Of course, if we want to raise children who care about something deeper and less fleeting than satisfying physical desires, that should be just one component of a larger discussion about who we are as humans, the gift of our sex, how our sexes complement each other, the significance of that complementarity, family formation, personal responsibility and our higher and more transcendent ends.

We’re familiar with the stereotype of religious conservatives as buttoned-up Puritans who don’t enjoy sex, much less tell their children about the Birds and Bees with any degree of candor or joy. But in the same way that the Puritans-hated-sex story was completely untrue, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s the parents who think of themselves as sexually liberated who struggle to talk about sex with their kids.

A few months ago, Hanna Rosin wrote a piece headlined “Trying and Failing (and Trying and Failing) to Talk to My Daughter About Sex.”

It’s actually a really interesting, if frustrating, piece. Here’s what she says she wants to tell her daughter, after telling her that “the point of sex is to have fun”:

I want to say that if you are in love, that fun may be more likely to happen, but it’s not the only way. That it’s somewhat different for boys and girls, at least at first. That there are ways you have to protect yourself because, back to Point A, if you don’t, it won’t be fun. That there is a lot of easy access to porn these days, and she might learn something from it but will more likely learn all the wrong things. It’s just that when I say these words out loud, they feel like birds that have escaped from my mouth and are flying madly around the room.

She’s worried about the fact that “kids learn about smegma and epididymis before they know what love is,” but she still can’t figure out how to talk to her high-schooler….

1) Don’t Have “The Talk”

Yes, the first piece of advice about having “The Talk” is not to have it. That’s because instead of a single talk, you have an unending conversation over the course of your child’s entire life. It may sound difficult but it’s actually quite easy. Think of it like you think of any other issue on which you inculcate values. You don’t wait until your son is 19 to tell him to consider safe driving. You start talking about how to interact with traffic from before he can walk…..

2) Partly be proactive, partly be responsive.

A lot of talking about sex with your children is just answering the questions they have. If they have the question, you can certainly do the parental duty of letting ‘em know what’s what. This doesn’t mean that if your 4-year-old asks you about how babies are made, you explain to them the entirety of human physiology and marriage norms — just that you need to figure out an age-appropriate answer….

3) Sometimes it’s good to ask them why they want to know something.

I learned this trick from an older friend of mine and it’s come in handy so many times. You know that feeling of dread when your child asks you a difficult question about sex? Before you panic — or begin your lengthy soliloquy of response — ask them to explain why they want to know something….

4) Mechanics aren’t the hard part. Neither is the emotional part. Transmitting your morals is.

As Rosin noted above, many teenagers are privy to contextual-less information about their anatomy or the opposite sex’s. They have probably seen porn, be it hardcore or what’s available on HBO. Or heck, they’ve been subjected to the soft core porn of our nation’s billboards, commercials, magazine ads, and horribly unfunny sitcoms.

Speaking in weird platitudes about “fun” being more fun when there’s “love” is easy as well (and weakly insufficient, for what it’s worth). The tricky part is inculcating morals.

It’s not just about persistent instruction in what you value, it’s about behaving in a manner that is not completely at odds with what you proclaim….

5) Love your spouse. View sex as a blessing.

One of the best things parents can do to help their kids develop a healthy attitude toward sex is to demonstrate that they themselves have a healthy attitude toward sex. And since it’s really hard to fake happiness with a crappy sex life, that means having a loving marriage with lots of sex….

6) Note how you talk about babies.

One of the weird themes present in the Penny Arcade strips was that babies aren’t wanted. Obviously that is quite true in our culture, in which women are encouraged to make themselves barren for a good 20 or so years and then try to cram all their childbearing, if it ever occurs, into their late 30s when biology might not be so game. And then we’re supposed to go out of our way to either use assisted reproductive technology or other means to secure the baby we want, when we want it….

7) Be positive about sex

One of the things I’m grateful my parents did was get me this fantastic book to explain sex. It was put out by my church body and as one reviewer recently wrote, “I’ve come across plenty of weird old books trying to explain sexuality to kids, but this is probably the most happy and colorful.”….

8) Consider whether your own confusion is the cause of your troubles.

One of the things I picked up on in reading modern liberal discussions of “the talk” is that much of that talk is about emotions or feelings and much is about biology. It’s very difficult to develop any healthy limiting principle from the latter and reliance on feelings and emotions can be subjective and, at times, incoherent.

I wonder if one of the reasons so many liberal parents are struggling to talk about sex is because they believe morality is, in fact, subjective. They may, in fact, view holding to objective morality as an anachronism. Those of us who believe in objective morality are as confused by subjective morality as others are by objective morality. But pointing to some objective standard and not some opinion I am pretty sure I hold to at the moment makes sex talk much easier.

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