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BY SUSIE WILSON
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
SEX MATTERS
I am a 79-year-old sexuality educator and talking about sex and sexuality are commonplace for me. If you ask my friends and acquaintances, they will tell you that somehow I always steer the conversation around to a sexual subject.
Once I was having lunch with a friend and her friend, a man who directs a nonprofit in Trenton. My friend slipped off to the Ladies' Room. I turned to the man and asked if he had kids. He said he had a 14-year-old son. My next question, which I thought perfectly logical, was, "Do you talk to your son about sex?" When my friend returned a few minutes later, the man and I were deep in conversation about how to bring up difficult sexual topics with teenagers. She quickly got the drift of the conversation and said (in a joking, but mildly exasperated tone), "I just can't leave you alone for two minutes, can I?"
Let me tell you how I got to this point in my life, where talking about sex is like drinking a glass of water:I came to the profession of sexuality education and sexual health – not counseling or therapy – late in life; around 50 to be exact. Before turning to "my second sex life," as I sometimes say, I had been a journalist and a remedial reading teacher of young children in poor urban schools.
Then-Gov. Brendan Byrne appointed me to the New Jersey State Board of Education, and my life turned a corner. The Commissioner of Health was giving her annual address to the Board when she suddenly asked if we had done anything about sex education. She was concerned about New Jersey's rising teen pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted disease rates and she thought sex education would ameliorate these serious problems.
I leaned across the table and asked her, "At what age do you think young people need to know how their bodies work?" She answered, "By the end of fifth grade."
As I tell my children and colleagues, "Way leads onto way." After serving as the architect of an often-controversial effort by the State Board that successfully resulted in a statewide requirement for family life and sexuality education, I started my sex education career.
After the Board, I went to Rutgers University to lead the Network for Family Life Education (now named Answer), which was then a coalition of organizations that supported implementation of the state requirement. We focused on providing resources, advocacy, and technical assistance to public schools intent on developing sex ed programs.
By far, the most important resource we created was a groundbreaking teen-to-teen magazine and website called Sex, Etc., which is now one of the most popular teen destinations for sex ed. When I left Answer four years ago, I received two farewell gifts that are among my proudest possessions: a piece of stained glass that spells out "Sex, Etc." in bold red letters, and a gold pendant that also spells out "Sex, Etc.," which I wear as a necklace. A reporter once referred to it as "bling."
I don't know about ancient Rome, but I think you and I live in one of the most sexualized societies in human history. We usually treat sexuality as pornography or just a joke (often a dirty one), and we do our best to withhold honest, accurate information about sex from the people who need it the most: young people. The price of our silence is high: the U.S. still has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the Western industrialized world. And that's just one example of the sexual health challenges we face.
Talking about sex in a real and respectful way with adults really matters, too, and that's what this new column, "Sex Matters," will do each week. I know I will never lack for topics, because some aspect of sexuality is always in the news.
A conversation takes two or more people to be of any value. So I don't want "Sex Matters" to be only about my thoughts. Please respond to what I write about, whether you agree with me or not. If you share your thoughts and experiences and join me on this journey, I promise that pretty soon you'll be talking about sexual matters more comfortably than you ever have in your life-with family, friends, or even a stranger you just met over lunch.
Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
