As surprising as it may be to parents, young people today are immersed in porn culture everywhere they look. Through Internet porn, gaming, social media, marketing, and advertising, kids today have a much broader view of social and sexual possibilities, which makes it difficult for them to establish appropriate expectations or to feel adequate in their own sexuality. Even more important, no one is talking to kids directly about the problem. Parents tend to convince themselves that their children are immune to cultural influences, wait until it comes up, or hope schools and pediatricians will address the issues. Educators and doctors may be able to start the conversation but it is fundamentally a parent’s job to provide information about sex and relationships early and often to help young people find their way through their social and sexual lives. Delaying the necessary but awkward conversations with their kids leaves them vulnerable. The media, marketers, and porn and gaming industries are eager to step in anywhere parents choose to hold back. Sexploitation exposes the truth to parents, kids, educators, and the medical profession about the seen and unseen influences affecting children, inspiring parents to take the role as the primary sexuality educator. With more information, parents will gain conviction to discuss and develop values, expectations, boundaries, and rules with their kids. Kids who enter their teens with accurate information and truths stand a better chance of developing an “inner compass” when it comes to sex and relationships, which sets them up for a healthy adulthood. In her comic and straightforward style, Pierce brings together the latest research with anecdotal stories shared with her by high school and college students in the thick of it. Above all else, her goal is to get people to develop more comfort around those difficult conversations so that kids gain more confidence and courage about drawing boundaries based on their own values not those put upon them.
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“Pierce cites a wide range of problematic media-driven issues for kids…and urges parents to enter into the dialogue to give their children alternative ways to behave and think. While Pierce points out seemingly insurmountable pressures on today’s youth, she devises a workable plan for guiding them toward healthy life choices.”
— Library Journal
“For every parent who’s ever panicked about having ‘the talk’ with their child, Cindy Pierce has created a frank, honest resource to help—and more importantly, a reminder that this isn’t a ‘talk’ at all but rather a conversation that evolves as our boys and girls become responsible, sexually active young men and women.”
— Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author“Here’s a guide to having meaningful conversations on ‘the other side of awkward’ with our teenagers so that these young people we love so much might be safer and happier. Who doesn’t need that?”
— Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling authorBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Cindy Pierce is a leading social sexuality educator and comic storyteller who has been performing her one-woman comedic show and providing educational programs around healthy sexual behavior and choices since 2004. Cindy has been honored as one of 14 Remarkable Women of the Arts in New Hampshire magazine and the Center for Women and Gender at Dartmouth College named her a ‘Vagina Warrior’ in 2012 for her work fighting for the empowerment of women and reduction of sexual assault on college campuses. She lives with her husband Bruce and their three teenage kids in Etna, NH, where they own and run an inn.
Walter Dixon is a broadcast media veteran of more than twenty years’ experience with a background in theater and performing arts and voice work for commercials. After a career in public radio, he is now a full-time narrator with more than fifty audiobooks recorded in genres ranging from religion and politics to children’s stories.