Brandy Walker: Why I Talked About Sex

Brandy Walker presented a seminar at PYM16 called “Holy Sexuality: Teaching Our Kids While We Figure It Out Ourselves.” Brandy is a writer and a coach who believes vulnerability is a superpower. She and her husband, Jermaine, lead the high schoolers at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, MD, attempting to impart some semblance of wisdom. They mostly just play games. She tries to make light of the dark stuff at her site, brandyglows.com, and as a blogger for The Huffington Post.

The first thing God says to us is literally, “Go and have sex.” We were created to enjoy this strange, awkward, sacred act. I think God made sex funny for a reason. I think, to some degree, it’s supposed to be lighthearted. Basically, that sums up my talk: you now have permission to make sex jokes in youth group.

Okay, not really. But, kind of.

From the very beginning, this is not something I wanted to talk about. I am probably one of the most prudish liberals you will ever meet. It’s my nature. But I pitched this talk to John and Tony and the rest of the PYM leaders for a couple of reasons. First, I am crazy. It’s my nature.

Second, I was compelled. I didn’t come as an expert. I’m a recovering addict and an abuse survivor. I feel like I’m the poster child for how not to teach your teenagers about sex. And I know I’m not alone. The evangelical church that a lot of us grew up in stigmatized sex to the degree that’s it’s difficult for many adults to figure out what a healthy sexuality looks like. My husband and I have had much to unlearn in the nearly eight years we’ve been married, and now we find ourselves with a 14-year-old daughter, and as the leaders of the high school group at our church. Inevitably, it’s a topic that comes up in awkward conversations. Because many teenagers (and adults!) don’t know what consent is. Because the nature of being human means that hormones are coursing through our teens’ developing bodies. Somebody has got to talk about it.

As progressive youth workers, we have an opportunity to educate ourselves so that our students won’t have as much to unlearn. In Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parent’s Guide to Talking Sense About Sex, Deborah Roffman puts it this way: “Regardless of our disagreements about right and wrong sexual values, I am certain that most if not all adults would want their children to understand several of the same basic moral principles concerning sexual behavior: It should be meaningful, it should occur in the context of a caring relationship, it should be freely chosen, it should be responsible, and it should be private.” She argues that we should worry less about too much information too soon, and instead consider the implications of too little sexual knowledge, too late.

I gave this talk to spark a conversation and I was struck by the flame it ignited. A few days before I left for Dallas, I asked my friends who’d grown up evangelical to recall the most memorable lesson they learned from their church about sex. The answers ranged from hilarious (i.e. “Christians should have a lot of babies so they will outnumber other religions,”) to wise, to absolutely heartbreaking. Here’s what I learned: people want to talk about sex. We crave a safe space to share our fears and our excitement and our wounds. As parents, even as youth workers, we don’t have to be sexperts to lead these kinds of conversations—there are many resources to guide us. We can’t shy away from this topic because it makes us uncomfortable. As Deborah Roffman puts it, “Sexual values are moral values.” As the church, it’s in our job description. Information is plentiful, regardless of whether we talk about it or not.

In my seminar, I shared my own story, with all its personal, gory details. I don’t recommend sharing your sex stories with children, of course. But I do think we need to talk about them together. The biggest thing I wanted everyone to come away with was this: we have to talk about this. We have to know our own baggage. And that’s not easy, but it’s important. Also, you now have permission to make sex jokes in youth group.