Jeff AtwoodI have asked probably 100 adults in roughly my age range if, as teenagers, their parents ever talked to them about sex and literally only one person has ever said yes.
QCATOPR 
@codinghorror Never got the talk. My parents gave me a book when I was about 10.
@timjclevenger even the book is significantly more than most people got!
❓ucblockhead@timjclevenger @codinghorror I got a book at about that age as well, but I remember it raising more questions than it answered.
@codinghorror who needed our parents to talk to us about that when we had a very special episode of Family Ties?
SteveAmes@codinghorror Nope! No talk, no book… third child of four. 1965. Wow
David Collantes@codinghorror my parents didn’t volunteer, but when I said things that were absolutely wrong around 4th grade, my mum sure explained them in such way—like Forrest Gump’s mum—that just made sense. 😊
Ian@codinghorror no talk, no book, no sex ed at school.
John Gordon@codinghorror Nothing they remember … most likely they were so embarrassed they didn’t hear a word …
Brad Bell@codinghorror does my dad saying “don’t get her pregnant” count?
I can concur on this point.
Back in the olden daze, it was taught in school.
I had already understood by around age 8 by reading medical books.
Why those books existed in my childhood home remains a mystery to me to this day.
falstro@codinghorror in some parts of the world there's this thing called sex-ed in school. We had that in 7th grade iirc. A lot of blushing and nervous chuckling among the students, but it was a extremely valuable in hindsight.
Roadskater, Ph.D.@falstro @codinghorror In some parts of the world, those classes didn't exist or else were not common until some of us were well past high school age. Learning about sex at school was smutty jokes told in shop class.
@roadskater @codinghorror yeah, for sure, i have since moved around the world, now living in the US, and have seen the preventable ignorance first hand (not just here, to be clear). It's sad really :(
Greg Knauss@codinghorror My parents were unaware of sex.
LA-LA-LA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! LA-LA-LA!
(I remember a book on puberty and sex, and gender-segregated classes in junior high from a deadpan teacher improbably named Richard Ball.)
Mark Whybird@codinghorror The book “how babies are made” - which I am astounded and pleased to learn is still available https://www.amazon.com/How-Babies-Made-Steven-Schepp/dp/1626541043 - was a genuine favourite bedtime story for my sister and I from before I can even remember. The paper cut-out pictures are absolutely adorable and amazing works of art in their own right.
(It probably helped that the book uses cocker spaniels for some parts, and my mother used to breed them...)
So, I was well versed in the theoretical mechanics of it from a young age, and aware of contraception. But I was utterly unprepared for emotional connection!
Michael Sokolov@codinghorror my dad once asked me if I knew about condoms. I said yes. That was about it.
Penguin@codinghorror When I grew up in the 1960’s my 1940’s parents couldn’t imagine the sexual freedom of the new generation. There was nothing they could say to us 🙁
Robin Ward@codinghorror am I roughly your age? Mine did! My parents were weird though
Elia Freedman@codinghorror My mom did when she got pregnant with my brother when I was 9. But I wasn’t paying attention because cartoons were on tv at the time. I don’t think that counts.
vandys@codinghorror My parents used the cop out of this book series called "A Doctor Talks to an X Year Old". It started here, I think:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265814238966
It was OK in a dry, emotionally distant way.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265814238966
It was OK in a dry, emotionally distant way.
Gik 
| 💙➡️🇺🇦Sex: The Carnal Frontier
kris@codinghorror the talk for me was "don't get anyone pregnant" (my grandparents had my mom at 16)
Jeff GriggMy parents, born in 1929 and 1935 put sex education books on my bookshelf in my room.
I know my books, so of course I notice them.
And we had good sex education at school. Biological differences between black men and white men were mentioned, because otherwise we'd feel really inferior, honestly. 🙄
And my father and I were really close, honest, and straight. He said he'd get me prostitutes, if needed. We went to bars together when I was in grade school (and later).
…
My father was ex-naval-air.
His shipmates thought he was a virgin.
Actually, he just did not settle for the cheap ones. 😈
Ed Hurtley@codinghorror "So… that form I signed for school… That was so you can learn about-"
"YEP."
"… any questions?"
"NOPE."
(While on a 4 hour drive home from a baseball game.)
Jonathan HendryDidn't get the talk but we did have a copy of "Where Did I Come From" that covered the basics.
Daniel James@codinghorror ~40yo here: my mom talked about it fairly frequently, but almost entirely in the realm of medicine/physiology. (She was a nurse) No coverage of the emotional and psychological aspects of sex and relationships.
Tim Chaffee@codinghorror 54, I got the talk and I gave the talk to both my children.
@codinghorror I would be in the minority set for your sample. Gen X, male, caucasian from Seattle. My mother was a nurse. ALL health topics were discussed VERY directly and VERY openly.
Neil Brutalist@codinghorror pretty sure “the Talk” is no more than a trope in fiction and jokes. Instead, my dad left a bunch of Piers Anthony books in the attic so I could read pervy BDSM stuff without really understanding the deal with it.
Mike Bull@codinghorror Mine did. I brought a girlfriend to my parents house when I was 15, and the second she left they tried to give me "the talk", mostly out of fear I'd do something stupid. It was mortifying at the time, but knowing that few parents cared enough to do this makes me feel grateful that they at least tried.