Dad and ‘the talk’

Want to delay the time when your daughter discovers sex? Have Dad give her “the talk,” new research says.

The study comes from New York University.

Most daughters reported receiving little sexual information from their fathers but identified unique contributions that their fathers made or could have made to their sexual socialization. Future interventions should assist fathers to increase their comfort with sexual communication, to identify barriers, and to provide skill-building practice to promote abstinence and safer sex behaviors among their daughters.

The study was hidden behind a paywall (what good does that do?). Fortunately, Time.com liberated it.

What do (young) women want?

Specifically, they wanted to hear stuff only guys would know, about how to communicate with men and what the carnal landscape looked like from a male’s vantage point. “They felt that if they could have been more comfortable talking with their fathers about issues around sex, they might have been more comfortable talking to boyfriends or potential sexual partners about them,” says (researcher Katherine) Hutchinson.

So, who should give “the talk?” Neither. Hutchinson isn’t a big fan of elevating the issue to that level.