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

Men's Fitness, Sept, 1998 by Sam Dunn

"If you look at human sexuality in terms of other.human needs, there has to be a similar sort of balance and reasonable approach to it," he adds. "For example, we follow advice on how and what we eat, and on exercise. Yet when it comes to sexuality, people want to say there should be no limits. If you want to look at sexuality in its completeness, understand that it is not just a biological outlet but the highest expression of love between two people."

Lessons: Giandurco wants his students to realize that while people are sexual creatures, love is not always best expressed physically. "Every person is called to love, whether we are talking about married people or single people. Without love, people cannot truly live as complete human beings. I have taken a promise of celibacy, meaning that I have promised not to have sex or be in exclusive relationships. Yet, in my years as a priest, I have really come to love so many people - which is what I believe religion calls people to do."

The mentor

Considering that an average of 700 students a year crowd into his human-sexuality classes at Texas' Sam Houston State University, and that his wife is a professional counselor herself, you'd think James A. Johnson would never have any relationship problems of his own.

Wrong. "My wife and I are as stupid as anybody else," he jokes. Yet many of the school's students, faculty and staff believe in Johnson's sexual acumen enough to seek him out with their own personal problems.

Since roughly 70 percent of his students are male, Johnson is well aware of the sexual issues facing young men today. "We live in somewhat ambivalent limes. We are just full of mixed messages - like sex is beautiful but don't talk to kids about it, or sex is dirty, save it until you're married," he notes. "The media bombard us with information about sexuality, but I don't think there has been much of a change in men's comfort level in really dealing with their own bodies. We still tend not to talk about these issues, except maybe in a joking way.

"I want men to come away with a sense of what it's like to function as a man," he adds, "and also understand that they can modify that and have some control over it, whether the problem is with getting an erection or controlling the amount of time it takes to ejaculate. They have to understand how important psychology is to that - how much their mind will modify and regulate what's going on with their bodies."

Helping young men understand their unique sexuality, says Johnson, is the first step in helping them achieve what they strive for. "Each of us is a sexual individual, and that means each of us is a unique conglomeration of sexual interests and fantasies, turn-one and turnoffs, orientations and behaviors, things that we do and things we don't do. There is far more sexual diversity in that respect than anyone tends to be aware of." He also disagrees with those who say men are interested only in individual sexual encounters. "They long for relationships - for a settled relationship, and for a stable and satisfying sexual relationship as well."