You walk into your first day of sixth-grade health class. The teacher introduces herself and explains that the first chapter of the class will cover sex education. Laughter and embarrassed sighs run through the room. Some students could write a book on everything their parents taught them about sex. For others, this topic is unfamiliar and intimidating.
After all, sex is what makes the world go around — and despite major strides toward progress, the topic is still stigmatized and looked down upon by many.
If sex is so common and people have evolved alongside it, why is it still so underdiscussed?
From bedrooms to the big screen
Just by flipping through the Netflix catalog or scrolling through social media, you are bombarded by the entertainment media's use of sex to make money.
From Pamela Anderson in "Baywatch" to Robin Thicke's controversial "Blurred Lines" music video featuring nude models from 2013. Spanning various decades, women are repeatedly hypersexualized in the public eye. Additionally, popular movies like "Magic Mike," which accumulated $167 million worldwide as well as Calvin Klein ads — Bad Bunny's Spring 2025 campaign drew in 6 million views on YouTube — sexualize men, too.
Steve McKoy is the director of operations of Devils in the Bedroom — a student-run organization that provides sex education and sexual wellness resources for the ASU community. The club values condoms, consent and communication, according to its website.
He said that the sexualization of characters is very common in movies, especially horror films.
"When you take a character and you strip them out of their agency in order for them to be sexually appealing towards the audience … that's a big problem," McKoy said.
"In 'Nightmare on Elm Street' and the original 'Halloween,' we see that the women have sex and then are immediately killed. It sends the message that the way to survive in a horror movie is to be pure."
But the media's impact on our sexual lives is not limited to overt sexualization; it also impacts how we choose to explore our own sexual identities.
Jessica Boyles is a clinical assistant professor and has a Ph.D. in counseling psychology with a specialization in sex education. She affirmed that men may feel fear in sexual discussions because of patriarchal views.
"Women can experience exploration, whether it be kissing other women or having some type of interaction, and it (can) just be looked at as experimentation," Boyles said. "Men are not allowed that same exploration because they are labeled almost immediately as gay."
Religion also plays a role in the double standards between men's and women's sexual exploration, in addition to the lack of open discussions about sex.
The pursuit of pleasure
An underdiscussed element of sex is pleasure. Women are not expected to feel pleasure during sex compared to men, Boyles said.
Discussing pleasure can be very intimate for most women, and the lack of dialogue around it can also lead to internal shaming and a lack of sexual satisfaction.
Seventy-six percent of couples facing sexual health issues do not feel comfortable talking to their partner about it, according to the American Sexual Health Association.
Even with the person someone feels most intimate with, people — especially young people — are fearful of speaking up due to judgment. Alongside DITB, ASU also offers on-campus STI testing, as well as free condoms and dental dams in every health center.
"We go over all topics surrounding health, pleasure, consent, and things that people need to know to engage in sex safely," McKoy said. "We also provide resources like Plan B, pregnancy tests and condoms through a peer-to-peer distribution source where people can go and order anything they need from us and have it delivered to them."
DITB meets weekly and their resources are free of charge for students. Every meeting has a theme where students can learn more about a specific sexual topic.
"We're really focusing on trying to stop the stigma around sex in general," McKoy said.
Religious guilt
Sex is often deemed sacred across a multitude of religions, including Christianity and Islam. Many Christians refer to the Bible for guidelines about their sexual practices. In 1 Corinthians 7:2, the Bible states: "Each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband."
When translated to English, the Quran states, "And come not near to the unlawful sexual intercourse. Verily, it is a Fahishah [i.e. anything that transgresses its limits (a great sin)], and an evil way (that leads one to Hell unless Allah forgives him)."
Both religious texts have specific rules outlining that sex is reserved for a married man and woman, which may cause followers to feel guilt when thinking about or having sex in a way that doesn’t align with those ideas.
One Reddit user in the r/Christianity community said, "I spent whole years of my youth plagued by shame that invasive Christians put on me when it was 100% unnecessary and inappropriate. I was a virgin, sitting in the shower sobbing over shit that didn't even matter instead of enjoying my life. Please don't be me. If I could do it over, I would find a therapist specializing in sexual or religious trauma, or maybe with a background in it."
It perpetuates a cycle that people struggle to break due to a history of negative past experiences. Psychologists have coined this as "intergenerational shaming." Boyles said that speaking up and discussing sex is one way to break this cycle.
"If one time we talk about sex, or we bring up something that's taboo, and we get told not to bring it up, we internalize that, and we do not ask again," Boyles said.
Why you SHOULD discuss it
What if "the talk" with your parents wasn't so awkward, or what if you didn’t cringe in your sixth-grade sexed class? The only way to destigmatize sex is through open discussion.
Lack of education can lead many to experiment with intimacy prematurely, which can be attributed to several external factors, including "the consumption of alcohol and other psychoactive substances, family structure, peer influence, exposure to pornographic movies, the level of education and the beliefs and values regarding sexuality," according to a study from 2018.
Boyles said young people feel more confident to talk about sex when a family member or friend already openly discusses it, adding that open discussion in intimate family settings allows for breathing room.
"We know that a lot of the modern porn industry focuses on some not great stuff," McKoy said. "It perpetuates some very regressive, and potentially misogynistic parts of our culture, and it does introduce a lot of people to that."
A lack of open discussion may lead to adolescents seeking alternatives, like porn, for sex education. Since it was created for entertainment purposes, many porn sites lack realistic sex education and are often unethically produced, which can create a false narrative of what sex should be.
"We have a lot of people who think certain things should be happening in sexual interactions due to porn, but instead of communicating that, they just do it," Boyles said. "Then we see things like sexual violence, coercion or assaults because it's not educating."
Without the proper resources, safety can become a concern. Sexually transmitted infections and adolescent pregnancies are some results of the lack of sex education.
McKoy emphasized that DITB works to combat a common narrative about STIs: "If you have sex, you're going to get an STI and you're going to die."
Instead, the club reassures people that "STIs are normal and it's important to get tested to prevent their spread. But if you get one, it is not the end of the world. You are not dirty," McKoy said.
Proper sex education starts with transparency. "If no one has the education to understand sex at a very grand level, we can't say that we would expect parents or people within the home to have more education," Boyles said.
According to Boyles, many middle and high schools take an abstinence-based approach instead of a safety-based approach, if even an approach at all. Although there needs to be progress in youth sex education, Boyles has hope for the future.
"I hope to see policy changes toward more of a comprehensive sex education, and I think that we should absolutely teach abstinence in the way that you should not be talked into it, and you should not be coerced out of it, Boyles said.
In an ideal world, people will no longer look away or cringe when they hear about sex. I desire open discussions that will lead to the destigmatization of sex. Without conversing, there will be no room for growth.
Edited by Leah Mesquita, Natalia Jarrett and Abigail Wilt. This story is part of The Purity Issue, which was released on December 3, 2025. See the entire publication here.
Reach Bella Keenan at akeenan4@asu.edu and follow her on Instagram @bellakeenanreports. Like the @statepress on Instagram and follow them on Twitter @statepress.
Bella Keenan is a magazine reporter, exploring prominent topics in long-form writing. She is a second-year journalism and mass communication major specializing in sports. Bella hopes to share unique perspectives in her reporting.
