The following are excerpts from a column that the new White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, wrote for the Washington Times on October 26, 1989.
Post-Woodstock Americans have destroyed the old taboo about discussing sex but they haven't disturbed the taboo's essence, which is to avoid mentioning any of the important stuff. More words about sex probably have been printed since 1980 than in the previous history of mankind, but those words haven't added a pamphlet's worth of new truth.
...most of this verbiage and imagery concern nothing more than technique. There's no mention of sex's weird emotional impact. There's no mention of passion. There's no mention of the fact that sex is fun only when you do it right.
This brings in the subject of relations between men and women, which is more complicated and inscrutable than the relations between interlocking body organs. If you want to make sense of real sex, you have to think about people's feelings, including the unexpressed and ineffable emotions that often give rise to sex. You need to admit that sex produces bewilderment, wonderment, fascination, confusion, elation, depression - virtually every imaginable emotion. Most of all, you need to screw up the courage to talk about love, if only to expose how shallow, pitiful, vicious and desperate loveless sex can be.
...Most studies now confirm that sex education has helped encourage sexual activity among youth. That's probably because the classes have focused on technique without addressing matters of the soul. If we really want to encourage people to behave sensibly when they're naked, why not dwell on the scary (and funny) aspects of sex - the late-night headaches, the early-morning heartaches, the vulnerability, the hilarity, the dangers of passions requited and unrequited?