Elizabeth Banks on promoting proper sex education: 'Do not lie to your kids'
Elizabeth Banks says “you should not lie to your kids” about sex.
The 47-year-old actress – who has sons Felix, 10, and Magnus, eight, with her husband Max Handelman – has insisted parents shouldn’t be lying to their children when it comes to giving them “the talk”, and also believes “more men” should be getting involved in the conversation.
She said: “We have to get more men in the conversation. Let me just say this right off the bat, you should not lie to your kids about it.
“If they ask, it means because they’re curious and age appropriate. You should tell them straight up what it is, if you say ‘stork,’ later on they’re going to ask, ‘What else does she lie to me about?’ They’re going to figure out it ain’t storks.”
Elizabeth has been incredibly open with her own sons about their anatomy, and admitted she was shocked when they asked for even more details about the science behind sex.
She added during an appearance on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’: “They knew they had a penis, and they knew I had a vagina and a vulva and uterus, and they knew that they were part of their dad and part of me, an egg and a sperm.
“So all of those things had been discussed when we were in the back of the car and the question came, ‘Yes, yes, mommy, but how does the sperm get to the egg?’ I realised, ‘Oh!’ ”
The ‘Charlie’s Angels’ star launched her own sex education podcast named ‘My Body, My Podcast’ in July this year, and recently said the conversations she had with her kids about the topic inspired her to start the series.
She explained: “Fairly recently, my son turned 10. I was talking to some of the moms of the girls in his class about how it’s fifth grade, and the girls are going to start getting their periods. And an alarm bell went off. I thought, ‘Oh, man; puberty is coming and I am unprepared — I would like this to go well.’
“And then I read ‘Girls & Sex’ by Peggy Orenstein. It really lit a fire under me as a woman, as an activist, as an advocate, as an artist, as a feminist. I thought, ‘Wow, girls are not having a lot of fun when it comes to sex.’ Sex is still so exceedingly shameful and tumultuous for so many people that we have this huge Me Too problem in the world. And what is it the root of all that?
“That’s what I wanted to delve into with this podcast. I tried to present it in a light, humorous way, but of course, the underpinnings of it are all pretty serious. At the end of the day, women’s sex and sexuality are still very regulated. I wanted to start to try to change the conversation about that if possible.”
