S2E11: The Sex Ed We Wish We Had: Honesty, with Kara Haug

We continue with our series on The Sex Education We Wish We Had by talking about the sexual health principle of honesty.

Doug Braun-Harvey, of the Harvey Institute, explains:

“Sexual health requires open and direct communication with oneself and every sexual partner. Honesty with oneself involves being open to sexual pleasure, sexual experience, and sexual education. Without honesty, sexual relationships will not be able to have effective communication or be able to uphold any of the sexual health principles.”

How can we have honest dialogue about sexuality when we’ve been so dishonest with our kids and adolescents about sexual health?

To help us answer this, we invite Kara Haug, co-founder of Reframing Our Stories, a business that provides sexual health education, resources and tools for families and communities to normalize conversations around sex and relationship in Sacramento. Kara talks with us about:

• Mixed Messaging (9:00): Kara shares, “Something that stood out to me was that even in the affirmation of being a dancer, that there was still a sexualization component of you as either a girl or an adolescent that you could dance in church, but literally, God forbid, your nipples show, that there was still this insidious underbelly of purity culture and gendered messaging.” Women’s bodies are treated as subjects that must be debated on, ruled upon, discussed, and punished, instead of just being treated like a human body.

• Role of Sexuality (20:00): Kara discusses her motivation for her work: “The amount that I saw how sexuality played into people's stories and how it shaped their lives and how it touched so much of our lives that I didn't realize before I think overwhelmed me. And then I just became really sad because I'm like, what we are doing is we are continuing negative cycles that don't need to happen.” The absence of honest conversations and comprehensive sex education leads to unnecessary suffering and grief.

• Gut Instincts (33:00): Kara talks about how she was taught to go against her instincts: “I was told not to trust my bodily sensations and things like that. And so that's why now recognizing how I feel like I have made decisions against my gut instinct. Every time I teach anyone, I bring in a body element, like from young to old.” To have honest and open conversations about sexuality, we need to be able to trust ourselves, and our bodies first.

• Grief (34:00): Jeremiah asks, “When families work with you, I imagine that they are often receiving comprehensive sex education for the first time as well. How do you help them navigate the experience in the grief of receiving sex ed for themselves and sharing it with the children at the same time?” We talk about grief quite a bit, and for an important reason: we need to hold space for our younger selves who did have the opportunity to have the same education as our children. It’s important to break those cycles for future generations.

• Triggers (40:00): Kara reflects, “Your children are your biggest triggers and so as soon as you feel triggered about something, you need to think about why was that triggering? And then you need to think about the root of that and then possibly be willing to get help for that,” Our children can trigger us, but it is up to us to be honest with ourselves and unpack why we were triggered. 

• We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (43:00): “Nobody likes hard feelings. We don't like them. You know, we don't like feeling like garbage. I say that and I go, but just like the book, we're going on a bear hunt. We can't go over it. We can't go under it. We have to go through it.” Kara speaks about the book, also loved by Julia, for how it is an effective tool for teaching about how we have to push through hardship because we cannot avoid it. 

• Directness and Respect (50:00):  Julia summarizes the importance of “directness and respect and not sugarcoating hard things that were happening in or outside of family systems.” Children deserve the same honesty and respect as adults. Age-appropriate language and honesty can co-exist, and it is important that children are exposed to honesty young so they can incorporate that into their own mindset and expect the same from others. 

Learn more about Kara through her podcast Reframing Our Stories.

Let’s heal together!