The XX Factor: What women really think.

What Aretha Franklin Can Teach Your Teen Boys About Sex

The New York Times health section must have been reading my mind: They answered the question I asked last week, "Is the Teen Sex Talk Different for Sons and Daughters?" with an article and a blog post today. According to pediatrician Perri Klass, M.D., the way you should talk to your adolescent sons about sex is both the same and different from the way you might speak to your daughters. While it's important to teach both boys and girls basic tenets of politeness, Klass writes that, as a pediatrician and a mother of boys, "I acknowledge that for their own protection, boys need to understand that there are people—male and female—who will see them as potential predators, and judge them automatically at fault in any ambiguous situation."

However, Klass notes that a little respect (as Aretha says) goes a long way. Klass quotes Dr. Lee M. Sanders, another pediatrician who takes care of teen boys, about how he approaches the subject of sex: "We’ll talk about respect, about whether they feel they are respected in their own families, the respect they have for their mothers, the respect they see other men paying to their own mothers or sisters—do you think that applies to other girls that you meet?"

Tara Parker-Pope's related blog post opens up the question to commenters, and in the peanut gallery Alex Lickerman, M.D., argues, "If the adults participating in the conversation are comfortable talking about sex, the child will be as well. We’re the ones who make children nervous about this topic. Before having this discussion maybe we should examine just how comfortable we are or aren’t with our own sexuality." As someone who was a teen not so long ago, I disagree with Lickerman—my parents weren't awkward when talking to me about sex at all, and yet I was still mortified—but I want to hear from the moms out there, especially the moms of sons: Do you speak to your sons and daughters differently about these issues?