What Happens When We Treat Every Conversation About Sex Like a Bomb?
A 22-year-old woman recently told me a story I haven't been able to stop thinking about. She was working at a prominent restaurant in the St. Louis area when one of her younger coworkers, who was 17, started asking her questions about sex.
Normal questions.
How do you know if you've had an orgasm?
How do you know when you're ready to have sex?
What about this?
What about that?
Basically, she was asking the kinds of questions young people have been asking since approximately the beginning of humanity.
The 22-year-old answered her.
Then everything blew up.
According to the young woman I spoke with, sometime after the conversation, the 17-year-old became uncomfortable about what had been discussed and reported it to management. The 22-year-old was subsequently fired over the sexual conversation.
Now, I need to be very clear about something. I wasn't there. I haven't spoken with the employer or the younger employee, and I'm not in a position to determine what legally or professionally occurred. Workplaces also have legitimate reasons for maintaining boundaries around sexual conversations, particularly when one employee is a minor.
When Young People Don't Have Safe Places to Ask Questions About Sex
But as a sex therapist, I became fascinated by a different question:
How did we get to a place where young people have so few safe places to ask ordinary questions about sexuality that they're trying to figure them out between coworkers at a restaurant?
That's the part I think we're missing.
There was potentially a boundary conversation available somewhere in this situation. Imagine a culture in which sex wasn't automatically treated like a bomb. Someone asks questions. Someone answers. An adult realizes this isn't an appropriate workplace conversation and says, "Hey, we need to keep conversations at work professional. Sexual-health questions deserve an appropriate setting and appropriate resources. Let's keep work about work."
Boundary.
Information.
Correction.
Learning.
I am not saying that's necessarily what should have happened in this particular employment case because I don't know all the facts. I'm making a much larger point:
When sex is neutral enough to discuss, we gain more options for responding to it.
Why Shame and Fear Make Conversations About Sex Harder
This is the entire premise behind my book, It's Not a Bomb, It's Just Sex.
When sexuality becomes heavily associated with shame, fear and danger, even talking about it can begin to feel threatening. Our nervous systems become reactive.
Fight.
Flight.
Freeze.
Fawn.
Suddenly we're not calmly evaluating context anymore. We're responding to a perceived bomb.
And reactive nervous systems love black-and-white answers. Good or bad. Pure or dirty. Victim or perpetrator. Safe or dangerous. Sex or no sex.
Human sexuality requires considerably more nuance than that.
Sexual Boundaries Require More Than "Yes" or "No"
There are professional boundaries. Age boundaries. Consent boundaries. Relationship boundaries. Religious values. Personal values. Legal boundaries. Power differences.
There are also hundreds of decisions between never touching another human being and having intercourse with them. You can flirt. You can kiss. You can make out. You can touch. You can stop. You can decide you're ready for one thing and not another. You can change your mind.
Learning to navigate all of those distinctions requires something remarkably simple:
We have to be able to talk about them.
How Sex Education Can Help Prevent Abuse
And that is why I keep saying this: Sex education is abuse prevention.
Again, I don't mean that sex education makes abuse disappear.
It doesn't.
What comprehensive sexuality education can do is teach some of the skills that help people:
recognize unsafe behavior,
understand consent and bodily autonomy,
communicate boundaries, and
know where to seek help.
The World Health Organization specifically includes privacy, bodily integrity, recognizing and reporting abuse, communication, decision-making and help-seeking within comprehensive sexuality education.
WHO goes even further in its guidance about abuse prevention. It explains that age-appropriate sexuality education can help young people understand what behavior is and isn't acceptable, recognize sexual abuse and assault as violations, understand the importance of consent, and learn what to do and where to go if abuse or violence occurs.
That's what I mean when I say sex education is abuse prevention.
Sex Education Gives People the Language to Recognize Boundaries
Education creates distinctions. And each of those distinctions matter enormously. For example:
This is curiosity.
This is consent.
This is a boundary.
This is inappropriate for work.
This is coercion.
This is abuse.
This is something I don't want.
This is something I do want.
This is something I'm not ready for.
This is something someone else did to me, and I need help.
Does Comprehensive Sex Education Encourage More Sex?
No, comprehensive sex education does not mean encouraging young people to have more sex.
That's one of the places where we have actual research rather than just competing opinions. WHO's current evidence summary says high-quality comprehensive sexuality education does not increase sexual activity or encourage earlier sexual behavior. In some settings it is associated with delayed sexual initiation, and it is associated with increased contraceptive and condom use and reduced sexual risk-taking.
It also gives people tools to prevent outcomes they don't want. WHO reports that comprehensive sexuality education is associated with lower rates of unintended pregnancy and can contribute to reduced STI risk through changes in knowledge, attitudes and protective behaviors such as condom use.
Condoms aren't magic, and neither is education. People can use protection and still experience an STI or unintended pregnancy. But knowing how protection works and being able to communicate about using it gives people more ability to make informed choices.
The Goal of Sex Education Is Informed Choice, Not More Sex
That's the distinction I wish we understood.
The point isn't more sex. The point is more conscious choice.
Abstinence can be a choice. Waiting until marriage can be a choice. Having sex can be a choice. Deciding you're not ready can be a choice. Making out and stopping there can be a choice. Saying yes and then changing your mind can be a choice.
But choice requires information.
Young People Need Accurate Sexual Health Information
I keep thinking about both young women in this restaurant story.
What did the 22-year-old learn from losing her job? Perhaps she learned, "Talking openly about sex is dangerous. Something is wrong with me."
What did the 17-year-old learn? I genuinely don't know. Did she learn that asking sexual questions was shameful? Did she learn an important workplace boundary? Did she feel frightened afterward? Relieved? Conflicted?
We don't know her experience, and I don't want to write it for her.
But I do know what I want young people to learn.
I want them to know they're allowed to have questions. I want them to know there are appropriate people, places and contexts for asking those questions.
I want them to be able to learn boundaries without becoming ashamed of their sexuality.
I want them to know they can decide not to have sex without believing sex itself is evil, and that they can experience sexual desire without believing they owe sex to anyone.
I want them to understand consent, contraception, STIs, pleasure, relationships and bodily autonomy.
I want them to know they can make mistakes and learn. I want them to know they can ask for help.
Why Teaching Consent, Bodily Autonomy, and Healthy Boundaries Matters for Sexual Health
And most importantly, if someone violates their boundaries, I want them to have enough language and education to recognize what happened and know where they can go for help.
That is what sexual-health education can give us.
Because when every sexual conversation is treated like an explosive device, people don't magically stop being sexual.
They become sexual human beings who are afraid to talk.
After spending years sitting with people trying to undo the consequences of that silence, I can tell you why this makes me so angry: the silence isn't protecting us.
Sex education is abuse prevention. Sex education is health education. Sex education is communication education.
And sex itself?
It's not a bomb. It's just sex.
Research & Resources
World Health Organization — Comprehensive Sexuality Education, 2026https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/comprehensive-sexuality-education
World Health Organization — How Can Sexuality Education Prevent Sexual Abuse?https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/comprehensive-sexuality-education
WHO/UNESCO/UNFPA/UNICEF/UNAIDS/UN Women — International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Educationhttps://www.who.int/publications/m/item/9789231002595
World Health Organization — Condom and STI Prevention Evidencehttps://www.who.int/teams/global-hiv-hepatitis-and-stis-programmes/stis/prevention/condoms
American Academy of Pediatrics — Sexuality Education for Children and Adolescentshttps://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/138/2/e20161348/52508/Sexuality-Education-for-Children-and-Adolescents
Want To Learn More?
Pick up my book It's Not a Bomb! It's Just Sex: https://www.amazon.com/Bomb-Just-Open-Bedroom-Doors/dp/B0HG3P88SC/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
