Mother-daughter sexperts

Susie Bright and her daughter, Aretha, make parental talks about sex look easy -- and fun

On the rack: A cultural history of breasts

It's hard to be boobs. Sure, breasts are cherished as givers of milk and the pinnacle of sex appeal, but the modern world hasn't been good to mammaries. As Florence Williams writes in "Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History," they're the most tumor-prone organ in the human body. They "soak up pollution like a pair of soft sponges," and transmit environmental toxins to babies through breast ...

Right-wing sexual pathos

Imagine a high school teacher having to separate a smooching pair outside the classroom door to protect herself from being sued for condoning "gateway sexual activity." Envision a sex education class where the mention of homosexuality is forbidden by law and discussion of contraception, or even puberty, is deemed unnecessary. That's the world that would be created by a recent raft of abstinence ...

The prudes are winning

The explosion of government-funded abstinence-only education, extreme assaults on reproductive rights, crackdowns on "indecency" and "obscenity": This is but a small sampling of what spurred sex therapist Marty Klein to publish "America's War on Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust and Liberty" in 2006, midway through George W. Bush's second term. Six years later, under a Democratic presidency, many of ...