I’m on a mission to kill the birds and the bees.

The truth is, after we arrive screaming and slimy into this world of ours, I think our parents make three crucial about our lives the very first day after the laughing, crying, and crooning has settled down. For starters, they are: what we will be named, who’s stuck with potty-training duty, and the one with the shortest straw who has to give “the talk” at some point. Sure enough, “some point” arrives anywhere between we’re twelve and sixteen. Then it’s an all-out war over who wants to dig a hole in the carpet and die first: us or them.

Sex is fine playing over a radio in the newest rap song, but it certifiably counts as Chinese water torture if we have to discuss it with our parents. We always believe we’ve learned enough about sex from MTV or from our friends to skip the agony of watching the old folks with their newest speech impediment, turning red and preaching about what two people that really love each other do and what we aren’t supposed to even consider until we’re sixty. I won’t deny there being the magnitude of awkward of which sixteen imaginary pink elephants in the room couldn’t sit on completely, but I still believe we should hear them out, because we got here somehow, didn’t we?

I turned out to be the luckiest little weirdo of all, considering I had “the talk” with my mom when I was just five years old. I’ve been blessed to have a parent who didn’t hold back answers because it was awkward, but gave me the whole story if there was even a chance of it turning out for my own good. At that time, and even more so today, so many abductions were happening and perverts sliming around that awkwardness just didn’t even register. My mom wanted me to be confident and educated about what parts of our bodies were actually called, instead of their cutesy nicknames, and what was right and wrong in that respect. She gave me the best gift in the world by giving me the words and tools to defend myself properly, if I ever had to.

Thankfully, nothing like that ever happened – but Mom’s talk wasn’t in vain. She created openness and a trust between us when I was little that I’ve carried all my life. She and I never really had to have “the talk” because she just answered the random questions scattered over my lifetime the best way she could. She explained what rape was and the real reason to be careful of strangers. As I got older, her talks grew in maturity with me. This has made me think about what I’ll tell my own kids someday; more importantly to the present, I wonder what my little brother and sister think about sex. From my own mistakes, I’ve learned the one thing I think we’re all missing that our parents didn’t tell us about and what we ourselves never even considered. I love my younger siblings more than anything, so much that I know what I would tell them – and anyone else that would listen – so that they won’t make the same mistakes I made sexually.

For the ladies, you already know that if you’re parting the Red Sea once a month that you can become pregnant having unprotected sex. Condom companies will tell you their own product doesn’t completely prevent from pregnancy, only sexually transmitted infections; sadly, condoms are not indestructible. If your little thumbnail can tear a hole in it or your smart self decides to put it through the washing machine with your jeans, you could be in some trouble, my friend. However, using a preferably brand-name condom, whose company name is reliable, and using it correctly gives you a two percent chance of getting pregnant rather than the fifty percent shot you take without one. I’ve always sucked at fractions, but the odds seem to be more in your favor if you take a Trojan to war with you. Birth control provides a lower risk of pregnancy, but doesn’t protect from the diseases that can ruin your life and health.

We’ve been drilled with the physical facts like these until our eyes just roll as a reflex. If you don’t know these things, you can find them online and I highly recommend that you do that. There’s no shame in being your own person and searching out the answers you need. The people who you’re afraid will find out that you’re trying to learn, or ask questions about sex to, do not have to live with the consequences of not getting the answers you need – but you do.

I’ve never actually had sex, but I have let things get too far with someone I believed that I was in love with. As much as I regret those mistakes, I wouldn’t be able to live with what happened if I didn’t at least love the person. The Internet won’t tell you that nothing intimate is worth doing if you don’t love the person. I loved the person I was with, but what I wish I had known then is that personal things are just as worthless if the person doesn’t love you back. Being raised as a Christian, I was always taught about the immorality of premarital sex. I was always caught between the faith I loved and the feelings I was told were normal. Now I realize that for me, both of these can be true. My faith doesn’t mean anything less to me because I’m a human being with all the same wants and desires as everyone else, whether people own up to them or not. I wish I had known that I wasn’t an evil demon from the nether world for having these feelings so I hadn’t beaten myself up for everything. I could be completely wrong with the Big Man on everything I believe about it, but I have to make the best decisions I can.

Whether we’re religious or not, we always face pressure and overcomplicated thoughts branching off from it, all boiled down to this: if you have sex, you’re a w**** or a “real man.” If not, then you’re a prude or an untouchable. I’d be a hypocrite to support abstinence completely, and try to convince someone else to do the same. However, the last thing I believe in is to carpe diem your pants off. Sadly, sex falls into the lovely category of gray area and no exact wrong or right answers. If you abstain from it completely, the thought will always cross your mind somehow and temptation’s going to happen. Whether you stick a toe into the waters or belly flop, you’re at risks that you have to decide for yourself are worth it or not and sometimes make sacrifices for one over another.

What the Internet won’t tell you is that sex means giving one person your whole being, and for a lot longer than it takes to perform a single act or have an hour of fun. To talk about sex before you have it with someone means telling one person things so personal you most likely wouldn’t even tell your best friend or would blush telling a doctor. You may not be wild enough to streak at your next homecoming game, but letting things go far as previously mentioned still leaves you exposed to an audience of one pair of eyes. To do that, one person has to see you at your most vulnerable: the birthmark you hate, the weight you’ve been wishing away, the way you fumble as you pretend to know what you’re doing or pretend you don’t care either way.

To be honest, there’s no way to reference coitus that isn’t cheesy, especially with such wonders as: “making love”, “second base”, and “going all the way”. Love is messy, beautiful, complex and personally affronted at the very thought of having to be man-made in the back of a horny teenager’s car. I write, so among my piddle of sport’s knowledge is the fact that second base is in baseball. The classic “going all the way” may have the potential of being restored, for the simple reason that it’s the only thing that comes close to describing sex. If you’ve ever tiptoed around it, or even just given it some serious thought to the matter, you know having sex truly is going all the way in every aspect you can think of. There is no going back or erasing what happened, no escaping the fact that nothing is the same afterward.

Sex is primal. Sex makes the core of who we are and how we feel and how we came to be on this planet. It changes everything simply because it’s everything itself. Sex isn’t evil, only the motives people have to mangle it into something selfish and ugly are. What the Internet won’t tell you is that sex means giving someone everything you are, no matter how long it lasts or who it’s with. That’s why people who are left after one night that they’ve been talked into for weeks about are especially torn to shreds after an unexpected break up. It’s not that they are stupid or “easy”; but that they made a mistake and gave the other person trust that they did not deserve.

Is it awkward when the sex is premeditated and you’re being asked personal questions you don’t feel like answering, even though you need to honestly? Yes. Is it awkward setting limits, such as “no protection, no affection” (I made that one up all by myself)? Yes, and especially so if the other person has a hissy fit about it – but it doesn’t matter if they do, because you should. If they can’t do that on their end, then your ends should never meet. I believe males and females should both be responsible for protecting their own bodies, from unexpected pregnancy, STDs, etc. However, from a female’s perspective, it’s easier for you guys to run up to Walgreen’s with ten bucks and walk out in the clear than it is for us to spend hundreds on doctor’s visits and monthly prescriptions – not that ladies aren’t highly recommended to do so and should if the funds or insurance will allow it. State health departments and insurance companies help with this too, if needed. Guess what else, ladies? You should be just as willing to buy condoms as the guys are, even more so. Formula companies make bank off squeamish people like you!

The talk before sex is awkward. The actual act is even more so, allowing someone to see you just as you are with no hiding your body and its flaws or how nervous, unsure, or even excited you are. Let me just say, it’s impossible to look coy and sexy while having intercourse. Just remember, porn stars are actors. But you know what’s not awkward – the post-sex experience, where fate decides if you get to have a happy ending or a shattered heart. There’s a slim chance that the two of you will stay in love or like each other, maybe even grow up and get married and live happily ever after, but what if that doesn’t happen? What if the girl of your dreams cheats on you a week later? What if Prince Charming’s scales only show up after he’s slept with you and slithered out of your life for some made-up reason? The answer: it never goes away. You can pay of your school loans someday, but you can never erase your sexual partners and with it the pain they cost.

The secret isn’t that you should never have sex because if you do you’re immoral or automatically a bad, cheap, or easy person. It also doesn’t mean that if you aren’t sexually active that there is something wrong with you and you will never be, but that you will when you’re ready. The important thing is having sex with someone you love who loves you back and wants to have your trust just as badly as you need theirs. Not only should you have sex responsibly as far as your heart and emotions, but also for your body – by understanding that you and your partner deserve to be healthy and not have one night change yours or their entire life. Sex is a catalyst. It changes everything around it, even though sex itself never changes. It’s crucial to remember that sex really does change things and you have the power to decide when it will and how you handle it.

The Internet will never tell you and parents might leave a few details out on what’s really important when it comes to sex.

But now you know.