Life Lessons: The Talk

Aug 11, 2008 09:45

I'm following up on my last post. I only received one suggestion for good sex ed materials, so I started wondering what sex ed was like for my peers. Parents/guardians often have a very difficult time approaching their children with THE life lesson, the sex talk. Many still avoid it. Some parents prefer to just give their kids reading material in the hopes that the child will be motivated enough to read it and will not need any further instruction; others place their hopes in the school system to provide all the pertinent information. Having taught in public schools and understanding the attitudes about sex ed in the schools, I think relying on the schools for sex ed is a bit scary at the moment. Perhaps when abstinence-only policies have been completely toppled and new health programs are put in place, the schools will become better sources of info, but that still doesn't replace the need for human communication and reassurance about sexual matters. These observations lead me to a few questions:

  1. How did you first learn about human reproduction?

  2. Did you ever receive "The Talk" from your parents/guardians?

  3. How well did those lessons prepare you for human intimacy?

  4. How would you improve on your learning experience?

  5. If you have children, how will/did they learn about sexuality?



  1. I first learned about the terminology and function of human sexuality from an encyclopedia at the school library after looking up the term reproduction in what I believe was the third grade.


  2. No.

  3. Minimally. Just the mechanics of intercourse, pregnancy and childbirth were discussed.

  4. I kind of like what's going on at many Friends schools, where anatomy, basic biology and boundaries are taught from the earliest grades. Reproduction, including birth control and STD prevention information is given in the early elementary grades as well.

    Any discussion of abuse prevention or intervention would have been helpful for me, and a discussion of the range of sexuality and, indeed, genetic gender variation (x, xx, xxy, xy, xyy...) would have been very enlightening for all.


Grateful meme update: thankful for lovemaking, dancing and drumming!

sexuality, reproduction, gender, education

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