========================================================================== The Birds and the Bees by J.H. Loux Spring, 1991

Copyright (c) 1991 by J. H. Loux

"Kristin?"

"Yes, Dad?"

"I'd like to talk to you about a few things..."

That's how it began, innocently enough. A talk between a father and his daughter about what has to be one of the more fundamental and important aspects of her life. Her body. Or what it is about to become as puberty wracks her youthful frame, turning it inside out, shaping, twisting, molding,... and turning it into a woman. So how do I prepare her for so traumatic and monumental an occurrence? Why is it so difficult for parents to talk to their children about sex?

I knew that she had already learned a great deal from her friends, so I was spared of the burden of going over the graphic details. After I asked her a few pointed questions, I determined that she already understood the basics. What are the sexual organs, male and female. What is ovulation, intercourse, fertilization. How does it happen.

This was the basic stuff, as well as an understanding of the complexity and the care and hygiene requirements of the female body. She understood that she was in for a lot of changes. She understood that some of it was uncomfortable and that it was going to hurt, too. Good. She new the basics. She knew a little of what to expect. So far, my job was easy.

The conversation grew more comfortable. We talked a little bit about sexual diseases, pregnancy, and contraceptives. We talked about promiscuity and dating, peer pressure and sexual experimentation. She asked me a few questions that showed me that she was very curious about this topic. She had even been reading condom boxes in the pharmacy! They are curious at that age and we, as parents, should be the ones satisfying that curiosity.

So I said, let's talk a little bit more about something else. Let's talk about relationships. You're going to be entering into many relationships as you grow up. Friendships, casual dates, a steady, classmates, your parents, other adults, teachers. These will all have different places in your life. Obviously, not all will have sexual dimensions, but they will all be a part of life. You should know what to expect.

You will be under a lot of pressure to have a sexual relationship to some degree with a boy. When you are a little older, I won't be able to tell you what to do. It will no longer be my right to command you in regards to what to do if I do not first command your respect. When you go from young girl to young woman your body will be your own and I will have less and less right to tell you how to use it.

I don't want to exercise my authority as a father and say, absolutely not! You must not experiment with sex! I am afraid that if I do that, I will only drive you away and you will be afraid to talk to me about it. You will think that sex is dirty or naughty. Something that makes people uncomfortable. But in your heart you will know that it is wonderful, anyway. I don't want to alienate you at the very moment when you are confused and most in need of advice. I want you to be able to talk to me about your temptations and your feelings when you are older and I don't think you will trust me if I try to tie your hands just as they are learning to flex.

You know that the Church teaches that men and women should not have sex until they are married. That doesn't mean that sex is so bad that it has to be confined, like a prisoner that must be segregated from the rest of society and locked up within the iron bars of an old tribal ritual. The Church realizes that sex is a powerful and wonderful thing. It is so good that it can hurt people a great deal if misused.

Sex within marriage only is a good ideal. But it doesn't always work out that way. You may decide to experiment with your sexuality early. You my want to go a little way. Experiment a little. You will be fascinated by the charm and attraction of boys. There is nothing wrong with this. However, before you do, I just want to make sure that you understand something about yourself. Sex is bigger than just affection. Sex is more than just caresses. Sex is a relationship. A relationship that involves all of you.

Imagine that your entire personality is a house. There is a nice white picket fence around your yard with a gate and a walkway leading up to your front door, which is closed and locked. The lawn is green and carefully trimmed. There are hedges, flower beds along the walkway, flower boxes under the windows and curtains in the windows. Everything is clean, orderly, and secure. Inside, you have various rooms: kitchen, dining room, playroom, den, bedroom. You have secret closets and libraries full of books. Studies and solariums, studios and sun parlors. Around every corner is another surprise.

Now, you wouldn't build a stone wall a hundred feet tall around your house, with barbed wire along the top and an alligator mote dug around the outside. Nor would you have no fence, no curtains in the windows, no sidewalk, and a door that was always open. Your house would have certain boundaries clearly marked.

When someone comes to visit you, you expect them to open the front gate, which is always unlocked, walk up the path, and knock at the door, waiting respectfully and patiently until you open it. You would not appreciate a visitor who would jump over your fence, trample your flower beds, stomp across the lawn, dig their elbows into your flower boxes and bang on the windows while trying to peek through the curtains! No. You expect certain signs of respect and courtesy from your guests. This is called healthy boundaries. This is called self respect.

You will not allow someone to trample your property. So don't allow them to trample your body or soul, either. No one should violate your emotional space or overstep your personal boundaries without invitation. You have a right to your space.

And just because someone knocks at your door does not mean that you have to give them your whole house, either. Some people, such as the encyclopedia salesman, you may ask politely to leave right away. Or, you may ask them in, but only into the kitchen and only for a little while. When you say it is time to leave, you expect them to go. One of your friends may be welcome into your kitchen, and into your dining room and play room, as well. But even they must walk on the sidewalk and knock on the door.

Some of your special friends you may even invite into your cellar or up into your attic where you store all of your private thoughts, special memories, glorious triumphs, cherished dreams, and deep, deep secrets. But not just anyone can see those.

Some of your relationships will be superficial. These are people you speak to through your front door: sales clerks, gas station attendants, people on the phone, colleagues at work. You only get so close to people like this. Other relationships will be a little more involved. Friends at work or school may be welcomed into your den or your playroom. Or maybe your study or library. But there will still be closed doors where they are politely not welcomed.

Other relationships, people who have earned your respect and whose respect your have earned, will have more freedom in your house and will be welcomed into more rooms. They will begin to get familiar around your house and you will begin to treat them like they belong there. Like part of your family.

And there will be only certain special people that you allow into you bedroom.

A good friendship, like a good love relationship, is one where you allow someone else to hold your heart in their hand and where they allow you to hold their heart in your hand. These are the people who will share some of your more weighty secrets and talents, and who will behold your tenderness and vulnerability. These are people who potentially have more power over you, power to encourage and strengthen, as well as power to hurt and let down. Good friendships of this level have to be cultivated and worked on. This kind of love never happens at first sight.

Good relationships never live happily ever after, either. You have to work at them and often that work includes overcoming problems. Problems of communication. Problems of respect. Problems with boundaries. A good friend or a lover is a part of your life. They live somewhat in your house. Because of this, you will be more aware of your own self through your relationship with them. You will see some things about yourself that you perhaps don't like to see. You may have to change. Compromise. Give up. You may have to work through some things. Things with yourself and things with them, as well. But a good relationship will be worth the effort.

At some times, you may not even want your friends to enter your house at all, or maybe no further than your kitchen or den. Good friends will respect the times when you need extra space. They won't try to pry. They won't trespass on your space or look through your windows and comment on the state of your living room. They will also let you know that they are there for you when you need them, but will respect your boundaries. You should be willing to do the same for them.

But good friends may also force themselves in, at times. They may actually overstep their boundaries if there is a very compelling reason why that is the right thing to do. If they see that you are drawing inward, locking the doors, and shuttering the windows. If they see that your property, which is usually kept in a certain state, is suddenly a lot different, if you are neglecting your lawn, for instance. If your living room suddenly is a lot messier that it usually is. Or if you are leaving your doors open and not drawing the curtains at appropriate times they may suspect that something is wrong. They may bring up to you, respectfully and in a non threatening manner, that something seems out of place with your life and that they would like to help you with it.

A good friend will have earned the right to get too personal once in a while as the situation demands. Not just anyone can do that. And even they should only do it in extreme circumstances and with lots of love and respect, realizing that they are taking a risk and that it is an honor, a privilege, and a grave responsibility to trespass within the temple of someone else's existence. Something that requires a lot of trust. Not a thing to do lightly.

You may feel, at times, that a friend of yours is in trouble and is stiffening up what used to be fluid, permeable boundaries. You will be worried and confused, receive mixed signals, and not be able to understand. Before you take those gingerly steps into that other person's domain, you will want to examine your own motives and look to your own house to make sure that you are doing the right thing. Perhaps they need space. Perhaps they have a problem that does not concern you. Perhaps that's just one of their quirks that you need to respect and accept. After all, you have your own quirks and your friends accept you with them.

But if, after careful consideration, you think intervention is appropriate and the right thing to do, then you should approach that other person respectfully with your concerns. If they are a good friend, and if you have earned their respect, they should listen. They will probably thank you for it.

"Boundaries." I said that word to her several times. "Boundaries. Healthy boundaries." Remember that you have self respect. Remember that you are worth it. That you are a valuable person. Your sexuality is valuable. Your friendship is valuable. Your thoughts are valuable. Your feelings are valuable. They are important. They are important to me. They are important to God. And they should be important to you, as well.

Boundaries have everything to do with love. Love of God, love of your neighbor, and love of yourself all equate to proper relationships with proper, respectful boundaries and the correct exchange across those boundaries. Some boundaries are closed, some boundaries are open, some are permeable and allow partial exchange back and forth across. Many boundaries change with circumstances.

If you allow people to trample your boundaries all the time, you will loose self respect. If people stomp on your flower beds all of the time, you will be less inclined to weed them. Trampled lawns will be left unmown. Dishevelled flower boxes will be allowed to mildew and overgrow. Fences that get jumped over will eventually be broken and knocked down. You will end up retreating further and further into your house, abandoning one defeated domain after another and leaving it to be ravished by your intruders.

You will hide deeper and deeper in the secret places of your house and let no one in there to see your pain. You will only venture out to be hurt by more and more overbearing people and become more and more depressed by the dishevelled state of your own property. Depression, denial, insecurity, and defense mechanisms will spring up and haunt the burned out rooms where once you were the comfortable occupant, the gracious host, and the master of the manor. And new people who come along will feel no respect toward you or your house.

People whose boundaries have been routinely violated do not know how to have healthy relationships. When you get close to people like this, they will tend to bleed all over you. Never having been taught healthy boundaries themselves, they will not know how to relate to someone else. They will wear their hearts on their sleeves one minute, and then be insecure and defensive the next. At some times, a million miles away, at others, overlapping and intruding. This comes from living in a house with broken down walls, trampled gardens, and exposed rooms. This type of person has had his private space invaded and violated instead of nurtured and respected. This type of person needs a lot of repair work done in his own house before he can relate to other people in a healthy manner.

In any relationship that you cultivate with other people, you will be allowing your boundaries to bump up against theirs. Respect their boundaries. And respect yours, as well. This is the only way to keep things healthy.

When you give yourself to someone sexually, you are throwing open a lot of doors in your house, not just the bedroom door. You are opening the doors to your playroom and your den. Your dining room and your study. Your library and your attic. You are allowing yourself to be exposed and vulnerable when you give your body to someone else. But that person still must respect your boundaries. Even they have no right to trample your flower beds or just barge into your house anytime they please. Even they must show respect.

It is a sad fact that the people who can hurt us the most are the people we are closest to. The more open we are in our relationships the more opportunity there is for intimacy. And the more opportunity there is for pain, as well. The more we get hurt, the more we shield ourselves. But when we shield ourselves from the hurt, we shield ourselves from the joy, also.

Remember that making love is not a commodity that can be separated from the rest of your life. Your bedroom is still an important part of your house. What goes on in there will effect every other room.

I have put together ten commandments of relationships. Most of them focus on sexual relationships but many are good for relationships in general, as well. You can consider them principals of relationships more than commandments, actually, although they are cast in the 'Thou shalt not' format. They are,

Don't make love to someone, until you make sure that you love them.

Don't make love to someone, until you make sure that they love you.

Don't make love to someone so that they will love you. Love should precede sex. And sex is not a currency with which to buy love.

Don't say yes when you mean no.

Don't use sex as a weapon. You will only hurt yourself.

Don't feel pressured into sex. Something that important can wait until YOU are ready for IT. Not the other way around.

Don't feel as if you must have a steady relationship with a boy. It is alright to date casually for fun.

Don't feel as if you have to give into someone else because you feel sorry for them. You can feel compassion without compromising your own person.

Don't let a friend routinely do to you what you would never allow a stranger to do. Friendship does not buy the right to hurt you.

Don't be isolated, nor overly exposed. Live within your boundaries. And let others live within theirs.

As an eleventh commandment I would add, don't feel as if your life is completely ruined if you blow it somehow or if you allow yourself to be hurt by someone. Part of a healthy life is being able to recover from your mistakes with a good sense of resiliency. Sometimes our biggest mistakes can be our greatest blessings.

And once you have determined that you love someone, that you enjoy their company, that you have parallel interests, likes and dislikes, that you genuinely like to be with that person and not just for the warm mist it puts in your eyes. Once you have decided that this is a person that you want to be vulnerable to and who is willing to be vulnerable to you. Once you are as reasonably sure of this as you can be, then anything that you and he want to do together in the privacy of your own intimate relationship, as long as you are both willing and it does not hurt either one of you, is a wonderful, fulfilling, and holy thing to do. Once you are sure that this is the right partner, then you can give to each other freely and fully with vigor and joy and without holding anything back.

This kind of sexuality is healthy and holy.