My Delight with Sarah Bartel

Talking with Your Kids about Sex with Dr. Julia Sudusky

• Sarah Bartel

Share episode

What can parents do to help prevent sexual abuse of their kids AND raise them to have a balanced, shame-free attitude towards their bodies? What should you do if your child keeps touching themselves? Dr. Julia Sadusky, a licensed clinical psychologist, and author, shares how Catholic parents can talk to their children and teens about sex in a healthy, helpful way. Dr. Sadusky shares practical advice for addressing:

  • early childhood curiosity
  • setting boundaries 
  • and fostering open communication. 

So many adult women in marriage feel bad about their bodies and about their sexuality. Sarah has seen this with the married and engaged women she coaches. This type of conversation can help women heal their own sexual mindsets, which can allow them to feel more free to enjoy their love lives with their husbands in marriage.

Read these helpful books to learn more!

Start Talking to Your Kids About Sex: A Practical Guide for Catholics, by Julia Sadusky

Talking with Your Teen About Sex: A Practical Guide for Catholics, by Julia Sadusky

Find Dr. Julia Sadusky on her website, juliasadusky.com




MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.


Sarah:

I am so thankful to be here with my guest, Dr. Julia Sadusky, to speak about how to talk to your children about sex and maybe how to even encourage a bit further healing for your own sexual mindset. As a married woman, Dr. Julius Sadusky is a licensed clinical psychologist speaker and the owner of a private practice in Littleton, Colorado. Dr. Julia has been researching sexual development for over a decade and specializes in trauma-informed care. She's also worked in youth ministry and now trains faith-based organizations around sexuality, gender, and psychology. She earned her bachelor's degree from Ave Maria University and a doctorate in clinical Psychology from Regent University. Dr. Julia Sadusky is the author of several books, including Talking with Your Teen About Sex, A Practical Guide for Catholics, and that is what I'm so excited to talk with you about today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

You're so welcome. I'm so excited to talk with you.

Sarah:

So you have two books about talking to your kids about sex, right? Talk to your kids about Sex Practical Guide for Catholics that came out in 2023, and then talking with your teen about sex, a practical guide for Catholics in 2024, which is such a gift to the church. Can you tell us a bit about what inspired and motivated you to write these and what the differences are between the two? Yes. So it's a bit of a surprising

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

story for some people. I actually was pitching a very different book for Avi Maria Press and I. Within a month's time, got some calls from some very dear friends who were asking questions about that early childhood range. So things like exploratory play, kids kind of touching the, their genitalia or that of other people outta curiosity and parents trying to figure out how do I respond in a non-shaming way. And at the end of every call that I had with different friends and it even came up with clients, people would say, why isn't there a book about this for Catholics? And I didn't think much of it until it got said probably four or five times. And then I thought, why isn't there a book about this? And I did a simple Google search and saw that the first thing that popped up when I looked up exploratory play and how to talk about it with kids was a Planned Parenthood's website. Oh. And it struck me that even though everything I read on the website about that specific topic was exactly what I would say. Mm-hmm. As a psychologist. Catholic parents are not going to be going to Planned Parenthood's website obviously, to get that information. So I was aware that, gosh, we really need something by Catholics, for Catholics to really make this as easy as possible for Catholic parents. And so that really got the wheels turning for me. And, and frankly, I wrote a sample chapter in about two hours. Wow. And so it became clear to me that I had a lot to say about this based on my own clinical experience and, and some of my training in sexual development. So that was the reason for just kind of trying to take a shot at scripting for parents how to have these conversations. The other piece of it being that many parents. Today really recognize the value of these conversations early and often. Many parents will concede that they did not have the formation they needed in this area as young kids. In fact, most of the responses they get from parent, their parents were shaming. Mm-hmm. And so I was seeing this desire from parents to have these conversations without any modeling of how to do it. So I thought, why not model it and bridge that gap? So that first book start talking to your kids about sex is for parents of kids, and. Mentors, babysitters of kids, kind of zero to eight. So think pre puberty. What are the conversations we have to be having with young children to form them in a healthy way when it comes to sexual development? What do we need to teach them about body boundaries, about being able to kind gauge trustworthiness of other people in proximity to them? How do we teach them and respond to them exploring their body through touch without shaming them, but also not just permitting, kind of whatever. Happening there. How do we teach them accurate terms for genitalia? How do we prepare them for sleepovers in times when we're not with them so that they're kind of following the framework of the family when they're not with the family? And how do we prepare them for exposure to things like pornography, which comes earlier and earlier in, in these generations. So it's a lot of that responding to questions they have about gender, sexuality, and early childhood. If they see a book at the library that catches their eye technology use. It's all of those things. And then the, the parents for teens book, talking with your teen about sex. The distinction there is, is kind of offering that classic sex education. So how do we talk about bodily changes? Obviously talking about masturbation, pornography, talking about sexual orientation, questions that come up for kids and teens and also for their peers. So how do they relate to friends? Asking questions around sexuality, gender questions are very prevalent today in the culture, and so how do we equip Catholic teens to process that, to understand that obviously technology sexual intercourse, understanding that, so it's all of those kind of teen developmental conversations, friendship and dating included in there as well.

Sarah:

Oh, it's so great that you wrote these. We have these resources now. I've recommended your books to the women inside my course, my delight for several years now since they, shortly after they came out, and I was aware of them. When moms in my course are working on reshaping their own thoughts about sex and shame and their bodies and, you know, not thinking of it as dirty or not thinking of their bodies as dirty, but as beautiful. Then naturally, if they have children, especially little girls, but also for the boys too, then they think, oh, how do I make sure to raise my kids so that they also don't, have this layer of shame around this whole world of sexuality. And, and they can start off with a better start than I did in marriage. So I'm really thankful that you have this. We've mentioned shame a few times now, and I think I would just love to look at this word, this experience, and why we want to remove it from, you know, our conversations with our kids about sex. What is shame and then what's the problem with it when we're talking about sex?

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, we might comment a little bit on theological shame versus psychological shame. Just to distinguish that, because if people are listening and they know theology of the body, they know that there's a whole conversation about shame that modern psychology doesn't talk about. But let's take the psychological understanding of shame first, just'cause I think that's what people are probably even more familiar with. The idea of shame is it's, it's an emotion, a normal human emotion that we all experience in response to a sense that something about me is flawed or problematic or bad. So it's not guilt, it's not I did something wrong. Mm-hmm. It's a sense that by virtue of my existence, there's something flawed, defective, unlovable in me or about me. And then why is this problematic psychologically? Well, in the face of that experience of badness or defectiveness, the the hope of the, of the, of me who is feeling shame is if I hold people at arms' length, if I don't let them see the part of me that I feel is bad. Mm-hmm. I will protect myself from being rejected. The problem with that is as I hold you from arm's length, at arm's length, and I hide myself in shame, I reject myself because shame the way we inoculate shame. The way we treat shame and reduce shame is by actually bringing it into the light. You see this in Genesis where, what's the first thing Adam and Eve do when they experience shame? After the fall, they hide themselves. They cover themselves. They hide themselves with the fig leaves. That's right. They hide themselves in the fig leaves. That is a fundamental experience of shame. When we wanna hide, when we wanna make ourselves small, that's the felt bodily experience of shame. And what does God do? Well, his response in that is relational. He says, where are you? Aw, why? Because he knows that in places of shame relationship, being seen, being known, being received in those places helps us move towards the good and the true and the beautiful, not away from it. And actually in the realm of sexuality, shame is a catalyst for problematic sexual behaviors. Shame is a catalyst. It is the thing that moves us towards acting out problematic behaviors, fantasy thoughts. It actually feeds the very behaviors we're trying to reduce. So if we want to help Catholic young people. Engage in a virtuous way in the sexual realm, we have to reduce the sense of badness about human sexuality because the good, the true and the beautiful is worth protecting. The bad is worth punishing. The bad is worth comforting by things that feel, you know, as deaths, desperate attempts to kind of make us feel better, feel bad, I wanna feel better. And these, these behaviors end up in the short term making us feel a little bit better. So that's a little bit about sexual shame, kind of in the more psychological frame, but in the theological domain. John Paul ii, Saint John Paul II talks about this idea that shame comes after the fall to help us identify moments when we're being objectified or violated, or our dignity being diminished. I. And I think that's helpful too, because when, when children you know, experience a, a sexual violation or something really bad happens to them, they tend to feel shame. Mm-hmm. And we might say, oh, that's bad. Well, we wanna attend to it, but it's actually the body's way of saying, I was violated, something bad did happen, and the intensity of the shame is a signal to the world that something happened that wasn't okay. So I, I appreciate that as well, that it's not all merely bad to feel shame. In fact, it can be a check engine light or a signal that something's awry that needs to be attended to and seen and known in, in that child's life.

Sarah:

Wonderful. Let's talk about reassuring the Catholic moms listening who are thinking, wait, but we wanna make sure that our kids know that sex is wrong outside of marriage. So how can we tease out the difference between forming our kids well to, you know, appreciate the goodness of sexuality in a shame-free way, but then also communicating these appropriate moral boundaries around where sex. You know, is like genital, you know, fully unitive, proative sex is supposed to be happening in marriage.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah. So I like the framing of like understanding what God's best is. Like what is God's best for something. Mm-hmm. You know, what's God's best for my interactions with my friends at breakfast? Well, if we sit and gossip and we just kind of complain about our lives and complain about the food, we're not gonna have an enjoyable breakfast. Right? We still got a breakfast with our friends, but it's not the best it could be. And so anything that is part of God's plan and his law for our lives is for our best. We have to also appreciate that by virtue of being human, we will fall short of God's best, even if we follow all the rules, right? And so we kind of have to account for that, that we're always moving towards the heights. We're always moving towards the fullness of life. So it is good to offer clarity about what God has told us about human sexuality. That it is something that is really reserved for certain expressions in certain pockets of the world, in certain spaces, in certain relationships. And apart from that. There is a kind of loss of something valuable, and so we need to teach that. We need to say that just with an open hand, right? As parents, you're just offering that this really is God's best for us and it isn't that cool that God cares about the details. Yeah. He even cares about our sexual lives. He even cares about the fact that if we're not sexually active, we can have the fullness of life. Like he has plenty of pathways for us, apart from sexual activity. To glorify him isn't that great, but remember that shame is I am bad by virtue of existence. Mm-hmm. Guilt is I did something wrong. So teaching expectations of morality helps cultivate a sense of conscience and a healthy sense of guilt when we do the thing that we're not told to do or supposed to do. Mm-hmm. Or is not our best. We feel that with guilt. So guilt is not a problem. Guilt is a good thing. It's a pro-social thing. It means you're not a sociopath. So we want our kids and teens to know the expectations and to have an appreciation when they go awry of what to do next, which includes repentance, right? But we also, like for instance, when a child is exploring their genitalia through touch, which is a normal developmental task that kids do three to five, they start to touch everything. And parents know this. Like they touch all the things you don't want them to touch, including their genitalia. Well, you as a parent can help teach them that actually that body part has a really important job and we need to keep it clean. We need to keep it covered because it has an important task. It helps us go to the bathroom and it has other jobs that you'll learn about later, but we need to keep it clean so we don't actually stick our hands in our pants. And it's not a toy that we play with. Mm-hmm. So we have toys. It's not one of those toys. Even if it's silly, even if it's fun, thumbs, some things just aren't toys. So you're teaching that expectation. Right. But then if your kids two hours later as one does, mm-hmm. They're touching themselves again for the 50th time that day. Your job as a parent is to not slap their hand. It's to not yell at them and tell them how gross they are for doing that. No. Your job is to restate again, the thing. That is not what it's for. This is not a toy. And to help redirect them, give them something else to do with their hands, give them something else to do, and make a plan to help them move away from that over time. That's helping with guilt. It doesn't reinforce shame, and it's the shame that will lead them to try to soothe themselves by touching themselves more actually in the future.

Sarah:

That's such an important insight that by making them feel ashamed, oh, that's bad, that's dirty. You shouldn't do that. You're so, you know, wrong for doing that, that then they will feel bad and seek comfort and soothing and what's right there within hands reach. As soon as they're in private or your back is turned, they can find that source of comfort that they found from touching themselves. Yeah, this is really important. I know that the women in my class classes over the last few years, you know, if they, a lot of them really need to, undo these thoughts that they've been raised with, that their, their genitals are bad, that sex is bad, you know, and sometimes this came from those types of words when they were little girls, like, oh, don't touch yourself there. You're so dirty. Or That's dirty, right? Sometimes it was through omission, just a complete silence and never, this is something we never talked about. This part of our body was never, we did, I didn't even know the name, the proper, you know, name for this part of my body. So what is the ideal scenario here? Can you kind of take us through some of the points that you share in your book for the younger kids ages, you know, up to age eight? This, like, how we want to just first start talking about genitals with little kids.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah, great question. So I actually want parents to start doing this and labeling genitalia with kids when they're super young, long before they'll remember your anxiety about it. Because most parents, if you're honest, haven't often said out loud words like vulva and penis. Mm-hmm. And vagina and like you're probably not talking about that super regularly. And you will be surprised if you start to, that you might feel some embarrassment, some shame, some disgust in saying the words out loud. For exactly what you just said, Sarah, because we didn't see people do this in a way that was calm. They didn't talk about it at all. Or when they did talk about our parts of the body that are genitalia, they talked about it in a disgusted, kind of scared way. Well, that right, like

Sarah:

even just slightly lowering the voice and speaking a little softer, like lower timur and quieter tone, right? Mm-hmm.'cause Right. You're saying we're not used to saying these words out loud, calmly, and confidently.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

That's right. So the first thing we do, and, and this actually comes from training in sex therapy, is that one of our exercises in sex therapy training is saying out loud, accurate terms for genitalia, just pointing on a diagram and practicing saying it confidently. And you're surprised usually by how much shame and embarrassment there can be. So you practice over time. Well, I thought why not do that with parents? So when parents are changing the diaper of a 1-year-old Yes. A 1-year-old. Oh yeah. Starting to say, I'm gonna wipe, you know, your vulva area and your vaginal opening. We're gonna clean that out. Oh, we're gonna clean out your, your rectum here. Yep. Let's clean that up as well. You know, we're kind of moving through the body and we're okay. We're gonna clean the outer lips and the inner lips. Just practicing that. Not because you're gonna have to say those words a lot with your kid, but you are going to want to have the capacity to say them out loud in a way that teaches your child accurate terms for genitalia in a calm, clear way, using medical terminology that reduces shame, increases self-awareness, and helps them feel mastery of their bodies. That's what we want. And so in that early phase, bath time, diaper changes, changing time are really good opportunities to, for the parent to practice. So then by the time that kid is three, four, or five and they are touching themselves, you can say to your kid, oh, I see you touching your penis. Real calm as opposed to feeling the embarrassment and shame of having to say the word out loud, combined with the fear of what does it mean that they're touching themselves, coming out sideways, onto your child and confusing them to believe this is a bad part of their body. Right? So that's, that's why we're, we're building that out. So early practice saying these words out loud with your spouse, if you're married, you can practice that with changing times. You're helping build that. And that's really, really key. Now, why does this matter? Well, the number one thing that we keep learning from the research of childhood sexual abuse is that teaching kids accurate terminology for their genitalia is a protective factor against sexual abuse in childhood.

Sarah:

Wow. Oh, that's so important.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah. So it's, it is not the only reason we do it'cause the positive reason we do it is because we actually want our kids and teens to feel effective about their bodies, to know what's there and to not use pornography online Google searches or asking their peers, having that be the first way they learn about their bodies. You might prefer they learn from you in a medical, calm, clear, non-sexual way. Mm-hmm. Than learn from their peers, pornography, unwanted sexual experiences about these parts of their body because that will guarantee shame. When you do it, you get to scaffold it in a way that reduces shame. But yes, we wanna reduce the likelihood of sexual abuse. We wanna reduce an A curiosity, getting channeled through avenues that are not helpful for learning. And both of those things are really useful actually in the development of these kids. I.

Sarah:

What strikes me about what you're presenting in terms of being able to speak in a confident, calm way about body parts. Is that then when our kids are older and they can know already, these are safe topics. Mom doesn't get anxious, dad doesn't get anxious, they don't avert their eyes and lower their voice or, you know, deflect when it's time to talk about this aspect of life, sexuality, that this is a safe topic. I think that is probably going to really come into play as well. When we look in the later stages of early childhood, can you model some sorts of conversations that would be important to have as your kids are, you know, between those ages of five and eight, what are things that come up normally in, in this timeframe?

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah, so, so usually at that age, if you have really curious kids, they are starting to notice bodily distinctions between people, right? They're noticing boys, girls, men, women. They may start to have a little bit of curiosity. If you breastfeed, they may wanna pull your shirt and see what's there. You know, that would be not uncommon. They're also branching out to their peers more so they're being exposed to peers where play is a way of learning. And so this is where we do start to see things come up in play dates where maybe, you know, a kid makes a game out of you know, you show me your body parts and I'll show you mine. Right. Well, if you've never had a conversation about genitalia. How do you teach rules around genitalia that you want your kid to implement and be protected from? Then violating experiences, those are very common. Five to eight. So what can you do? Well, we're going over to a play date and it's, Hey guys, what are the rules about showing your, your penis and, and showing your vagina to other people? What rules do we have in our family? And kids are, oh, well I don't show other people my, my penis, and they don't show me theirs, and I don't put that in their mouth and it's not a game. Those are all the things we wanna say. And you're teaching them. And scripting that for them. And if that was to happen at cousin, you know, Johnny's house today, what do we do when stuff like that happen?'cause sometimes people don't know the rules of our family. Sometimes people don't follow the rules or they think it's kind of fun to break the rules. And so when that happens, what can you do? Well when we're driving home from Johnny's house, we tell mom, or we use the code word elephant.'cause that's the funny code word we came up with to talk about these types of moments. Or you know, you're kind of setting up in their brain that my body is not something that a person has a right to. Mm-hmm. Because they want to. And it's not rude to say no. In fact, it's a rule to say no about certain body parts because it's for my good and their good. You're already teaching a sexual ethic that's gonna take root in adolescence, right? It's not new. This was the other problem I saw is parents are not talking about human sexuality until their teenager is post pubescent, when their hormones are the highest they will ever be, arguably. And they're saying, no, no, no. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Well, if you're scripting a framework where my body is not a tool, it's not a toy, and it's not merely about somebody else's pleasure or play. I have a right as an embodied person and as a, as a Catholic person to say no to certain things and to say yes to others, I say no to that game. To say yes to a different game that's actually more fun and appropriate. You want to be teaching that as young as you can. So that's a little bit of scripting on the front end. And then again, when things happen, and sadly, too often things do happen in, in a world that is fallen and broken, when your kid, let's say at eight is playing with a friend and the friend you know, who has been sexually harmed, is then reenacting something with your child. Your child knows Sarah, that mom and dad are not so fragile to handle this conversation that they can go home and say, yeah, this person actually told me to put my penis in their mouth, or This person put their hand up into my rectum. And that didn't feel good to me. Like they can say that to you because you showed them, you can handle those words. And even if they're feeling ashamed, which they will, and even if they're feeling guilty, which they will, and even if they're feeling confused and wondering, did I want this or what was there, they know mom and dad can handle that. And the way we buffer against. Dissociation in these kids trauma responses for years to come and harm from these experiences is having safe and secure and trusted adults come in after those moments and say, I know how to help you through this. That's what we want. And so in that, that later childhood range, we're already positioning you as parents to be the primary educators and to be the people who know more than your kid about sexuality. And you want them to see you as the primary resource, not somebody else.

Sarah:

Wow. And you're there for them in a regulated. Way that you are not shaken or broken by, you know what they just told you about that you're like you, you're bigger. That's right. You're not so fragile.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

You are. You are a secure base. Now. You will go and you will cry after or you panic after, or you will need to take a minute and come back to it sometimes, but that you can get to a regulated place. All of those early conversations are as much for you to be regulated as they are for your kid to know you can handle it.

Sarah:

Wow. Okay. Well now I wanna ask the follow up. Say a parent did get revelations like that from their kid, that there was sex play slash maybe sex abuse happening, peer to peer between kids. Then what do we want to. Where do we go next with, with that information? Yeah.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah. So there's a couple of big pieces. I mean, this is such a big topic and mm-hmm. The books really do a better job than I'll do right now in capturing the magnitude of, of what you do. It's a very overwhelming emotional experience for parents. So I think the first thing to name is you will be flooded with a ton of emotions. You will feel angry, you will feel protective of your child. You will blame yourself. What could I have done to protect them more? You will feel guilty, you will feel maybe afraid if it happened with another kid from another family, about how will the other parents respond? Will they believe me? You know, you, you will have all kinds of inner turmoil that has the potential of coming out on your child. And so it's maybe worth asking ahead of time, what do I tend to do when I feel overwhelmed emotionally? Do I go into fix it mode and try to like fix the problem and try to make it go away? Or do I ask a ton of anxious questions and go into interrogation mode? Do I freeze and shut down? Well, that's helpful to know because in that moment of stress, you will likely go to those things. And so if you're in freeze mode, you're probably gonna wanna say to your child, oh, thank you so much for telling me that. I wanna, I wanna support you through that. Mom's here, or dad's here. We are really smart adults and we're gonna help you figure out what to do with this, but it just, I am so proud of you for telling me. Thank you. This is exactly the type of conversation we wanna have when things like this happen. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's kind of like you're saying to your kid, there is nowhere else. I'd rather you go Oh, than to be right. I want to know because the alternative is, it happened and I don't know. And I would not prefer that. So you're signaling that, and if you're freezing, you're gonna say, you know what? Why don't we go take a little walk? Or, why don't we go get a snack and have some water? Why? Because that grounds everybody. Mm-hmm. And brings down the intensity. Take a break and come back. If you're prone to asking questions, you have to know that going into interrogation mode does not help that you are not the assessor, you are not the cop, you are not the law enforcement, you are not the psychologist. There are people who can help you figure out. How do we respond? So many parents, because this feels like a source of shame or embarrassment or fear, they take on the pressure to have to assess the situation fully and know exactly what to do. These are complex situations. There's a lot of nuance to how you determine what the best step is. If there was a, a violation that occurred and you need and benefit from outside voices to help you tease that out because it's so emotionally charged. You wanna protect your kid and you wanna figure out how to do that best. So seeking out a friend who knows about this realm of sexual development, a mental health provider a medical doctor, are all good. Next steps to just get perspective on, like, what do we think about this? What's the best next step before you respond? Now, in the meantime, if this is a regular play date with somebody, maybe you bump out that play date a few more weeks to buy yourself some time. If it's a, if it's a sibling, you're not gonna let them be alone together for that time. So you're gonna do some things for safety, planning to buy you time to make decisions for next steps. Steps. And then finally, you're not going to punish your kid for what happened. You're gonna believe them.

Sarah:

Oh, that's so powerful just to believe them so they, they feel heard and that their experience that they experienced, they can trust. That was true.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

That's right. And if it's so obvious, like if you've got a kid that tells you that an 18-year-old and they're five and, and they're saying an 18-year-old touched them a certain way, or, you know, they're 12 and they're saying a a 20-year-old did something to them, you're gonna believe them. You're gonna contact law enforcement. I mean, there's some pieces like this that are, are actually rather obvious. If it, you know, it's like if it's that bad, you're gonna say That was not okay, what they did to you. I'm here to protect you and we're gonna make sure that happens. And then finally, you're gonna give your kid choices. Anytime there is a sexual violation one of the pieces that makes it traumatic is your autonomy is taken away. Mm-hmm. And so you wanna give choices, even if it feels simple, like do you want apples or do you want oranges with your dinner? Even those things after an experience like this reclaim a sense of, I have autonomy. I am powerful, I'm effective in the world, even when bad things happen. So reinstating choice and telling your child that you are so proud of them, that these experiences do not destroy their goodness. That speaks into places of shame before they take root.

Sarah:

I'm just, this is so important and good and helpful, and I'm just thinking forward now 20, 30, 40 years for that child because those girls then sometimes end up in my class, my, my delight class, and then in their marriage, in their sex life with their husband, they don't feel like they have a choice. They didn't have, they don't have their voice and their autonomy. They're like, well, whenever he initiates, I just have to, you know, and like, I can't speak dear in our love making or give feedback, or my preferences don't count. They don't even know that they have preferences. So it's so important to try as much as possible to give that sense of you matter and you have a choice and a voice. And sometimes too, women have shared just about how they were repeatedly sexually abused by a family friend, family member, someone in their family circle. And the abuse was awful, but almost even more awful was, and mom didn't believe me and did nothing to stop it.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

That's exactly it. That the, you know, the nature of trauma as we understand it today, which I think is really important and helpful to name is trauma is something that exceeds our capacity to cope. And Dan Allen talks about this, that its experiences of powerlessness and betrayal, the combination of those two things. So how do you reclaim power and how do you reestablish trust and safety again after betrayal and powerlessness? Well, if that doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Mm-hmm. That's what you're, you're describing. And so. Actually, if we have people trusted adults in our corner, in the aftermath of something traumatic, who show up for us, who believe us, who help us reestablish safety rather quickly, who help us process the betrayal, acknowledge feelings of powerlessness, you really were powerless then. And now we're gonna reclaim that power. We're gonna come back from that. That buffers against PTSD developing later. That buffers against the negative sequel eye of trauma pushing you around for decades to come. And so it's no small thing to be an adult in that moment. We are the buffer. We stand in the prey, right? And how incredible. In the aftermath of our own stories, of, of harm, our own stories of trauma that we can be, that we can be what we needed for our kids and survivors of trauma. You need to know if, if you can relate to this, that you get to be that for your kid even as you're processing your own story. And in the books I talk a lot about the importance and I actually create some frameworks for how to process your own sexual story so that you can use it as a tool for good. And, and that is really, really key what, what you're speaking to there.

Sarah:

Wonderful. Let's talk about the teen book now. So many more experiences and developments happening at this age for kids. What would you say are just some of the most important things to keep in mind as Catholic parents are talking with their teens about sex?

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah, so actually I, I tend to like to decentralize the sex talk Uhhuh. Yeah. Because, because actually most teens are not sexually active. Increasingly, more and more teens are not dating. Actually, we're seeing that from the data today. So I'm trying to think what are the things that teens are almost all doing? Well, they're all going through puberty. And we need to help them prep for puberty, not just helping with menstruation. Prep for girls, not just helping boys. Prepare for the fact that they will have erections, they will ejaculate. They need to know how to clean up after they have a wet dream, for instance. These are all very important things to teach them so they don't feel shame about natural bodily responses that happen automatically for sexual health. The, the, the girls do need to know about menstruation and planning for that, why that happens, understanding their cycle. So all of that's important, but they also need to be taught about the developing body of the other sex. This is something that gets missed. Parents forget that they're going to be in, in many cases, curious as they get older about the opposite sex or about the same sex. They're gonna have those questions, what's happening in my friend's bodies? So you're gonna teach, and again, medical language, what's happening? That helps them not again, go elsewhere for that information. You don't want them to rely on Google, on peers, on sexual partners to teach them in adolescence about this. You're also gonna teach them about physical boundaries. You're gonna teach them that they're no means, no, that it's not rude to say no even when you like somebody, if they touch you in certain ways that you don't like, your job is to speak up. Not only that, but you will be do well if you plan for the fact that at times you will have a hard time saying with your words no. Mm-hmm. So we're already helping them prep, especially women for what you were just talking about. Preferences. What I like, what I don't like when it comes to touch. And that actually, even if I can't speak, because maybe I wasn't taught in that moment to use my voice, or maybe I'm freezing and I don't know what to say'cause I'm anxious, I can move my body away. Mm-hmm. And I can mm-hmm. With my body, my discomfort. So you're, you're coaching them through that. You're also helping them be aware of crushes and attraction. Many teens don't talk with parents about crushes and attraction because they get made fun of for it. Or, you know, their parent's gonna tell another parent about it. Or maybe they just feel a little bit like they're more private, they don't wanna go there. Or maybe the family has rules about dating that dating's not allowed. So then. They have all this going on and they can't talk to you about it. Well, we actually have to talk to them about attraction, about desire, about that fire inside of us that mm-hmm. Builds up in our body. When we see beauty, when we see goodness, when we see another beautiful person, that we're gonna feel a fire and we have to figure out what to do with that. We have to talk about self-stimulation, which masturbation and that, that's very common, increasingly common for girls as a way to learn about their genitalia. This is why we wanna teach them about it sooner. So we're gonna kind of acknowledge that parts of the body that are stimulated, touched in certain ways will respond. And so what do we do about that? What do we do when we have urges to touch those parts of the body, knowing that they will create a sense of pleasure. We have to learn what masturbation and pornography is doing for our teens. What is it helping them cope with? That would be another key piece. And then obviously we're, we're helping our teens understand the landscape of sexual orientation and gender, so they're not learning about it first on online and from their peers. We're getting ahead of that. We're helping create kind of what I call as cultural ambassadors where they're not surprised by the landscape. They're not scandalized by it. They know about it from you. They can be kind and caring to friends who don't have Catholic formation, and they can be anchored in an understanding and a clarity of what we understand about the human person as they learn to relate to friends who maybe are coming from a different perspective.

Sarah:

That's really wonderful. Yes, and that's so good. Again, I just hear through your tone and your words this, while we're still staying faithful to our Catholic moral rules and boundaries and, you know, vision for what is good, true, and beautiful with sexuality, we can also have this, this, this openness and calmness as we talk about the things that are going on sexually in the world around us or maybe even, you know, with inside us when, when we ourselves are feeling attracted without freaking out. I think that's it there, right? Just not freaking out.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

That's right. That, that the body's working. I always tell people if you're experiencing desire for anything, if you're experiencing attraction for anything, a draw, your body is working. It's communicating now. Every time our body communicates something, we don't just do whatever it tells us in that moment. Right. You know, sometimes we wanna sleep, but we're driving and we keep driving. We don't fall asleep even though we really want to, we're yawning. And it's, it's the same thing with any other impulse that we learn how to weather it, ride the wave of it. Know what's trying to tell us.'cause sometimes, you know, a teenager, a teenage boy wants to watch pornography'cause he's bored. Mm-hmm. Well, let's get that boy a hobby. I mean, let's help him with boredom. If he's going to pornography for that. Now, he may not even know that, but if all we teach our teenagers about pornography is that it's immortal sin, that it will ruin your marriage and sexual functioning and that it's, it's so bad and it, it teaches you to objectify people, all of which, by the way can be true. Mm-hmm. All we say about it is that the question becomes, where does a teen go when they find themselves in a pattern of pornography usage? If all you have to speak to is a no, what's the yes for them? On the other side of getting caught in that same thing as before, we're trying to help parents be the experts in the room and point to expertise of other people so that you can help your teens. Whether these things, when they find themselves in these loops and extract from them way sooner than most of us were given the opportunity to.

Sarah:

So if all that sounds good to you, moms listening, then you definitely want to get Dr. Julius Sandusky's book, talking With Your Teen About Sex, A Practical Guide for Catholics, or we mentioned we were talking about early childhood earlier and her book, start Talking to Your Kids About Sex, A Practical Guide for Catholics. That's the Guide for Kids up to age eight. Now, let's talk straight to the mom or the married woman or engaged woman who is listening to us, and maybe she is starting to recognize that purity culture or sense of shame has really affected her own. Ideas about herself and about sex and sex and marriage. What are some ways she can start undoing those knots and sort of teasing open this sort of clenched up shame, you know, response that's kind of this tightens down regarding yeah. Her own body or the idea of sex and marriage.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah. It's a really, really good question. So, one of the tools that I like to use is, is actually journaling through, and this can happen in conversations with friends, posing the question, you know, what was I taught about sexuality? Like, what words even come to mind when I think about sexuality? What feelings, maybe it's discussed or embarrassment or vulnerability or violation or harm. I tend to ask women, you know, what words spontaneously come to mind when I, when you hear sex? Female sexuality arousal, desire, orgasm. Like what words come to mind? Well, that starts to cue us into the messages you got about your sexuality. And then can you write those out? What, like, sexuality is blank. What are the stories that got told? About sex in my home, in my family. What did my, my own parents' sexual behavior or lack thereof. Maybe my mom, you know, anytime she commented about sex, she rolled her eyes and she said, you know, I have to do my duty, but I'm not happy about it. Or, you know, maybe the dad is constantly trying to seek mom sexually and you're watching her push that away, or you're watching mom make bids for connection with dad. And dad seemed distant or avoidant or disconnected. And that signaled that there's not, this is not a place of connection. It's a place of exchange. So really learning what, what was I taught about sex? What did I learn? What did I receive? And what impact does that have on me now? Usually the impact, right, is if there's not safety in this realm. Mm-hmm. There's not pleasure. If we're not safe, the parts of our brain that experience pleasure do not turn on because what's the point? If I'm not safe, I don't have time for play and, and silliness and goofiness and exploration, it becomes very rigid and cut off. And so just being able to really pull back the veil of some of those messages and then find other people who can relate, you know, I think too often Catholic women who are married, you know, we wanna talk about sex in a positive way. We wanna maybe feel like we figured it out. And sometimes that can send the message that if you're a faithful Catholic woman, this area of your life, you have some kind of mastery over. Like if you followed all the rules, it's just going well. Or this hyper negative sense that like this is just our, our rote obligation, this is our duty. And so talking with women who can be genuine about, like, I actually do feel sexual desire. I actually do wanna experience orgasm. That's helpful. I would love that. I'm having some challenges with shame and having other women say, me too. Oh my gosh, here's how I got the message about purity culture. Here's how that kind of got roots in me. Here's how that shows up in the bedroom. Here's how it shows up out of the bedroom. Opening those conversations reduces shame, helps us connect to compassion for, oh my gosh, that had to be so hard to survive. That type of narrative. And how do we start to move towards a healthier expression of sexuality as women by women as opposed to looking to male sexuality to kind of tell us how to feel about

Sarah:

this. Oh my goodness. That is so good and important and yes. I just want to underscore and emphasize exactly that what you encourage, that we need to be able to have conversations as Catholic women with each other about sex and not think this is off limit. This one aspect of human experience that is present in almost every married woman's life is something that we cannot talk about. That just leads to isolation, increases shame, and if a woman is suffering pain and sex, or just lack of pleasure mm-hmm. Or obligation mindset and isn't able to talk with any other women about it, she's gonna be stuck there and not know there's another way. There are methods of help. There are, you know, there are means of fixing that and, and finding a more, you know, being able to have life more abundantly. Yes. As God, you know, as Jesus tells us in John 10 10, I may claim that you might have life and have it more abundantly. Well, I mean, all the more in this area of our sexuality, this is such a vital area. Of our being and if we can be truly free and alive and open and playful there, you know, then we, yeah, we we're not, we don't have to shut ourselves down. That's right. Yes. Okay. What about the woman who was raised in a, a strong Catholic home? She didn't think there were any purity culture messages, but they just never talked about sex and now in marriage, not really. Knowing what to expect or, or even not even thinking that this is made for pleasure for her here. She found early experiences in marriage where sex wasn't pleasurable for her. It was just sort of me. And now she wants to try to undo all this and, you know, and, and come alive in this area. And she looks back. There was just sort of a blank there. What, any tips for her? This may be because I just had a coaching call with a, a, a student in my class. That was, that was her story. But it's not an uncommon story. I think so many women find themselves in that place.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah, I think it's so easy for women to, to not validate that for themselves. Like, why didn't have something bad happen? I just didn't get anything. And it's like, well though, not getting anything really left you without any map. And that had to be scary and that had to be uncomfortable. And that has to still make you feel like you're kind of treading water in a murky area of the ocean and you can't see your feet. That does not feel good. So how do we get your bearings? How do we find your feet again? Well, you know, a lot of it's gonna be medical education. So can I, you know, print a diagram And with my books, I, I'm kind of putting out content of just diagrams of female reproductive system, male reproductive system. So we can look at them together and say, oh, okay, so let's look at the female reproductive system. Wouldn't you know that the clitoris sole job is, is pleasure for the women? That a woman, the clitoris is there to be stimulated to increase likelihood of orgasm? Well, that's helpful information for this woman to know. Right? We're trying to say what are the things that we can learn about the female reproductive system that help enhance these experiences and lead a woman to feel like she has a sense of mastery and effectiveness of her body. The other piece of this, and there's more we could say, but this will maybe get us somewhere for today, is, is helping a woman learn about what are the accelerators for desire for her? What helps her transition out of the role of wife and mother and kind of if she has a job and all of those tasks, the responsibilities into this role of, of love maker into this kind of place of delight and pleasure and being pleasured, all of that. It's a shift of role. Mm-hmm. And so what helps with that transition time for her to just put her in a better spot and what are the breaks, what are the things that she does or that her spouse does that really make it hard to go there and to connect in that way and helping her practice give that feedback ahead of time outside of the context of sexual intercourse. What helps me accelerate this process and move towards you and what keeps me further away. Mm-hmm. And then practicing giving that feedback is really useful for women as they start to build that those muscles and that language for this.

Sarah:

That's really wonderful. Yes. I'm thinking as you're talking breaks could be you have a laundry basket in your bedroom. Yes. And that is reminding you of undone chores. Let's just remove that laundry basket out of the bedroom. That's right. Maybe an accelerator might be an accelerator to help with the transition might be soaking in the tub while, you know, reading a, a book to just relax and let the day melt off so then you can slip in more readily into that role of lover who delights Yes. Instead of feeling the burden of the day still, you know, in the muscle tension in your shoulders and whatnot. Yeah. But something else you said really struck me as well, which was a little bit ago you were talking about that if, if we don't have good sources of information or you know, we're not talking, we may default to male models of the male model of sexuality, and I think that's what's most prevalent in culture. Would you agree this sort of very, you know, visual eroticism. That. I, I don't know. I, I just, I think that this is what so many women have entered into marriage defaulting to, and then when their own experience of sexuality that there, it's not matching, they're not sure, you know, what, what is nice for them. Could you just tease that out a little bit?

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah. Well, so, so that's so important and it, it really actually, we have to blame a little bit psychology for this and, and sex therapy. I mean, to their credit, sex therapists were trying to have conversations about sexuality at a time when that wasn't as prevalent in culture, but it was totally rooted in male sexuality. And so a lot of the framework around sex, sexual intimacy, sexual pleasure is based on male reproductive system. And so penetration being thought of as kind of the pinnacle mm-hmm. Of pleasure. Right? Which for a man. Who's ejaculating inside the woman, right? That, that, that is, but for the woman. Because of the fact that we know clitoral stimulation is actually the thing that most likely leads to orgasm. It's actually not penetration as such. Right? That's gonna be the most gratifying for many women. Not for all women, but for many women. We also have learned more about responsive desire versus spontaneous desire, that there are women with spontaneous desire who just respond to sexual content and imagery pretty automatically. But there are women who are more responsive, where it takes a bit more foreplay, it takes a little bit more emotional connection. The clearing out of the laundry basket, all of those things to move towards sex where I might feel just apathetic towards it on the front end. And so I can get there, but it takes cultivating that environment and stewarding it in a really robust way. So it takes more work than what we see in movies

Sarah:

mm-hmm.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Of these sex scenes and. I think that's really important for women to know. It also feels kind of not sexy to say, I like this and I don't care for that. But actually if, if you build out years of a relationship where you're doing things or having things done to you that are not enjoyable, it builds resentment over time. Yeah. And so it's helpful to say like, I really love when you do this again outside of sexual contact. I really love when you do that. That honestly doesn't do much for me. That's that I really don't like being touched in that way. And so you're kind of talking about positives, negatives, things you wanna do differently, and giving that feedback. All of that helps build a, a satisfying sexual script for people over time that is not male-centric. It's listening to our bodies and what helps them feel most connected.

Sarah:

Right. And realizing that the way God made our bodies as women, women mm-hmm. With a clitoris, I mean, that shows us God clearly wanted women to experience sexual pleasure and the fact Yes. How nice of him. I know. So thoughtful. This is part of his plan and that it's not inside the vagina. Like those sexual pleasure nerve endings are not inside the vagina. He must have wanted husband and wife to communicate, to explore together, you know? Yes. He, this is his plan is for this to take a lot of attunement and care. Mm-hmm. And attention. And so many women feel like I'm broken or there's something wrong with me if I'm not enjoying sex. The way my husband is enjoying sex. Right. That's like, it's quick. It's just focused on intercourse. That's actually, there's nothing broken about you. This is just what I wanted to tease out about women's sexuality. That

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yeah,

Sarah:

it's not like you take too long to get aroused. You take the right amount of time, right. To get aroused. Yeah. For a

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

woman, yeah. The God design time. Right. God design time. The God maintain time. And that, what I love about that in God's wisdom is it demands a level of attunement, connection, patience love, respect discipline from the man in that case in a way that trickles down in every aspect of his life in greater virtue. That the man who can be attuned to his wife in the bedroom and pay attention to what's happening in her body can do that with his children. When they're scared about something and they need their dad to show up for them. And give them a hug, like the virtue trickles out and God knows that. And so the way our bodies are designed is masterful in that way to help cultivate virtue that we otherwise wouldn't do if we're honest. And so I, I think the sexual realm is another instructor for that.

Sarah:

That's so beautiful that the man is trained then in becoming a good lover to his wife to become a good noticer of feelings of responses and that he can use this to become a better father as well. And frankly, you know, better soft skills in the rest of his relationships, you know, professionally in the community. He can really notice what is going on with other people. Yeah. How are they feeling? And I can respond to that.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

Yes, exactly.

Sarah:

Well, that's a beautiful place to end. Thinking about virtue and developing ourselves, become the best we can be. Thank you so much for having this conversation. Again, I just want to remind everyone listening, go get yourselves a copy of Julius Sandusky's books, start Talking to your kids about sex, which is for the up to eight year olds, and then talking with your teens about sex, A practical guide for Catholics for your older kids. So thank you so much. It's been a joy having you.

Dr. Julia Sudusky:

It's great to talk to you, Sarah.