Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Issue date: 11/15/07 Section: News

Two months ago, human sexuality professor Robin Sawyer lived out every man's dream: talking dirty with supermodel Tyra Banks.

The two covered everything from oral sex to the female orgasm to contraception when they met to tape an episode of the Tyra Banks show. The episode, in which Sawyer facilitates conversations about the birds and the bees between a handful of parents and their teenage children, airs today on the CW network.

Tyra Show producers invited Sawyer - a nationally renowned sexpert who has been teaching the human sexuality class for 22 years - to appear on the show after they saw him discuss adolescent sexuality on NBC's Today Show in January.

English-born Sawyer makes television appearances in his effort to encourage what he calls a more European attitude toward sex, that "sex isn't bad" but rather a public health issue that should be openly discussed between parents and their children. He opposes abstinence-only education programs that inhibit a free flow of information.

"The abstinence-only method is a wonderful method if you live in Disney World, but it doesn't work," he said. "There's no one-size-fits-all solution to a very complicated problem."

The misinformation among American students inspired the question-and-answer book Sexpertise, which will be published in April. Some of the questions that inspired the book were asked in his classroom, such as the time one of his male students wanted to know just how many females in the class faked orgasms.

"About 90 percent of the women raised their hands," Sawyer said. "The poor guy's jaw just about hit the floor."

Just how poor does he think sex education in the country is?

Sawyler laughed and asked, "What sex education?"

According to Sawyer, the abstinence-only focus of the Bush administration has eroded the quality of public schools' sex-education programs. Instead of relying on schools for comprehensive information, he tells parents on the show to talk to their kids about sex as soon as possible - even if they're still in diapers.

"Do it early and often," he said. "If a little girl says, 'Hey, daddy, when am I going to grow one of those [a penis]?' The parent can explain that little girls don't have a penis, they have a vagina. That's sex education that is still age-appropriate."

On the Tyra show, Sawyer mediates a discussion with parents who are clueless about their children's sexual behavior. Before the group of middle and high schoolers met on the stage, Sawyer spent time with the group learning about their knowledge of sex and their own sexual histories. What they told him shocked their parents: Many had already been sexually active without telling their parents, they were much more lax about oral sex than their parents' generation and most of what they knew about sex came from friends.

Continued...

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