The internet and the prevalence of smartphones have made it easy to access this information-which means it’s all the more important for young people to understand what they are watching, rather than shaming them for it. Just like how I got my sex-ed lessons from romance novels, young people today are getting their information today from a variety of sources that includes porn. As a parent of two young kids, it is especially important for me to be able to have healthy, nonjudgmental and informative discussions with my children. I am also an adult trying to unpack the unintended lessons I absorbed as a young person from popular culture about sex and relationships. Now when confronted with images of the male or female sexual organs, there are few adults able to name the different parts that make them up, or what role they play-which makes for hilarious, but frankly disappointing, social media videos/memes. Even then, the chapter was hurried over as embarrassed laughter filled the class. In fact, I’m sure many people will relate to the experience of never talking about sex, except to study the reproductive organs in biology class. This documentary, then, is a way for him to address the negative messaging he received, which comes into play in his life even today.Īs a Gen Xer who spent her formative years growing up in India, my experience with sex education is similar to Liu’s. Now an adult, Liu still hadn’t been able to outgrow those hang-ups. However, as a healthy teen, he also had desires that made him feel bad about himself. Growing up as a gay kid in America in the ‘90s was tough for Liu, especially because all the adults in his life taught him that abstinence made him good.
(Again, totally relatable.) Nevertheless, fumbling through those clumsy conversations, infusing the exchanges with a generous dose of (often self-deprecating) humor and using his own experiences of desire, shame and guilt, Liu is able to feel positive about sex-as well as understand the role that nonjudgmental sex education plays in our development as humans. After years of not discussing it, Liu goes on a quest to figure out why we don’t talk about this fundamental part of being human-no matter how weird it gets.Īnd the doc gets plenty awkward, with those moments punctuated by Liu’s nervous laughter.
But as he discovers in his documentary A Sexplanation, it’s never too late to talk about sex. I still have not spoken to my parents about sex, and I’m almost a decade older than Liu. Despite his degrees in molecular toxicology and environmental reporting, and some serious cred as health reporter, it took forever for writer/director Alex Liu to talk to his parents about sex.