--- title: Dr. Ruth and How Others Learned About Sex description: Dr. Ruth and others share their stories canonical: https://time.com/3580786/sex-ed-dr-ruth/ author: Adam Perez article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-12T14:24:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:02:01.631Z og:title: Dr. Ruth and How Others Learned About Sex og:description: Dr. Ruth and others share their stories og:url: https://time.com/3580786/sex-ed-dr-ruth/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c460834853a4196/69876857cd68485390097f2d/sex-education.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: sex education og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Dr. Ruth and How Others Learned About Sex twitter:description: Dr. Ruth and others share their stories twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c460834853a4196/69876857cd68485390097f2d/sex-education.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch How These People Learned About Sex > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=bc368756-231c-4eb1-b6fd-8a82171f7ab3&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How I Learned About Sex [Watch (HLS stream): How I Learned About Sex](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5AudUKuq.m3u8) (3:38)  _Published 2014-11-10. Dr. Ruth and others share their stories_ by [Adam Perez](https://time.com/author/adam-perez/) and [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) Nov 12, 2014 2:24 PM UTC by [Adam Perez](https://time.com/author/adam-perez/) and [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) Nov 12, 2014 2:24 PM UTC In spring 2014, parents in the normally progressive Bay Area city of Fremont started a campaign to get a book removed from the 9th grade curriculum, arguing it was inappropriate for their 13 and 14-year olds. They hired a local lawyer and put together a petition with more than 2500 signatures. [Read TIME’s Special Report on Why Schools Can’t Teach Sex Ed](http://time.com/why-schools-cant-teach-sex-ed/) Their target was _Your Health Today,_ a sex-ed book published by McGraw Hill. It offers the traditional advice and awkward diagrams plus some considerably more modern elements: how to ask partners if they’ve been tested for STDs, a debate on legalizing prostitution. And then there was this: “\[One\] kind of sex game is bondage and discipline, in which restriction of movement (e.g. using handcuffs or ropes) or sensory deprivation (using blindfolds or masks) is employed for sexual enjoyment. Most sex games are safe and harmless, but partners need to openly discuss and agree beforehand on what they are comfortable doing.” “I was just astounded,” says Fremont mom Teri Topham. “My daughter is 13\. She needs to know how boys feel. I frankly don’t want her debating with other 13-year-olds how well the adult film industry is practicing safe sex.” Another parent, Asfia Ahmed, who has eight and ninth grade boys, adds: “It assumes the audience is already drinking alcohol, already doing drugs, already have multiple sexual partners…Even if they are experimenting at this age, it says atypical sexual behaviors are normal. ” But school board members contend that 9th grade students have already been exposed to the contents of the book—and much, much more. They argue that even relatively modern sex ed has even not begun to reckon with what kids are now exposed to in person and online. [Read TIME’s special report on sex ed in the age of porn with resources for parents and teens.](http://time.com/why-schools-cant-teach-sex-ed/) ## Transcript Where I grew up in Germany, I believed that it's the stork who brings babies to this world. Mother, is it wrong to feel [ MUSIC ] Warm and affectionate when you, when you're with a boy you really like? No dear, it is not wrong. My mom had no problem talking about it. She just said, wait 'til you get married. Maybe, like, when I was in first grade. Around fifth grade. I was about seventh grade. I do remember my mother and grandmother wanted to tell me about the facts of life. I was playing hide and go seek with my friends. Someone got rid of all their, their whole stash of pornos. Like, [ LAUGH ] [ UNKNOWN ]. I pick it up and I'm just like, this is the greatest thing I ever seen. I didn't know that I would talk about sex for my entire professional life. And now I'm 86, and I'm still talking about relationships and sex . >> I remember accidentally coming across what sex was really like on the Playboy channel when we finally got cable TV [ LAUGH ] [ MUSIC ] Sexuality education has to start at a very early age. Your belly button, it's too small. Mary, the baby doesn't come out of your navel. Let me tell you how it is. The first time I had a talk talk was in seventh grade health class. My father was so old- fashioned that. It was just I got sort of Andy back before. He would be like go talk to your brother, and he'd go, go talk to Mom. Asians don't really get that talk. It's just the, the conversations aren't there. You know, like the story of the birds and the bees I don't know that story. I don't know, I still don't know what that is. [ LAUGH ] They told me you could get pregnant by eating watermelon seeds and drinking water and eating dirt. Which I did [ LAUGH ] throwing up, I was throwing up mud when my mom got home. When the sperm and the egg get together they make a tiny person. So tiny that not even the mother knows it's there for the first few weeks. When I was a child I just thought, oh it's bad. It's bad unless you get married. And now that I'm adult I understand there's nothing wrong with that. Good sexuality education. That starts when a child is growing up is going to be beneficial for that child for the rest of his or her life. Coming from a Pentecostal Christian family, I was definitely. Not only challenging to be trying to find myself, around my sexuality and my gender identity. But I just remember always feeling this conflict of being very curious about it but then feeling very very dirty and just wrong at the same time. mom, you know, taught us a lot about self esteem and self love and it comes here first inside. Not to run off and find it in someone else. I think that when you, when you make something so taboo to somebody, you make them even more curious about it. I've realized that this really, ultimately, is about companionship and love and togetherness. I think if they say, okay, it's okay for us to talk about sex, I think they'll think, oh, more people are gonna have it. It's okay to be a sexual being. I don't think we talk enough about trust and sex. We talk a lot about love and sex and of course we want to say oh I love you, I love you and that's all that matters. But no, we also have to trust one another. And if you don't trust somebody then don't make yourself that vulnerable, which we do. In sex we're very vulnerable to one another. 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