We need to talk

It's funny, these four little words strike such terror in our hearts, because you know that whatever's coming can't be good. Much to my 12 year old girlchild's horror, I wrote them in a note, (on my pink heart-shaped Hello Kitty note paper) stuck to her journal - which, in my defense, was left open on her bedside table. What led me to leave her this note was the first sentence of her entry, "I still did not get an email from that pervert."

Yes, yes, it's true; my girl was the lucky recipient of some cyberporn in the form of a chat message asking her if she'd like a cumshower. (Deepest apologies, dear readers, for the vulgarity but not only did I just type that word, I also saw it in my babygirl's handwriting - I'm a bit out of sorts.) I consider myself to be a pretty vigilant mama as it relates to online communication and on her first foray into disobedience, she stumbled into a chatroom where someone was all too willing to talk dirty to her. I also consider myself to be a sexual liberal, (as Kristin Luker discusses in her When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex - and Sex Education - Since the Sixties) ie. someone who endeavors to teach that caring and careful sex is good and healthy; someone who believes that kids deserve all the honest information about sex that adults can provide.

Therein lies the trouble; I can't speak honestly about what motivates a man (or someone impersonating a man) to virtually accost young girls with his distorted sexual desires. I can't speak to what a cumshower is, although I suppose I can guess, but I certainly can't locate this activity in the caring and careful framework for my daughter. To speak with her about pornography and fetish seems wholly inappropriate given that she still giggles at the word 'penis.' I remember being about her age, and absolutely mortified to learn that people performed fellatio- that anyone would put their mouth 'down there' was so nauseous to me that I remember seriously considering whether or not the woman speaking was making it all up.

So what is the logical consequence here? What is the lesson in this teachable moment? She's lost all internet privileges for the next month - but that's for the lying and the sneaking into the chatroom in the first place. The lesson captured in the content of the message is lost on me. I've no idea how to proceed now that she's been exposed to sexual dysfunction before she even has an opportunity to learn about sex through more mainstream channels. As I'm wont to do, I lectured. Ad nauseum. And then some. More.

We talked about wanting to feel and seem older than she is. I told her that maturity really means protecting yourself. I told her that maturity means taking responsibility for breaking the rules. I told her that maturity means trusting that rules are made for reasons, and that questioning those reasons is ok but that breaking rules just for the sake of doing so is immature. We talked about how people lie on the internet, and about how meeting people online doesn't satisfy our human need to reach out. We talked, and we cried. We'll talk more, in thirty days when she's allowed internet access again.

P.S. Lest you think I'm all rational and stuff...I've spent the last 48 hours ruminating on how I'd castrate this man if I only knew who he was...grapefruit spoon is my most recent fave.