Better Me with BodyByBree
Better Me with BodyByBree
Why Your Sexuality Impacts More than just Sex with Kristin B. Hodson
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Do you struggle with shame or guilt around your sexuality? Or maybe you don't know how to talk to your child about sex or how to answer their questions?
This week Bree is interviewing Kristin B Hodson, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Sex Therapist. Kristing is the Co-Author of the book Real Intimacy: A Couple's Guide for Genuine, Healthy Sexuality and Founder and Executive Directors of The Healing Group mental health clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Bree & Kristin discuss how to talk to your children to help them find confidence in their sexuality as well as other questions about your sexuality that you don't dare to ask. Don't worry, Bree asks them for you!
Book Recommendations:
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex
Life
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LD1ORBI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Real Intimacy: A Couple's Guide for Genuine, Healthy Sexuality
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008Y5NSZM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Learn more about Kristin at https://www.kristinbhodson.com/ and follow her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kristinbhodson/ or https://www.instagram.com/thehealinggroup/
Learn more about Bree and her programs at www.bodybybree.com and follow her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodybybreefitness/
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Are you looking for a space where you will learn to improve your mental strength and emotional health and feel your insecurities on the inside out? Is the first step to make a more meaningful life with a better meaning with size by three sides? I'm your host free. I'm a first side personal trainer, entrepreneur, and mother of three. I've helped empower thousands of women to take action through fitness, question, meditate, personal development, and aligning stocks with action. This podcast is for those who are ready to feel inspired and motivated to live a more purposeful life. Let's grow together. Have you ever struggled with shame or guilt around your sexuality? Have you ever run into an embarrassing situation with your child around sex and you just don't know how to respond? In today's episode, I talk with Kristen B. Hobson, a sex therapist and licensed clinical social worker about how we can create a safe foundation around sexuality for ourselves and our relationships. We also discuss how to talk with our children to help them find confidence in their sexuality. Don't worry, I ask all the embarrassing questions for you so you can just sit back and listen. I learned so much from this episode, and I hope you will too. Let's get started. Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited because we have our sex expert, Kristen B. Hodson, on our podcast today. Welcome to the podcast, Kristen.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me. I'm super happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we are going to get into it today. And before we get into it, I just want to introduce who Kristen is and what she does. So Kristen Hodson is a licensed clinical social worker. She's also a certified sex therapist. She's the founder and executive director of the Healing Group Mental Health Clinic in Salt Lake City. And she's a co-author of the book Real Intimacy, a Couple's Guide for Genuine Healthy Sexuality. She has a unique ability to break down the topics of sexuality into easily digestible pieces. So she's empowering people to develop further in their sexual identity, hone in their sexual values, and improve their communication around sexuality, all with the intention to improve people's relationships with themselves and with others. And what I love is that Kristen is very approachable. She's relatable, she has a sense of humor around something that normally feels intimidating or heavy. And she's a mom of three and she is relatable. She uh also lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband, Jake. So welcome. Thank you for taking the time to be here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I'm really glad. And I I love the opportunity to talk about sex, especially in this format, because I think it makes it so people can tune in a little bit easier.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and I love how approachable everything you post it. She has an amazing Instagram that I will link. And everything she does is just so easy and approachable and to the point. I love that you don't sugarcoat things. So I was really excited when you said that you could be on the podcast because I'm like, you know what? I like being the mouthpiece for the people that are a little too nervous to ask the hard questions because I don't have a filter. Yeah. So I'm like, let's do it. Let's get into it. And today's not necessarily all about sex, it's more about what I wanted to talk with you a little bit about, Kristen, was how your sexuality impacts more than just sex. How having like confidence in your sexuality can help you be more confident in your marriage and maybe talking to your children about sex. So yeah, let's get into it. Oh, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, you go. I just when you were saying that, the very first thing that came to mind is oftentimes when people think we're gonna talk about sex, they think we're gonna talk about what people should be doing. Like, what do you do in sex, or like how can we make it spicier, or how what are the positions we can be in instead of um being like sexuality is who we are, and oftentimes how we feel about our sexuality and the comfort we have within our sexuality extends into other parts of our life. For example, um, how we feel about our bodies, our body image is a really important part of our sexuality, and um the emotions we have around sex, if we feel shame or discomfort or awkwardness or tension, that impacts our sexuality. And it's I think for a lot of people, they don't they there can be a disconnect on sexuality being so much more than what they do, and that when we are born, um the very first thing babies want to do, they're wired to connect. We want to connect, and our sexuality is our desire to connect, it's a way of how we connect um with people around us, but it's also a creative energy, it's how we express and show up in the world, and so I think that's a really important place to start.
SPEAKER_01I love that, and I love how you talk about being confident in your sexuality just translates into the rest of your life. So I guess my question would be growing up as a strong in a strong Christian household, I wouldn't say there was shame around sexuality, but I have always been a very sexual person. And I did kind of feel like, is something wrong with me? Like, why am I so sexual? And I had kind of a complex growing up like in the church with it because I always felt like, oh, you know, shove it down, shove it down, you know, don't don't talk about it, don't, don't focus on it. Like it was this constant battle. So I guess what would you say to people who kind of have that complex where they're trying to find the balance of accepting their sexuality and not feeling shame?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I think you well, you hit on something that I think is important that some of the ways that we think about shame would be these overt messages that we heard about sex, like maybe negative things, or maybe we expressed our sexuality and it was shut down, or or things like that. And for a lot of people, and what the research shows is that the absence of talking about sex also produces shame. So you may have not been exposed to a lot of negative messages, but you also may have not been exposed to sex positive or informational messages about sex, normalizing that you are a sexual being, and that's a part of you developing and growing, and that your sexuality is important. Additionally, in a lot of Christian homes, sexuality and girls isn't talked about. Most of the time, we're hearing about boys being sexual and men being sexual, and so that can create a layer of am I broken? Is there something wrong with me because I am sexual? But they never talk about me being sexual as a girl or a woman, and so that can create a feeling of shame because you feel like you're different than the quote unquote normal. And so that can be what people how they can start to develop a thread of shame around their sexuality, because while they may have not received negative messages, they may have not received any information at all, and then they start to wonder if they're normal or broken or weird or if something's off, etc.
SPEAKER_01Right. So how would you how would you maybe work on that to to have the balance or have the acceptance if like let's say you know one of my mom friends is kind of struggling with like having confidence in her sexuality, because maybe she kind of does feel shame in it, how would what what would maybe be some steps to help?
SPEAKER_00One of my favorite, one first of all, one of my favorite books is Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. It is a great place to start understanding your sexuality and your body and your desire, but she has a really wonderful metaphor that I think um answers this question well, which is everyone comes to like they're born and they're kind of given a plot of land. And we're gonna say this plot of land are it are the messages we receive, and when we're babies, it's like an open field of land, like it's just dirt, and then as we grow, there's a lot of messages that are planted into our lives, and some of those take deeper root, and some are more pervasive and are more like weeds, and once we move into adulthood and we start to realize I need to start examining my sexuality because I don't feel confident or I feel a lot of shame, or there's parts that I feel uncomfortable with. We've got to go back to some of the messages that were planted in kind of our garden and see if they're serving us anymore. Like we may have received, um, I'm trying to think of a good example. Um do you have do you have something in your life that that maybe you you have believed for a long time and then when you examined it, you're like, you know what? I don't know if I believe that anymore. It just was always a part of me. Do you have something like that?
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, I have a lot. I'm just trying to think of a specific one.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01I think honestly, the sexuality thing, like for so long, it was it was something that I was like, oh, why am I, you know, why am I so sexual? Because you're right, it was more of a boy thing. So I was like, so you know, what's something wrong with me? And then as I got older, I was like, no, that's actually like a really great thing that it helps me be more creative, and I'm kind of seeing the power in it, and then it's like a great thing for me and my husband. Yeah. And so I'm seeing it as more of like, oh no, that's like a strength, that's a fun thing for me. But when I'm you know, growing up, I thought it was bad.
SPEAKER_00So, with that metaphor, then I would say you you examine a message of girls aren't sexual or they shouldn't be sexual or they don't want sex or any variation of that. That may have been a seed or something that was planted in your garden of sexual development. And you may have grown up with that, but then as you got older, you started to examine that belief and realize maybe that's not true, and maybe I don't want that in my garden anymore. And it sounds like you've pulled it and then planted something different that you do want, which sex is good for me, it is creative, I love it, and that is honestly the way that we need to start overcoming shame is examining the different messages we have around sex, the different beliefs we've had, and see if they still serve us, and if they were planted by us, like if someone else planted those into our garden and going through and weeding out things that aren't helpful anymore, and then starting to plant the things that we would like. And the challenge of that is at first we may feel like we're being a fraud, like we don't really believe the messages we're trying to tell ourselves of um, I am I am my my body is wonderful just as it is. We can be like that feels weird and fake, but it just takes time for that new belief to root down because a lot of false beliefs have had a long time to root down and feel more comfortable even though they're false.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I love that. And I feel like a lot of times they're not really our own beliefs, it's more like what people around us have thought, or you know, how they think, or and I know like for a long time, like my mom does energy work, and she would always say, Oh, your sacral chakra is so big, that's like your sexual energy, your sexual energy is so big, shrink it down, shrink it down, you know, like for so long. And I know she wasn't meaning anything bad by it, but I was just like, that's who I am, like right, right? So, and that wasn't necessarily my belief, that was more what some but like somebody was putting their belief system on. So I love how you're like, let's like re-re look at this and re-examine is this serving me and is this what I truly believe?
SPEAKER_00I love yes, yeah, and that's how you that's how you start to begin to move through shame or discomfort or these other places that can hold us back in our sexuality.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So now kind of shifting because I know a lot of this starts when you are a child and the experiences that you have with your parents, because for me, my parents were like the first source for me, talking about it, explaining about it. And they're we have a really open home, but it wasn't something that we talked about a lot. So I really want to touch on how what's the best way to talk about our children and their sexuality and kind of explain why it's important to them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the the first thing I see with parents is I think a lot of us were raised that if we if our parents talked to us about sex, they gave us the talk. I think they were raised also in in that they needed to have a talk with their kids, and it was kind of a one-and-done, let's go out and get ice cream and have the talk, or or let's get out a book and have a talk. And usually, for some reason, and I think this is common in in kind of Christian homes, the magical age is eight. Um, yeah, and and so people have these one talks, or maybe they got a talk right before they got married, and that's it. And it usually is about reproduction and how babies are made. And sexuality and sexual development is so much more than just that. It's boundaries, it's health and hygiene, it is anatomy, it's pleasure, it's consent, it's friendships and relationships, and all of these things that we need to be educating our kids across their whole life on their developing bodies and the range of emotions they're experiencing, and as they're figuring out and navigating relationships, and we also want to help our kids navigate the world safely. I don't think a parent wants their child to be harmed or sexually exploited, and the more we talk to our kids about sexuality, the more that we protect our kids.
SPEAKER_01Um, yes, so that's important. I love how you were watching Thriller and you paused like, okay, we're gonna talk about consent here.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_01You're so good at that. You're so good at just bringing it into everyday lives, and just it doesn't have to be this big, long, drawn-out talk. It's just like little things each day, maybe a little quick five-minute example. You make it so approachable. I love that.
SPEAKER_00And that's, I think that's an another important piece, and I'm glad you brought that up, is a lot of parents will wait for their kids to approach them. Um, I've heard a lot of parents say, you know, I just don't think it's on their minds because they've not said anything to me, or they're too young to be curious about this, or they're too young to know about X, Y, or Z. And before they know it, their kids are 12 or 13, and they're still waiting for them to come have a talk. And when we understand what's developmentally normal, it's our role and opportunity as parents to lead these one-minute conversations as well as be prepared to respond to the everyday situations and the questions. So it's not just waiting for our kids to ask us questions, we need ideally to be approaching them with what we want to teach them, and that there's a statistic I really want to give because I think it is it makes a case for why we need to be having these conversations frequently. Um, and I'll ask you how many? This is now this is like back of the napkin math, but how many hours do you think kids spend learning how to read from kindergarten to 12th grade?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I have no idea. I would say like days.
SPEAKER_00They have it's approximately 2,500 hours. Wow. And same with math. It's a lot of time. And when we because our goal, we want our kids to be literate. We hope that when our kids graduate high school, they are literate. They can read, they can write, and same with math, because those are skills that help them function in the world. And these skills develop over a lifetime, like they're starting off with recognizing letters and then putting together small words and then sentences, right? Like it becomes developed over time. Um, do you know how many hours kids get of sexual health information, like formal sexual health information between kindergarten and 12th grade? And not all states have access to this information.
SPEAKER_01I would say like one or two hours.
SPEAKER_00Okay, it's it's a little higher, but it's 17.2, which might seem high, but that's only one hour a year-ish. Wow. Total. And but then yet we hope our kids will be sexually literate and prepared and to navigate um sexual situations and relationships, and we're really not preparing them or equipping them with the skills to expect that they could be literate as they grow up.
SPEAKER_01So, what would you say, when do you start talking to about it with your kids?
SPEAKER_00I they have all like my goal as a parent was that when my kids, and I don't know why this became my goal, but it really was of when my kids were sitting in a room and they were at like with friends, maybe when they got older and they were like, How old were you when you got the the talk in air quotes? That they would kind of look at their friends with a confused look and be like, What do you mean about the talk? Because they always had a conversation about sex in the home, always like they never had a talk, it just was part of our everyday, and so um we have I have been teaching my kids about sexual health since the moment they were born, and one of the ways I did that is like when I would change their diapers, I would name their body parts, and even though they couldn't understand it, it helped me increase my comfort and develop the language, and you have a really captive audience, like babies just smile, and when you say vulva or penis in really high tones with a big smile, they just smile back at you, being like, You're a rock star. So it started there, and when kids are sharing their toys, great opportunity for consent and body boundaries, and when they have big emotions to be able to name those emotions, which is part of sexual health. So it really is. I mean, the joke with my friends is that I start talking to my kids about sex when they're in utero. So, because really, when you understand that it's so much more than teaching your kids about reproduction, you realize, oh yeah, I can be starting. There is no age to begin. You can begin whatever age, wherever your kids are at right now, you can start.
SPEAKER_01So, do you have a course or something that teaches parents how to talk about this? I know your Instagram is so helpful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do actually. I have a course called Foundations, and what it does is it really provides parents with the principles. They learn what they need to be teaching at each age and stage. They understand what is developmentally normal because kids will get to these different ages, and parents will be like, is this normal? And then they realize that's normal. Okay, we're on track here. And if there's things that are out of the range of normal, what having resources and support on maybe what you would need to do or how to handle that. Um, it provides skills on how to start these conversations and skills on how to respond to big situations or questions and everyday situations. So the foundations course really does start to help parents uh see themselves as the sex educator in their home.
SPEAKER_01I love that. And that's so helpful because not all adults are are healthy with their sexual, you know, relationship with themselves. And also maybe that can even help them because I'm thinking of you know, adults who have been sexually abused, they might have a skewed, a skewed vision of what is healthy and what's not. So that might be a great tool to help them know.
SPEAKER_00You know what? It it really does. I find in my classes because most of us, if you go back to that 17.2 hour statistic, that's the max amount of education most of us got. And so there's no reason why any of us should know. As adults, um, all about our sexuality, we kind of probably learned it on the fly through our own lived experiences from the media, from friends. Like we picked up the information, but it wasn't in any formal way, and some information we didn't get, and some's inaccurate. Um, so what I have seen in the foundations course, they're like, let's say, I have I have in one portion of the course a whole list of sexual health terms, and it is really normal and common that I've had parents reach out and say, Okay, I'm supposed to teach these words to the kids, but I don't even know what they mean. Can you can you tell me what this word is? And I love that because now they're giving themselves permission to grow in their own knowledge and understanding and their education by wanting to be able to teach their children.
SPEAKER_01I love that. I love that so much. I feel like when it's just talked about and it's so open, like you said, the shame goes away. It's a normal part of life, it's a healthy part of life. Yeah, okay. So I have a couple specific questions for you now because I know I was talking to some of my friends and family, and I'm like, okay, I'm doing this interview. What questions do you have? How would you, you know, approach certain situations? So I have specific questions. I want to see how you would answer them, okay? Okay, sounds good. So this might sound kind of random, but this is the phase of life that I'm in right now. So I have a six-year-old daughter, and I always want her to feel empowered and comfortable expressing herself. And like I said, I'm kind of an open book, so I don't really get uncomfortable talking about things because I never want her to feel shame about her body or anything. But I remember that we were watching a show with my sister, and her daughter's also six, and like on the show, the boy and the girl were kissing, you know, just for a second. But I remember she was like, Oh my gosh, cover your eyes, don't look at that. I don't want you to see that. Like, you know, and I was thinking, I feel like if we make it a big deal and we make her feel bad for looking, or maybe, maybe even liking it, then maybe that will give her a complex. Because I feel like it's normal and natural to like that. We're we are born to like it. So, how do we foster a sense of independence with our sexuality while also helping to guide them from a moral stance?
SPEAKER_00So let me let me just make sure I'm clear. Is it was it um your daughter that said don't don't look close your eyes?
SPEAKER_01Oh, sorry, my sister to her daughter. Okay, okay. She was like saying, like, she was going, Addie, don't watch that. Why are you looking at that? You know, like uh she didn't mean to make her feel bad, you know. I think, but I'm just saying, like, and I'm I'm looking at my daughter thinking, like, well, how do I I never want her to feel bad for liking that because that is what we're made to do, right? But how do I, you know, kind of have like a moral, a moral guideline and while also helping them feel a sense of independence with their sexuality?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think the word I would also use is values, values because values and morals can go hand in hand, um, but usually like morals can influence values, values um can also stand on their own. And the word that I would also introduce would be curiosity, that at age six, um, there may not be a response of liking it, it just may be curious, of like that's true, like it just could be a curiosity thing, and as adults, we can at times project our adult understanding of sexuality onto these kids that developmentally they're in a constant state of curiosity and wonder and asking questions and trying to make sense of the world around them, and most likely in that situation, um, there one it doesn't have to even be scooped out and made a thing about it, it may have just been a very normal situation. Two, if there were to be a teaching moment, it would I would it having it be from a place of values and intention because media can be a powerful tool for teaching our kids, but when we as parents know what our values are around sexual health, then that becomes how we teach and guide our kids. Instead of what I like to think values do is they help us begin with the end in mind, and now we're intentionally guiding our children instead of moving from incident to incident, trying to figure out how to handle each thing. We're we have a bigger, a bigger plan in mind, which allows us to tolerate the moments that are just kind of like not a big deal moments and other moments that we need to scoop up and have more conversations and teaching around. Does that make sense? Yeah, definitely. And when I will say this, when parents, kids, so have you ever had the experience when you tell, like, how many times have you told your kids to not look at something and they want to look at it even more? Yeah. Where you say, Don't follow me, and then they're like following you, because that's the stage they're in.
SPEAKER_01Um I I still do that. If I tell myself I can't have sugar, all I want is sugar.
SPEAKER_00Exactly, exactly. And so while there may be really good intentions, when parents like turn something off and they don't say anything, like it's perfectly okay if you are in it, like movies from the 80s, still. I I'm like, oh, I didn't even remember this had that part in there, yeah. And it's perfectly okay to turn it off, but just to shut it down can send a message we don't mean rather than so a values-based discussion might be like, Hey, I'm gonna, I didn't realize this part of the movie was in there. Let's talk about what this is and why I'm gonna fast-forward it right now, or you don't even have to fast-forward it. It might be like, Here's what's happening, or are you curious? Or like my friend had a story where do you remember the show The Sandlot? Yes, and do you remember the lifeguard?
SPEAKER_01And I'm blanking on her name, yes, with the white glasses, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so you have the lifeguard, and you have squints, and my friend said that his son was watching it, and they have a they raise their kids in a very similar way that I have, and that I yeah, it's just very they're my best friends. Anyway, he said to his dad, like the scene came on where she's or squints, falls in the pool and she rescues him, and then he kisses her. And the nine-year-old boy was like, Dad, my penis is doing something really weird. And the dad was like, Oh yeah, so your penis is having an erection, and that's what penises do, isn't that cool? Like, that's amazing. He's like, Yeah, that's a new feeling for me, and like, but that was it, they didn't go into a longer conversation, and he more or less was like, Yep, your penis will get hard and then it will get soft again, and like just normalizing it and normalizing that moment and responding to that child in a way that like that's a positive reflection back and going back to shame when we don't reconcile our own shame or our own discomfort. Moments like that we can freeze up or not know how to respond because they they ping our own discomfort, yeah, and so then we are not responding intentionally, we're just kind of passing on our own stuff instead of writing them.
SPEAKER_01Definitely, that is so helpful, and I love how he I love how he his son felt comfortable coming to him saying that, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, he didn't know that he shouldn't, right?
SPEAKER_01And that's true.
SPEAKER_00He had no idea that that kind of conversation would be weird or off limits, or and even he didn't even see it as the boy didn't even see it as sexual, it just was like my penis is doing something new, and of course, like um our kids are still forming and learning about their like forming a relationship with their body, but to him, that is no different than saying, like, look at look at my eye is twitching, or look at how I can contort my body into this shape, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. So that leads me to my next question. So I know you've talked about this and you had the best analogy with kids picking their nose. Oh, yes, with kids like stimulating themselves, or if a parent like sees them curious about their private areas, like what do you you had such a good analogy? Can you share that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so most parents know and expect that their kids are going to pick their nose like early, right? I mean, kids discover their nose holes at like five months, once they can kind of kind of connect and coordinate their hands to the rest of their body, usually they find their nose holes, and parents right then aren't like getting their hands out of their nose, and we we while we may not love it once they get older and they start picking their nose and then they're eating their boogers. We just we anticipate that, we know it's developing developmentally normal, and then we start socializing around it where we start introducing hey, if you pick your nose too much, you're gonna get scabs, or please blow your nose, or go into the bathroom to pick your nose and wash your hands, and eating your burgers might not be a great idea. Like we we really socialize it, um, but kids ultimately form a really intimate relationship with picking a nose, like they usually develop and all of us like a finger we like to pick with, and the reason why I bring this up is people are like, you, that's really gross that you're talking about that, but it's everybody picks their nose, everybody knows that that's gonna be a thing, right? And we approach it as parents in a in a proactive manner for the most part. When it comes to masturbation, we can have an idea that it's not developmentally normal, that it is under the realm of morality instead of sexual health and normal sexual development. You can have it be in the realm of normal sexual development and teach the morals around it and socialize around it. But when we shut it down, like imagine if our child was picking their nose and we never ever let them touch their nose. We never they we just continued to shut that down, and then we hoped when they got married they would have a good relationship with that. Um, but then even when they're married, and they're I know this analogy is super weird, but it for some reason it opens up doors for people to think about it or talk about it, um, they still are not allowed to pick their nose or they feel shame about picking their nose, but their partner can pick their nose, or they need to tell their partner how to pick their nose, and they're like, I have zero idea on how to do that. And so masturbation is a normal part for people to for kids to learn how their body works and functions. There are um there's ultrasounds of babies stroking their genitals in utero for comfort, and it's not in the same way that adults like the biggest thing is adults really can project their sexuality onto kids, and it's it's not the same. Um for kids, they just know that it feels good, like pleasure and other parts of their body touch it like that. Feels good, and it's a unique kind of pleasure, and it can bring comfort, and we can socialize around it as they we can continue to guide and shape so they they don't feel shame for some parents. They it masturbation feels in line with their values, and for others, masturbation isn't in line with their values, and you can work with both, but just shutting it down is not effective and usually leads to outcomes that parents ultimately don't want for their children. But you can guide children with values if those if that is what you value, but just to shut it down or to expect it to not happen um isn't necessarily realistic or the healthiest approach, right?
SPEAKER_01And I feel like it's so sad because they don't really fully understand. So it it would be sad to like bring shame to it and be like make them feel bad about themselves, you know, and they don't really know what's even going on. Like the saddest thing. So I always I always felt so bad, and I never want like my daughter or my son to ever feel shame around that either, because I'm like, you know what, that is a natural part of growing up, like you said, and being curious. And um anyway, I just I always want that to be an open conversation and to be very understanding about it. And I feel like that's a really big topic in Christian, in the Christian world. And I feel like there there were a lot of poor little kids who felt like, you know, they weren't loved by God if if they masturbated. Like that was the sad, that's just the saddest thing to me. So I would never ever want my child to feel like that, but that's also my own personal belief system. But I love that you're just like, if we keep it an open conversation, then we can talk about the values around it.
SPEAKER_00And that that's just it is um to the parents where they're like, ugh, masturbation doesn't fit into my value system. I think where people can get stuck is in this all-or-nothing idea. Like it's either a free-for-all, and I know I let my kids masturbate all the time, or I shut it down. And really, the kids need information and guidance around wherever your values are. Um, going back to the picking the nose analogy, there's a lot of guidance and conversation and redirection. And if the ultimate goal is for kids to save their sexuality for marriage, um, then there also ideally is a tolerance for them to start to develop and get to the point where they have a healthy relationship with their sexuality and they are choosing to save their sexuality for marriage rather than feeling like this is something I have to do or I'm bad.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yes. I love that. And I also love just how open you are about all of it. It's so great. So I have one more question for you. Okay. Um, so do you talk ever talk about pornography? And like if you find your children looking at pornography, like what are ways to talk to them about it so that maybe it's an open dialogue?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I actually that's in fact that that's uh another course that I have, which is called Exposed. Oh, and it's a help, yeah, and it comes all of these courses come with workbooks and reflection questions and exercises and activities, and um, but this one is really important because a lot of parents they can want to start, they can feel more comfortable having conversations about the scary stuff because we want to protect our kids, and so sometimes they'll have conversations about abuse or pornography before they're having these conversations just about sexuality and sexual health in general. But the the main thing with pornography is to help our kids start to develop some literacy around media and to develop a definition around what is pornography? What is pornography in our home? What um as simple as that is, uh you can have it can it's a really good exercise for families and or even couples to be like, what how what is pornography? Because I will do an exercise on Instagram and I will ask questions of like, okay, is the day a naked man in the museum like a David? Is that pornography? And people will answer yes or no. Is the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated pornography yes or no? What about cartoons engaged in a sexual act? Like, I go through so many different things, and it gets parents thinking of like, oh, what is it and how so that we can start guiding our kids and what do I do if I've caught my kids? Which, in a very quick nutshell, um, oftentimes the the reasons why kids are turning to pornography, and this is from the work of Broxton Dudson, is they're either clicking, curious, or coping. Clicking is they're just kind of moving through the internet and they've misspelled a word like they were wanting to search for tights and they spelled tights T-I-T-S, and they they land on something they didn't mean to. Um, and so they're just clicking through curious is they heard a word at school and they want to hear what it means and they land on pornography. Um, or they're just curious about bodies and they just are curious and they don't have any other outlets. And coping could be for those kiddos that they're coping with stress or anxiety or other emotional issues in their life, but those are usually the reasons, and um, parents can respond in a way that supports their children and and furthers their relationship, or again, kind of shuts them down and stifles the opportunity to explore what it is about pornography that they're curious about.
SPEAKER_01I love that. I love how open you are about it because I feel like every child will see it. Isn't the statistic that every child will see it by the time they're 12?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and even younger, and you know, you think about I know that when my boy was in fourth grade, he had friends that had unlimited access to the latest iPhones at school, and so um and it and it also just depends on how we're defining it. It's sexual imagery is all around us, sexual imagery is embedded in music and the lyrics they're listening to, and so helping them navigate um sexually explicit media is a really important part, and one of the reasons I have I like people to take the foundations course first because um we want pornography to be part of the conversation but not to be the conversation, yes. Um, we don't necessarily want to lead out with pornography, but to to bring it into the all the other conversations that we're having.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I love that. And having that foundation. I'm really excited. I'm gonna take both of those courses because I want to be prepared. I mean, my kids are still pretty young, but I I can still start with the foundation, like you said, and it just gives me so much hope that we'll be one of those families. Like I want my daughter to come to me and ask me the question and feel comfortable, you know, and know that I'm an open book or I'm not gonna judge her on her question or her curiosity and have that open communication with our family. So I'm really excited about your courses.
SPEAKER_00And I'm so glad, and I would um I love hearing that you want to be the go-to person for your children. I think that's such a fantastic and very realistic goal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then I feel like if we do have values that we want to teach, there's this really great relationship behind it, and it's not like this is what we do because you know it's about heaven or hell. It's not about that, it's about them making decisions for themselves and what they feel is right for them. Exactly. Yeah, and it's just like you said with our sexuality when we get older, that's what we have to do.
SPEAKER_00So that's right. Like you're really supporting them and helping develop their own internal compass that they will need because they're gonna find they're gonna be engaged in so many different situations throughout their whole life. If they have an internal compass, then they have a better chance of navigating those.
SPEAKER_01Yes, when we're not there, you know, like we won't be with them all the time. So that's when they're on their own and and we're not around, that's when they'll have to make the decisions for themselves, and we have to trust that we've helped equip them. So yeah, exactly. Oh, I'm just so grateful. You are so wise. Thank you. Oh, thank you for being here and helping my listeners and my followers. And I know that this is going to be so helpful for I already know, like all of my friends listening to this are gonna, they've had a lot of questions already answered. So I'm really thank you so much. And I will link all of her um, her Instagram, her website, and I will also link her programs if you guys are interested and you want to check them out as well. I will link everything in the show notes.
SPEAKER_00So one other thing is when you get the foundations course, you can also add on um office hours, and so that way as you move through the material and you have questions, you have not only access to me but to other parents and hearing their questions and getting to see those questions get answered too, and you get into this private Facebook group, and all of the questions and answers get saved in there so that you can have that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's amazing! What a cool resource!
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I just I wanted to let people know because inevitably and naturally people have questions as they move through the material, and so there is a space for that as well.
SPEAKER_01Awesome, you thought of everything, you're doing so much good in the world. Thank you, thank you. And if you guys don't follow her, you have to because every time it's just such a great truth bomb, and I just love that you're you're this like warrior of truth, and you're so wise, and you're relatable, and you're fun, and you're spunky, and I I just love you. So thank you for that you brought to this world. You are just way nice. Thank you. All right, Kristen, I will talk to you later. Have a good day. Okay, thank you. Thank you for joining us in today's episode. If you liked the content and want to hear more, remember to hit that subscribe button and write a review. As a small business owner, I appreciate it more than you know. If you are looking for a program to help with self-confidence, to lose weight, get in shape, and work on your mental, physical, and emotional health. Check out my training programs on www.bodyby.com. My team and I help to hold you accountable through the Body Bible app, where you log in to see all your workouts, custom meal plan made specifically for you and your needs, and communication through the messenger. You are never alone when you're on the Body by Bree training program. Click the link in the show notes to get more information on how to transform your life from the inside out.
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