Do you feel you can be open & honest about sex with the older adults in your life?

Primary tabs

Yes, I feel I can be open & honest.
14% (361 votes)
I feel able to be open & honest, but only about some things.
9% (233 votes)
Kind of.
9% (220 votes)
No, I don't feel able to be open & honest.
34% (859 votes)
I feel able to be open & honest with parents/guardians, but not other adults.
3% (65 votes)
I feel able to be open & honest with other adults, but not parents/guardians.
9% (223 votes)
I feel able to be open & honest with some adults, but not others.
10% (263 votes)
I don't want to be open & honest w/adults, so find this irrelevant.
12% (301 votes)
Total votes: 2525

Comments

I mostly just want to be able to talk about sex openly with my peers and especially people I'm romantically interested in. I mean, I know that adults have lots of wisdom to share but...the only relationships I have with adults besides my parents are professional relationships. And my parents NEVER talked to me about sex, so its pretty uncomfortable. They had like 18 years, I feel like at this point, it's pretty clear they don't want to talk about that stuff.

OH WELL.

What about adult doctors, nurses, counselors, etc? Do you feel able to talk to your sexual healthcare providers about sex?

Editor & Founder, Scarleteen: Sex Ed for the Real World
Author, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and Col

yeahh i'd say talking to adult doctors and stuff along that line is ok... i was wondering if u understood that a lot of times with me it depends on the subject AND the adult thats talkin to me.

I hear you. Was just pretty sure the only relationships you have with other adults were not only professional relationships, as most young people have relationships with doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.

Editor & Founder, Scarleteen: Sex Ed for the Real World
Author, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and Col

My vote was for "no, I can't be open and honest". Even with the very few adults with whom I feel comfortable talking about sex, I get the feeling, or even proof, that they just don't want to listen.

I guess most people have trouble when they want to talk about actual or wanted sexual activity. My problem is, when talking about myself honestly, I talk about the absence of sex, which too many adults don't understand.

My mother bugs me constantly about taking contraceptive pills because she is "dead sure" I am having sex with some male friend of mine, and doesn't listen when I tell her she is wrong. She even insists on telling this story of her friend who "got pregnant being a virgin" -no way! she wasn't virgin at all, she had intercourse but didin't get her hymen broken. And she doesn't understand that when I say "I am not having sex with this person" I really mean I am not having any sex other than kissing -or even any sex at all, since she loves to fantasize about any male friend of mine being my romantic and sexual partner.

With my psychologist, other adults and many peers of mine, it happens that, no matter how clear I try to make that not wanting partnered sex and not wanting a romantic relationship are very important parts of who I am, are harmonious with my whole self and life and will most certainly not change, at least in a very, very long time, they keep making comments on "the day I will have sex" or "the time I'll find someone who'll be good for me as a partner" and telling me to give a chance to a relationship with people they guess I might be atracted to.

They just won't listen.

I feel that I can't be honest with my doctor. I always get such negative reactions from doctors, I learn about reproductive health at home and ask them for what I want when I'm there. I don't like doctors reactions to my reproductive health choices (doctors refusing to refill my birth control prescription because I was prone to migraines as a young teen, doctors not wanting to give me more than three months worth of birth control pills at at a time, despite the fact that I was going on a yearlong stay in a country that doesn't prescribe birth control pills, etc. I just say what I have to to get them to give me my birth control pills. I'm not about to get pregnant because some asshole doctor feels he has the right to limit my access to birth control because of some bullshit reason.

My parents raised me spouting that "no sex till marraige" religious jargon for my entire childhood, and after coming out to them as biexual they've woken up to the fact that it's probably not gonna be that way for me, as a good portion of the time the people I'm interested in are ones I can't legally marry. My mother claims I can talk to her about sex, but after listening to all that crap for the first decade and a half of my life I can't believe her. Up until recently she was incredibly judgemental about those who are sexually active.
Now that I've finally become sexually active, I'm not even sure if I'll be comfortable telling that to my doctor at my next checkup. First off, I'm pretty sure she'll assume it's straight sex, which it isn't, and I'm not sure how to tell her that I'm having sex with another woman. It would also mean finding an excuse to visit my doctor on my own, without either of my parents being with me, because I don't want them to know and I think they don't REALLY want to know.

I don't have a conflict with my parents or particular reason for it, but I don't want to talk to them about sex. I would never want to feel like I was hiding having sex from my parents, but the idea of discussing it with them is embarrassing and discouraging to me. I wonder what I would do if I had to introduce the topic to them.

While I feel that I can be open and honest, I feel rather uncomfortable at times openly talking about my sexual encounters, even with a healthcare professional. I was raised in a family where sexual topics (such as masturbation) weren't addressed at all, I got abstinence talks. My family was just somewhat subversive on the issue (I assume that they assumed I was learning everything I needed to know at school, and they always said that I could come to them with questions.) I never came to either parent with questions or opinions about sex.

However, I experienced some abnormalities (which turned out to be nothing) at the gynecologist about a year ago, and I was visibly distressed after. I confessed to my mom about my sexual activity, and she was completely fine with it. I had expected to be punished in some way, but it was quite the opposite. My mom asked me if I was being safe (which I was, BC and condoms or nothing ;) ) and that was the end of it.

We don't talk about sex with one another now, but I know if I contracted an STI or had another issue which I may need moral support with, I could go to her.

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