Sex, Gender, and Reproduction
I haven't really grouped these books before, but these seemed like a useful resource to have in one place. Why are sex, gender and reproduction so often nesting together? In some ways they have little to do with one another, but here they are, friends again in my email newsletter. Why is sex so hard to talk about with our children? Only about a million reasons. Trauma, patriarchy, sexist, ableist, homophobic and racist messages we have internalized or which are ongoing externally all play a role. My favourite definition of sex comes still comes from a young adult novel by the largely forgotten genius Norma Klein. To paraphrase, sex is just a particular way of expressing love for someone. Whether that feeling endures for five minutes or the rest of your lives, sex educators have long talked about sex as one form of communication among many.
Tell Me About Sex, Grandma
by Anastasia Higginbotham
By Anastasia Higginbotham, Tell Me About Sex, Grandma is the most skillful book I have seen that talks about sex for young children. It manages to touch on masturbation, sex for pleasure, and consent all in the same book. Of course, an inability to talk about sex for pleasure as well as the practicalities of sex of course have long shown to have detrimental effects. Many parents might talk to preteens or teens about sex for pleasure, but have difficulty dealing with early childhood sexuality. This book can facilitate those conversations in a helpful way. Defining sex as "a thing with bodies. Moving so it feels good. By yourself or with someone" refuses the distinction between sex with a partner and sex with yourself. Higginbotham both destigmatizes masturbation and refuses the notion that "sex is for making babies" – that queerphobic, anti-pleasure, untrue staple of early childhood sex education. It also explains that masturbation should be in private without shame, and it explains about consent through the analogy of food. "You get to choose whether to do it. Same goes for everyone. You choose for you. They choose for them." As the book suggests, just like asking somebody would they like more to eat, some people will want more, some will not. It also skillfully explains that sometimes your voice may not be able to find the words, and in this case, to "pay attention to your body." This book even manages to talk about consent and cuddling your pet, as Higginbotham describes how the body language of even our pets can give us cues as to whether they would like more or less petting, reminding all of us that we are learning about wordless forms of consent all the time. Finally, Higginbotham manages to investigate the nuances of early childhood sexuality while drawing hard boundaries like "no sex, ever, with kids.” As she reminds kids: “It's harmful. It's against the law. And anyone who tells you different is lying". In short, this book does all the things and does them skillfully and well. (Although I confess I hate the title, the book is nuanced, gentle, important and necessary). I won't cite the million studies that say that more, not less, sex education protects all of our children from violence, because this is not that kind of newsletter. However, the research is in, and this is true. I understand, share, and have compassion for how difficult these subjects may be to broach with our children. If you choose only one book, this is the one.
OLDER CHILDREN: For older children who can read, particular older cis boys, I recommend Respect: Everything a Guy Needs to Know About Sex, Love and Consent by Inti Chavez. For all kids, I recommend the funny and smart graphic novel on vaginas and vulvas, Fruit of Knowledge by Liv Stromquist. For all kids on sex (but particularly cis and trans girls), I recommend: How to Have Feminist Sex: A Fairly Graphic Guide by Flo Perry. For all older kids (pre-teens/teens), I also love Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. And I also like this website with videos on everything from masturbation to healthy relationships (www.amaze.org – more for preteens and teenagers). For a book that makes you feel good about your body, I love The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor – a good anti-diet Black feminist guide to loving your body right now as it is, and good for anyone going through puberty, or anyone living under white supremacist patriarchy, so, everyone).
What Makes a Baby
by Cory Silverberg
If you just want to talk about how babies come to be, whether with donor sperm, a heterosexual couple, or the range of queer/trans families, this is the book for you. This book explains that some people have bodies with a uterus in them, some bodies do not. Similarly, some bodies have sperm, some have eggs, and when the two get together, they do a special kind of dance that makes an embryo. The book reviews that babies can be born by vaginal delivery or by caesarian, and just normalizes that reproduction is not just about one cisgender man and one cisgender woman making a baby because they love each other very much. My youngest son loves it, it’s skilful. What Makes a Baby is short, easy to read, and the illustrations are fun and somehow uplifting. It really updates another book (that I also like) on reproduction that many of us remember from our childhoods (It’s Not the Stork). (What Makes a Baby also translated into multiple languages if Spanish or Swedish are better for your family). For a more complete version of this book for older children, I highly recommend a book a colleague in psychology recommended to me, Sex is a Funny Word. Sex is a Funny Word is long and somewhat boring, but it still does a great job of talking about the names of all of our parts (it suggests the term middle parts instead of private parts because they are found in the middle of our bodies) and talks more about crushes and sex. It is beautifully illustrated by the same illustrator as What Makes a Baby.
Who Are You: The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity
by Brook Pessin-Whedbee
I’ve mentioned this book before, but it’s pretty great. It can be for very young children because it’s short and not at all boring. It notes that when babies are born, grownups make guesses about their gender based on looking at their bodies. And yet, the author reminds us that only you can say who you really are, because “you are the one who knows you best.” Kids like the two pages of pictures where you can choose what you like from a toy shelf of toys (my sons: trucks, airplanes, and a toy giraffe) as well as a page of clothes where kids can choose what they would like to wear. It explains the difference between cisgender and transgender (when someone’s identity matches their sex assigned at birth, or when it doesn’t) but it reminds all of us that there are many genders, not just two. It also reminds all of us (including the annoying parent outside an old daycare my son attended talking about how he wouldn’t let his son wear nail polish) that “there are lots of ways to be a boy. There are lots of ways to be a girl. There are lots of ways to be a kid.” I remind one of my sons of this when he tells me that boys don’t wear pink. I find it a useful, light, non-shaming line. It’s true, there’s lot of ways to be a girl. It’s good for all of to remember, isn’t it? I told myself this just last night when I didn’t feel butch enough in my homemade dress. Honestly. When does it end.