Let’s Talk About Sex couldn’t have picked better timing to emerge on DVD, with the current controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood. In a move that conservatives are dubbing anti-abortion but progressives see through as being anti-contraception or even anti-women, there’s a panic in the system that America’s sex education outreach is dangerously behind the curve, especially when it comes to dealing with teenage sexuality—an aspect of human society that many Americans are finding hard to acknowledge or talk about, let alone improve. This documentary examines its negative impact in the lives of American teenagers, and particularly the failure of abstinence programs.
Director James Houston is an Australian expat who works as a fashion photographer in New York City. In his line of work, he constantly encounters sex being flaunted on various American media and pop culture, which made him wonder why such a prominent thing is still considered taboo to discuss. How is it that it’s considered a bad thing to be having sex; so much so that teen pregnancy, STD rate and general misinformation about sexuality are an epidemic in this country?
In just under an hour, Houston uncovers some very surprising things, both pleasant and terrifying, in his investigation. He talks to several religious leaders who are refreshingly forthcoming about how important sex education and condom uses are, and how others in their line of work (the pro-abstinence Christian majority) are destroying their young congregation’s futures. On the flip side, Houston interviews some parents who make their kids take virginity pledges at church, proudly thinking that they’ve done their part to keep their children safe. Not surprisingly, when Houston interviews the kids, we find out that not only did they not have a say or were too young to even understand what they were pledging, but also that they don’t take the pledges seriously anymore. Many of them are—secretly—no longer virgins.
Things truly become jaw-droppingly sad when Houston paints direct comparisons between people in the US and people in the Netherlands. Over there, high school students are provided condoms by schools and other organizations. Houston asks them what they think about someone who carries around a condom in their wallet/purse/schoolbag, and they answer, as if it would be crazy to say otherwise, that the person is of course a responsible young adult. When Houston asks our high schoolers the same question here in the US, he receives very different responses: "slut," "easy," "shady," "pervert."
And we wonder why MTV's 16 & Pregnant is not running out of episodes.
With all the comparisons to Europe that make America look like a backwards third world country, it's easy to accuse this documentary as being an attack, when really it's more of a necessary wake-up call. There is a deep-rooted puritanical regress in America, that's undeniable, but Let's Talk About Sex is not aiming to promote sexual liberation or sex positivism (compared to my personal values, the doc is still fairly square). Houston interviews an American housewife raising a teenager in Netherlands and asks about Dutch parents being more liberal with their children’s sex lives. She rejects his use of the word, and utters what seems like the documentary’s main philosophy: it's not about being liberal, it's about common sense. It's about education and safety. When her son's sex life is just normal dinner table talk, he doesn't feel a need to lie to his parents to have uninformed sex behind their backs, unlike his counterparts in the US who give their scared, teary confessions to Houston about doing exactly that.
Let’s Talk About Sex resembles an afterschool PSA more than a fully-formed documentary, and at times relies too much on clips of South Park and The Daily Show to make its arguments for it, but all the same, it’s good to have these accounts made public. I hope this DVD is being played in as many classrooms as possible.
"Let's talk About Sex" is on sale April 12, 2011 and is not rated. Documentary. Directed by James Houston.
