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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/doghumpsitbed on 2023-10-02 22:46:33.

My wife and I have always generally been on the same page when it comes to sex education for our kids (girl 9, boy 6), but we’ve just hit a situation that’s left me wondering if I am the asshole (or at least an old fashioned prude).

The kids already know about penises and vaginas, but because our puppy has been humoing everything in sight, we ended up having a bit more of a talk about sex itself.

To help us, we had a children’s book with (cartoony) illustrations.

When it got to the page about vulvas, my daughter pointed at one and said 'thats what mine looks like, and she and my wife had a little laugh. Again, I’m fine with this. But…

We turn to the penis page, and I know where the conversion is heading, so I turn and look at my wife, in the way we both know means “don’t”, I even say the word “don’t”, before my wife says"which one do you think looks like your dad’s?". And then the two of them are pointing at the various cartoon penises and laughing “oh I think it looks like this one”.

I didn’t say anything there and then, but once I was alone with my wife I told her I wasn’t happy that she ignored me, especially as we are both big believers in consent and “no means no”.

She basically asked, fairly incredulously, what my problem was. I explained, that firstly, I should have to explain myself, no means no, but secondly while it is important for kids to know about penises and vaginas, I felt it both inappropriate and awkward discussing specifically MY penis with my 9 year old daughter.

While my wife, kinda half-heartedly, apologised for ignoring me (she admitted she saw and understood the look I gave her beforehand), she followed up with a comment that I needed to have a hard think and re-evaluate my prudishness and set more appropriate boundaries and not stunt our childrens’ development.

To be honest, I don’t think not wanting to discuss my penis with my daughter is anywhere close to being prudish, but even if it was, that is no excuse to completely ignore my boundaries. I don’t think I’d get away with telling a woman to re-evaluate her prudish boundaries if she complained about me speculating on her genitals.

So, what do you think? Am I the asshole?