Sunday, July 30, 2006 | Two Letters from Readers In Friday's edition of Planet Waves Weekly, I asked parents to write in with experiences of teaching their kids about sex. The first letter covers this. The second relates to a woman's experience with "Abstinence Only Sex Education." The congressman mentioned, Tom Coburn, who makes a personal appearance at the writer's elementary school to personally advocate abstinence, is the same one who opposed to the airing of the film "Schindler's List" on television because of one scene depicting frontal nudity. (This scene takes place at Auschwitz in what is feared to be a gas chamber, but which turns out to be an ordinary shower.) Thank you both for your letters. Other readers may send their contributions to me at francis@planetwaves.net -- all will be considered for publication, if space and time permit. Thanks for your contributions.    e Dear Eric~   You asked for our input about talking with our children about sex. I found this always to be an area of interest as such a potent physical drive. There is no real way to separate the body/spirit/mind. People try to separate them but I believe that creates imbalance… so… when my children have come to me with questions regarding sex, I accepted their interest as with any other question and did my best to answer it to their satisfaction. Sometimes we would look up pictures in the anatomy books and discuss the physiology. It depended on their age and I could always tell when a simple answer was enough. They would say, "Oh" and return to play. Sometimes I brought it up… helping them to understand basic issues such as hygiene. I knew I couldn't stop curiosity when they were playing with other kids, so I would say that if they touched genitalia, to wash their hands before and after as well as to keep their genitals clean every day… simple. When they were interested in girls in high school, I kept a supply of condoms and told them where to find them.  I don't know for sure if they ever dipped into the stash. I just wanted them to have a safe option. That way I was not distributing them and they didn’t have to ask or risk embarrassment at the store in public.   To keep them from being foolishly wanton in sexuality as well as conscious about health issues, I taught them the importance of spiritual connection. As my older son left for college, I presented him with a copy of a book about Tantric practices, The Multi-orgasmic Man.  I guess that was quite the conversation piece among his roommates and I know that I held some manner of mystique anyway. I am a very young looking woman and a singer… but it was worth it for him to understand the importance of revering his sexuality. He is now engaged to be married with a beautiful woman.   For my younger son it was more complex. He is paraplegic from a gestational malformation and I have no first hand experience with those sexual issues. When he was 16, I found a workshop called "Sex on Wheels" by a man who wrote a book called Life on Wheels. It is a good exploration. For him it is especially important that he be communicative with partners so it was good to help him to open his mind to the issues of sexuality.     I am proud of these gentlemen and I am so glad that we appreciate and enjoy the full experience of our lives with healthy pleasure and deep spiritual gratitude. Speaking of strong gratitude, I wish to express mine to you for the wonderfully enlightening writing and this beautiful project that you perpetuate.   Blissings~   Karen ---------------------   Eric,    I read your article "the wheel" in this week's planet waves  issue...it's extremely relevant to everything in my life the past few  weeks.  recently, i have started looking for a therapist to go to  regarding my inablility to talk to anyone, including my girlfriend,  about sex.  it's very likely that the block comes from 1)parents  and 2)religious/spiritual background.  and your article helped me  give words to my ambiguous feelings.   thanks for writing it!      you mentioned what it must be like to talk to kids about sex.   recently, one one of my art students who is 14, asked me if a guy's  sperm could crawl up her leg and make her pregnant.  her older  sister, who was 18, said it could.  i said, "do you have like a  class or something that teaches you this?" and she said, "yeah, but i  don't want to ask them."  so i said, "no, that won't get you  pregnant."   and i thought, for her age, and especially her  sisters, why hasn't anyone told her any of this??       this reminded me of my own parents in oklahoma, who didn't want  to talk to me about sex and so they relied on the "new and progressive"  sex ed classes to teach us... this ultimately meant that my  congressman, tom coburn, came to school and showed us slides in the  auditorium, slides of dozens of infected penises that looked like sweet  potatoes and vaginas covered in puss and told us over and over, "not  preventable!  not curable!  except through abstinence.   now, who wants pizza?"  no positive talk about sex, nothing but  the creation of fear, like some old fifties drivers' ed film.  you  can find out more about tom coburn on the web, i am sure.  he is  not a very sex positive person; one wonders who decided to have sex ed  taught by a congressman in the first place.  but i digress.   i never dated anyone until i was 23.      your attitudes towards sex and sexuality are extremely helpful to  me.  during the past few weeks, i've questioned why i'm looking to  therapy.  part of me thinks  that i'm doing something very selfish.  your article helped me understand how much sex fits into  the rest of my life, and that i need to work this stuff out to be more  complete, and as you say, "claim the right to exist".  those were very inspiring words.  thank you for your help, Eric.      sincerely,   rachel   (virgo esq. )   (i've always wanted to be an esquire)