Teen Vogue Magazine is trending why?

Today a friend of mine slipped me a sheet of paper to read. On that sheet of paper was what has been trending in the news today regarding Teen Vogue’s recent article teaching teens how to safely have anal sex. Not only how to, but persuasion on how great it will be to experience it. My initial reaction was “what the…?” you can finish that reaction with whatever word you deem fit.

It made me speechless. I couldn’t fathom why the editor in chief saw this to be a fitting article for an audience of 13 to 17-year olds. My next thought was that a lot has changed since I was growing up. I mean the sexual innuendos were always there of course. But I don’t believe I ever picked up Tiger Beat or Bop and saw a how-to on any type of sexual encounters. I mainly remember JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) at his finest 😊 😉. My oldest daughter is 12 years old and I can’t imagine her reading anything on the topic.

As I suspected, a lot of readers had my same initial reaction but at the same time a lot of readers did not. There was the defense of “they’re going to find out about it anyways so might as well teach them how to do it safely” or the “you can’t keep your teens in the dark” approach. Okay. I get that. I know that my teenage daughter is going to at least hear about sex, all types of sex, and possibly from her own friends. I just don’t want to shove it in her face, if that makes any sense. I would hope that if she has any questions regarding sex she would want to ask her mother about it. She may not, but I don’t know, maybe. I guess that depends on her assumption on how I would react.

Now back to the topic at hand, Teen Vogue magazine and their decision to publish this article. I don’t agree with their decision and I don’t think I’d allow my daughter to read their magazine because of this. Am I depriving my daughter by doing so? I don’t think so. I think I am just occupying her with more important matters to focus on, like school, her future career, sports and spending as much time with her family before she enters the world on her own. Am I a bad parent for not allowing her to read a magazine because of what she could possible stumble upon? Again, I don’t think so. The world today is so in-your-face about the topic that I couldn’t possibly “shelter” her from it. But as I insinuated before, I’m not going to hand it to her on a silver platter with a spoon and tell her to eat it. The platter is on the table, if she wants a sample, it will be at her own risk and every consequence that comes with it.

On another note, Teen Vogue magazine sure does know how to make themselves relevant again. This could have been their cry for spotlight, and they got it. You know, sort of like Jay-Z cheating on Beyoncé and each of them putting it in their albums. I imagine them sitting at home smiling at each other as they watch the dollar signs roll in, pure genius.

I’d love to hear your opinion on the article, how do you feel about it? An opinion can be neither wrong nor right.