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 | It drives me bonkers when people say things like "that's just semantics" or "they're only words". Usually someone does this at the point in the conversation where their interest in understanding or being understood is no longer as strong as their desire to move on to the next thing. I hate it so much. Because words make a difference. Not always in the same way or for the same reasons, but the words you use can change everything. When you write online you're encouraged to think about this because people find your writing through the words you use (via the most powerful gatekeeper in the world; the search engine who need not be named). My big word question of this week was whether or not to talk about "teen masturbation" or "adolescent masturbation" in a write up of some recent research on the masturbation habits of 14 to 17-year-olds. There are all sorts of things to consider. From an institutionalized medical/health perspective teen and adolescent carry different meanings (some of the time, for some of the people). As an educator if I use the word adolescent I'm speaking in the register of a medical expert. If I say teen I'm indexing a kind of 'plain' language. The differences matter. Since I see a use to both ways of talking (and many more besides) I've gone with both. Which words I use matter to search engines too. But search engines function in their own linguistic space. They claim to follow the rules of "people" to be able to understand what people want. But they are actually pretty awful at knowing how to deal with people as something other than a homogenous category. Some search engines have a hard time distinguishing my content from porn, which relegates my articles to the backwoods of their search results. Using clinical language is one way to avoid that. Sometimes I appease them, sometimes I don't. Of course if only their algorithms could actually read, they'd know pretty quick that if my site is porn, it's not very good porn. ~ Cory | |
New Stats on Teen Masturbation in the U.S.A.
Last week researchers from Indiana University and the Center for Sexual Health Promotion published an article in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine taking data from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior that offers a detailed look into the masturbation habits of 14 to 17 year-olds in the U.S.
| How to Talk with Kids About Masturbation
I hear from parents who want to talk with their kids about sex but just can't imagine how the conversation would go, and while they may be comfortable talking about where babies come from and maybe condoms, they are afraid of the 'stickier' subjects. But if you learn to talk about sex in a way that isn't about the content but instead about the approach, you can learn to talk about almost anything. Here's an example, with one of the undeniably stickier subjects that gets missed in most sex ed.
| Sex Question of the Week: Help, My Son Is Into BDSM
I know about adults who are into bondage and degradation, but what does it mean if my son, who is a teenager, is into it? I found out (coming across some items that I shouldn't have found) and am freaking out. I raised him as a feminist, and I want him to enjoy sex, but what I found kind of disgusted me, and I don't know how to deal with this at all. I'm afraid I don't know if he's in danger and what I should do. Also, I'm really worried this becomes public, as I am well-known because of my job and this could ruin my career.My response.
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