#40 | Is Your Sex Talk Missing the LGBTQ Perspective? Here’s How Courageous Guidance Fixes That

Welcome to Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child. Filled with awesome guests, practical strategies, and moving stories, host Heather Hester always makes you feel like you're having a cozy chat. Wherever you are on this journey, right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone. And here is Heather for this week's amazing episode. I am both honored and excited to introduce my guest for today, Dr. David Huebner. Dr. Huebner received his PhD in clinical psychology from Arizona State University and his MPH in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at George Washington University. And the co-director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Core at the Washington, D.C. Center for AIDS Research. Prior to joining the faculty at GWU, he was on the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah and in the School of Medicine at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco. His research examines how discrimination from families, Schools and communities impacts HIV risk and other health outcomes among sexual minority adolescents and young adults. Recently, he has been working to design and evaluate interventions to support parents of LGBT youth with the goal of helping parents improve their children's health and well-being. Dr. Huebner is committed to supporting community organizations' efforts to engage in evidence-based practices. He has served on several local and regional HIV prevention community planning groups and was the chair of the national board of directors for the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network that seeks to improve K-12 school experience for sexual and gender minority youth. So without further ado, here is our interview. Thank you so much for being with me today. I am thrilled to have you here. Really excited to have this conversation because this is a conversation that I have not yet had on this podcast, and it's information that I have found that more and more people are wanting and have so many questions about. And just in the past month since you and I talked the first time, I've had people reaching out saying, I need information for my younger kids. How do I talk to them about sexual health in general and sexual health that's more encompassing of all. And, you know, my teen— my young teenagers who have come out, how do I discuss this with them? And what do I need to know? Right? Which are all such great questions. So I've been very excited to talk to you about this because you are, you are the, the go-to guy on this and have done such incredible research on this with people across the nation and, and the world. So Without further ado, if you wouldn't mind just kind of giving a little bit of a rundown on what exactly you do.

Well, I am a clinical psychologist by training, and I am a professor at George Washington University in our Department of Prevention and Community Health. So what I do is I do a combination of teaching and research, mostly research these days focused on understanding LGBT young people's health. And how parents influence their health and what parents can do to influence their health for the better.

That is awesome. And it's so timely and important. And I think I speak for many people when I say thank you for doing that, because it is certainly when your child comes out, when your child lets you know, and as you know, kids are coming out younger and younger. Being able to have this information, to have really good conversations, just solid, here are all the different options of things to think about, is so helpful rather than like, give me 2 days, I'm going to jump on Google, right? Well, it's funny you should mention that.

A lot of parents do that. A lot of parents jump to Google. And what we were finding—

That's what I did.

Yeah. And what we were finding is that there isn't enough for them. And so I should also thank you for being one of the many sources or one of the new sources of information that's been— I've seen, I've met a lot of parents around the country through doing this work who have taken matters into their own hands, kind of like you have, after having struggled with the Google to find what they were looking for. A lot of parents, not a lot, I shouldn't say, but a handful of dedicated, smart, dynamic parents have decided that they're going to do something about it, and I think that's fantastic.

It is, it is. It's important. We all need to support each other and get good information out there, right? Because that's the other thing that we're dealing with. There's a lot of misinformation out there, not, you know, for parents and for kids alike.

Absolutely. And I think that's really the, you know, as a psychologist, part of my training involves understanding that like sometimes when you're doing things that are well-intentioned, Even when professionals are doing things that are well-intentioned, they don't always necessarily help. And in our training as psychologists, we learn that you have to study and research the interventions that you're designing to make sure that they are in fact helping. And there's all sorts of examples. It's interesting. This is a slight digression, but there's all sorts of examples of like really well-intentioned interventions that got picked up and used all over the country, like the D.A.R.E. program for drugs. That actually when they studied it, it didn't change kids' drug use at all. And so that's sort of where I want to contribute to this conversation, not just with you, but more generally in the field, is really trying to create evidence-based guidance for parents, research-based guidance for parents on how to be a better, more helpful parent to an LGBT child.

Thank you. Thank you. Because we need it.

And I'll say, you know, I mean, the work is just beginning. And so the evidence base is, you know, is, it's there, but it's relatively small. And so, um, sure, you know, we're working to build that, but it's still, it's still evolving.

It is. Well, and it, it always will be, right? Because this is, in a lot of ways, it's so new. This, I think, is a fascinating— it's so fascinating to me, and I think super timely. So I want to, before we get into the more general topic of talking about sexual health and how we can talk to our kids and all of these different things. I know you've done a lot of work on HIV specifically, and I think it's important to have a basic foundational knowledge of what HIV is. Don't need to go into the history of it or the, you know, anything, but just to have a basic understanding because again, like all of this, there's a lot of misinformation out there. I think that's— it's good to just clear that up right off the bat before we go into anything else.

Sure. So HIV, of course, stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It's a virus that is sexually transmitted as well as transmitted through sharing needles and through breastfeeding from mother to child. It's, if untreated, leads to disease that we call AIDS, which stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Usually in most people, if untreated, it will cause death in, you know, somewhere between 7 to 12 years. Fortunately, HIV treatments have been evolving very rapidly, and we have outstanding treatments, so it's no longer the death sentence that it once was. And so If someone can get diagnosed with HIV and get into strong medical care and can adhere to their medications, we now know that people can live a lifespan that's almost identical to folks who are living without HIV. So it's not a disease that anyone wants to have to live with for all sorts of reasons. But I think it is important to know that it is something that many people do live long, happy, healthy, fulfilling lives with. That's the big picture of what HIV is.

That is fantastic. And I just have to ask, I know the answer, but I, I want to ask this question because I want everybody to know the answer to this. Sure. Is there a vaccination that will protect you from HIV?

There is no vaccination that protects you from HIV currently. Lots are being researched, but we have none currently.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

We were much better at finding the vaccine for COVID than we have been for HIV.

Yeah, well, you know, the, the focus got shifted a little bit there, right?

Best things you can do to prevent HIV currently are use a condom anytime you have anal or vaginal sex, whether you're the insertive or the receptive partner. The other thing you can do is choose not to have sex. And finally, there is a medication called pre-exposure prophylaxis which is a daily pill that you can take. It's kind of like, I liken it to the birth control pill for HIV. It's a daily pill that you can take. It's about as safe as the birth control pill. And if you take it every single day, it's as or more effective than using condoms.

That's great. Thank you. It's a good way of really just kind of boiling that down and good information for parents to know again. Now, PrEP is something that when we're looking at our kids, you know, our LGBTQ kids specifically, um, is this something that is for both males and females to take? What is— just to kind of clarify that.

That's a great question. PrEP is indicated for anyone, male or female, who is sexually active. Either boys or girls can take it, certainly.

Okay. Thank you. See, again, really great information because I think a lot of times the information out there is that it's only for men, only for boys. That's just, you know, part of the letting people know what is available and how to, you know, educate.

Yeah. And you know that HIV risks are different for the boys and the girls. Sure. And I want to be clear, the HIV risks exist across the board, and there is sort of a myth that young girls who identify as lesbians are not having sex with boys. And what we know is they do occasionally have sex with boys, and so they have sexual health challenges as well. However, fortunately, the girls seem to have much lower risk for HIV infection, that is the lesbian girls. And so it is used— PrEP and other preventative measures are used much more frequently in boys, or they are encouraged more frequently in boys, just because the risk is so much higher for HIV infection.

Right, right. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you for clearing that up. And I think that really goes into talking about why, why and how HIV is really relevant when we talk about our LGBTQ kids, right? And, and educating ourselves on it as well as our kids so they understand what the risks are, but also so that they're not like You know, I think sometimes you get frozen with all of the information, right, that's out there.

Right. So there are two things I think are important for parents to know. One is that the risk of HIV is real. So each year in the United States, we have a little bit less than 40,000 new HIV infections, and those are the ones that are counted and identified. And among those, about 20% of them are in young people. So, people sort of under the age of 24. Of the HIV infections that occur among young people and teenagers, 80% of those occur in gay and bisexual boys. So, 8 out of 10 new HIV infections in teenagers and young adults occur in gay and bisexual boys. So, they are far and away the highest risk group for getting HIV among teenagers and the sort of early 20s. So I want to say that. I think parents— it's important for parents to know that. The other thing that I think it's important for parents to know is that this is not a cause for panic. The risk of HIV, of getting HIV, is actually sort of numerically relatively low, and HIV is highly and easily preventable. And so sometimes, sometimes I worry because parents sometimes fall into one of two camps that, and I think they're both harmful for kids. One is the sort of camp of like, uh, HIV is not a problem, I don't even know what HIV is, I don't need to think about it. Like I think that's not great for kids or for adults.

Correct.

But you can also overcorrect, and we know a lot of parents, particularly newer parents who are newer to the news of having a gay kid, go in the opposite opposite direction of completely freaking out about HIV. And one of the things we hear from kids is that their parents say to them, like, one of the first things some parents say to their children after they come out is like, oh my God, I'm so terrified you're going to die of AIDS. Or all they want to talk to their kid about is HIV because they're so panicked. And I don't think either of those two places is really a healthy place. I think the— go ahead.

No, I just was agreeing with you. No, they're not.

I think, you know, what I really want parents to be aware is that HIV is a real risk. It's something that they need to think about. It's something that they need to talk to their kids about in appropriate ways. And it's not anything that they or their kids need to panic about. It's something that can be prevented very effectively. And if in the unfortunate event that a child does get HIV, it's also something that can be managed with parent support.

Right. And I think that, you know, kind of to that point, and you and I had talked about this just briefly before, which is a lot of us who are parents right now who have kids who are coming out, we grew up in the '80s, right? And so we grew up in the original AIDS crisis when there was such extreme fear, when there was such extreme misinformation and, you know, just misunderstanding and just insanity, right? So we carry that with us and having never fully, you know, most of us didn't ever fully go through the process of really figuring that out or understanding it and understanding the facts. So now here we are 30 years later and we have, you know, kids who are coming out. So that's, you know, anybody who has completely freaked out, it's understandable. You're probably an '80s kid, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So that's why we're doing what we're doing here, because there's no reason to freak out.

Um, exactly, exactly. And, and I think more importantly, like, it's better for our kids if we don't freak out. It's better for our kids if we model sort of a level-headed, mature response to, you know, one of many health challenges that people face during their lives.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's kind of learning that trick of you may be freaking out, do it internally, not to your kid, right? This is not for your kid to handle. They have enough. You keep it like— there's so many times that I've said, oh my goodness, on the inside I was like, oh my gosh, you know, on the outside I'm like, all right, we've got this, this is cool, you know.

Yeah, yeah. When parents— when we, when we talk to parents who are new to the news that their kid is gay and they're struggling with all sorts of things, not just their sexual health, but just like freaking out, one of the things that we say, bits of guidance that we give, is say, you know, express your pain away from your child. Um, yes, you should absolutely express that pain, but you should find appropriate places to do it that aren't— that don't require bringing that to your child.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. I, um, I often refer to that as the, you know, it's okay to mourn your movie reel, but don't mourn it with your kid. It's not, it's not theirs, right? So, um, so I love this. This is just one more piece of this, which is, okay, parents, you've got this. This is good. This is good information. And this is part of your whole educational process, is understanding this so you are able to not only calm yourself but calm your child and really share this very valuable education with them so they can move into their, you know, later teen years, early adulthood, having solid, accurate information. So kind of to that, I'd love if we could talk about why and how parents should think about and talk about their kids' sexual health in kind of a more broad sense. Like, how do we approach this, and what is out there to help us approach this?

I mean, it's a big— that's a big question.

Sorry, we're gonna break it down.

Yeah, let's break it down. I'll start by saying I think one of the first things that I like parents to know. One of the first things I like to say is like, you should start early. We say communicate early and communicate often when it comes to sex. And that is like as early as your kid is curious, which can be, you know, age 5, age 6. There are age-appropriate ways to talk about sex with kids at any age. I have a son who, well, he'll turn 11 next month. But we, I had the first conversation with him. I'll tell you this quick story. We, there was a sex educator who came to our elementary school and met with the parents and said, here are some things that you should be talking to your kids about. And they said you should start early. And if you haven't started yet, you might be too late. And I was like, oh, I can't imagine that I'm too late. Because he was like, 8. So I said to my son, you're going to hear this word, um, and it's sex, and I want you to know that I want to be your source of information about this, and I promise you I will always tell you honestly what things are, but I want you to come to me about it because you're going to hear a lot of like crazy stuff about it. And he like froze and said— ran screaming from the room. Saying, "I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to talk about this," which he doesn't do when I talk about, I don't know, football or some new food that he's never heard of before. And what that told me is that already at age 8, he knew the word and he knew that there was something embarrassing, horrible, terrible about it. Something that would make it like mortifying to have to talk to your father about, right? Even when I brought it up in that very casual way. And, and that to me said that like, I've started too late. Like, I've started too late. Now, that's not to say that if you're a parent of a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old and you haven't started having conversations with your kid about sex, that it's too late or that you messed anything up terribly. But the, the important message, I think, is it's never too early to find age-appropriate ways to start talking about sex and sexuality. So that's the first thing.

Can I just ask a follow-up question to that? Because I feel like this is— this has been coming up a lot recently, um, for me, both with this, this podcast and what I do, and also just with friends, um, that I have you know, in the neighborhood, which is where do we find really good information so that then we can talk to our kids about this? Are, I mean, are there good books out there that we can read with our kids? Are there good websites? Are there, you know, kind of what are our choices of resources for this very young age group?

The person who I love is Debbie Rothman. Um, she is I don't know, she's maybe in her 70s now. But she's written some lovely books about this. And she does public speaking about it. She's like the Dr. Ruth for kids and teenagers.

Love it. There we go. Perfect. We all understand that reference.

Yeah. And I will say, and she's, she is thoughtful about sexuality and kids of different sexual orientations. And at the same time, I do think that there's probably more focused work that parents of LGB kids, particularly the gay and bisexual boys, need to know. And do that isn't exactly covered in her book. So I really love her work for like talking to younger kids. And then as your kid comes out, then there are unfortunately fewer resources, and which is what we're trying to sort of develop and improve. So I can give you some broad guidance here, but I can't point you to like fantastic websites.

Right. Well, that's okay. I mean, whatever, whatever you're willing to share with us is wonderful. And that's what you know, we'll all continue to work toward getting, right?

So I'd say, I'd say I'd recommend Debbie for books for younger kids and how to talk to younger kids. And then I would, if you're just looking for factual information about HIV, the CDC is a really great source, the Centers for Disease Control, and their website, if you Google around their website, you can find really accurate, factual, thoughtful information about HIV. There was a period of time where I think they were a little too conservative. You know, if you, if you read their web materials, you would think that like kissing might give you HIV or oral sex. And they've really sort of taken a much more science-based and less moralistic-based approach to it these days. And so now if you go there, you'll find out just sort of the truth, just the facts.

Just the facts, just the science. I like it. Perfect. Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. That is extraordinarily helpful. When it comes to, you know, really talking with our— I mean, there's so many different kind of subsets here and specific conversations we need to have, right? So let's say I, I have a gay son and my friend has a lesbian daughter and another friend has a bisexual son and So we'll just start with LGB. What are— because I know it gets, you know, very more complicated. We'll start there. What are the different conversations that we can have with our kids?

Yeah, well, I think it also depends on your, on your goals. There's so many different conversations to be had around sexuality. Some are mechanical. Yes. Um, just the simple facts about reproductive health, like how does reproduction occur? What is the sperm? What is an egg? You know, so, and, and kids are receiving different levels of education about those sorts of things in school. Some schools do a really good job and some schools don't. Um, what we have found when we talk to both parents and kids, I will say, is that most parents assume that it's all getting covered in school. And when we talk to their kids, what they say is they learn very little from school, and most of what they're hearing is from their friends. So one thing I tell the parents— say to parents is, um, a lot of parents are like, oh, well, they're getting it at school and I don't need to talk about it, or Oh, I just don't know if he's ready to hear about this yet, or I don't know if I'm ready to talk about it yet. Um, one of the things I say is that you don't have a choice about whether your child learns about sex. The truth is that they are learning about sex every single day, every time they turn on the television, every time they go out with their friends, every time they watch a movie, anytime they listen to music on the radio. They are learning about sex every single day. The only choice that you have is, as a parent, is do you want to be one of the voices in that conversation? Um, so I start there, and then you can think about the different categories of things that people need to know about. Obviously, they need to know about the mechanics. People need to understand how reproduction occurs. The facts. Uh, like I said, sometimes that happens in school, but I don't ever assume that anything is happening in school. Or if it is happening in school, you know what, you can do a job of reinforcing that information, um, as a parent. Again, you want to be a part of these conversations as much as the rest of the world is communicating to your child about these things.

Absolutely.

The other category of conversations is more about sort of relationships and personal decisions about sex. So you understand the mechanics, you know what, you know, you know how the penis works, how the vagina works, you know about sperms and egg, then kids have decisions that they have to make about how sexually active are they ready to be, how comfortable are they being sexual. And parents obviously have feelings about that. And we, you know, and I can't tell parents where they should draw lines with their, for themselves or for their kids. But what I suggest is that you share your perspective with your child openly and honestly. And for some parents, that is, I really believe that sex is something sacred and should be reserved for marriage. For other parents, it's, I believe that sex is something sacred and it doesn't need to be reserved for marriage, but it should be reserved for a special relationship. Other parents have the perspective that, you know, sex can be a recreational activity, that if it's engaged in respectfully with another person, has meaning in that way. And I'm not going to tell any parent where they should be.

Right.

I think it's important, though, that you share your perspective with your kids. And at the same time, if you happen to be one of those parents that— and many parents are— who believe that sex should be saved for either a certain time or a certain kind of relationship, that does not let you off the hook to communicating with your child openly and honestly about the rest of this stuff. And because what we have found is that when parents communicate openly and honestly about sex, their kids are actually more likely to delay having sex than if they don't talk. So that is— there's a lot of research to suggest that talking about sex does not encourage your child to have sex. It actually discourages them from having sex. I think about my son like running, fleeing from me in the room. Like, I think I maybe set him back 5 years. And, you know, if that was my goal, that would be a good thing.

Right?

So talking helps delay sex. And if you happen to be a parent who wants your child to wait, talking about sex is a way to effectively contribute to that. The other thing that I'll say is if you want your child to wait, it does no good to lie or mislead your child in an effort to make that happen. So sometimes we hear parents say slightly outrageous things because they really want their kid to wait. I heard a parent say like, once you have sex, you are chemically bonded to that person for the rest of your life. And, you know, and, and I understand the impulse to want to say that, you know, and I think what that parent was trying to communicate is that sex is something very special and it can create really big feelings in you. And so you want to think carefully about who you share it with. Um, sure, that would be maybe a more honest way to communicate that same thing as opposed to misinformation. Because as soon as your child finds out that you are lying to them about sex, you suddenly will no longer be a credible source of information, right? For anything, for sex or anything. Yeah.

Yes, which is super, super important.

So that's the other thing is, so I say like, it's okay to express your opinion about when is the right time and to have conversations about that. And most importantly, why you feel like it's the right time, not just like, save this for marriage. Tell your kid why you want them to save it for marriage or why you want them to save it for the right relationship. Um, they'll, they'll hear that much better than simply like a rule. Um, For sure. So that's the other thing. Be honest when you're having that kind of conversation. Never lie in order to get your point across.

Right. Oh my gosh, that's so huge. And I think too, you know, when you are— something that I've thought about a lot too is if you don't know, you know, if you are in this conversation and it becomes a back and forth conversation with your child, and which is awesome, right? Uh, to begin with, but if you don't know the answer to something, don't make it up. Just say, I don't, I don't know, and I'll, I'll find out for you. Let me look into that. Give me a day. Um, because, you know, to your point, the minute they find out that you gave them bad information or wrong information, right, it's tough to recover.

Or you can look together for these things. I really think it's empowering to have parents look with kids, look with their kids for this information. Say, like, you know, that's a great question. I don't know that much about how likely HIV is to be transmitted through oral sex. Why don't we research that together? Because then what you're doing is you're teaching your child, you're empowering your child to gather information for themselves when you're not there for them, right? You're modeling that it's okay not to know things and that there are sources of information.

Um, exactly.

I mean, there's a lot of buckets of conversation. One are the just sort of the plumbing and the mechanics, right? The other sort of like values and relationships and right time, knowing the right time. In that bucket, I also consider sort of talking about respect and consent.

Yes.

Those are important topics to cover with a child. The third bucket is sexual health. So whether that be HIV or STDs, and HIV and STD prevention, how do you go about doing that? And that's really sort of been my focus. And then the last one is, and parents oftentimes struggle with this one the most, is talking about sexual pleasure, and how to ensure that when you do have sexual experiences, they're positive ones, both for you and your partner. And again, a lot of parents just sort of assume like, oh, well, my child will figure that out. And it's true, you know, people do eventually figure it out. Most. But again, there are appropriate ways for parents to be a voice in that conversation. So those are sort of the big 4 categories that I sort of think about. There's a lot to unpack within each of those, I know.

I was just going to say, yeah, there's— I have like a million follow-up questions just spinning through my head right now.

If I were going to focus in, honestly, so if I were— because the risk for HIV is real, And I think some of this will apply to the bisexual girls and some to the lesbian girls. But I think that's maybe where we could spend a little bit of time talking about what can parents do to support their kids around HIV, because that's also, I think, the thing that parents— parents understand sexual pleasure themselves. Like, you know, parents, everyone's— if you have children, you've generally been sexually active yourself. And so you may not be great at talking about it, but you know a thing or two about it just inherently. Whereas the place where I think parents are most off their footing is when they have to talk to their kids about things that they haven't experienced personally. And again, for most heterosexual parents, that's sort of living among HIV and understanding gay sex and how gay sex contributes to HIV. And what can our young gay and bisexual sons do to prevent HIV? And so that might be a useful place to sort of focus.

Let's spend a little time there. Yes, I think that's a good idea.

I think there are a couple of important things for parents to understand, um, and for kids. One is HIV is real, and it's something that is easily preventable. And what I tell people is that if you use a condom every time, from start to finish, anytime you're having anal or vaginal sex, You will not get HIV from sex. That's a little different than you'll read on most official sites. For a long time, a lot of parents were like, well, what about kissing? And for a long time, it's hard to get any doctor to say like, well, it's impossible from kissing. It's not. It's almost impossible from kissing. And so like functionally, we don't need to worry about kissing.

Right. Right.

And I think giving people permission to do certain things makes it easier for them to follow the basic recommendations that they need to follow in order to keep themselves safe. So kissing is not something to worry about with respect to HIV. Oral sex is not really something to worry about when it comes to HIV. Is there a small theoretical possibility that it could be transmitted through oral sex? Yes. But that's so small that telling people that they need to avoid oral sex completely or use condoms for oral sex is it's— it probably does more harm than good, right? Because then kids think like, well, that's unrealistic, or that's terrible. So I'm just going to forget all of what you've told me.

Right.

I think if we give them a few manageable recommendations, it's much more easy for them to sort of digest and swallow that and say, like, oh, I can do that. I can do that. So the simple recommendation is if you use a condom, Every time, from start to finish, for anal or vaginal sex, you will not get HIV.

Um, solid.

Now, how do you help your child do that? There are a few things. One, most kids don't know how to use condoms. We don't come out of the womb knowing how to use condoms, and we certainly don't come out of school in most cases knowing how to use condoms.

Correct.

And so teaching your child the proper way to apply a condom and to use a condom is really important. There are different ways you can do it. You can find websites that will show you how to do it. If you Google on YouTube, or I think YouTube is a reasonable source, you can generally find links to videos. And so you can watch the video yourself. You can just show the— share the video with your child. What I think is the best thing to do is to actually get a banana or cucumber or any phallic-looking object in your home and get a condom and actually do a condom demonstration with your child. Most of the parents I talk to have a little moment of panic when I suggest that, And once they do it, they realize that it is not nearly as big a deal as they thought it was going to be.

Right.

And, and have your child practice it with you, because we know that that is the most effective way to build a skill, is to actually practice it. So, and you know this from doing all sorts of things. You didn't learn to drive by having someone explain to you how to drive, right?

Exactly.

You learned to drive by getting a learner's permit and practicing and doing it. And so there are ways, appropriate ways, to practice condom use with your kids. So that's one thing. Love it. The second thing that we know that kids need in order to use condoms is access to condoms. One, kids find that condoms are expensive. Two, depending on where they live and where they go to school, there may or may not be free sources of condoms for them. But generally, getting access to condoms is not as easy as adults think. And so I recommend one of two things, either buying a box of condoms and giving it to your child. Again, this is not the same thing as telling your child, I expect you to have sex.

No, it's not. And I think that's super— I'm so glad you said that, because that's kind of a an old limiting belief, right, that people are just— that fear. So thank you.

Yeah, and I— and the way that I frame it is, is, um, you're— you can continue to communicate, I hope you'll wait, I hope you'll wait. And I also want you to have these because there might be a time when you need them, and it might not even be a time that you need them personally, but there might be a time when a friend needs them or somebody else nearby needs them.

Right.

And it's important that you have access to these. And I still hope you'll wait. If that's your, if that's your, if that's your desire, and there's no evidence that providing your child with condoms makes them want to run out and have sex. Again, think about that. Having a conversation with your kid about sex does not make sex appealing to them.

No, I was just gonna say it makes them kind of run the other direction. Like, oh my gosh, right?

Exactly. Exactly.

At any age. Yes.

And the better— an even better approach, I think— so one is to just go buy them and hand them to them. But really what you want is you want your child to have the capacity to do this for themselves when they need to, or when their friend needs them to. And what we know is that kids are embarrassed to buy condoms. Of course they are. And so what I recommend is take your child to the store and have them buy condoms with you. And let them see that, like, it's not, you know, there's a little moment of embarrassment, but they can survive it. And they'll also learn then that, like, nobody asks them questions about it, that the clerk isn't going to ask for ID and sort of all these sort of things that they're afraid of. They learn by doing it that, like, okay, this is manageable. I've got this. And then when they need to buy them for themselves someday down the line, they'll be that much better equipped to do it.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So knowing how to put on a condom, knowing how to get condoms, and then the third thing that I want parents to do with their, uh, gay and bisexual sons in particular is help them get an HIV test, whether this is their first test or their 10th test. Um, It's important that parents help their kids in all sorts of ways learn to access the healthcare that they need for themselves. So we take our kids to the dentist every 6 months, right? Parents of young girls know that at a certain age they take their daughter to the gynecologist. We take the— our children to their pediatricians.

Exactly.

Getting an HIV test every year or 6 months is CDC recommended for gay and bisexual boys, um, once they become sexually active. And so it's important that you help your son learn how to do that so that he's able to start doing it at the time that he needs to. And the best way to do that is to work with your son to find a local clinic that does HIV testing, make an appointment and take your son and go get tested. And I actually recommend that parents get tested with their kids to sort of demystify the process so that their kids be like, look, this isn't that big a deal. My mom's doing it too. It's just a natural thing that adults do.

Absolutely. I think that's— thank you, thank you, thank you. And I think, you know, at the very basics, we should be doing that with our, our sons. But one thing that I've learned along the way here is You know, when, when our boys get old enough to make that switch from a pediatrician to, you know, their adult doctor, finding an adult doctor who works with gay and bisexual men, who works with this community, um, in whatever capacity, but who understands their— who they're working with, right? And, you know, living in a more metropolitan area, we're lucky to have access to that. I am also fully aware that many communities do not have that. So at the very basics, you know, getting, getting tested, understanding that that is available to you and super, super important, and understanding the questions to ask.

And, and I will say a lot of parents will ask, well, they'll say, well, my child isn't sexually active, so I don't think they need to do this yet. And the thing that I say is that you're simply building a skill. Mm-hmm. And you're building a skill so that they know how to do it whenever the time comes that they are sexually active. The other thing that I'll tell parents is that many of us think we know when our kids are sexually active, but we don't. And so a lot of the families that I talk to, a parent will say like, well, I think I know, and I don't think he's sexually active yet. And then when we interview the son, separately. He tells our, you know, young, cute research assistant, he'll, he'll say like, no, I am having sex with my boyfriend, or with, you know, I did have sex that one time. And so that's the other reason that I tell parents to do it is maybe your child is sexually active, maybe they're not, maybe you're aware, maybe you're not. But it's important to build this skill regardless, so that they can start doing it whenever the time comes that it's necessary for them.

All right. Well, and the last thing you want for your child is to have to do something like this in a moment of crisis or a moment of panic. Neck, right?

Absolutely.

Let them build it so it's just part of their, you know, self-care routine. Like you said, they get their teeth, they go to the dentist, they go to the, the doctor, they get their blood work done. This is all just part of taking care of yourself.

Absolutely. And there are different places to do it. I generally recommend a clinic just because they do HIV testing all day, every day.

Sure.

And so they're usually really well equipped well equipped to give your child and you a good experience.

Right.

Pediatricians are variable. So a lot of pediatricians are not well equipped to do sexual health stuff, particularly around HIV. And so sometimes pediatricians will say like, well, why would I need to do that? And that— it's, it's, it's less and less common, but it's— I've heard enough of those stories now that make me think that, like, if you know your pediatrician and you know they're all over this, if they're one of those pediatricians that talks to your kid about sex and has a really open relationship, and I mean, you sort of have a sense for that, then by all means, have your child get their first HIV test with their pediatrician. Um, but generally, because pediatricians are a little bit more variable, I suggest doing it somewhere else. The other reason I suggest doing it somewhere else is that that's also more likely what your child is going to do going forward. They're not going to have their pediatrician with the drafts on the wall for the rest of their lives. They're going to have to learn to do this in another setting. And so a clinic is generally a good place, like, like a clinic that does HIV and STD testing, like free testing.

Right, exactly. And that's, and that is easy, you know, much easier to find as well, you know, Google and find. It's available almost anywhere. So that is it, you know, you may have to drive a little bit depending, but that's okay, that's okay and well worth it. I actually want to circle back. I— so Connor is my son who is out, and he came out when he was, um, 17, 16, goodness. But we had had, you know, the talk, right, when he was 13. And, you know, coming from a very conservative background, this was that this was the age, right? You know, all your friends talk about it. I'm sure many people out there, people out there can kind of, are gonna giggle because this is what you talk with your girlfriends. Who's gonna do the talk? Is it, you know, are you doing it? Is your husband doing it? How do you do this? What do you say? Right? So, you know, in our particular situation, my husband was like, I'll laugh, I can't do it. I'm like, fine. I'll, I birthed this child, I can do this, right? So So we'd have this conversation and we'd laugh about it now, but it, we, you know, I took him out to dinner and we were talking about all these different things, right? And I just kind of laid it out there like, this is how reproduction works. This is, these are the different things that as you are getting older, you are going to, to need to know, right? And, um, of course now we laugh because I gave him the straight talk and I was like, was my talk that bad? Like, Is it really that bad? Right. You know, he laughs about it because he's like, mom. But I think, oh my goodness, so many of us are doing that. And we're not saying here are all of the different options, right? Here is what you need to know just in general. And I think, you know, parents are starting to do this. Schools are starting to do this, but not enough. And, and so how, how do we do that? How do we, you know, have the talk with our kids at a much earlier age, giving them all of this information, right? Someday you might fall in love with a woman. Someday you're going to have a crush on a girl, or you might have a crush on a boy. And, you know, or both, you know. How do we do that?

Yeah, so I have so many thoughts here. One is I— this— that phrase, "the talk," I want it stricken from the— I want it stricken from the vocabulary of sexual health with kids in general, regardless of their sexual orientation. The idea that this should be one talk Now, first of all, I take my hat off to parents who have any conversation with their kid about sex, because if you're having a conversation with your child about sex, you are doing more than so many families are, and that is wonderful. So this is not meant to be critical. And at the same time, as I've alluded to, there are so many conversations, so much material that needs to be covered. Imagine saying that I'm going to have— I'm going to imagine if you have a religious faith that you want to communicate with your child, communicate to your child. Do you have the talk about God? The singular talk about God? No, it's something you go to church every Sunday. It's something that you— it's something— it's important to you.

And so it's a daily conversation, right?

It's a part of your life. It is a part of your life. Now, I don't know that sex needs to be a conversation that you have every single day. Like, if you're the family that prays at dinner, I don't think you need to pray and then say like, "Hey, let's talk about sex." But my point is that this is— no one conversation is nowhere near enough. And the research shows that the more frequently we have these conversations, the easier they become for families, and the more that kids learn and internalize them. So I want— like, this is not the talk. This is ongoing conversation with your child about sex and sexuality. So that's the first thing, because it's just too much pressure. Like, one dinner? How do you cover all this in one dinner?

Well, you don't. I mean, that's part of what we laugh about now, right? And, and I mean, to so many of your points, and I think this is where it's very frustrating, and this is where I know you're working to get this out so people hear it and understand it, but I am as well, because So many of us just didn't know any better, right? Like, that's what we knew. So how do we get this out there so people are like, oh my gosh, I need to be talking to my child starting at, you know, birth, right? I mean, really, so it just becomes like a conversation that you have, just like you're teaching them how to tie their shoes, and, you know, when they're 15, how to drive a car, and how to read, and how to sex just becomes a conversation like all of those things.

Yeah. And what I recommend is that you find opportunities to bring it up in little bits. And I know this isn't answering your, your first question about how do you talk about these things expansively, but I think this is the foundation, is that you have to talk about them frequently, and then that gives you the opportunity to talk about them expansively and inclusively. So for example, after the first time that I traumatized my son And he ran screaming away from me. I gave him an inclusive definition of sex that was age-appropriate, which I stole from that author that I referenced earlier. But what I said to him is, this is what sex is. Sex is when two people hug and kiss and bring their bodies together in ways that make them feel good.

Wow.

Notice there's no mention of gender there, right? There's no mention of specific activities. There's no mention of reproduction because there are all sorts of sexual activities that don't result in reproduction. It was simply an expansive, inclusive definition. And again, he freaked out. So I offered him that, and he, and he was literally running through the house away from me. And then like 2 months later, we were with some friends at their house and their like 20-year-old daughter made some comment about sex, just some sort of, you know, as it comes up. And she said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry." Because she had said the word sex in front of my son who was 9 at the time, maybe. And I said, "It's okay. He knows what sex is." Buddy, do you want to say what sex is? And, you know, and there are a couple of us in the room and he looked at me and he rolled his eyes. But you know what he said to me? He's like, well, it's like when two people hug and kiss and bring their bodies together in ways that make them feel good.

I was like, oh my gosh, you—

that's the quote. That's the money definition. Like, one, so two things that taught me, two things. One is he had heard me, which is, I think, a really important lesson for parents to learn. Like, even when your child is rolling their eyes at you walking away from you, whatever, they hear you. Whatever the reaction. And if their reaction is really terrible, that really means that they heard you. Because if they don't have any reaction, that's the sign that they didn't hear you.

Exactly.

So the first thing was that he had heard me. The second thing was I was creating an opportunity to have another, like, and that we didn't go into it deeply. It's okay. You can say that in front of him, buddy, what is it? And everyone in the room was like, wow, that's great. That's really impressive. And that was the end of that conversation. And what he learned was like, look, I know something about this. Now when we watch TV together and something about sex, like there's like a little joke about sex or something, he'll ask me, he'll be like, was that— what does that mean? Or what is that? You know, like we're watching Modern Family together now, occasionally. And, you know, and it's funny, it's been, you know, a decade since I watched the show, but It's a very sweet family-oriented show, and they have little, just little hints here and there of adult humor that sometimes goes over kids' heads and sometimes it doesn't. And, or sometimes they're, you know, he asks a question about it, and so I've just started giving him very honest answers. And so like those tiny little touch points build a foundation for bigger conversations. And the other day we had a bigger one, and he said to me, he asked me He said to me, he said, Dad, I like, I know that there's sperm and egg because he had learned about that from like the chicken lesson at school. He's like, I just don't understand how they come together. Like, how do they, how does it get from one place to the other? And it wasn't this, this is the child that had been running screaming like a year earlier away from me because we had laid this foundation of having little conversations. He was able to come to me and ask that question. And I gave him the very honest answer. At that point, I was like, he's, you know, he's 10 years old now. And I said, I think it's okay for— I think he's ready to— he's asking. And so I explained to him that the penis fits into the vagina, kind of like a Lego.

Brilliant.

Yes. The sperm comes out of the penis and travels through the vagina up into the uterus and the fallopian tubes, and that's where it finds the egg. And he was kind of like, oh, okay. And he had a few other questions, um, but it was very, a very low-key conversation, not very emotional at all. And so again, I think by having lots of little ones, you lay the foundation for being easier and then for having more expansive conversations. Exactly.

Well, takes the scariness out of it, I think, for everybody.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the conversations that we need to have with our kids about sex and sexuality apply to everyone regardless of their sexual orientation. So if you happen to have a gay son who never in his life is going to be sexually active with a woman, he's one of those gay kids that just is like, he is committed. And, you know, on the scale he is 100% gay. That child still needs to understand the basics of reproduction, not necessarily because he's going to try to have a child himself, or not necessarily because he's at risk of making somebody pregnant, but simply because that is an important part of life and biology. And so the fact that you had a conversation with your son about that is not at all a wasted conversation. It's a valuable conversation.

Well, I think it is very valuable. And I think what we, we laugh about is that I did such a bad job. Like, it was so scary to him that he was like, I never ever want to do that. Like, that sounds pretty awful, Mom. Wow. So, and I think coming from a place, and this is why, you know, I brought it up because I, as we, things are shifting so much in a lovely way, right? And I think our kids will do a far better job of this than we have. Um, But I still think that we can improve upon it now as parents. So that's where I kind of come at this as, okay, I walked into this having no idea, you know, what to do. So completely sheltered, so completely just in so many ways just did not even know the information that was available to me and what was right, what was wrong, where to find it. And I know I'm not alone in that. You know, I'm 5 years into this journey now and I've uncovered a lot, but that's because I'm— that's who I am as a person, right? So I want to provide this to people who are, you know, in that same position where they're like, oh, well, this is a good idea. Like, that makes a lot of sense to have 100 small talks instead of one big scary talk that I fight with my husband over having, right? Yeah.

I think that like, I think having lots of little talks and I think also recognizing that like in terms of inclusivity, almost all of the conversations that you need to have really apply to both, apply to children of any sexual orientation. I, you know, when we think about those buckets, there's sort of the mechanics, the mechanics, you know, or the mechanics of reproduction. That's an important conversation regardless of child's sexual orientation. Values about when is the right time to have sex, how do you know if you're ready, what kind of relationship do you want to have with the person that you're having sex with or being intimate with, that applies to everybody. Understanding HIV and STDs, of course, we know that the boys are a little bit higher risk, but that applies to everyone. You want to talk to your daughters about that as well, and you want to talk to your heterosexual kids about that as well. And then pleasure. How to have sex, how to have, how to be decent at sex. You know, again, if you're ready for that conversation, that's the kind of conversation that is not specific to somebody of one sexual orientation or another. I think the only really specific conversation, one of the things that we've learned, we, and this surprised me, we were talking to a group of teenage boys, and we said, what do you want your parents to know about sex? Like teenage— these are teenage gay boys, gay and bisexual boys. What do you want your parents to know about sex? And a lot of it was stuff that didn't surprise me at all. One thing they told me surprised me, and what they said was, I want them to understand more about anal sex. And I thought, oh my gosh, you want your parents to understand more about anal sex? Why is that? And they said two things. One is they said, because if I have questions, I want to be able to ask them, which is a little surprising to me. Yes, because they, they're struggling to find information about it. And the second thing is that they said is, I want— the more sort of the kids who had more experience said, I want them to understand that it's not horrible. I want them to understand that it's pleasurable. I, when I heard that, I kind of got chills. And I thought to myself, I was like, wow, that is, that, those are really important things that parents probably should understand. And so when we do education with parents, we teach them sort of the basics of how anal sex works, because not all parents have their own experience with it. Some do and some don't. And by teaching them that, they can become a resource for their kids. But they also just sort of breathe a little sigh of relief, they relax a little bit when they think about their child, particularly their gay or bisexual son being intimate in that way.

For sure.

We could talk more about that if you want to, or we can just leave it at that.

Well, I think that's— no, I'm glad that you shared that because I do think that is one of those, you know, unspoken curiosities, right? Like, I don't really understand how this works, but I How do I ask? And, and certainly to hear this feedback from boys, right, from gay and bisexual boys, that this is what they want their parents to know, just further solidifies that this is really important information to understand and to, like, so much of this, like, demystify it, right?

I really appreciate you doing this for parents, like, talking about all of the different things that you talk about it. So like you said, the resources are not plentiful, and the more different ways we have to get this information out there, the better. And, um, so that's why I'm so grateful to parents like you who do this kind of work, and that's why I'm always willing to chat. So feel free to reach out.

I absolutely will. I so, so appreciate your time and, um, just your conversation and your ease of being able to share all of this. So thank you. Thank you.

Of course.

Thanks so much for joining Heather today. Remember to just breathe. Take a few minutes every day to calm and center yourself. Reach out anytime with ideas, questions, or feedback. Please rate and review Just Breathe on your favorite platform. Subscribe to Heather Hester's website, www.chrysalismama.com. To receive her monthly newsletter and stay informed. Join the private Just Breathe Facebook community to chat with other parents and allies, and share with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone.