6 tips for using sexual health themed books with your child
Using books can jump-start conversations with your child.
Using books can jump start conversations with your child.
Read the book before sharing it with your child. Understand what content is there.
Especially with younger child, reading the book together may be the way to go. This will allow you to filter information, give alternate language and answer immediate questions as you read.
Feel the freedom to read parts of a book together at one point and leave other parts for later. There may be parts you want to leave out altogether.
If you give your child a book, HAND it to them. Please don’t just leave it for them to randomly find. You want to communicate your comfort and availability in being their primary source of sex education.
Follow up so that you can answer questions and initiate discussion. Even if they do not come to you and ask--YOU initiate follow up conversation.
No book is perfect. No parent is perfect. We are not trying for perfect. Our goal is to do the very best we can to give the right information at the right time.
Learn more:
Letter to parents
Conversations starters for parenting partners
My child is starting sex ed at school. Send help!
Why Sex-Ed Really Matters
Mother/Daughter Interview
Less Shame. More Sex Ed
Childhood sexual abuse prevention: 2 tools for parents
Book Review: 'She Comes First' by Ian Kerner
Witty and easy to follow, ‘She Comes First’ is filled with lots of solid information about female anatomy and sexual pleasure, and whole lot about oral sex!
‘She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman’ is written to men, but is a great all around read for women and couples together. Witty and easy to follow, it is filled with lots of solid information about female anatomy and sexual pleasure, and a plethora about oral sex!
Kerner, a sex therapist, acknowledges that most men are “ill-cliterate,” and with this book provides simple language for every man to get better acquainted with the female clitoris. As he states, “this book is not anti-intercourse, but rather pro-”outercourse,” which goes along with his statement that “oral sex isn’t just foreplay, it’s coreplay.”
I recommend couples read this book together and discuss it along the way. Learn something new, try something new and have lot’s and lot’s of fun conversation along the way!
Here’s an excerpt I like from Kerner in answer to the number one question sent in to him by women:
”What can I do to have an orgasm during intercourse?”
"Here's a simple answer: Don't have intercourse.
Or at least make it part of the larger event and not the event itself...
When we know how to recognize and navigate the process of female sexual response, when we understand the role of the clitoris in stimulating that process, then sex becomes easier, simpler, and more rewarding, and we're impelled to create pleasure not just with our penises, but with our hands and mouths, bodies and minds. In letting go of intercourse, we open ourselves up to new creative ways of experiencing pleasure, ways that may not strike us as inherently masculine, but ultimately allow us to be more of a man. Sex is no longer penis-dependent, and we can let go of the usual anxieties about size, stamina, and performance. We are free to love with more of ourselves, with our entire self."
Note: This blog includes affiliate links from Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn money from actions readers take on these links, such as a click or purchase. However, this is a book that I recommend fully and have purchased myself.
