The Most Embarrassing Discussion

illustration by Viktor Miller-Gausa

Dale Mason
Publisher

As I sat down to write about how my dad handled “the talk,” I found it difficult to say the obvious without being obvious. Several fathers in the church where I grew up must have felt similar uneasiness, which probably explains why our pastor recruited a medical doctor from the congregation to give “the talk” for them.

A year or two earlier, a boy down the street had provided me full-color pictures that raised more questions than it gave answers. Yet I really, really did not want to go with my older brother and dad to a public sex-ed presentation.

Dad must have been shaking in his shoes, afraid to broach the topic, because he didn’t say anything about it on the way there, on the way home, or in the days after. Aside from sitting quietly among a couple dozen other teens and their fathers, I felt like I was on my own.

The doctor presented a dry lecture with clinical slides that revealed even less than one would think possible. He discussed the biology—not so much the anatomical way that a man and woman create a baby. And that was it. Dad never divulged any further info—ever. He went to his grave with the “sex talk” a well-kept secret.

But even though it was embarrassing, the good doctor succeeded in sharing that sex was created by God for marriage. In the years prior to my wedding day, some buddies filled in some key missing pieces, and godly married friends emphasized to me that great sex is most enjoyed in a marriage with lots of communication and self-sacrificing grace.

Now after 36 years of matrimony, I can attest that the best way to fully enjoy God’s gift of sex is to save it for the bounds of the God-ordained institution of one-man-for-one-woman marriage.

This issue of Answers includes the normal creation and biblical authority articles you’ve come to expect. But because it also includes a bit of the unexpected on pages 50–76, I urge you to do a little parental perusing before you set this issue out in the living room.

Perhaps contemplate how these articles might help you when “the talk” comes up and long before that as well. Sure, we could let dry-lecturing doctors and helpful pastors do the job. But it would be better to simply be on the lookout for opportunities that come up day to day with our kids. Talk about these important issues from the God-honoring stance that is so readily provided within these pages!