My grandmother does a pretty good job of embarrassing me in our conversations about sex and relationships. One would think that with her generation being far different from mine, the topic of sex would rarely come up. Not with my grandma. 

The other day she asked me if people actually maintain relationships anymore, or if men just expect women to have sex. I told her that there was no way I could speak for the whole youth population, but in my experience, sex was about as normal as showering, but not quite as important. I mean that it does not hold a special meaning for people these days, not that people find it unimportant. 

Even with her open mind about the taboo topic, she was shocked. 

“Do people not go out and just enjoy each other’s company anymore?” she said. “Or are relationships all about sex?”

I realize we are in the Bible belt and that Kansas’ conservative views do play a role in individual situations, but as a whole it seems as though sex is a natural flow of events after dinner and a movie. There is less talk of marriage and commitment and more talk of how far someone can get on a Friday night. Our generation is going to ruin relationships for the generations to come, but I personally am not complaining. 

Some believe the concept of sex is meant to be whispered, so much so that many school districts do not even want to think about the idea of offering sex education classes for elementary or middle school children. 

“Leave that to the parents!” they say. 

No. The evolution of society is making it necessary to confront the issues of sex and relationships earlier in a child’s life due to the media and popular culture. It would be far better to educate them on the dangers of unprotected sex rather than letting them experience it themselves, right parents? In order to make that possible, people need to quit viewing sex as some secretive societal pleasure and talk about it. 

In fact, scream about it. Sex is not a dirty four-letter word and you will not go to hell if you discuss it in detail. Partners need to talk about it. Parents need to talk about it with their children. Brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors and teachers and students need to talk about it. 

Plus, sex should not be silent anyway. Why should we tread lightly around something that is so loud and vibrant? Sex is not shy, so we have no reason to shy away from it. Sex should not be scary, and we should not be scared of it. 

Sex should be sexy, and loud and raw and in your face and we should treat it the same way it treats us. Sex is magnificent, and should be magnified and held on a pedestal, not swept under the rug like dust bunnies. Sex is life, literally. 

It is normal, and I will not be silenced in declaring that sex is the most widely practiced happening on the planet. Sorry to break it to you Sam Brownback and all the other political conservatives stuck with a 1950s mentality—I am going to talk about sex and I am going to have a lot of it. But more importantly, I am going to start a sexual movement in hopes that one day I can discuss sex with my children at the dinner table without embarrassing them.