Sex ed: what America's best professors of sexuality want you to know - Sex on Campus

Sex education isn't just for middle school anymore. On college campuses everywhere, sex educators are attempting to provide answers to those eternal questions, When is sex right, and when is it good? Although their areas of emphasis may be different, these instructors all agree on one thing: Sex is good when you feel good about it. Here, five of America's best sex-education professionals share their perspectives on what that means.

The advisor

An associate professor of human development and family relations at the University of Maine, Sandra Caron is best known as Maine's own "Dr. Ruth," both because of her newspaper column, "Sex Matters," and because she founded and directs two nationally recognized peer sex-education programs. Her undergraduate classes on human sexuality - in which she regularly plays such characters as a pregnant teenager or Margaret Sanger, the crusader who popularized birth control - are filled to standing-room only, and she earned the university's highest teaching award for 1998.

As far as Caron is concerned, sex isn't so much a subject as a mission. "My students are the future doctors, lawyers, teachers and television producers who are going to be in leadership positions, so when I give them this information, they'll take it with them into their careers and their lives, and the lives of other people," she says. And she believes that many of them are woefully uninformed. "We as a society are more interested in saying no than we are in talking about what a positive, healthy relationship looks like so that you can make better decisions in your own life."

For Caron, the most important part of sexuality is learning. "Many of us grew up with the assumption that great sex happens naturally," she says. "But sex is something you need to learn together. It's based on your ability to be honest and open, not on your ability to position your genitals."

Lessons: Caron says there are at least two things men can't hear often enough. One is that size doesn't matter as much as they think. "I can't believe this issue still exists," she says. "Trust me, it's a bigger issue in the locker room than it is in the bedroom. A vagina is adept at handling a lot of things, from a tampon to a baby's head. Your penis will fall somewhere in that range, don't worry. In fact, women look at the Dirk Digglers of the world and think, Ouch."

Another is that they need to understand the mechanisms of climax. "Some guys think all they have to do is thrust and - voila - an amazing orgasm. The reality is, that just doesn't cut it for most women. Whether it's by her or him, somebody has got to stimulate the clitoris." What's the best way to deal with a woman's needs? "Have an honest conversation ahead of time."

The pragmatist

Two decades ago, when sex research was exploding into a major field of study, Michael Plaut took a faculty course in human sexuality on a lark. Today, you could say that sex is his life - he's a certified sex therapist, teaches at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is editor of the Journal of Sex Education and Therapy and serves as president of the Society of Sex Therapy and Research. It's precisely because sex is so basic that we seem to have such a hard time figuring it out, Plaut says. "I've discovered that this field is very rewarding because you can do so much to help people in a tangible way."

Plaut says his medical students' diversity - in terms of age, ethnicity and gender - is a metaphor for the complexity of sexuality: "We have a wide spectrum of values and attitudes we need to understand and respect in one another. For example, the attitudes toward being sexually active before marriage. Traditionally, it just wasn't done - or, rather, nobody admitted it. Then there was a time in the '70s when things appeared to be so permissive, I would never have a student admit that they were still virginal. Now I see both, and people are comfortable with both and are willing to talk about it among their peers."

Plaut agrees that while we are a sex-saturated society, we're no better informed about the subject. "We still learn about sex in terms of its reproductive function - the only way it is permissible to teach about sex is in terms of making babies," he says. "So we tend too often to think of intercourse as the only form of sex. I don't even use the term foreplay because it only reinforces that myth. It is very important to get away from the genital focus. if you talk to a woman, she might enjoy a back rub as much as an orgasm at times. I think that if men could do that we would not have all this obsessive concern about impotence - men are so focused on penis function that they don't give themselves the chance to discover what else they like."

Lessons: Plaut believes every man can benefit from an exercise he uses with couples who have sexual problems: "Touch each other everywhere but the genitals. Don't touch to please your partner, but for your own interest. Learn about textures, scents, caress a finger, behind the knee. Sometimes if you let yourself he passive and aren't always the performer, you can learn to be a better lover."