This piece is a response to the HarvardFML post, “The girl I’m dating doesn’t want to have sex because she thinks ‘we’re too young for that.’ We’re 20. FML”. This piece is written by the commenter on the post with pseudonym Sdsdsds. The writer is a Harvard Voice editor and is distinct from the Voice’s regular sex columnist, Only Girl in the World.

In reflecting on my personal experience with sex education, I can’t help but feel that I got the short end of the stick.  My environment was certainly more progressive than that of many students. I attended a public high school in an affluent suburban area, where abstinence was not the only birth control method preached. We were accurately informed about the biology of sexual contact. However, amidst illuminations about the 28-day menstrual cycle and overviews of the differences between hormonal and non-hormonal IUDs, some basic points were, without fail, left out.  Like the fact that the clitoris is the only known organ whose sole function is to give pleasure.  And that sex, when participated in by informed, consenting adults, is something that can be enjoyable, a mutually pleasurable experience for two or more human beings.

This informational gap extended beyond school. While my parents are not particularly conservative, sex was never talked about in a non-“hush-hush” manner.  I think they assumed that I knew about it, and they would have been more than willing to answer the technical questions if I had asked them.  However, the idea that sex, when practiced safely and with enthusiastic consent, could be a fulfilling part of my life, was never discussed.

And while I certainly won’t suggest that my version of sexual education is universal, I also don’t think it is a stretch to say that my experience isn’t unique.  And the result of such lapses in information is that, despite decades of liberal progressive thought, sex is still oftentimes categorized within a very traditional framework.  Instead of instructing youth that sex can be a pleasurable and life-enhancing act, it is still oftentimes viewed – using the words in my original HarvardFML comment espousing this opinion – as something that is scary, unknown and potentially damaging.

The tangible result of this messaging regarding sex in my case was that I waited 2.5 years before having intercourse with the boyfriend that I was in love with. The reason that I always gave him was a never-all-that-adequately-explained variation of the phrase, “I’m not ready.”  And while I 100% stand by my choice to wait to have sex until a time that I was truly comfortable (as all people should), I can’t help but view my decision, in retrospect, as largely a product of social conditioning. I had experienced a lifetime of instruction about the mechanics of penis inserting into vagina, but it took me until I had actually experienced it myself to realize that, far from constituting an unexplored and potentially perilous domain, as the health teachers and adult figures in my life had led me to believe, sex could be a positive addition to my relationship and life in general.

My overall message is that if we want individuals to have healthy, fulfilling sexual relationships, sex can’t be discussed in the purely clinical context in which it oftentimes now is – largely as a begrudgingly-offered public service announcement about birth control to keep teenagers from getting pregnant.  This attitude continues to shroud sex with an air of mystery and makes it a non-starter for having meaningful conversations about it.  Rather, sex must be accurately portrayed in all its facets – the good, the bad, and the mind-blowingly orgasmic. This criterion certainly includes, as well, a thorough discussion of potential negative consequences to having sex, such as emotional lack of preparedness and health risks to unsafe contact, to name just two. However, a failure to give full and complete information about sex simply means that youth will continue to get information from more dubious sources – like friends, the media and pornography.

Sex is an incomparably powerful means for human beings to connect with and enjoy each other, and must be treated as such. The world will be a better – and more pleasurable – place when the veil of mystery surrounding sex is lifted.