sex, sex positive, teenagers

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Last week a friend turned 17. Yeah, I wonder too what's happening when I'm friends with a 17 year old (my nephew is older than she is), but she's a wonderful and unique young woman and I really am honored to call her friend. She wanted to have a party at a local bar and grill that also hosts a great karaoke set-up so we turned out in force to sing for her and celebrate her birthday.

Anyway, what's a birthday without gifts? And I thought long and hard about what to get her. In talking with other friends, I learned two things: she had a boyfriend and also that she has a latex allergy. Hmm, latex allergy. That makes getting condoms problematic since not all drug stores carry non-latex condoms. So, since I needed to go to get more silicon lube (a tragedy since I appear to have misplaced my other bottle), I decided to get her some non-latex condoms. But then there were some sample sizes of lube including flavored ones, plus a sale on a Doc Johnson mini vibe plus lube. And then I was off and running.

Yeah, I gave a 17 year old condoms, a vibrator, and different kinds of lube for her birthday.

Let me back track some as well. My social history is pretty mixed. I was raised Catholic, with conservative and pro-life parents. It's a stretch to say they are many things, but sex-positive is NOT one of them, much loss accepting of the idea of teaching teens anything other than abstinence.  My father's sister (and nursing classmate of my mother)  worked for the State of Kansas as a public health nurse for most of her career. She got to see, up front and center, the manifestations of teenagers having sex without knowing how to be safe about it. Oh, did I mention that my nephew, whom I love and adore beyond all reason, was an "oops?" But, in spite of my past and upbringing, I managed to develop some kind of sex positive attitude along the way. You can't be a self-proclaimed slut and poly and not have an attitude that is at least a little sex positive. And I strive to be sex positive. Anything else is just hypocritical. But more on that later....

Anyway, even though I believe in safe sex, raising sex positive kids, and fostering an attitude of open discourse, actually putting this into practice just felt downright odd. Turns out I needed more time to adjust to this than the lovely birthday girl needed.

She was thrilled with the gifts. Honestly thrilled. Her mom thought they were great, as did the other people who came to the party. And we can all giggle at just how happy her boyfriend was to find out what the gifts were. I think they killed the batteries the first night...