Burke's Law: Don't let Lady Gaga teach your kids about sex

“Mom, what does ‘bluffin’ with my muffin’ mean?”

That was the question posed to me one day by our 14-year-old, standing by the refrigerator while I was in the kitchen.

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The question arose from a lyric in Lady Gaga’s song “Poker Face.” Until then, I never thought a pop song would have such power to embarrass, aside from drunken karaoke renditions of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Our family’s policy is to answer questions openly and honestly. As luck would have it, my partner was out of town, which left me — and me alone — to be the “did-they-really-ask-that-question?” mom.

I’m not great at these on-the-spot talks. But I managed to fumble through a response.

“It has to do with sex and a woman who is faking her enjoyment.”

The kids didn’t get it. So, we moved to round two.

“Muffin is another word for a woman’s vagina-”

There was no chance to finish. The kids had heard enough. They became uncomfortable. Squirrelly. They were ready for an escape. Still, as the growing discomfort filled the room, I managed to eke out a “So, it means faking with her vagina.”

It turns out I kind of got it right. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gaga explained the lyric was a reference to her vulva (though Gaga used a crass slang term for the word). Vulva, not vagina. I’d gotten that part wrong. Score one for Gaga. Kind of.

“I think Lady Gaga is sexually immature that she can’t use scientific language in her lyrics. And if she did have scientific language, maybe she wouldn’t be writing such stupid lyrics,” explained Meg Hickling, a nurse and sexual health educator, during a phone call from her home in Vancouver.

Hickling began her pioneer work in classrooms in Canada in 1974. Her career spans more than three decades.

Hickling does not use email or have a cellphone — a clue, perhaps, to why she’s not a fan of the Gaga generation. It also helps explain why she’s not thrilled with Gaga’s language. But another reason for her dislike of the lyric is that she is a staunch advocate of using scientific terminology for body parts instead of euphemisms.

Hickling has a litany of examples of euphemisms that have the potential to get kids into trouble. She recalled getting a call from a teen who said she’d swallowed spermicidal foam, thinking it would prevent an unwanted pregnancy.

It was a dangerous assumption, and one Hickling believes could have been prevented had the girl known more about how bodies work.

Hickling had also once learned of a young boy who’d injured his penis while skateboarding, but was too afraid to tell his parents out of fear he’d get in trouble — not for being hurt, but for using a bad word. The only word he knew for that body part was a rude one, and he didn’t want to get into trouble for using foul language.

When Hickling teaches sexual health to kids, she teaches them the “polite name” for private parts. She encourages students to think of themselves as scientists and to keep in mind that there are two things scientists do — they don’t say “ew” and they always say “interesting.”

Sometimes she hears from parents who say the medical terminology is too advanced for young children. Nonsense, says Hickling, noting that kids easily learn words like “Tyrannosaurus rex.”

“It’s not a big word for them. It’s a big word for the parents,” Hickling said of the anatomic terminology. “It is really important for parents to get over their embarrassment and to talk with children. I am not there to introduce guilt (to parents). How are you supposed to know this stuff when you didn’t get it when you were young? Don’t feel guilty. Just step up.”

‘The talk’

One day in the 1970s or early 1980s, my poor mother had the misfortune of having to “step up.” Everyone but my dad was in the car — which meant mom, me and my younger brother and sister, who are twins. My sister, who might have been close to a “tween” in age, leaned forward and chirped from the backseat, “Mom, do you masturbate?”

I remember a torturously long silence followed, although with one or two heavy sighs. My sister and mom don’t remember the incident, but my brother does.

Discussing the event later, he told me it also wasn’t long either before or after that uncomfortable car ride that my mom seated him and my sister at our large dining room table and had “the talk.”

As a nurse, my mother had provided us with books for every developmental stage, so the information wasn’t necessarily new. I am certain that getting mom to talk about it offered some enjoyment to the twins, who anticipated that she’d be uncomfortable. Poor mom. We were not easy kids to raise. Still, she powered through.

That’s where Hickling and other health educators would say, “score one for Mom.” Sexual health is important. So is talking about it.

“It’s an awkward conversation if you feel awkward entering it. And your child is going to pick up on that,” said Melanie Sutton, health curriculum coordinator for the Anchorage School District.

“The conversation needs to start first with yourself. It’s not a scary topic. It’s just part of what we do as humans, learning about our bodies and learning about interactions with others,” Sutton said.

Sutton says the school district’s health teachers go through training that has them examine their own values, what makes them uncomfortable and what happened in their own families.

The goal, Sutton said, is to have sexual health educators be comfortable when sending the message that every body part “is you. It’s a part of you, just like a heart is a part of you,” and that staying healthy from head to toe is important.​

It’s up to families to decide when and how to talk with their children about sex and what values to impart. But talking about sexual health, which is different from teaching about how to have sex, should be imperative.

Talking with your children about their bodies will help them make good decisions and perhaps most importantly, lower their chances of falling victim to a sexual predator.

“When children are well-educated, it makes them abuse-resistant,” Hickling said. “I used to work with offenders in the prison population. They all said they look for the children who don’t know anything because they are the ones who are easy to manipulate and easy to silence.”

Alaska has one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the nation. In that reality, how do we help our children grow up safe, confident and healthy?

“Start early. Talk often,” advises Sutton.

Refusal skills also matter. Teaching children that it’s OK to refuse a touch, to say no to an adult — any adult — encodes a powerful message that will stay with them through life. Knowing their parents will back them up reinforces it, Sutton said.

Hickling has experienced some opposition to her approach to sex ed, especially in more conservative places where parents feel worried these kinds of talks will destroy a child’s innocence. But she is quick to point out that “nothing takes innocence away from children like being abused. It (sexual health information) is life-saving information.”

For many of us, these are not easy conversations. But with practice and persistence and an audit of our own family histories and values, it can get easier for both parents and kids.

Spoiler alert: Lady Gaga didn’t actually teach my kids about sex. But she did create a teachable moment. Sutton and Hickling both urge parents to be on the lookout for those moments and be ready for when they appear.

Books appropriate for your child’s age and your family’s values, read together, can be good conversation starters.

Then, as Hickling would say, “Just step up.”

Have your own kids confronted you with a difficult question about sex? Feel free to share your experience in the comments.

Jill Burke is a longtime Alaska journalist writing from the center of a busy family life. Her father swore by “Burke’s Law No. 1 — never take no for an answer.” Meaning, don’t give up in the face of adversity. The lesson stuck. Share your ideas with her at Twitter.

The views expressed here are the writers’ own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints.

Burke"s Law: Don"t let Lady Gaga teach your kids about sex