Author Peggy Orenstein knows that talking to your son about sex isn't easy: "I know for a lot of parents, you would rather poke yourself in the eye with a fork than speak directly to your son about sex — and probably he would rather poke himself in the eye with a fork as well," she says. But we don't have "the luxury" to continue avoiding this conversation, she says. Orenstein spent 25 years chronicling the lives of adolescent and teen girls and never really expected to focus on boys. Orenstein notes that society doesn't often give boys "permission or space" to discuss their interior lives. Maybe that's why the young men she spoke to were so eager to open up: "When they had the chance [to talk], when somebody really gave it to them and wasn't going to be judgmental about what they had to say, they went for it. Orenstein says the boys she spoke with felt constrained by traditional notions of masculinity.

There are limited contextual data regarding first sexual experiences of younger adolescent men. Yet these data that are needed to inform STI and early fatherhood prevention efforts, particularly in lower income communities. Using qualitative methods, 14 adolescent men ages 14—16, all low income, most African American from a mid-sized U. Story-telling was encouraged. Descriptions of first sex were identified, and then analysed for narrative structure and shared concepts.

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