Taking or leaving your parents' sex and relationship advice
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Why do our parents' attitudes toward sex and relationships shape our own dating behavior?
Growing up they were both married to different people and got divorced quite often with different people. It sort of just worked out in a way that I d don't wanna mess up like they did. I don't wanna get in I don't wanna get married four times. to different people and find out that they're all the wrong way. I find myself very wary when I get in any sort of serious relationship.
The hookup
Love and
honey all
On Triple J. Warning. Sex and adult themes. Hey Hannah Riley here. Thanks for listening to the Hook Up Podcast. Do you sometimes wonder why you act in certain ways in a relationship? Maybe you find it hard to be emotionally vulnerable, or maybe you rely too much on someone and get clingy and drive them away. Well, it could actually be your parents' fault. Kind of. We're looking at the effect your relationship with your parents can have on your romantic life. On the podcast, we're gonna have the CEO of Relationships Australia break this all down for you and let you know what attachment style you might be. But first up, a lot of our attitudes towards sex and relationships comes from how open or not our parents are in talking about this stuff.
Writer Benjamin Law and his mum Jenny have been writing a sex advice column together for six years in a magazine called The Lifted Brow. It's now been turned into a book called Law School, and they're here to tell us how they've influenced and learned from each other when it comes to sex and relationships.
It's funny because I think most of my friends probably have that moment where parents told them about sex and then I don't know if a lot of my friends necessarily ask their parents for sex advice or anything. But the thing is when I go back through my kind of, you know, mental scrolling history. That conversation never came up. I like the sex conversation, I mean. Like we just kind of always knew what happened. And I think it's because Mum has five kids, and after that many kids, everything's pretty frank and nothing's a mystery anymore. We we kind of knew the facts from day one.
Jenny, what was your attitude to talking to your kids about sex and relationships like? Could you describe it for me? I think we lot
Growing up we watched a lot of TV. Yeah. And sex in the city and all that. I think when they have sex scenes and all that, I said, children come, come, come and watch this. That's how people have sex. And then the eyeball pop out like, ooh, go naked to first.
I mean l let l let's just also keep in mind that a lot of the sex on TV is kind of like two people under sheets and and it would be like, well that's what sex is and that's how it happens. So it was kind of like I mean, obviously we weren't exposed to like hardcore penetrative scenes on uh or anything like that. But if there was like a European arthouse film or something where people were naked or their own bed together, that wasn't particularly controversial in our household.
Yeah, that's cool. I mean, Jenny, you brought up um Sex in the City. Which of the Sex in the City girls do you think you are? Oh, definitely Charlotte.
What? Charlotte. And you've just written a sex advice book. Yeah, the character, the personality. She's more like old fashioned. Yeah. And I yeah, Charlotte has the way she dressed and all that. And she's an
old school romantic, but she isn't afraid of having the conversations.
Yeah, that's me, that's me. So you're a mo romantic Jenny, that's nice. Very romantic. Yes, romantic heart. What what does romance mean to you? Uh romance like I think romance keeps me alive. If y if but at my age I choose to be by myself now. Because at my age most men have a medical condition, the worst thing they die on top of me while we are having sex. And they need you to look after them. They must have a medical condition. Oh dear. And no no no no no I'm too busy You know, wiping my own bum bum.
Rather than wiping someone else's. Yeah, of course. Mum Mum does often say to me that because she's had five kids, she's had a whole lifetime of wiping other people's butts. And if she hooked up with a dude, that'd probably be, you know, around the age where they might need help in the future and she doesn't wanna she doesn't wanna be in that position again.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why do our parents' attitudes toward sex and relationships shape our own dating behavior?
0:00–4:25
2
How did Benjamin Law and his mother Jenny start writing a sex‑advice column together?
4:25–8:22
3
What insights do Ben and Jenny share about growing up with open conversations on sex?
8:22–17:56
4
How does attachment theory explain the link between childhood experiences and adult romance?
17:56–24:41
5
What personal stories illustrate the impact of parental divorce on later relationships?
24:41–30:53
6
Which common relationship myths do people inherit from their parents?
30:53–34:35