It may seem paradoxical but it is also true that the teen-ager actually does not want so-called freedom until he is well advanced in his teens. He is uncomfortable with it. He wants to know with certainty that he can rely on the adults to help him erect and maintain proper controls.
The very strength of his impulses often makes him fearful that if left to his own devices he will be unable to manage them properly.
"Please can you tell me, are there shots the doctor can give you to keep you from getting too excited?"
"Are there certain thoughts you can think to hold you back?"
"If you eat more salt in your diet, or don't eat heating food like cooked cereals, will it help?"
But the handling of "good" feelings is very different from the handling of "bad" ones. For one thing, when a youngster feels that we condemn him, his back goes up in protest. This may make him want to get even by going against us and our ideals. He may run wild then, not so much because of the push of sex, but primarily because of the push of hostility and revolt.
Nor are controls and denials the same. Controls provide outlets. Denials do not.
"I got to do something about the sexy feelings. Isn't there anything that's all right?"
"Boys have wet dreams, but what are girls supposed to do?"
Here again we come up against a major complaint. The teen-ager's feelings are natural, yes. But in our society the mating wish is not sanctioned until the boy and girl are old enough to manage economically as well as biologically. What shall they do about the impulses meanwhile? Are there no right-feeling, sanctioned ways of managing them? Are there no legitimate action pathways along which sex urges may seek outlet during the time that it takes to grow up?
"When you're young," says Ned, philosophizing, "they teach you everything except what's most important. I think they ought to have you learn more about what you can do when you feel sexy instead of simply saying, 'Look! Turn it off!' To me that would have a lot more sense than diagraming sentences into grammatical parts."
The teen-ager is seeking new directions, getting oriented to a changing body; looking at creatures of the opposite sex with their changing bodies; visioning ahead to being husband or wife, father or mother, wondering about loving and being loved, not in the way of a child but in more growing-up and grownup fashion; feeling strange, frightened and eager all at once.
As we go on listening at length to our teen-ager's questions we become increasingly aware of what he wants and needs in his sex education. We see many profound and compelling wishes coming through the spoken words.
It's as if he were saying:
Give me facts with clear details, please. But don't stop here! Discuss feelings also. Help me know that my feelings are "good," not "bad." Help me see that I am not "bad" for having them. Let me learn that I have the right to enjoy them. Help me get clear of the fear that they will hurt me. Free me from self-loathing and disgust.
And last but not least:
Help me to know I can control the way I handle these "good" feelings instead of giving me blanket forbiddings and telling me my feelings are "bad" . . .
What we, as parents, do about these things is another story. It will depend on our personal philosophy, on what has gone before in the way of sex education and on how we can learn to build on what already has happened, not only in our teenagers' lives but in our own.
Meanwhile, one point, above others, stands brightly illumined:
For SOUND SEX EDUCATION FEELINGS MUST BE CONSIDERED-not alone facts.
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