What we need are 25/30+ year-olds who are completely at ease with sex, who have no hang-ups, and who know how to form strong relationships because they’ve been

What we need are 25/30+ year-olds who are completely at ease with sex, who have no hang-ups, and who know how to form strong relationships because they’ve been doing it and having sex freely since they were teenagers. Instead, we have a generation of adults of parenting age who are deeply uncomfortable with sex and emotionally unskilled in relationships. And that’s a big part of the problem. I’m saying a large swathe of the population is sexually dysfunctional? Yes, I am. On public forums like Reddit, I can ask questions about all sorts of topics and get a range of responses. But if I’m a young person asking about sex, the answers are often shaped by politics and public health messaging. Behind the scenes, there’s a strong influence from health authorities, and the responses tend to follow a standard script focused on fear, safety, and official ideas about what sex and relationships must be, rather than letting young people figure things out for themselves. What young people really need is encouragement to form whatever kinds of relationships they want, whether casual or serious, and to have sex and enjoy it. If you support them in that, they’ll do it naturally. Cautions against early pregnancy can be made gently and are no different to other important non-sexual cautions. Young people need space to figure out their sex lives for themselves, without someone watching over them, especially not a public health voice pushing out patronizing or useless messaging. Then, and only then, will we grow a generation of mindful and intentional baby-makers.