Sex Ed 101: Welcome to Areas of Sexpertise

This article was written in partnership with Heming Sexual Wellness Clinic.

QUINCY — If we received the same level of education for everything else as what we receive in regards to sex, we’d have writers who couldn’t spell, bankers who couldn’t count and lawyers with no concept of the justice system. 

We’re not necessarily here to debate why we don’t learn these things sooner, but we are here to make up for it. If you can relate to feeling a little clueless in your own body and anxious at the doctor’s office — and even more so in the bedroom — you’re in the right place.

Welcome to Areas of Sexpertise. Happy to have you here.

Before we get too carried away, let’s go over the basics: the Six Principles of Sexual Health, developed by one of today’s leading voices in sexual health, Doug Braun-Harvey.

Consent

Braun-Harvey describes consent as the “most universal sexual health principle on the planet” that “transforms the act of sex from an invasion, intrusion or violation into an act of transformation.”

Leah Heming of Heming Sexual Wellness Clinic said consent is the foundation on which mutual trust is built.

“Sexual consent is your right to give and take away at any time for any reason — period,” she said.

Heming compared consent in the context of having sex to consent in the context of buying a car or ordering food at a restaurant. People have the right to change their minds during sex just as they have the right to change their minds after taking a test drive of the car they thought they wanted or seeing the dinner specials just after they ordered their meal. 

Braun-Harvey said that in addition to establishing sexual safety, consent allows for “pleasure that is consistent with sexual desires.”

Did you know? Husbands could lawfully pursue non-consensual sex with their wives (marital rape) in America as late as 1993, when it was officially outlawed in all 50 states.

Non-exploitative

“Exploitation is not a soft or kind word,” Braun-Harvey writes. “Sexual exploitation is a human behavior that becomes possible when a person with more power is willing to take advantage of the power difference to get what they want.”

When the influence of power isn’t enough to give someone what they want, some people go after it anyway — “forcibly and often violently” — until they get it. It’s like saying, “I’m going to intimidate you into ‘choosing’ to give me what I want, but if you don’t want to cooperate, I’ll just have to find other means of taking it from you.”

Prostitution, revenge porn and rape are just a few forms of exploitation.

Honest

The fear of judgment often hinders our ability to be honest with ourselves about who we are, what we want and how we want it. If we’re not even being honest with ourselves, how can we be honest with our partners?

Every other principle is built upon the foundation of honesty. 

“Each person has the responsibility to determine their own standards of honesty about sex and sexuality as it relates to their partners, medical providers, community and themselves,” Braun-Harvey writes.

Even when we withhold honesty to protect feelings, we’re still lying to ourselves and others. Having to constantly pretend like you’re satisfied when you’re not allows for resentment to build.

Did you know? A study published in 2022 found women are more likely to fake orgasms to protect their male partners’ masculinity. It also found women who made more money than their male counterparts were twice as likely to fake orgasms when compared to women who made less money.

Shared values

We aren’t born with our values. We learn them, oftentimes from our family, friends and culture.

If someone is taught that sex is “sinful” and that it’s “inappropriate” to talk about it in any way or to even use the accurate names for their body parts, they won’t feel comfortable talking to their partner, therapist or doctor — even when something’s wrong.

By contrast, someone who has been taught to view sex positively will be more inclined to feel safe and comfortable talking about, thinking about and engaging in sex. 

Depending on sexual values, what might be a turn-on for someone could be insulting to another. Proactive, honest communication beforehand ensures everyone’s on the same page and prevents boundaries from being crossed.

Prevention

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that more than two million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported in 2023. Nearly half of those were diagnosed in young people between the ages of 15 and 24.

In addition to getting vaccinated and using condoms, getting regularly tested for sexually transmitted diseases and infections is one of the best ways to protect yourself and your sexual partners. The CDC offers a tool to help find the nearest testing clinic. (There are seven free or low cost testing sites in the Quincy and Hannibal areas.)

For people wanting to prevent pregnancy, Braun-Harvey writes that the “burden” of contraception should fall on men. 

“The most essential place for the responsibility — and burden — to prevent unwanted/unplanned pregnancies is on men who can control where their sperm is released,” he writes.

The CDC has a comprehensive list of various forms of contraception on their website.

Pleasure 

Why do we feel so guilty pursuing sources of pleasure?

“I’ve asked myself that very question many times,” Heming said. “Why has society, in the U.S. at least, accepted the idea of talking about forms of pleasure as long as the source does not involve sexual pleasure?”

We talk about the pleasure we experience when taking a bath after a long day, grabbing a beer with a friend at the end of the work week and watching our team win the Super Bowl. For the most part, we don’t feel guilty about any of those things, Heming said. But when it comes to sexual pleasure, we’re not as comfy.

According to Braun-Harvey, internal and external conflict can arise when our sources of pleasure cross over into our everyday lives — when the freak in the sheets is revealed in the streets, per se. 

The fear of judgment is a powerful tool that prevents people from deviating from the status quo. If the status quo has been to avoid sex altogether for most of modern history, is there any judgement-free way to approach it? Or are people supposed to spend most of their lives feeling improper for pursuing something as primal as pleasure? 

Sexual desires chained to fear of judgement lead to anxieties for having sex too much or not enough, for having it too soon or waiting too long, for being too “weird” or too “vanilla,” too this or too that. Does this make me a bad person? Is something wrong with me? There can’t be anyone else thinking these things, I must be the only one…

Reality check: eight billion people are on this planet. It’s highly unlikely that your brain has crafted something so remarkably unprecedented, obscene and potentially grotesque that no one else has ever thought of it. (I’m looking at you, straight married women having an identity crisis because you secretly watch lesbian porn!)

While we’d happily accept anyone’s grandmother’s stamp of approval, we encourage you to consider that, in the long run, your own stamp of approval is what matters most. Be open-minded enough to define what you want, be honest enough to ask for it and be human enough to find pleasure in it.

After all, the only reason you’re reading this right now is because two people had sex.

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