Sex Talk Brings Out the Curious

  ABC News On Campus roving reporter Lauren McGaha blogs from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill:    As kids, it was the one word that inevitably brought giggles to the lips of young boys and blushes to the cheeks of shy girls. It was the one taboo topic we had all heard about but didn’t dare to discuss aloud. Some of us spelled it in a hushed whisper instead. “S-E-X.”     Well, University of North Carolina students had the chance not only to say it but also to ponder it, discuss it and question anything about it as they talked sex with Sue Johanson  Tuesday.  I waited in a line full of hundreds of students that wrapped around the building even 45 minutes prior to the program. From the chatter around me, it seemed most students weren’t expecting to see much more than a stand-up comedy routine. After all, who doesn’t at least chuckle at the image of a 78-year-old woman recommending the best sex toys for college students?     What I didn’t expect was a program that focused more on educating students about their own bodies and ways to practice what Johanson called “safer sex.”  Sure, there were plenty of laughs as she poked fun at the sex-ed classes we all sat through in our younger days.     “Do you remember the diagram of the female reproductive system they handed you on your first day of sex education,” Johanson asked with a laugh. “You looked at it and it looked like a moose coming out of a bush! That’s not sex education!”

   Johanson spent the first hour and a half of the program reviewing the education we were supposed to have been taught in grade school while audience members filled out “Dear Sue” question cards.

   Some questions focused more on the act of sex, such as “how do you know when you’ve had an orgasm?” But many questions had to do with understanding how to practice “safer sex.” Johanson fielded questions like “how does birth control work?” and “should I bother to get the HPV vaccination?” This portion of the talk revealed just how interested students were in being educated as they make decisions about sex. The night certainly wasn’t short on laughs, but I was surprised by how educational her program was.  Johanson found a way to relate to students and get us talking about things that we all think about but may have been taught are inappropriate to voice. I doubt anyone walked away from her program without gaining more knowledge about smart decisions when it comes to that three-letter word we all used to hesitate to speak aloud.