Totally agree. The most important ingredient for good sex is that it involves people who want to give each other pleasure. If there’s that good will, you’ll normally find a way to good sex.
Lindsay S
2 years ago
Most sex education today is less how to do it and more what to use to do it safely and avoid STIs. This is because no one who isn’t a cretin wants to be responsible for teaching young people to have sex. There are few other things that need to be passed on as sex Ed in my mind, things like non consensual sex is rape and bad regrettable sex isn’t rape. Porn and romantic movies are fantasy based and completely unrealistic and neither should be used as a manual to a satisfying sex life.
Jonathan Andrews
2 years ago
I dunno, like Julie, with limited sex I education, along with my lovely partners of youth and wife of thirty years, we managed to figure out how to have fun together.
There may be a place for therapists for those struggling, it’s probably sensible to tell young people that Hollywood sex scenes and porn are shows, not real, and, maybe, half an hour on contraception. Sex education is largely a waste of time. Do more mathematics or art in school, get your sex education in practical research with willing partners.
Schools don’t do sex education, they do sex training.
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
Forty years of sex education, and kids are more confused than ever.
Isn’t it time we just abolished the Sex Education profession?
Jonathan Nash
2 years ago
For all the glossy brochures and brittle matiness of the presentations now being used, sex education remains, fundamentally, an embarrassed middle-aged geography teacher stammering through the main points in front of a class of smirking 13 year olds. A hopeless endeavour.
Cathy Carron
2 years ago
Where did romance go? Call it delusional or whatever….it’s dreamy, if you can practice it.
Last edited 2 years ago by Cathy Carron
Dave Corby
2 years ago
Complete freedom is never good for anything because with everything there is an underlying objective truth of what is right.
Sex is no different.
Is it just possible that the underlying objective truth is that it is far better for us to only have this most intimate exchange with someone that we promise to love and cherish for the rest of our lives?
That doing this provides an innocent, gentle, loving environment for exploration and discovery that brings us closer together?
The reason rape is such a heinous crime is because it steals something that is so deeply precious – almost as precious as life itself, hence the equivalent penalty in most countries.
Giving this precious gift away is asking for pain and a feeling of loss later – or regret when you get married that the sex is disappointing compared to previous casual relationships that you supposedly did not care about but still yearn for.
Lindsay S
2 years ago
I agree that young people today don’t fully understand the term liberated. They believe that they are liberated because they can have sex with anyone they want and that means they’re having the best sex ever. Of course they also think that foreplay and oral are gross which makes me laugh because it sounds like they’re lying back and thinking of England and going in dry! (Which really doesn’t sound like the best sex ever)
I have also noticed that despite all the “we’re liberated and can have sex with whoever we please”, they’re still considered a sl@g, when they do. So actually no you can’t. We have easier access to contraceptives today than ever before and still have frightening rates of STI’s and unwanted pregnancy.
technology and fashions change, but people largely remain the same.
Last edited 2 years ago by Lindsay S
Katy Hibbert
2 years ago
Still, despite my initial fears of Wokedom (“We need to be intersectional when we probe our sex lives”),
I was intrigued by this sentence. Are schools now teaching white pupils they should have sex with someone with black skin of African origin three times for every ninety seven partners to show a proper intersectional approach. I presume the same doesn’t apply in reverse. Who knows?
Adam Bartlett
2 years ago
An important point for sex educators here. The dominant explanation for the sex recession affecting Gen Z this past decade or so seems to be the tech platforms, followed by cultural shifts, increased economic pressure on young people & increased anxiety levels. Maybe excessive emphases on the scary aspects by sex educators is a significant cause too.
Hersch Schneider
2 years ago
I’d like to think if I had been born just a few years earlier (than 1982), I would’ve enjoyed some good sex with Julie Burchill in London in the 80’s
polidori redux
2 years ago
“And now, the state is increasingly giving hormones and amputations to young people with body dysmorphia. That is a true example of women being “failed” in sexual matters.”
Indeed, this stuff didn’t come out of nowhere. There will be a reaction: We will stop having s* x and take up pastry making. There will be censorship of course. And transgressive pastry. I am old enough to change trains quite easily – Lucky me.
I had quite forgotten Laura Penny.
Sorry, Nigel, you may well be right, and it’s Julie who is either punning or misspelling (or both).
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
Julie reads the books you’d never read for you. Thank god.
Ferrusian Gambit
2 years ago
I developed a lifelong hatred of sex education nurses after being humilated by one who required me to put a condom on a d***o in a sex education class in front of a class of howling teenagers.
Caroline Watson
1 year ago
Sex was far more attractive and exciting when you weren’t taught it as a school subject. Our school stapled up the Human Reproduction chapter of the Biology textbook but, fortunately, our form included several farmers’ daughters and doctors’ daughters (who knew all the correct terminology but only about dysfunction – one informed me about premature ejaculation after an early experience came to a sudden end with, ‘Oh my God, something desperate’s happened!’) and a girl who had acquired a copy of The Joy Of Sex and read it to us at a drunken all-female party when we were fourteen!
I can’t think of anything more excruciating than embarrassed teachers trying to tell us what went where and why. It would have put us off for life!
Graham Strugnell
1 year ago
Lovely article, Ms B. You are a wise old soul.
Graham Strugnell
1 year ago
Lovely article, Ms B. You are a wise old soul.
Graeme Laws
2 years ago
Worth it for the last paragraph.
N T
2 years ago
WTF was that about?
Miguelito O
1 year ago
Pardon me for what I am sure will look like a stupid comment, but at some point, I should probably write a book about the topic of sex – this kind mentioned here – sex that is good for you.
I write from a peculiar perspective and the last time I had the occasion to write about sex in moral terms I skipped it as I couldn’t decide what made more sense (in terms of survival) between the logic of Vulcans and the passion of Romulans. WTF, it’s good for you physically and mentally though. I will be writing about it again, but the overwhelming truth of this article makes me want to think about it a bit and maybe expand on it if I can. Sex is (can be, should be) one of the greatest of human activities… and then there is reality. I look at paths to the future though and clearly it needs to be for humans to survive.
I’ll comment about how I look at things. Everyone gets in a lather about abortion, but is that the moral issue? In my terms, it’s less important than is birth control. Birth control short circuits a natural biological pathway. We don’t have great instincts to have children, but we have great instincts to have sex. Pregnancy and children follow that, nurturing instincts and behaviors naturally then follow as well ala Conrad Lorenz. So the instinct to have sex is the key and birth control changes the outcome of that. It’s a different way of looking at it, but you might be surprised at what it can reveal.
Dan Keough
1 year ago
Sex is the most natural and beautiful thing that money can buy. – Steve Martin
Lee C
1 year ago
As every human body and every human response is different, the only way to enjoy sex is by exploring it with a like-minded soul. Books can give you ideas but the most important thing is to focus on your partner’s pleasure as long as it doesn’t offend you to do so. Mutual consent is vital. Too many younger people seem to think it’s someone else’s job to teach/counsel/mediate in these matters.
Miguelito 0
1 year ago
I’ve studied sex extensively, especially in moral terms. I have little constructive to offer other than since it is good for you physically and mentally, it is probably morally good. Personally, I like it and as the wifey ain’t into it, I am quite familiar with smut… which is notorious for bad advice. Viewing smut though… on Pornhub I saw a video that I actually thought was great. The lessons I never learned but should have and wish I had. It is in Spanish, with subtitles. I won’t offer a link, but I do recommend seeing it, for almost anyone. If you want to see it, search on “How To Make A Woman Orgasm”. It should be required for high school students… which only describes just how bad our teachings on this important subject are.
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Five minutes I’m not getting back. Maybe she should have listened to the guy about the glue…
Fundamentally, good sex is a result of and an extension of wholesome, natural, instinctive human interaction.
Something that has been lost, it seems.
We, well those born 1985 onwards anyway, interact of course but mostly in a structured, hyper curated, super manufactured and pre planned way.
Is it any surprise they lack natural connection?
Totally agree. The most important ingredient for good sex is that it involves people who want to give each other pleasure. If there’s that good will, you’ll normally find a way to good sex.
Most sex education today is less how to do it and more what to use to do it safely and avoid STIs. This is because no one who isn’t a cretin wants to be responsible for teaching young people to have sex. There are few other things that need to be passed on as sex Ed in my mind, things like non consensual sex is rape and bad regrettable sex isn’t rape. Porn and romantic movies are fantasy based and completely unrealistic and neither should be used as a manual to a satisfying sex life.
I dunno, like Julie, with limited sex I education, along with my lovely partners of youth and wife of thirty years, we managed to figure out how to have fun together.
There may be a place for therapists for those struggling, it’s probably sensible to tell young people that Hollywood sex scenes and porn are shows, not real, and, maybe, half an hour on contraception. Sex education is largely a waste of time. Do more mathematics or art in school, get your sex education in practical research with willing partners.
Schools don’t do sex education, they do sex training.
Forty years of sex education, and kids are more confused than ever.
Isn’t it time we just abolished the Sex Education profession?
For all the glossy brochures and brittle matiness of the presentations now being used, sex education remains, fundamentally, an embarrassed middle-aged geography teacher stammering through the main points in front of a class of smirking 13 year olds. A hopeless endeavour.
Where did romance go? Call it delusional or whatever….it’s dreamy, if you can practice it.
Complete freedom is never good for anything because with everything there is an underlying objective truth of what is right.
Sex is no different.
Is it just possible that the underlying objective truth is that it is far better for us to only have this most intimate exchange with someone that we promise to love and cherish for the rest of our lives?
That doing this provides an innocent, gentle, loving environment for exploration and discovery that brings us closer together?
The reason rape is such a heinous crime is because it steals something that is so deeply precious – almost as precious as life itself, hence the equivalent penalty in most countries.
Giving this precious gift away is asking for pain and a feeling of loss later – or regret when you get married that the sex is disappointing compared to previous casual relationships that you supposedly did not care about but still yearn for.
I agree that young people today don’t fully understand the term liberated. They believe that they are liberated because they can have sex with anyone they want and that means they’re having the best sex ever. Of course they also think that foreplay and oral are gross which makes me laugh because it sounds like they’re lying back and thinking of England and going in dry! (Which really doesn’t sound like the best sex ever)
I have also noticed that despite all the “we’re liberated and can have sex with whoever we please”, they’re still considered a sl@g, when they do. So actually no you can’t. We have easier access to contraceptives today than ever before and still have frightening rates of STI’s and unwanted pregnancy.
technology and fashions change, but people largely remain the same.
Wokedom can’t be sexy.
I was intrigued by this sentence. Are schools now teaching white pupils they should have sex with someone with black skin of African origin three times for every ninety seven partners to show a proper intersectional approach. I presume the same doesn’t apply in reverse. Who knows?
An important point for sex educators here. The dominant explanation for the sex recession affecting Gen Z this past decade or so seems to be the tech platforms, followed by cultural shifts, increased economic pressure on young people & increased anxiety levels. Maybe excessive emphases on the scary aspects by sex educators is a significant cause too.
I’d like to think if I had been born just a few years earlier (than 1982), I would’ve enjoyed some good sex with Julie Burchill in London in the 80’s
“And now, the state is increasingly giving hormones and amputations to young people with body dysmorphia. That is a true example of women being “failed” in sexual matters.”
Indeed, this stuff didn’t come out of nowhere. There will be a reaction: We will stop having s* x and take up pastry making. There will be censorship of course. And transgressive pastry. I am old enough to change trains quite easily – Lucky me.
I had quite forgotten Laura Penny.
Re: body dysmorphia and cutting off body parts…it’s as if we have slipped back into the Middle Ages…
Veil of tears, surely.
Are you criticising the spelling, or making a clever pun of some kind? If the former, I’m afraid ‘vale’ (as in ‘valley’) is correct!
Sorry, Nigel, you may well be right, and it’s Julie who is either punning or misspelling (or both).
Julie reads the books you’d never read for you. Thank god.
I developed a lifelong hatred of sex education nurses after being humilated by one who required me to put a condom on a d***o in a sex education class in front of a class of howling teenagers.
Sex was far more attractive and exciting when you weren’t taught it as a school subject. Our school stapled up the Human Reproduction chapter of the Biology textbook but, fortunately, our form included several farmers’ daughters and doctors’ daughters (who knew all the correct terminology but only about dysfunction – one informed me about premature ejaculation after an early experience came to a sudden end with, ‘Oh my God, something desperate’s happened!’) and a girl who had acquired a copy of The Joy Of Sex and read it to us at a drunken all-female party when we were fourteen!
I can’t think of anything more excruciating than embarrassed teachers trying to tell us what went where and why. It would have put us off for life!
Lovely article, Ms B. You are a wise old soul.
Lovely article, Ms B. You are a wise old soul.
Worth it for the last paragraph.
WTF was that about?
Pardon me for what I am sure will look like a stupid comment, but at some point, I should probably write a book about the topic of sex – this kind mentioned here – sex that is good for you.
I write from a peculiar perspective and the last time I had the occasion to write about sex in moral terms I skipped it as I couldn’t decide what made more sense (in terms of survival) between the logic of Vulcans and the passion of Romulans. WTF, it’s good for you physically and mentally though. I will be writing about it again, but the overwhelming truth of this article makes me want to think about it a bit and maybe expand on it if I can. Sex is (can be, should be) one of the greatest of human activities… and then there is reality. I look at paths to the future though and clearly it needs to be for humans to survive.
I’ll comment about how I look at things. Everyone gets in a lather about abortion, but is that the moral issue? In my terms, it’s less important than is birth control. Birth control short circuits a natural biological pathway. We don’t have great instincts to have children, but we have great instincts to have sex. Pregnancy and children follow that, nurturing instincts and behaviors naturally then follow as well ala Conrad Lorenz. So the instinct to have sex is the key and birth control changes the outcome of that. It’s a different way of looking at it, but you might be surprised at what it can reveal.
Sex is the most natural and beautiful thing that money can buy. – Steve Martin
As every human body and every human response is different, the only way to enjoy sex is by exploring it with a like-minded soul. Books can give you ideas but the most important thing is to focus on your partner’s pleasure as long as it doesn’t offend you to do so. Mutual consent is vital. Too many younger people seem to think it’s someone else’s job to teach/counsel/mediate in these matters.
I’ve studied sex extensively, especially in moral terms. I have little constructive to offer other than since it is good for you physically and mentally, it is probably morally good. Personally, I like it and as the wifey ain’t into it, I am quite familiar with smut… which is notorious for bad advice. Viewing smut though… on Pornhub I saw a video that I actually thought was great. The lessons I never learned but should have and wish I had. It is in Spanish, with subtitles. I won’t offer a link, but I do recommend seeing it, for almost anyone. If you want to see it, search on “How To Make A Woman Orgasm”. It should be required for high school students… which only describes just how bad our teachings on this important subject are.
Five minutes I’m not getting back. Maybe she should have listened to the guy about the glue…