“Don’t be a fool—wrap your tool!”

Slogans like this one are hackneyed reminders to practice safe sex. Even with the risk of pregnancy and the scariest of all acronyms, HIV, it’s nice to hear the occasional safety reminder. Reassurance for safe sex keeps the importance of contraceptives from taking a backseat to carnal desire. Everyone wants to have sex, but no one wants to step up to the consequences. It’s not a flaw in human integrity; it’s the human condition. That something so magnificent as sex can carry with it such serious consequences is a raw deal—rawer than Greedo shooting first.

When I was growing up there was a lot of controversy surrounding sex education in schools. Many families felt that schools had no right educating children on sex. In my school, instructors avoided this hoopla by playing “Family Life” videos that danced around the subject like politicians at a deposition. These vague instructional films were followed by silent Q & A’s. There were no questions, and thus there were no answers. Aside from the obligatory weisenheimer question about gargantuan penis size—“What do I do if my penis breaks the condom?”—no one made a peep. None of us wanted to look clueless in front of our classmates, despite the “educational” video leaving us even more confused than before.

Children today have at least one thing going for them. Being bombarded by sex via the media has strangled the sex taboo. I didn’t know how babies were made until the fifth grade, and it was years later before I was educated on the semantics of human sexuality. Some kids today know eight sexual positions before they graduate from grade school. At least they have their facts straight. (Han shot first.)

Yeah, yeah, so kids are having sex too early. Sex feels good to them, but labor pains and genital sores won’t. Kids are impulsive. If they know more about sex than Sue Johanson, they’re going to get impulsive all over the sex act—and do the sex act all over their parents’ living room suite. Is sex education to blame? Thanks to crappy sex-ed videos, kids at least know enough about sex to comprehend its consequences. Cartoon storks don’t carry babies; uteruses do. Despite the alarming number of adolescents partaking in carnal delight, today’s young lovers are more latex-conscientious than ever.

Condoms and birth control pills are necessary evils. Birth control increases a woman’s risk of blood clots; wearing a condom is like going to a great concert with an inner-ear infection. No one likes using protection, yet playing safe has become a prerequisite for getting “drrty.” Given a choice between no sex and relatively safe sex, most people are going to side with their nerve-endings. Young and weathered alike are going to “get their freak on.” I’m personally comforted that sex education is dispelling the myth of the stork.

I had to learn the nitty-gritty of the bedroom tango from HBO’s Real Sex 21, a series my grandmother felt would make up for my lack of parental guidance. (Problem with growing up male in a family of women is no one wants to tell you about the birds and the bees.) I don’t advocate showing Real Sex 21 in the classroom. There are, however, worse ways to learn about human sexuality. Not learning at all comes to mind. So does the Internet. If children are to believe what they read in chat rooms and on personal Web sites, they’re going to be misinformed—and not just on the average size of the adult male penis.

Writer Norman Mailer once wrote, “There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be.” Sex is complicated, whether you know eight positions or have the Karma Sutra committed to memory. Stupid sex can have serious repercussions. Under the right circumstances, the sex act can be downright orgasmic, or—dare I say—multiply orgasmic. Even when multiply fantastic, sex is risky business. Thank heavens for contraceptives, and for all the fine folks who won’t make the trip to Pleasuretown without them.

Charles Smith is a lifelong resident of Southwest Virginia. He thinks about sex often, so this column was a natural extension of his thoughts. Fortunately, we didn’t get a glimpse of everything that goes on in his mind.