By Grace Kaissal, Summer Intern, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
“!Aye Mija! ¡Hablemos de eso otro dÃa! ¡De eso no se hable! Cuando estes casada, okay?â€? These are the phrases and responses my friends and I have shared and laughed about when recounting the stories of our first family conversations about sex. I remember vividly when I was a scrawny ten year old pre-pubescent girl watching TV with my mother one evening and a “sexâ€? scene came on in the movie we were watching. I remember getting so nervous and to my surprise, looking over to my mom and noticing she was really nervous as well. As she switched the channel she told me, “Hablare contigo acerca de eso cuando cumplas quince anos.â€? (“I’ll talk to you about this when you turn 15). Sure enough, by the time I turned 15, I was having my first experiences with the world of boys, crushes and dating. My mom never had a problem with that but she always told me, “Cuidate y no habras esas piernas.â€? (Take care of yourself and don’t open your legs). No talk of sex, love, or relationships not to mention birth control and condoms. My mother and I are very close and I confide in her about everything, but it still kills me to say that I never really had the “birds and the beesâ€? conversation with her until recently, after my first year of college. Many things have happened since the last time I was sitting with her on that couch nervously.
Growing up as a first generation immigrant in the US, and attending a liberal arts college has really changed the way I view this aspect of my life. After watching the Sundance Film documentary Quinceañera with my mother this summer, we finally had the opportunity to talk explicitly about sex. Although we were both very uncomfortable, conversation flowed and I learned a lot about how she perceived sex, birth control, relationships and love. I also realized how different our worlds were, and how different her knowledge about STIs, contraception, and what happens during sex were from mine.
But the most difficult part was leaving the conversation about sex and talking about how we see men and women and what their roles should be in a relationship as well as in society. Some of things she said had remnants of machismo in them. When I gave her my feminist views on the world, she clearly appreciated what I was saying but didn’t really catch my drift. I talked about the authors and feminists I’ve studied, talked about the women’s rights movement, disparities between men and women in the US. But nothing. It all seemed so distant and foreign to her. She confirmed to me then the idea I and many other contemporary Latina and women of color feminists have had all along: Eso son ideas de las mujeres americanas, blancas, y radicales. (These are the thoughts of American women, white women and radicals).
The face of feminism still needs serious change. Although an IMMENSE amount of work has been done to diversify the movement over these past years, with new and innovative women of color scholars, there is still much to be done. Culture plays a large role in embedding these gender roles in our families and communities, so to successfully spread feminist ideals we must be culturally competent and provide voice to unique perspectives. Unfortunately, I know a lot of hermanas who don’t consider themselves feminists despite their clear feminist beliefs. I can only hope that the effort to diversify feminism and share the women of color perspective continues and exists in every discussion, conversation and campaign.
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This reminds me of having those kinds of talks with my mom. We are white, middle class people, very intelligent computers and science household, I had things pretty freaking easy. But my family almost never had serious discussions. Anything even mildly uncomfortable was dealt with with sarcasm and joking, not to the point of being offensive, but it taught me to figure things out on my own, that my family wasn't going to be of help except as an example of how one group of pretty weird people did things.
But my mom, younger sister and I started watching Sex and The City together a few years ago, and having an outside party bring up some of the more interesting sexual and relationship questions actually led to some actual exchange of views between us all. but things are still a little odd; I turned out to be pretty bi with some serious feminist views, my mom gave up a career in organic chemistry to have kids and raise them. So there's still a (comparatively) large disparity in views in my family, but finally seeing a bit of my mom's side, and starting to understand why anyone would give up a fulfilling career and life just to make undeserving little brats like my sibs and I has caused me to think more about myself and what I may want in the future.
"She confirmed to me then the idea I and many other contemporary Latina and women of color feminists have had all along: Eso son ideas de las mujeres americanas, blancas, y radicales. (These are the thoughts of American women, white women and radicals)."
That reminds me of my mom. She used to have a knee-jerk reaction to news coverage of non-Western sexism. For example, assuming that disapproval of FGM is an excuse for oppressing places that have it (and all of our family's cultures reject FGM themselves). Over time, she's become more feminist than she already was, and condemns bigotry even when the bigots aren't white and/or American themselves.
My mother and I never talked about sex until the time I got caught for having my boyfriend sneak in to my bedroom window and spend the night.
She was crying and she asked me, "Did you guys have sex?"
I couldn't lie to her so I told her the truth and she cried hysterically and it hurt me to see her like that. Sure, now that I look back I was pretty young, 16, but despite the terrible abstinence-only education I received and being from a Mexican-American Catholic family [my grandma once told me "Do you think a piece of rubber is going to stop God's will to create life?"] I had edcuated myself to be responsible when having sex.
She started telling me, "What now? What about when you get married? You are going to have NOTHING to offer your husband on your wedding night. You have given up something very important!"
Pissed me off, I thought to myself since I couldn't even speak to her, "So is that all I am worth? How intact my hymen is? That's my worth as a woman? I can't offer a man my companionship and love as equal partners? It's all about giving him my intact hymen as if I was an object?"
Didn't talk back to her, I just felt angry at her reasons for being mad.
Then she admitted that she was scared about me getting pregnant, since she got pregnant with me when she was 17 and wouldn't want me to live through the same thing.
I wanted to tell her that despite the fact that she never talked to me about sex I had figured out the importance of condoms and contraception to keep away from pregnancy and STD's.
But I still couldn't.
Eventually I wrote her a letter expressing to her how I felt and how I am so sorry my choice on having sex hurt her. I assured her I wouldn't be pregnant and that I am worth more than my hymen as a person.
I understand that cultural traditions and religion influence people a great deal, my own family, but I am glad that they will always be around and love me and never abandon me for my mistakes [that doesn't mean I think it's okay to make mistakes]. We have our differences but they accept who I am and defend me when others judge me for living with my boyfriend [not husband] :)
My parents never talk about sex. The only thing my mother has ever said to me about it is to not do it. She won't even say the word out loud without feeling uncomfortable, sheesh. We never talked about periods, hormones, anything. I learned it myself. I'm almost 16.
I guess its just a touchy topic for us. I don't watch movies with sex scenes or promiscuity with my parents, because they obviously are way to conservative to see that sort of stuff. They hold a misconception that all boys are after sex and do drugs. So, I can't have friends that are boys [well, most of my friends are boys but my parents don't know that, because they would think I was a whore], or do group projects with them. For pete's sake, I've never even kissed a boy. What makes them think I'd have sex?
At school, we have an abstinence-only program. This scares me because most of the girls at my school are 1]Likely to be manipulated into sex very easily 2]Too naive to ask the guy to use a condom or obtain birth control. And it's likely that most of the boys are too afraid to ask how to effectively use contraceptives. Teachers can't even mention them.
It's funny, my parents are so convinced that a boyfriend will lead to pregnancy that my older sisters, both in college, hide their boyfriends. But my brother, the sperm-holder, is allowed to have a girlfriend.
Oh, the world of a woman, eh?