Cory Silverberg talks about sex and gender

Cory Silverberg is a sex educator, author and parent who wants to expand our definition of sex and gender, and the conversations we have about it with kids.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I live in Toronto, Canada, with my partner and child, who is eight years old. My professional background is in psychology, but I found that education was much better suited to my personality because I talk a lot—which isn’t as good for therapists. So, I’ve been a sex educator for over twenty years. I write books for young people, and I talk with parents, youth, teachers and librarians. I try to get them thinking about ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ in a bigger way.

What was your upbringing like?

In some ways, it was very typical, and in others, it was not. I grew up in a middle-class white Jewish household and community in Toronto in the ’70s. My grandparents were immigrants and my parents were born in Canada. I was surrounded by kids who were similar to me in many ways.

The less typical thing was that my father was a family doctor who became a sex therapist around the time I was born. And my mother was a children’s librarian, which is probably more typical, but the combination was an interesting one.

I grew up in a household where sex was talked about. It was the ’70s, so this wasn’t entirely uncommon, and it was a time when gender norms were bending—many men had long hair and purses, and more women were working and living independently. Some boundaries were being pushed, but it was still quite limited compared to life now.

Do you parent differently from how you were raised?

I’m paying more attention. I love my parents very much—my mother has passed away and my father is still alive. But as parents of the ’70s, they weren’t active in the ways many parents are now.

I always had food on the table, got to school and someone knew where I was. But you were kind of left to figure stuff out on your own. And as a child, I didn’t understand I was genderqueer. I knew I didn’t fit in, but I didn’t want to talk about that. If I had gone to my parents and said I was having problems, they probably would have listened, but my feeling was: Oh, I’m supposed to figure stuff out for myself.

In comparison, I would describe myself as an overly involved parent. And it’s not just that we talk about sex in our household; we talk about feelings, friendship, what the truth is and how hard it can be to move through the world sometimes. And on that topic, we talk about how we can care for ourselves and others when it feels hard.

The other difference is that I was raised in a traditional nuclear family with the understanding that everything stays inside the house. If you need help, it’s your parents or maybe your grandparents. Whereas my kid has many other trusted adults in their life, and we are clear that we need lots of people to survive and thrive.

But of course, I’m missing stuff too. My grandparents were Holocaust survivors and had a lot of trauma. I lived with intergenerational trauma. And I can see how my parents did their best to mess me up a little less than they were messed up, and my job is to do the same. I’m going to make mistakes—all parents do.

What is different about the sex education projects you work on?

I use the language of diversity, equity and inclusion to do sex education in a way that works, not just for kids with two parents, but for all children. I must think about how we can have conversations about where babies come from when there was an adoption, a single mother by choice, or they’re part of a trans family. How do we do sex education in a way that isn’t just for middle-class white kids?

To do that work, I need to retrain a lot of people. When I’m working with doctors, they think sex is female vaginal intercourse or two or three other things. But I explain sex is also crushes and romance, relationships and boundaries, as well as feelings and mental health. All of this stuff is part of sex.

Did your journey with gender influence the work you do?

Of course. I was a kid who didn’t fit in and didn’t know why. It would have been fine for me to be gay when I grew up, but I knew that wasn’t me. And I didn’t know about trans people—which was the only other language available in the ’70s. We didn’t have non-binary or genderqueer people because those words hadn’t made their way into mainstream culture. And because I was different, I was treated differently—I was treated very badly by other kids and some teachers. Being different made life hard and I consider myself lucky to have survived, because it was not a good life when I was younger.

There wasn’t a lot of gender oppression in my household—I wasn’t told not to cry or anything—but I did not have the language to figure out who I was. If I had learnt the word ‘trans’, I would have been curious, looked into what it meant and maybe learnt more. Language influences not just the way I write books, but also the point of the books. To me, the point of our books is not to tell kids how to be. The point is to offer words and ideas and frameworks for conversations.

How is sex defined in your books?

I define sex differently depending on the age group the book is being written for. But the most important thing I want everyone to know is that ‘sex’ is a word we made up, and then I usually describe three ways we use it.

Sex is a word we use to define bodies—so mostly, we talk about male and female bodies, but we also know there’s more than just male and female. And sex is also used to describe a thing we do—something we can do by ourselves or with other people to feel good or feel close to someone else. And the third thing is that one kind of sex you can use to make babies.

Why do you think so many adults struggle to talk about sex with young people?

Because we had terrible sex education. Even though I grew up with sex education books, I didn’t have the opportunity to have the conversations I needed. None of us grew up with the education we deserved or needed. And then there’s this myth that once you’re eighteen, you don’t need sex education anymore—you’re an adult, and you’ll figure it out.

That’s when we often need the most help.

Exactly. Thankfully there are still opportunities for parents to learn how to have these conversations. There are organisations in Canada, and I assume Australia, that can provide support groups for parents. And we need to remember all parents go through this stage of needing to answer questions and not knowing how. But I think parents should look for opportunities to talk about it instead of waiting. For example, if you’re watching a movie with kissing or marriage, you can pause it and talk about it.

Your books have a strong theme of power and boundaries. What do you want youth to know about these topics?

Youth don’t have access to a lot of their rights, and their access to expressing power is limited. They don’t get to choose how they spend their time, what they wear, where they live or even some of their friendship groups. It can be frustrating as a young person. But I know parents are controlling these things with the hope of keeping children safe. The tricky thing is that we are raising kids without much opportunity to make choices or pay attention to their instincts. And then they go out into the world where there are tricky adults or peers that might take advantage and use their power in a bad way.

I want children to understand from a very early age that they have power even in constraints. And, they can learn what it feels like to feel power and use it—hopefully with people rather than over them.

And this plays into boundaries; you can’t talk about sex education without talking about boundaries. Kids often learn to ignore their own boundaries. We say things like, “Don’t cry—shhh.” We teach children to ignore their responses when their boundaries are crossed.

But we need to remember, boundaries aren’t just what we don’t want; they’re also what we do want. And if the goal is to raise kids who will one day have sexual expression—whatever that looks like for them—we want them to be aware of their boundaries and how to communicate them. And the good news is, we can do that without talking about sex. Life is not always smooth, which can provide opportunities to discuss our boundaries.

Your book You Know, Sex took seven years to complete. What was the process like?

The process is the same for each book. I write a very rough draft that’s not very good. Then, Fiona Smith—my colleague, friend, co-author and illustrator—does the rough drawings. And then I take the draft around and talk to families. For You Know, Sex, I talked with almost a hundred families. I went to people’s homes, put it in front of them, and sat with my laptop and watched them read it—which is very interesting and informative. And then we’d talk. I’d ask lots of questions about which bits made sense and which bits didn’t, and what was missing. That process takes the longest but makes the book so much better.

I also work with professionals. In this book, there’s quite a long sexual safety section with a very involved part on childhood sexual abuse. The professionals I worked with gave me advice I think everyone should know. They said things like, “Try to make the character look less angry. Don’t make it scary. Don’t make it weird. Actually, make it look as regular as possible.” Which is so counterintuitive. Because, of course, it’s an awful thing, and I want to show that it’s not the same as pleasurable touch. But the professionals told me, “If you make it look scary, kids aren’t going to talk about it.” And the priority is getting kids to talk about it.

Has your approach to communicating sex education changed in the two decades you’ve been working in it?

Totally. Mainly because I have more Black colleagues now. Most of the people who initially trained me were white. I’m white. I grew up in a white neighbourhood, and there are all sorts of aspects of whiteness that permeated the way I worked.

Disabled Black feminists are really the ones who taught me how to write in a way that welcomes people in without telling people who they are and doesn’t ask people to be something in order to read our books. Lots of books have an approach that classifies: this is a book for gay people, this is a book for straight people. And that’s not helpful, especially for kids. I’m much more aware of intersectionality and how to think through an intersectional lens. I’ve also had to get rid of some ideas about perfection I had, including the idea there is a right answer.

What have children taught you about talking about sex education?

I’m reminded that kids aren’t adults, and kids haven’t been sexually socialised yet. So, kids at every age have less shame than adults and are often more connected to their curiosity and have fewer pretences—they’re more likely to ask questions with fewer filters.

I’ve also learnt from kids that they know this stuff is going on. Many of them are experiencing it and just want to talk about it. They don’t want people tiptoeing around, and they don’t want to feel like we are censoring a bunch of information. I think there’s a big difference between curating and censoring. As adults, we are curating—and parents should check that a book, for example, is appropriate before they show it to their kids. But I’ve also learnt from kids that they can handle a lot. If it’s communicated in a language they understand, they have the capacity to understand very complicated things—and that includes kids who are neurodiverse or have developmental disabilities.

Is there any overarching theme you want children to learn from your books?

There are a few. I want kids to know there’s no right or wrong way to have a body, and all bodies are worthy and beautiful the way they are. I want them to know there’s a future for them. None of us knows what it is yet because they are not going to be the same as us—they’re going to be slightly different and will make their own type of family and community, and we’re going to help them. I also want them to know they have options, and I want them to know how to keep themselves and others safe. And lastly, I want them to realise they already know a lot of what they need to know—they just might not have the words, and they might not yet know that sex is much bigger than they think it is.

What do you want adults to know?

I want adults to know they don’t need to be experts. Our books can be very helpful, but actually, if they’ve survived into adulthood, they already know a lot. They know how to navigate relationships, and that might include divorces and broken friendships, which is important learning material. The main thing is being able to listen.

In my experience, parents and teachers often come to me because they’re worried about saying the wrong thing. But if you have a kid in your life who you care for in some way—a niece or nephew, a child or a student—the fact you have that relationship with them is what makes you a really good person to be part of their sex education. Because we all play a role. Lots of kids don’t want to talk to their parents about kissing or whatever, but they might be willing to talk to an aunty or someone else. We also need to understand that few of us can answer questions eloquently the first time, but there’s always another opportunity. And sometimes, we just need to be honest and say, “I don’t know”, or, “That was a bad answer. Let me try again.”

What are your hopes for the future?

I hope more of us learn to be guided by young people. If we do, the future will be amazing.

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Cory Silverberg talks about sex and gender was originally published in Lunch Lady Magazine Issue 30. Photo by Steph Martyniuk.