they're going to reject me, then that information is not useful. So again, it's a bigger conversation, and it's a conversation that we can have in lots of different ways about lots of different things that all lead us back to how do we create an experience that leads to health and agency and openness

and a positive outcome rather than a negative. How can we be and how are you being more inclusive to the l g b t Q plus youth when it comes to sex? Said? Oh, sure, in lots and lots of positive ways. I work in a school that happens to be very different. It's a very progressive school. We have lots of you know, out trans kids and out

lgbt Q kids. Um, but you know, here's so here's one of the things I think you know, Um, When I pick up a sex said book, one of the things I look at is does it have a separate chapter for lgbt Q kids or are those kids integrated into every chapter? Because the book that segregates l g b t Q sexuality into its own special chapter is kind of saying you're not like everybody else, you need

special instructions. I like books that actually, when they're talking about kids and sex and sexuality are always integrated, difference into it in every way, because that's showing me, oh, you know that I'm here from the get go. You're not thinking about me as an other or as a special category. I think that's the way we have to approach it. And so you know, I don't really do a unit on l g b t Q folks. Everything integrated has to be right, Everything has to be integrated.

That's the best way we can do it. When parents know right, like their kid is really little and their kid might not know yet that they're gay or their trans or whatever it is in the and the parents are already feeling it, do you suggest parents bring it up or are we supposed to wait for kids to say something? You know, the only valid label is the

one a person is going to give to themselves. So if a parent says, you know, honey, I know you're gay and that's okay, it doesn't mean anything unless the kid is able to say, oh, yeah, that's a label that really that I think really fits me, and then I'm ready to take on. So I just say, and this is this is true for every parent, because no parent knows ultimately the children, right, So we always just want to be um giving messages that show we are

open to you being whoever you are. We think you deserve love and respect and care no matter who you are or what you are, or who you love or how you love. And we want you to know that we're always going to work really hard to support your authentic self. You know, Sexuality education really has three major goals, right, One, how do we figure out who we are most authentically? Two how do we create authentic, honest relationships? And three how do we make the world a better place? Like

successful sex said does those three things. It helps people figure out who they are and how they're comfortable in their own authentic skin, and it promotes authenticity. It helps us know that relationships that are built on honesty and trust and communication and consent, and that when we're really looking at another person as a person is always going to be healthier than coming out of fear and looking

at a person as an object. And that ultimately the expressions of our human sexuality should make the world more loving, more free, more open, more fair. If we can do that, we're doing really beautiful work. That's the work that I think we all want to do for all of our kids. And you know, I do it by talking about human sexuality, and other people do it by talking about other things. But I mean, I don't think you can argue with those goals. I hope you can't. Um, That's what I'm

trying to do. I would like to end there, but there's one thing I have to ask about. It's really life, penis arrogance. Let's just end with some um, some penis arrogance, because it scares the shift out of me. I don't like it. I have a son. I'm scared, um, which is not how I need to be. Tell me what

that is. So yeah, so penis arrogance is scary. Um. Because of sexism and patriarchy, A lot of male bodied people who identifies men grow up thinking that because they have a penis, they are entitled to all kinds of magical things in the world, that their penis gives them power, and that that power gives them the right to take what they want, have what they want, and not always

be nice about it. And it is really destructive. It is really inhumane in lots of ways, and it's not good for those people who have penises or for the people they operate with. So um penis pride. Different story about penis pride. That's awesome, But you know, how do we help boys as they're growing up learn that they want to be um wary of developing this arrogance, that that is actually not making them more of a man,

it's making them a worse human being. And I don't want you know, people accuse me of like wanting kids to be like feminine or will see or you know, gay or whatever, and that's not true. I love being a man. I love masculinity and manhood, but I don't think guys are entitled to be jerks. And I don't think just because I have a penis, I get to have anything I want. And I think being really upfront and sort of saying, you know, that's really arrogant, like A penis is not a lightsabe or a penis is

not something magic. It's a body part, you know. And if you really want to talk about strength, you want to talk about vaginas more than penis as anyway, because and and don't even get me started on uterus, because they're even more amazingly powerful. Um. But but I do think that penis arrogance is something we need to be

mindful of and watch out for. And it's all over media, and it's all over TV, and it crops up in the ways boys talk to each other, and we need to just be calling it out and basically saying you're awesome enough without that, you don't need that. You have every right to be proud of who you are, and I want you to be proud of who you are, but that pride has to exist within this larger community,

and arrogance pulls us away from community. Pride puts us in community, and so we want to create more community, not move us further away from it. So that's the skinny on penis, whether or not your penis is skinny or not, exactly, al Vernacia, ladies and gentlemen, I feel the parents in your school are so lucky to have you. The kids in your school are so lucky to have you. The work that you are offering up to all of us in your book for Goodness, sex changing the way

we talked to young people about sexuality, values and health. Guys, just google al Vernacio in sex education and you will go down a spiral that you will be so grateful you did. Um, and thank you so much for being on Katie's Crib and talking to our listeners. Thanks so much, Katie. I've had a great time talking with you. Thanks so much. If you guys liked what you heard, tell all your friends, subscribe, send me questions, comments, you know the deal to Katie's

Crib at Shonda land dot com. And I love you all so much. And let's all help our kids lead some healthy sex lives. Huh Like, I'm all about that. Katie's Grim is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Okay, you want