Funny or Informative? Mom Video Blogs Sex Education

Jan. 24, 2008 — -- Forget the awkward silences, snickering and the boring videos -- 28-year-old Wisconsin mom of three Nikol Hasler has a totally different way of teaching teens about sex.

It's upfront, funny and, depending on whom you ask, kind of offensive.

Hasler -- who describes herself as "horribly sarcastic" -- is the host of the "Midwest Teen Sex Show," a video blog that unabashedly tackles sexual health issues such as homosexuality, masturbation and birth control.

"What's not funny about sex?" Hasler said. "What we're trying to do by making a joke out if it is making it more of a commonplace thing to talk about. We're not trying to take every important aspect out of it and make it into something to giggle about, we're just making the same jokes that kids are making at the back of the sex ed classroom."

With more than 70,000 subscribers to the show on the online music store iTunes, the show is a hit. But even Hasler admits that the information she presents is more personal opinion than fact. And that has left many critics concerned that the sex talk Hasler dishes may do more harm than good.

Hasler said her own experience with teen pregnancy is one of the motivations for hosting the show. She lived in 15 foster homes growing up, gave birth to her first son at age 19 and spent her 21st birthday "pregnant and at Chuck E. Cheese's."

With the help of actress Britney Barber, whom Hasler found on Craigs List, along with co-creator, director and high school friend Guy Clarke, Hasler pokes fun at sex to, she hopes, demystify many of the misconceptions teens encounter. In one video she listed the best places to do it -- "the backseat of a car" -- and another included a particularly memorable scene of two teens applying for a "fornication license," answering questions to determine whether they are actually ready to have intercourse.

But sexual health experts, parents and even teens are conflicted about whether Hasler's sex show is too funny to actually teach young adults about sex, and some question whether the seriousness of safe sex is lost somewhere amid the laughter.

The Midwest Teen Sex Show "is the worst example of how kids should be taught about sex. There's no education in this at all," said Judy Kuriansky, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist. "I love humor, but this has no definitive, responsible or credible advice -- it all leads toward acting out."