Holmes Patricia - Girlology - A Girl's Guide to Stuff that Matters

Hey! It’s okay! And we promise you it’s not too late.

We all make mistakes. You are not alone. Most young teens are not satisfied with their first sexual experience. You didn’t have a plan then, but you can make one now! Just because you’ve gone farther than you wanted to doesn’t mean that you have to go that far with every guy you date from now on.

Reset your boundaries.Make a promise to yourself to stick to your plan. Learn from your mistakes and make changes to protect your body and your emotions. This is where that strong character you have developed by choosing values and sticking with them comes in. Once you have crossed a boundary it will be hard to reset. We know that. But we also know that sticking to your promises to yourself is important even when it’s hard. And we know you can do it!

Now ThisShould Be Interesting . . .

If you really want to have some fun, give the “When Is It Okay?” list to your parents and have them fill it out. There’s an interesting conversation!

Talk with your mom or another trusted adult female about this stuff. See if you can get your dad to talk with you about it. Dads have important opinions, too!Are your answers different from your parents’? Ask your parents not only WHEN but WHY. Make them explain their reasons for their answers. Do they make sense? Believe it or not, parents know more than you think about this stuff.

Parents probably feel awkwardtalking with you about it, but they’ll have some great advice if you’ll hear them out. You don’t need to know if or when your parents did all this stuff (ewwwww!), but their answers will be based on what they have learned from their own experiences and life in general.

But,What If . . . ?

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes,so we have to talk about the what ifs.

Hopefully, we’ve made the point that for humans, sex is not supposed to be just for reproducing. It’s also not supposed to be something you try just because you’re curious. You know by now that sex is powerful in many ways. It can be a wonderful, intimate experience that two people share. It can also be a very disappointing, embarrassing, and even scary experience if it happens too soon or in the wrong relationship.

The disappointing and scary part can come in many ways. We’re doctors; we hear these stories almost every day! Consider the following real-life examples:• A 14-year-old girl has sex with her guy “friend” because she is just curious to see what it is like. She ends up pregnant.

• A 26-year-old woman can’t enjoy sex with her husband because she had sex as a young teenager in a bad relationship and has bad memoriesthat get in the way of her enjoyment.

• A 15-year-old girl goes on a date with her crush, a very popular soccer player at her school who is 17. He starts kissing her, then talks her into giving him oral sex even though she didn’t really want to.He never calls again but tells all his friends at school what they did.

• A 16-year-old sneaks out of her house to go to a party her parents didn’t want her to go to. She drinks a lot of beer and has sex for the first timeever with a guy she doesn’t really know very well.

• A 14-year-old girl and her boyfriend start kissing and get really sexually excited. They touch each other through their clothes. Then they pull their clothes off and touch each other’s naked bodies. They’ve said they wouldn’t have sex, but in the heat of the momentthey both really want to. And they do.

You can see from these true stories why a plan is so important and powerful for girls! Every single girl in these stories either did something she really didn’t want to do or suffered a negative consequence from having sex too early and in the wrong relationship.

And you can also see why you need to work really hard to help yourself stick to your plan. If you want to stick by your promise to yourself to respect your body,you also have to keep yourself out of situations that make it really hard to do that (like drinking alcohol and taking drugs, being alone with a guy you’re not sure you can trust, going “so far” that it’s hard to stop). Those are things you are in control of. Those are decisions you get to make. You have the power and the choice to learn from bad decisions and to make better ones in the future.That’s another way to show your Girl Power!

Some GoodNews about Guys

We know it kind of sounds like guys want nothing but power over you or to get in your pants, like they have no self-control, like they are only worried about themselves and their sexual desires and not you. Well, there is good news! There are guys out there who put you before themselves.They are the kind of guys who may even want to stop sooner than you do. They are the ones who will stop and make a good decision for you even when you are thinking about going further. They are the ones who will remind you that you both decided to stop at the French kiss, and they will respect that decision and make you stick with it!

Those are the guys to look for. You’ll know them by the way they respect girls and women. They don’t act all nice-mannered to fool the teachers, then harass girls in the hallway. They might be quiet, they might be loud, they might play in a band, they might be good at goofing around, they might be jocks or nerds or drama kings . . . but the good ones know respect—for you and for themselves and others. See one? Get to knowhim. It takes time to decide whether he is worthy of YOU.

Powerin Planning

If there is one single thing we want you to remember from this chapter, it’s that there is power in the plan!

Values and boundaries are super important, so do your best to “stay in bounds!” especially when you have your first (or next!) boyfriend. The closer you get to feeling true love, the harder it will be to stick to your plan. Because now you are talking about a real live guy—a guy you are attracted to and really want to be physically close to. It’s not that theoretical “someday” boyfriend you probably had in mind when you set your boundaries. Enjoy your new sexuality, enjoy being emotionally intimate, kiss, look sexy if you want to, but it doesn’t mean you have to have sex.Once you are ready for sex, you will also understand the importance of having a plan to discuss it with your true love and make sure you protect yourself against pregnancy and infections.

We’ll say it again: Girls who have a plan are less likely to do sexual things they really don’t want to do. Sticking to your plan is easier if your boyfriend respects you. And true loves always respect you. It will be awkward talking to your boyfriend about sexual things and boundaries. But getting the relationship right requires communication, lots of communication.And you can do it!