It's not just for teachers: Female psychologist, 32; boy, 14

And what's it got to do with your mother?

 

Better about myself.

 

The only therapist I know is pretty stable these days. But if her patients had known her in college when I met her, she would be out of business.

 

Not to sound prudish, but we're an oversexed society. Viagra commercials in primetime were never to be seen in the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s or even the liberated, free-spirited 1960s, when even Playboy was toned down. Sure, puberty sends a kid into a new dimension, but has the societal openness put more shit in kids' heads than there should be?

 

We're not an oversexed society. Sex itself -- even healthy and safe sex, between consenting adults -- is still taboo in many ways (especially when you start talking about, gasp!, consenting homosexual adults.) Hell, oral sex was a criminal act in my home state until 1998. "Sex and the City" was such a pioneer on TV because women who took control of their sex lives wasn't encouraged, and still isn't, in some circles. We're not providing quality sex education to teenagers, we don't make it easy to obtain birth control, we don't cultivate a society where smart decisions about sex are rewarded. In my opinion, we don't talk about sex -- real sex, between real people, in real situations -- nearly enough.

If we're oversexed, it's all geared in one direction: for Baby Boomer men. Viagra is not about sex, it's about acting like you're 25 again. Cialis commercials aren't marketed for a real, physical, medical form of E.D. -- it's about trying to recapture your youth, for up to four hours at a time. And many of the older men in these advertisements have "traded in" -- just like too many of them have done in real life.

Viagra has little to do with sex. It's a midlife crisis in a pill.

 

Who is "we"? And how hard is it to go down to the CVS or Walgreens?

 

It's embarrassing if you're 15.

 

What, these days, is a "smart decision about sex."

 

Nail them while they're vulnerable, that's my motto.

 

Sorry, printdust, but he's absolutely dead on about sex in today's society. It is indeed still a taboo in many ways, and the "oversexed" aspect comes from certain parts of society, maybe as a way to compensate for the taboos.

 

People in Europe laugh at our prudishness. Hell Eyes Wide Shut was even trimmed down for American audiences compared to that which was shown overseas.

 

The prudishness coupled by the seventh grade sniggering in most of the media doesn't exactly create a healthy climate to discuss sexuality.