What Age Is The Right Age To Talk About Rape With My Daughter?

This essay first appeared on BlogHer.

My fourteen-year-old daughter is upstairs in her bedroom listening to Shakira on her iPod and studying for a french mid-term. Me? I am downstairs watching a horrific rape scene on a television show called Private Practice and remembering the stories I have heard from family, from friends, from strangers, and wondering, when do I tell her it isn’t all peaches and cream?