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Let's talk about the facts of life.

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You remember that conversation you had when you were a kid

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about sex

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or drugs

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with your parents or some trusted adult?

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Probably not

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because it's a myth.

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You don't talk to kids about that stuff.

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It's just so embarrassing.

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And, hey, maybe that's OK.

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We've been outsourcing the facts of life for decades.

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We spend billions of dollars on it.

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So, why talk to kids when you can just turn on the TV?

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I learned about drugs from an egg and a frying pan:

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"This is drugs,

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and this is your brain on drugs.

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Pssssssss.

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Any questions?"

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Yeah, actually, I did.

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But it's not about questions.

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It's about data.

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In the 1980's when I was growing up,

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those data were terrifying parents:

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1% of high school seniors had try heroin,

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12% hallucinogens,

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12% tranquilizers,

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17% cocaine,

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26% stimulants,

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and over 50% of us had tried marijuana.

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It was an epidemic!

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At least, that's what they told us.

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And marijuana was the gateway drug, leading to all the harder stuff.

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Of course, 92% of us were drinking alcohol,

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and that was killing more of us than all drugs combined.

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But, nevermind, it's legal.

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So we declared war on drugs!

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Nancy Reagan was our general.

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All drugs will kill you, so just say, "No!"

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Just say, "No!" to pot.

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Just say, "No!" to cocaine.

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Just say, "No!" to everything.

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So simple!

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If you want to save kids,

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you have to scare the hell out of them!

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And we spent ridiculous amounts of money doing that.

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Soon that war on drugs spread to become a war on sex.

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We were pushing abstinence on kids to fight AIDS.

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And when all the data finally came home,

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guess what:

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completely ineffective.

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We love big solutions to big problems, don't we?

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What if the facts of life don't work that way?

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What if the experience of having that conversation can't be mass-produced?

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What if it can't be scaled up?

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Well, that would be very frustrating for everyone in this industry, wouldn't it?

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And, many of them are really trying to help.

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Who, then?

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Us.

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We have to talk to kids.

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Openly and honestly.

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But are we ready to be honest?

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I don't think so.

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We mythologize childhood.

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Mine was in Stone Mountain, Georgia,

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a completely typical 1980's American suburb.

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For the parents, a wholesome paradise of bridge parties and tennis games.

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For us kids, we were all working on a secret research project,

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and our laboratory was in the woods after school,

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under the covers during sleep-overs,

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really, any opportunity we could take

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to peel off our clothes and investigate.

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What were these things,

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bodies?

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What do they do?

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We had to figure them out

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and that's childhood.

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It's not just fun and games,

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it's actually a Manhattan project of nakedness.

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And then you walk into your first class in middle school,

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and the bomb goes off.

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You are not just a body any more.

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Oh no, now you are grotesque.

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That's when the suffering really starts.

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So, yeah, talk to kids.

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But if you are not honest about your own experiences first,

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everything you say smells like bullshit.

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Don't worry, you can practice

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and you should start by talking to the one kid you definitely know:

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you.

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What kind of kid were you?

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What troubled you?

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For me, it was age 13.

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That was the worst year.

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I was obsessively curious about sex

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and also deeply ashamed by it.

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It wasn't my only problem, of course, not by a long shot,

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but it was the beginning of a downward spiral.

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And my bad luck was to hit bottom

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while watching "The Wall" by Pink Floyd,

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which is a bad idea for a miserable 13-year old high on weed.

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So, that night, for whatever reason,

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it seemed like good idea to shave off my eyebrows,

103
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and then try to kill myself by swallowing all the pills in the bathroom,

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which was not at all fatal,

105
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but everyone noticed the eyebrows.

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And that made middle school extra fun.

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So, what was your low point?

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And if you could build a time machine to travel back and talk to that kid,

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what would you say to yourself?

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For me, it was easy.

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All I really needed was someone to reassure me

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that somehow I was a normal part of the universe.

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But I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone.

114
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And yet weirdly, I fully expected a time traveler

115
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to materialize at any time

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because I was a geek.

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I didn't know if it would be my unborn son

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or a T-101 cyborg.

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But either one would be awesome!

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Hey, it's me, yourself from the future, in the year 2012.

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I have crucial information for you, but not about the future, about the past,

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a billion years in the past, when this planet was covered with nothing but cells

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and all they did was fight, eat, and divide;

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fight, eat, and divide.

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Except for one.

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And that's your ancestor.

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This cell enslaved other ones,

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but master and slave became one.

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And then those cells invented sex,

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and then they invented the first bodies

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with each cell doing a different job,

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some smelling,

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some moving,

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some eating.

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And the job of sex went to a special cell called the gamete.

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And those bodies became giant.

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The distance to the next body was vast so they had to swim.

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Most would be lost and die so they were mass-produced.

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Soon the oceans were a non-stop riot of sex and death

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until 500 million years ago, when the first beast crawled onto land.

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Land is hard

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because bodies are heavy.

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And the sun kills gametes.

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To keep them safe,

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so deep inside of a body,

146
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the mother builds a tiny ocean.

147
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Outside are events of unimaginable violence.

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Whole new forms of life are being created

149
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only to be wiped away.

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Millions of years are flashing by.

151
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But in here, it's always the same.

152
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Peace.

153
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Just peace.

154
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Maybe we will never know why,

155
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but of all the possible bodies that have appeared on this planet,

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it was this one,

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bilaterally symmetric,

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warm-blooded,

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bigger than a mouse,

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smaller than a horse,

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2 legs, 10 toes,

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no tail,

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big brain,

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language,

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technology,

166
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and civilization

167
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rising and falling for thousands of years.

168
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And here you are,

169
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a 13-year old human

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perplexed and embarrassed about sex.

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That's what I came here to tell you:

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we don't know why sex evolved nor why it persists.

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Why don't we just clone ourselves like all life did a billion years ago?

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It's so much more efficient.

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We would all have babies, no mates.

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It could be that children who are genetically different from each other are protected from disease.

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And that is still our best guess.

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So be comforted to know that even in the distant future,

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in the year 2012,

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we still don't know what sex is for.

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It is perplexing.

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You shouldn't be embarrassed by it.

183
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Sex is a beautiful puzzle.

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And without it, you simply would not be here.

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By the way,

186
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be nice to your little sister.

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She's your best friend. You'll see.