I saw graffiti the other day that got me thinking. It said, simply, “DO ME.” What does that expression say about how young people view sex? Two things struck me: It’s a command, not a request or invitation. Sure, it was graffiti, no doubt written by someone whose goal was to shock travelers or demonstrate […]
The Most Important Thing to Tell Your Teen About Sex (besides “use protection”)
We live in a world where we—and our kids—are bombarded by sex. TV, movies, and other media are chock-full of casual sex, jokes about sex, pitying comments about the few poor unlucky souls who aren’t getting laid…. It seems like every (non-pitiful) young person you see on screen is having sex—a lot of sex—often casually–and […]
The Fun Part About Telling Your Young Kids How Babies Are Made
One of the wonderful things about explaining sex and procreation to younger kids is that it doesn’t weird them out. Unlike adults and teens, who’ve absorbed all sorts of cultural rules about sex being an unacceptable topic of conversation, little kids just roll with it. If they get weirded out at all, it’s usually not […]
Four Things You Should Never Tell Your Partner About Your Past
For the most part, I am a big fan of open communication between partners. If you’re in a serious relationship with someone, you want them to know a lot about you—the good and the bad. You want to be open enough that they can understand and love the true you. In most areas, being as […]
The Communication Proportion You Need to Have a Happy Relationship
Once we’ve settled into a long-term relationship, it’s easy to get stuck in routine. After months or years together, we tend to notice the annoying things about our partner and not so much the good things–those, we take for granted. So we end up having a lot of interactions that are emotionally neutral or negative, […]
TalkStarter: How good a job did your parents do teaching you about the biology of procreation?
How did you learn how babies are made? Were parents and other adults in your life helpful, or did you mostly learn from peers and other sources? Did your parents give you a book about procreation? Did they read it with you? Or let you read it, and offer to answer questions? Did you feel […]
TalkStarter: Sex and the Check-Out Aisle
The other day I was waiting in a checkout line by a large rack of magazines. I was struck by the fact that almost all of the female-oriented magazines had “sexy” and/or “hot” in large letters on the cover. “Sexy hair,” “sexy shoes,” “hot body,” “sexy abs,” “sexy moves”…. What does this say to women? […]
Don’t Wait to Have the “Puberty Talk”
Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid, my school ran a puberty-education class for 5th graders. (It was actually a pretty new concept at the time.) In my class of 11-year-olds, one girl had already started “developing.” I can still picture her face that day—a little embarrassed and a little excited to […]
Why We Need to Talk About Sex
When was the last time you had a real conversation about sex? If you’re like most of us, it’s been a while—or maybe never. Our culture is saturated in sex—we use it to sell everything, our songs and movies are full of it, we joke about it—but we don’t actually talk much about it. This […]
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