You need to talk to your son about sex. You’ve put it off long enough. You know that it’s your responsibility as a father. You search your memory banks for how your father handled this challenge and you only find a memory of “the talk” that happened much too late. Or, maybe that talk never happened at all. You rationalize that your son is only six and you can wait several years. So, you put it off one more time.

 

By age 6, however, your son has already heard his friends talking about sex. One of them has shown him some “dirty” pictures on the Internet. At the grocery store, he has seen nearly nude pictures of women on the cover of magazines. He has listened to sexual talk and seen sexual situation on television. Your son is getting sexually educated and it is a great mystery to him. He is curious, though, and the unknowns of sex will add excitement to the pursuit of knowledge. The world will educate him if you don’t.

 

It doesn’t have to be this way, however. Talking to your son about sex is a great gift. Don’t avoid it. Here are seven principles that can make talking to your son about sex a lot easier.

 

1. Prepare for a lifetime of conversations. Most fathers put a lot of pressure on themselves because they think that they have to have one talk that includes all biological, emotional and spiritual information.

 

That’s simply not true. You will need to teach the same lessons about sex many different times. Nobody can learn all they need to know in one sitting.

 

Sons will benefit the most from a lifetime of conversations. None of them have to be “the talk.” If you build a foundation early, later talks will come more naturally. I’m still having talks about sex with my 20-year-old son. (We started when he was 4.) His spirit has opened up as he has matured, and he has even come to me with questions that indicate that he is sincerely dealing with his own relationships and sexuality.

 

Another reality is that fathers need to put sexuality conversations in a larger context of teaching God and His design for men. Paul continually reminds us that while we live in the world, we must not be conformed to the world (Romans 12:2). Our sons will need to know that many of the decisions they make for themselves, including sexual ones, will run counter to the teachings of the world. When peer pressure tempts them to go along with “what everyone else is doing,” they will need to know that God sometimes expects them to be different.

 

2. Deal with your own issues. Your own unresolved issues about sex can prevent you from talking to your son about the subject. Maybe you lack the right information about sex/ There are a number of Christians who have written about sexuality for men, including Cliff Penner, Archibald Hart and Doug Rosenau. Get educated and don’t be afraid that you don’t know everything. Maybe you’re not comfortable with sexual issues from your own past. One fourth of you reading this article experienced sexual abuse as a boy. If you have not found Christian counseling to help you heal those wounds, it will be really hard to talk to your son.

 

Maybe you are dealing with sexual sins of your own. I have known many fathers, for example, who won’t talk to their sons about pornography because they are so involved with it themselves. Did you know that the No. 1 source of pornography that men are first exposed to is their father’s own collection of it? Perhaps your sexual sins are more serious than this. Maybe you are even sexually addicted. Whatever the case, get some help for yourself, deal with your own sins before you try talking to your son.

 

Finally remember that your son’s issues will often remind you of your own. As my two boys have matured, at each stage of their lives, they have often reminded me of my own “stuff” at that age. Take time for yourself, talk through your issues, ask yourself what you need at that age, and then talk to your son.

 

3. Make your own house sexually safe. Is your house a safe house, a sanctuary for your family? Read the story of Nehemiah, particularly the first four chapters. His hear was to restore the city of Jerusalem. He knew that he first had to build a wall of protection around it. Does your house have a wall of protection around it?

 

Do you let immoral influences, like pornography, into it? Remember that pornography has many shapes and forms. One of the most powerful sources of it today is the Internet. Although computers are necessary today for so many things, never allow your son to have one in his room, particularly one with online access. With TV, music, magazines and movies, we fathers must constantly monitor what our sons are involved with.

 

One of my favorite verses is Nehemiah 4:14. His battle cry to the men rebuilding the wall was to fight for their wives, their sons and daughters, and their homes. Are you fighting like a warrior for the protection of your home?

 

4. Be a healthy model. One of the main ways to make your home a safe place is to be a healthy model of sexual purity and faithfulness yourself. This is what might also be called a “non-verbal” form of talking to your son about sex.

 

There are many ways to do this, an some of them may surprise you. Being faithful to your wife, not having pornography in the house, using appropriate language, and not telling dirty jokes are things that we might ordinarily think about. But what are you modeling about being a husband?

 

Are you affectionate and affirming to your wife? Do you touch each other in healthy ways? Do the two of you model a healthy emotional and spiritual friendship? More generally, how do you treat women? How do you talk about women? What attitudes about women, sex and marriage are you conveying to your son in most simple of comments, jokes or behaviors?

 

Encourage your wife or, if you are not married, a mature Christian woman to talk to your son about what women are like. My wife, for example, has had some great conversations with our sons about pornography, dating and relationships. If women are not to be a mystery, this is a vital experience. How are our sons to know how to treat their wives if we don’t model cooperation and intimacy with their mothers? There will be times, therefore, when you will want to talk to your son together as husband and wife.

 

Finally, don’t be afraid to tell your son your own story. If you can remember back to your own feelings as a boy what would it have been like if your father had been able to share with you his own mistakes. I don’t think that you would have thought less of him. My guess is that you would have felt less alone. I believe that some of the best modeling we can do for our sons is to show them that all men make mistakes and that they can be corrected. Therefore, don’t be afraid to teach your son a higher way even if you were not able to fulfill that standard.

 

5. Learn how to have safe conversations. The key word in this principle is the word “safe.” If you are feeling uncomfortable with conversations about sex, your son will also. What will you do to make it safe for him to listen and to talk? The same principles of healthy communication that would apply to any relationship also apply here:

 

Be a good listener. Don’t expect your son to ask you the “right” questions. No son is born with a set of questions that he knows to ask. Read between the lines, notice non-verbal communication and discern his heart. Expect teachable moments to occur, times when life situations bring natural opportunities to talk.

 

Never talk when you’re reacting out of anger. Your mood will be remembered long after the content of your message. Accept that conversations don’t always have to be immediate. Sometimes, issues will come up and you can take an hour, a day or even longer to prepare your response and teaching.

 

Never judge or blame for immature thinking. You are guiding the fragile nature of your son’s spirit and his confidence. Ask yourself what you were thinking and feeling at that age.

 

6. Understand God’s model of sexuality. So many young people today are telling me that they know the commandments and what they’re not supposed to do: They know that sex is to be saved for marriage; they know that God is against perversions of all kinds; they know that God is against perversions of all kinds; they know that homosexuality is wrong. But they don’t know why.

 

Why should they believe in marriage? Why is really wrong with masturbation? What is the truth about same-sex relationships? We must be willing to give our sons a positive vision of God’s design.

 

The key is found in Ephesians 5:1-4: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because there are improper for God’s hold people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving” (NIV).

 

First, Paul instructs us that we should be imitators of God and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us. Christ loved us unselfishly. He died for us. He gave up His life for us. In the Bible, words that are used to describe lust are virtually synonymous with being selfish. When we get into trouble with sexual lust, it is not Christlike, it is selfish. As men we should believe that sex is a gift of marriage, not something to gratify our selfish desires. Sex is always an expression of the intimacy of man and wife, not a substitute for love and nurture.

 

Paul reiterates this at the end of chapter five when he says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Eph. 5:31-33). There is something sacred about the one-flesh union of man and wife. Paul compares it to the relationship of Christ to the Church. It is not about sexual selfishness.

 

The word for love that Paul used is agape, a spiritual kind of love. Sex is the expression of Christlike, unselfish love between a husband and wife. This spiritual intimacy infuses sex with a divine quality that nothing in the world could ever capture in any form of media. One of my colleagues has described it as a “spiritual orgasm.”

 

Only in the covenant of marriage is true, godly love possible. Anything less falls short. Sex with yourself doesn’t measure up. Neither does sex outside of marriage. Homosexual sex doesn’t measure up either. God is not out to spoil our fun or to frustrate us. He points us to something so meaningful it defies description. Even the act of sexual intercourse symbolizes the one-flesh nature of the union between husband and wife. This is the only time when we have the possibility of participating with God in an act of creation. What a powerful expression of God’s design!

 

We must certainly teach our sons to be unselfish when it comes to sex. Their natural hormonal and brain chemistry drives are quite natural. God has been given us the desire to be physical sexually. We should never put them down or be angry with them for that. We should celebrate any friendships that they have with girls. We should also teach that friendship is not the “go ahead” sign.

 

God has fearfully and wonderfully made our sons. When they start becoming men, we will want to celebrate with them the passage into manhood and all of the feelings that this brings them. If we are going to teach them God’s ultimate plan, however, we will also have to model for them how to “override” normal physical feelings by choosing a higher way.

 

Let’s take pornography for example. It is normal for them to want to see it. But God reminds us that His love is to be expressed between one man and one woman in marriage for a lifetime. Pornography teaches us lies about sex and about women. Pornography is selfish. It is a myth. Our sons will have to override their desires to look at it as they hold on to a vision of honoring the woman to whom they will be married and what she will really be like.

 

Masturbation provides us with another great example. There is nothing against the physical act of masturbation in the Bible. Some would therefore think that it is natural to masturbate. It is certainly natural to want to do so and to find the pleasure in it. However, masturbation can create lots of problems.

 

It can be become a habit or an addiction. The chemistry of the brain can adjust to it and always want more. It is a fallacy to think that masturbating will prevent us from other sexual sins because the brain will always want more. At a deeper spiritual level, we should remember that it is really impossible to masturbate without somehow thinking about sex. We create fantasies about the perfect woman, the perfect situation and the perfect sexual act when we masturbate. Jesus told us that when we think about women in this way, it is adultery. A pattern, or habit of masturbation, creates illusions, fantasies, perfect situations that dishonor the spiritual nature of marital sex.

 

There is nothing to compare with the deep fulfillment of sex with one woman for a lifetime. God knows this. And when we teach our sons to override their own desires, we are doing more than simply teaching them what not to do. We are helping them to find God’s plan for their sexuality.

 

7. Practice, study and find support. One of the realities that we fathers face is that our very own fathers probably weren’t very good role models in talking about sex. We are going to have to find other men to talk with, to have proactive conversations with, to study Scripture with.

 

You may be facing your shame, guilt or embarrassment. What keeps you from finding this kind of fellowship? Maybe it is leftover issues of your own. Maybe it is leftover issues of your own. Maybe you’re afraid of being judged. My experience is that when we get honest about our own issues, it leads to a freedom and an intimacy with other men that will help us do the right thing.

 

Fathers need to help each other. Find some older men who have been through what you are facing, or some men your age who are going through the same thing. We can learn a lot from one another and find the support we need.

 

God bless you in all your journey of fathering. Most of all, be gentle with yourself. God doesn’t expect you to get this exactly right. Don’t let your fears keep you from one of life’s greatest gifts.