--- title: How I Learned About Sex | TIME description: Dr. Ruth and others share their stories canonical: https://time.com/video/5AudUKuq/ og:title: How I Learned About Sex og:description: Dr. Ruth and others share their stories og:url: https://time.com/video/5AudUKuq/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5AudUKuq/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How I Learned About Sex twitter:description: Dr. Ruth and others share their stories twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5AudUKuq/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How I Learned About Sex > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## 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_ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:29 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [In Previously Unseen Video, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Looks Back at How a Legal Pioneer Laid the Groundwork for Sex-Discrimination Cases](/video/TajaOIjc/) ### In Previously Unseen Video, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Looks Back at How a Legal Pioneer Laid the Groundwork for Sex-Discrimination Cases [Selma Blair and Dr. Oz Share Their Personal Stories with Alzheimers and MS](/video/reSdnkVI/) ### Selma Blair and Dr. Oz Share Their Personal Stories with Alzheimers and MS [A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](/video/uJFYIrvP/) ### A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now --- ## 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. And so it's gotta be with someone you trust. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How I Learned About Sex","description":"Dr. Ruth and others share their stories","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/5AudUKuq/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-11-10T16:10:43.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/5AudUKuq.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/5AudUKuq/","duration":"PT3M38S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/5AudUKuq/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```