Suzanne Harrington: Radio discussion about teen sex a big turn-off

After a long lockdown-induced absence, I’m pootling through Cork on a second-hand bicycle. The sun is out. The people are out. 

I have so many questions. Like, what are cyclists meant to do when the cycle lane suddenly disappears with an abrupt Crioch, before turning into a car-whizzing road with a hard shoulder the width of a pencil? Do we do an ET, and cycle skyward? And why does a string of chillis in the market cost almost as much as a second-hand bicycle? How does anyone afford to eat here, unless they live on frozen peas? Which house on the Blackrock waterfront, thronged with Lululemon and golden retrievers, belongs to Ask Audrey’s Reggie, Captain of Cork Industry? 

My main question, however, is about sex and teenagers. Specifically, Irish sex and Irish teenagers. 

Sitting in traffic — which, in itself, warrants a question, to which the answer is, ‘Fund more public transport’ — I flick on the radio. Two women are having a confident discussion about someone in the UK who gave her son a gift box of contraception on his 16th birthday, the age of consent in Britain.

The woman being discussed had her son when she was 17, so understands the importance of contraception. Big deal, you might think. Why are they even talking about this?

But, say the two women on the radio, what about ‘the conversation’? By this, I think they mean sitting your teenage son down when he is 16 or 17, and talking to him about condoms; that merely providing contraception could pressure him to do something he may not feel ready for. 

If I’d been mid coffee, it would be spraying out each nostril by now. Have either of these women ever met a teenage boy? Because waiting until they are 17 to talk to them about sex is like waiting until they are 45 to tell them about the tooth fairy.

Ladies — and this was RTÉ2, not some provincial village station — teenage boys are hormone factories.

They do not want well-meaning mothers sidling up to them asking them if they are emotionally mature enough, as though their sexuality has just dawned on you because their faces have gone all hairy and their voices dropped. The women on the radio even suggested taking your 17-year-old son to the GP to have ‘the conversation’ there. Like a Foil Arms & Hogg sketch.

You have the so-called conversation long before the hormones hit, so that they have the knowledge. You block porn access as much as you digitally can. You talk about consent, commitment, respect. What you do not do is make a huge big deal of it, or womansplain their sexuality to them. 

Teenagers have sex. Empower them, and they will have it when they’re ready, not before. I’d imagine most parents know this already, which is why that radio conversation left me wondering, ‘WTAF?’.

Maybe it was just so they could repeatedly say ‘lube’ on air.

I can’t think of another reason.