If you're dreaming of climbing Mount Everest, this is what it takes

Physical training and tens of thousands of dollars are just a few of the things adventure-seekers need to conquer Mount Everest. Experts say it takes much more than that to check it off your bucket list.

Hundreds of people from around the world travel to the Himalayas every year, dreaming of reaching the Everest summit. They spend weeks getting their gear, adjusting to the altitude and simply waiting for good weather.

Here's what you need to know if you are thinking of climbing Everest.

When is the best time to climb Everest?
Most mountaineers attempt to ascend the world's tallest peak in May. There's a brief window of time -- usually after May 15 -- when temperatures are warmer and the high-altitude winds known as the jet stream have moved away from the mountains.

It's also right before monsoon season. Climbers usually try to avoid visiting the Everest region if there's frequent rainfall, as it can make the trail conditions slippery and dangerous.

"It's the time of the year when you have the highest chance of getting to the summit," said Dale Remsberg, technical director for the American Mountain Guides Association.

Having good weather is crucial for climbers. Remsberg said climbers won't try to seek the summit without the right weather conditions. Many spent weeks at base camp just waiting without guarantee they'll actually reach it.

Where does the trip begin?
Mount Everest sits right at the border between Nepal and Tibet. There are many possible routes, but the majority of Everest climbers usually choose between two -- the south route in Nepal and the north route in Tibet.

Most trekking companies operate in Nepal, as climbing in Tibet has become more expensive and more controlled in recent years.

Those climbing on the south route fly into Nepal's capital of Kathmandu, then fly on to the village of Lukla, where travelers begin hiking to the Everest base camp.

How long does it take to climb Everest?
It takes about two months to climb Mt. Everest.

Gordon Janow, director of programs at Alpine Ascents International, a Seattle-based expedition company, flew a group of 12 climbers to the Himalayas in late March and doesn't expect them to come home until the end of May.

The climbers, along with staff members and Sherpa guides, would spend nearly two weeks hiking to the Everest base camp, which sits at an altitude of around 17,000 feet (5,200 meters).

They would then spend about two weeks adjusting to the altitude and waiting on good weather conditions before continuing for another four days, reaching other camps and finally ascending to the summit.

Most climbers spend months or even years before even thinking about making it to the Himalayas. Janow said his guides only take climbers to Everest who have successfully reached one or two other challenging peaks.

How much does it cost?
Going to Everest can be more expensive than buying a new car. Climbers can pay anything from $35,000 to more than $100,000.

The cost includes $11,000 for the climbing permit from the government of Nepal or Tibet, bottled oxygen and high-altitude gear that includes tents, sleeping bags and boots.

It also covers medical care, food and support from Sherpa guides and bottled oxygen for them, which is mandatory for every foreign climber.

Does anyone regulate how many people go up?
Yes, but there is no cap on how many people can make the climb.

A total of 381 permits were issued this year, just nine more than Nepal issued in 2017, according to Danduraj Ghimire, director general of Nepal's Tourism Department.

But Alan Arnette, who has climbed Everest four times, explained that many more people are trying to climb from the Nepalese side.

He believes that about 800 people could be making the journey up since each foreigner requires a Sherpa guide.

While most expedition companies review their clients' experience before helping them get a permit, Nepal does not currently require proof of climbing experience for those climbing Everest, Ghimire said. He said authorities are considering changing that practice.

(Source: CNN)

‘Walking over bodies’: Mountaineers describe carnage on Everest

Death toll grows on world’s highest summit as climbers face challenging conditions

An experienced mountaineer has described the “death, carnage and chaos” at the top of Mount Everest as climbers pushed past bodies to reach the world’s highest summit.

The death toll on the mountain grew to 11 in the past day after an American doctor was killed while descending from the peak. It emerged also that an Australian climber was discovered unconscious but had survived after being transported downhill on the back of a yak.

Elia Saikaly, a film-maker, reached Hillary Step, the final stage before the summit, on the morning of 23 May, where he said the sunrise revealed the lifeless body of another climber. With little choice at that altitude but to keep moving, his team – including Joyce Azzam, the first Lebanese woman to climb the world’s “Seven Summits” – made it to the peak a short time later.

“I cannot believe what I saw up there,” Saikaly said of the last hours of his climb in a post on Instagram. “Death. Carnage. Chaos. Lineups. Dead bodies on the route and in tents at camp 4. People who I tried to turn back who ended up dying. People being dragged down. Walking over bodies. Everything you read in the sensational headlines all played out on our summit night.”

This year’s Everest climbing season is so far the fourth deadliest on record, with mountaineers blaming poor weather, inexperienced climbers and a record number of permits issued by the Nepalese government, which, along with a rule that every climber has to be accompanied by a sherpa, led to there being more than 820 people trying to reach the summit.

“There were 200-plus climbers making their way to the summit,” Saikaly told the Guardian of his ascent. “I came across a deceased climber … that person’s body was fixed to an anchor point between two safety lines and every single person that was climbing towards the summit had to step over that human being.

 Mount Everest peak. Photograph: Niranjan Shrestha/AP

“It’s difficult for people at sea-level, who are not mountaineers, who have never been above 8,000 metres, to understand that particular scenario. When you are on Everest and you’re in the death zone and you can barely think … it becomes a very complicated situation and you realise in your mind that your fate could be the same. And with a line-up pushing you up the mountain there nothing you can do. You really have no choice but to carry on.”

The scene arising from the restricted chance to climb affecting large numbers of mountaineers was captured and widely circulated in a picture taken by Nirmal Pujra on the morning of 23 May. It showed more than 100 climbers waiting, some for up to 12 hours, for a turn on the summit. More than 200 people reached the top of the 8,848-metre peak that day.

Chad Gaston, another climber who successfully reached the peak, described the difficulty of passing incapacitated people as he ascended, including a man wrapped “like a mummy with ropes tied to him”. He wrote: “The climber was non-responsive and I never saw him open his eyes.”

Further up he saw a man “holding his chest and bent over”. Gaston said: “I waited for a moment and after he didn’t move, I approached him. He said he was having a hard time breathing, even though I saw his oxygen mask was fine. He was in really bad shape, pale faced, not coherent and shaking … I’m sad to say I heard he passed, that night on the mountain.”

Ten more people have died in the past month while trying to climb other Himalayan mountains, bringing the overall death toll to 21.

An Australian climber was found unconscious on the peak and was identified on Tuesday as Gilian Lee. The Canberra man, who survived the 2015 avalanche on the mountain, was attempting it for the fourth time without the use of supplementary oxygen when he was discovered on Wednesday by a Nepali team, said Mingma Sherpa, chairman of Seven Summit Treks. A yak carried Lee about 1,000 metres down the mountain to a vehicle stationed at about 5,600 metres. He was flown to hospital in Kathmandu and placed in intensive care.

Lee wrote of his experience in 2015 when the mountain was hit by an avalanche, on 25 April, triggered by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake. “I felt the ground shake, around 20cm lateral movement that unbalanced me inside the tent. We could hear an avalanche starting and it kept building … The biggest wall of vertical snow (guess 50m high of white fluff) was heading right towards us uphill.”

Ameesha Chauhan, from India, who survived dangerous overcrowding on Mount Everest, in hospital in Kathmandu on Tuesday. Photograph: Niranjan Shrestha/AP

The deaths have restarted a debate over whether better regulation is needed for Everest, especially on the Nepalese side, where 381 climbing permits were issued this year.

The number of people seeking to scale Everest has exploded in recent years, driven by surges in climbers from India and China. Dozens of cut-rate climbing companies have also sprung up in the past 10 years, with some accused of cutting corners or lowering requirements for clients’ fitness and experience levels.

Alan Arnette, an experienced climber and chronicler of the mountain, said that climbers waiting for hours on overcrowded peaks – putting pressure on oxygen supplies – was probably responsible for five of the 21 deaths so far this season; the remainder could have been due to poor training, inexperience, hidden health issues and inadequate support from guides.

“It is mainly due to the carelessness of climbers,” said a sherpa. “The government should ensure that prospective climbers should have prior experience of climbing peaks before trying to conquer the mighty Mount Everest.”

Saikaly said it may have been his last ascent of the mountain. “I was really turned off this year and I’m just worried,” he said. “I’m really worried for the years ahead of us and what the state of the mountain will be and how much more lives will be lost.

“I’m not sure if I’ll head back. I certainly know that as I was climbing up I was certainly doubting whether or not I would ever return.”

(Source: The Guardian)

'A white-collar sweatshop': Google Assistant contractors allege wage theft

Interpreting a spoken request isn’t magic, rather it has taken a team of underpaid, subcontracted linguists to make the technology possible

“Do you believe in magic?” Google asked attendees of its annual developer conference this May, playing the seminal Lovin’ Spoonful tune as an introduction. Throughout the three-day event, company executives repeatedly answered yes while touting new features of the Google Assistant, the company’s version of Alexa or Siri, that can indeed feel magical. The tool can book you a rental car, tell you what the weather is like at your mother’s house, and even interpret live conversations across 26 languages.

But to some of the Google employees responsible for making the Assistant work, the tagline of the conference – “Keep making magic” – obscured a more mundane reality: the technical wizardry relies on massive data sets built by subcontracted human workers earning low wages.

“It’s smoke and mirrors if anything,” said a current Google employee who, as with the others quoted in this story, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. “Artificial intelligence is not that artificial; it’s human beings that are doing the work.”

The Google employee works on Pygmalion, the team responsible for producing linguistic data sets that make the Assistant work. And although he is employed directly by Google, most of his Pygmalion co-workers are subcontracted temps who have for years been routinely pressured to work unpaid overtime, according to seven current and former members of the team.

These employees, some of whom spoke to the Guardian because they said efforts to raise concerns internally were ignored, alleged that the unpaid work was a symptom of the workplace culture put in place by the executive who founded Pygmalion. That executive was fired by Google in March following an internal investigation.

But current and former employees also identified Google’s broad reliance on approximately 100,000 temps, vendors and contractors (known at Google as TVCs) for large amounts of the company’s work as a culprit. Google does not directly employ the workers who collect or create the data required for much of its technology, be they the drivers who capture photos for Google Maps’ Street View, the content moderators training YouTube’s filters to catch prohibited material, or the scanners flipping pages to upload the contents of libraries into Google Books.

The workers who make Google Assistant possible are underpaid and overworked. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

Having these two tiers of workers – highly paid full-time Googlers and often low-wage and precarious workers contracted through staffing firms – is “corrosive”, “highly problematic”, and “permissive of exploitation”, the employees said.

“It’s like a white-collar sweatshop,” said one current Google employee. “If it’s not illegal, it’s definitely exploitative. It’s to the point where I don’t use the Google Assistant, because I know how it’s made, and I can’t support it.”

An ‘army’ of linguists
The study of language is at the very heart of current advancements in computing. For decades, people have had to work to learn the language of computers, whether they were trying to program a VCR or writing software. Technology such as the Google Assistant reverses the equation: the computer understands natural human speech, in all its variations.

Take, for example, the straightforward task of asking the Assistant to set a timer to go off in five minutes, a former employee on Pygmalion explained. There are infinite ways that users could phrase that request, such as “Set a timer for five minutes”; “Can you ring the buzzer in five minutes?”; or “Configurar una alarma para cinco minutos.” The Assistant has to be able to convert the spoken request into text, then interpret the user’s intended meaning to produce the desired outcome, all practically instantaneously.

The technology that makes this possible is a form of machine learning. For a machine learning model to “understand” a language, it needs vast amounts of text that has been annotated by linguists to teach it the building blocks of human language, from parts of speech to syntactic relationships.

Enter Pygmalion. The team was born in 2014, the brainchild of longtime Google executive Linne Ha, to create the linguistic data sets required for Google’s neural networks to learn dozens of languages. The “painstaking” nature of the labor required to create this “handcrafted” data was featured in a 2016 article about Pygmalion’s “massive team of PhD linguists” by Wired. (Ha did not respond to a request for comment.)

From the beginning, Google planned to build the team with just a handful of full-time employees while outsourcing the vast majority of the annotation work to an “army” of subcontracted linguists around the world, documents reviewed by the Guardian and interviews with staff show.

The appetite for Pygmalion’s hand-labeled data, and the size of the team, has only increased over the years. Today, it includes 40 to 50 full-time Googlers and approximately 200 temporary workers contracted through agencies, including Adecco, a global staffing firm. The contract workers include associate linguists, who are tasked with annotation, and project managers, who oversee their work.

All of the contract workers have at least a bachelor’s degree in linguistics, though many have master’s degrees and some have doctorates. In addition to annotating data, the temp workers write “grammars” for the Assistant, complex and technical work that requires considerable expertise and involves Google’s code base. Their situation is comparable to adjunct professors on US college campuses: they are highly educated and highly skilled, performing work crucial to the company’s mission, and shut out of the benefits and security that come with a tenured position.

“Imagine going from producing PhD-level research and pushing forward the state of knowledge in the world to going to an annotation type job, where all you’re doing all day is annotating data; it’s very click, click, click,” said a former project manager on Pygmalion. “Everyone was trying to prove themselves because everyone was trying to work for Google. The competitive edge that happened among colleagues as TVCs was severe.”

‘The definition of wage theft’
This dynamic created the incentive for temps to perform unpaid work. Managers took advantage by making it clear they wouldn’t approve overtime for contract workers, while also assigning unrealistic amounts of work, current and former employees said.

The pressure to complete assignments was “immense”, said one Googler. “In this mixed stream of messages, I think a lot of people had to make their own calls, and given the pressure, I think people made different calls.”

Behind the technology that makes the Google Assistant work is an army of Google-contracted linguists. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

The Googler described the overall effect as “gaslighting”, and recalled receiving messages from management such as, “If the TVCs want to work more, let them work more.” All seven current and former employees interviewed by the Guardian said they had either experienced or witnessed contract workers performing unpaid overtime.

“To my knowledge, no one ever said, you need to work TVCs above their contracts, but it was set up so that it was the only way to get the expected work done, and if anyone raised concerns they would be openly mocked and belittled,” said another current Googler.

“The 40-hour thing was just not respected,” said a former associate linguist. “It was made clear to us that we were never to log more than 40 hours, but we were never told not to work more than 40 hours.

“The work that they assign often takes more than hours hours,” they added. “Every week you fill out a timesheet. One person one time did submit overtime, and they were chastised. No punishment, but definitely told not to work overtime.”

A spokeswoman for Google said that it was company policy that temp workers must be paid for all hours worked, even if overtime was not approved in advance.

“Working off the clock is the very definition of wage theft,” said Beth Ross, a longtime labor and employment attorney. Ross said that both Google and Adecco could face liability for unpaid wages and damages under federal and state law.

‘They dangle that carrot’
The associate linguist was one of several who said that they took the position at Google in hopes that they could eventually convert to a full-time position. Several members of Pygmalion are former contract workers, including the current head of the team, who took over when Ha, the executive who founded the team, moved on to another project.

“People did [unpaid overtime] because they were dangled the opportunity of becoming a full-time employee, which is against company policy,” a current Googler said. “There’s a particular leveraging of people’s desire to become full time,” said another.

“When I was hired, I was very explicitly told that there is no ladder,” a current contract worker said. “‘This is not a temp-to-hire position. There is no moving up’ … But the reality on the team is very much one where there is clearly a ladder. A certain percentage of the associate linguists will get project manager. A certain percentage of project managers get converted to full time. We watch it happen, and they dangle that carrot.”

Google employees enjoy perks such as free meals, on-site yoga classes, free massages and generous benefits packages. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/REUTERS

One Googler who successfully converted to a full-time position after working as a temp on Pygmalion said that at times the bargain was even made explicit. In April 2017, they recalled, Ha attended a meeting of outsourced Pygmalion project managers in London and “explain[ed] that the position was designed for conversion and that we should be proactive in asking for more work in order to achieve this”.

The Google spokeswoman said that it is company policy not to make any commitment about employment or conversion to temps, and that Googlers who manage temps are required to take a mandatory training on this and other policies related to TVCs.

‘Why do it?’
The disparity in wages and benefits between Google employees and contract workers is stark. Alphabet recently reported median pay of $246,804, and employees enjoy perks such as free meals, on-site yoga classes, free massages and generous benefits.

Amid increasing activism by Googlers and contract workers, Google recently announced improved minimum standards for US-based contract workers, including a minimum of eight paid sick days, “comprehensive” health insurance, and a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour by 2020. (A full-time job at that wage pays $31,200 a year; by comparison, Google charges its own employees $38,808 a year to place an infant in its onsite daycare facilities.)

Wages for contract workers on the Pygmalion team are well above the new minimum standard, usually starting around $25 an hour for associate linguists and going up to $35 an hour for project managers. But contractors complain about subpar benefits and other indignities.

The former project manager described Adecco’s benefits plan as “the worst health insurance I have ever had”. A current contract worker earning less than $60,000 annually said they were paying $180 each month in premiums for an individual plan with a $6,000 deductible. For families, the deductible is $12,000, according to documents reviewed by the Guardian. Google declined to comment on Adecco’s pay and benefits.

 Google workers have walked out over the company’s handling of sexual misconduct claims and its treatment of temporary workers. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

Googlers earn significantly more, and those on individual plans contribute between $0 and $53 for their health insurance and have a much lower deductible ($1,350), according to documents reviewed by the Guardian. Googlers with families pay up to $199 every two weeks, with a $2,700 deductible.

Others complained of a lack of trust and respect. In 2018, Google revoked the ability for contractors on Pygmalion to work while riding Google’s wifi-equipped commuter buses, creating frustration for those who spent three to four hours a day traveling to the company’s Mountain View campus and could no longer work and count that time toward their shift. Google said it works to ensure that temps, vendors and contractors do not have over-broad access to sensitive internal information for security reasons.

“Why do it?” a former associate linguist said of working unpaid overtime under these conditions. “I didn’t want to lose the job. Having Google on your résumé is important to a career … Later on, I came to find out that you can’t say ‘Google’ on your résumé. You have to say ‘Google by Adecco’.”

A weekend assignment
Both Google and Adecco recently launched investigations into the allegations of unpaid overtime in Pygmalion.

“Our policy is clear that all temporary workers must be paid for any overtime worked,” said Eileen Naughton, Google’s vice-president of people operations, in a statement to the Guardian. “If we find that anyone isn’t properly paid, we make sure they are compensated appropriately and take action against any Google employee who violates this policy.”

The current investigation was initiated after the company received a report of a possible policy violation in February 2019, the Google spokeswoman said. The company will provide appropriate compensation if need be and will take action up to and including terminations if policy violations are found, she added.

The spokeswoman also acknowledged that concerns about unpaid overtime were raised to human resources in 2017, but said that the company investigated and did not find any such cases at the time.

“We are committed to ensuring all employees are compensated for all time worked,” said Mary Beth Waddill, a spokeswoman for Adecco. “Our longstanding policy is that every employee is required to report time accurately – even if that time isn’t pre-approved – and they should feel encouraged to do so by their managers. If we learn that this is not the case, we will work with Google to take appropriate action.”

On Friday 17 May, Adecco sent emails to current and former Pygmalion temps. Recipients were asked whether they reported all the hours they worked, and, if not, to estimate how many hours they worked unpaid. The emails requested a response by Monday 20 May, though a Google spokeswoman said this week that the deadline has been extended.

A Google employee reacted: “They’re asking people to work on the weekend to recall unbilled overwork. It seems like it’s designed to discourage people from responding.”

Indeed, one former contract worker who left the company many months ago said they received the email but did not bother to respond. “After I left, I didn’t keep records of the hours I worked,” they said. “Even if I wanted to report overtime now, how could I?”

(Source: The Guardian)

Eid Al Fitr holidays to start from June 2: Amiri Diwan

On the occasion of Eid Al Fitr, the Amiri Diwan announces that the Eid holiday will be as follows:

First: Eid Al Fitr holiday for the ministries, the other governmental organs and the general authorities and institutions will start on Sunday June 2, 2019 and ends on Monday June 10, 2019. State employees are to resume their work on Tuesday June 11, 2019

Second: Eid Al Fitr holiday for Qatar Central Bank (QCB) and banks and financial institutions working under the supervision of QCB and Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) will be determined by QCB Governor.

(Source: Qatar Tribune)

What little kids need to know about sex

I live in the Bay Area, where, according to my very unscientific estimate, approximately 8 out of 10 parents self-identify as enlightened. These are the moms and dads who broach thorny topics like race, poverty and sexism with their young children, undeterred by their complexity and high stakes.

Still, not all topics receive such a sensitive and nimble treatment. When it comes to talking about sexuality with young children, the majority of these otherwise open-minded parents become skittish and tongue-tied, wholly uncertain of what to say and how to say it. Private part exploration may be common and developmentally appropriate in little kids, but many of the grown-ups in charge of them would really rather not acknowledge it.

This, child development experts are increasingly realizing, is a mistake. Adults need to speak with their children about bodies and relationships openly and honestly, and from an early age. Doing so helps kids navigate their current sexuality-related curiosities and increases the odds that they will one day find themselves in satisfying and respectful sexual relationships.

More than just STDs and intercourse
For decades, school-based sex-education in the United States focused on preventing unwanted pregnancy and STDs, and it was only for teenagers. The big takeaway was how to avoid something bad, albeit with a massive blind spot toward sexual assault.

Today, curricula have begun to expand beyond the worst-case scenarios, explained Jennifer Driver, state policy director of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.

More and more programs have begun to address relationships, sexual identity, biology, gender, boundaries and pleasure. As the scope has widened, so has the intended audience. Many experts now believe that preschool and early-elementary age kids should be learning about these topics as well, and a small but growing number of American school districts have begun to teach them in the classroom.

Even with all this progress, the United States still lags far behind the Netherlands. There, "comprehensive sexuality education" for young children in schools has been taught for decades. Preschool-age kids receive lessons about anatomy, with the help of dolls, and learn about the differences between male and female bodies and how bodies change over time.

The curriculum also includes lessons on friendship, love and how to communicate boundaries and desires. How do we touch one another? When is it appropriate to touch another? And when is it OK to be touched by another?

"It's easier to start with young people, because once they get older, they still giggle but are already used to it," said Elsbeth Reitzema, project leader for primary education at Rutgers WPF, a Dutch institute for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

"Also, it's important to tell children everything before they go through puberty, because you want them to understand the way their bodies will change and understand sex before they are getting into sexual relationships."

Research suggests that this approach works. A 2010 evaluation found that Dutch 10- to 12-year-olds who were exposed to sexual education from an early age were more knowledgeable about their bodies, more accepting of homosexuality and more assertive when it came to setting boundaries and expressing preferences around physical intimacy than those who weren't.

Teachers in the Netherlands report an increased openness toward sex and relationship talk among their students overall, as well as an increased willingness to call someone out for behaving inappropriately. Also, all that early sex talk did not turn the nation's teenagers into Caligula. Dutch teens have a high contraception use rate and a low teen pregnancy rate and don't have sex any earlier than those in other European countries.

How to talk about 'playing doctor' and more
Unfortunately, most American parents can't expect the words "penis" and "vagina" to be used in their local kindergarten classroom anytime soon. Until then, we're all home-schoolers when it comes to teaching our children about their bodies and relationships.

Books can help, but only to a point. Unfortunately, most of the age-appropriate literature focuses on how babies are made, leaving out everything else that the average little person is interested in. Their curiosities tend to drift south, to their anatomy and its mechanics. One part of their body feels different from the others and looks different than that of half the people they know. What's going on?

"Children are very curious about their bodies ... and curious about the other sex," Reitzema said.

"They want to look at other bodies, touch other bodies, and they want to explore the difference between boys and girls. It is all very innocent and part of the normal sexual development of children.

They don't have the same mindset as we do. They are just curious."

When body part exploration begins to happen -- and it is probably going to happen -- Reitzema encourages parents to begin with the positive. Teach them the correct name for their body parts, and tell them that it is OK if they find touching their penis or vagina pleasurable. Then get into the qualifiers. Explain that exploring these body parts should happen in private, and when it is done with friends, it is very important to make sure everyone is OK with it.

"You are teaching them about boundaries and that they can say no, that their penis and vagina is theirs, and they are in charge of who is touching it and seeing it," Reitzema said. They also learn about how to check in with their friends and vocalize concern.

Overall, a lot of early sexual education isn't really about bodies but relationships. We can teach kids how to express themselves and respect others. We can also teach them that there are lots of different types of relationships, some boy-boy, some girl-girl and some boy-girl, and that's OK.

"You have to lay the foundation early and show them how to communicate their likes and dislikes so when they get to high school and are in a sexual relationship, they are prepared," Driver said. "In kindergarten, this can mean talking about what it means to be a good friend and how to ask for a pencil or pen in a respectful way. It can be very basic and still teach them what consent looks like."

These conversations will probably be awkward but -- and here's the catch -- only for the parents. We are the ones for whom masturbation is taboo; we are the ones whose minds rush to the worst-case scenario when discussing consent. Many of us were raised during an era when sexual education came by the way of a condom on a banana in a health class and someone's dad's stack of Penthouse magazines. We are working without precedent.

The good news is that our little kids are likely to be pretty cool with it. They're soft puddles of clay, malleable, impressionable and clueless about the way sexuality has been blanketed by secrecy and shame. We're their first and most influential guides on the subject. If we present pleasure as something natural and boundaries as something everyone should voice and observe, the odds are that they will grow up to see them that way as well.

(Source: CNN)