Humans have been having scx since time immemorial, and not much  changed as the centuries slid by. Then in the 1960s, the Pill came out, and the scxual revolution was said to begin. But the past 25 years, which coincidentally is the period when I first became well known, have seen the most major advancements.

People are talking to each other about their love needs, and as a result, they’re more satisfied with their scx lives. And although we’ve made progress, more needs to be done.
First of all, millions of young people are just beginning their scxual lives.

They need to be taught what to do and how to do it. Secondly, millions of adults are still having scx the way cave men and women did in the Stone Age. For whatever reason, the message that terrific scx is possible hasn’t penetrated. Finally, many people are still derailed by scxual myths. So although the need for this book has lessened since it first came out, especially for the hundreds of thousands who’ve bought it here and those who purchased it in the 26 other languages into which it’s been translated, my job of educating people about good love functioning is not yet over.

How people learn about scx has a great deal to do with how well equipped they are to have scx. So where did most of you learn about scx? You learned a little bit from your parents and a little bit at school. But because much of this information was, rightfully, passed on before you were really ready to use it, it may not have meant all that much to you, and so it didn’t totally sink in.

Later on, if you had another class, you probably felt the need to act blase, as if you knew it all, and you may not have bothered to listen. This Catch-22 makes having good scx difficult — you get the information before you need it, and you forget what you learned by the time you do need it. Or you get the facts so confused that they’re not helpful to you.

Our children are the same way. Often, despite our best efforts as parents, kids are more likely to pay attention to what they hear on the street or in the locker room or at a sleepover. How much of this information is accurate is anybody’s guess.

But even though some of this information is true, it leads only to more confusion, because it doesn’t match the sexual myths that are also out there. And when you’re confused don’t you often end up not paying attention to anything you’ve heard — preferring to trust your instincts?

Unfortunately, in sexual matters, trusting your instincts can often lead to problems.
In the end, you let trial and error become the teacher of last resort. And when that happens, not unexpectedly, you can often make serious mistakes — such as becoming pregnant when you don’t intend to be, or catching a sexually transmitted disease, or, at the very least, having a less-than-satisfactory scx life, or going through your entire life never having terrific scx.

In the 21st century, this process of misinformation and confusion can’t continue. In the past, we had rules in place to guide us so that, even if we didn’t understand human sexuality all that well, as long as we followed the rules and got married before having sex, we couldn’t stray too far.

But over the past 40 years, these rules have begun to disintegrate badly.
Some people would say the results — millions of unintended pregnancies, millions of single parents, vast numbers of people with sexually transmitted diseases — were predictable.

Sex for Dummies by Dr. Ruth К. Westheimer (PDF)