by Aunty Christine's House
Okay, Gen X sisters. Let’s have a heart-to-heart. Let’s talk about how we actually learned about sex. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t during some sweet, coming-of-age moment with a parent lovingly explaining the birds and the bees while handing us a pamphlet and a hug.
Nope. For most of us? It was way messier than that.
Let’s break it down.
If you were born between the late 60s and early 80s, then your “sex education” probably came from a weird mix of silence, shame, and pop culture chaos. We weren’t raised in the age of openness. We were raised in the age of figure it out and hope for the best.
Most of us first heard about sex from other kids—on the playground, in the lunchroom, behind the corner store—wherever the whispers started and the curiosity got loud. The words weren’t always right (half the time they weren’t even spelled correctly), but those secondhand stories were often our first source of info. Was it accurate? Absolutely not. But it was all we had.
Then came health class, which was… laughable. Maybe you got one awkward week of slides about fallopian tubes and banana-condom demos. Maybe your teacher blushed their way through the words “intercourse” and “ejaculation” before switching to a video that looked like it was made in 1972. There was little talk of pleasure. Zero talk of consent. And certainly no mention of female desire.
And heaven forbid you asked a question. If you did, someone would snicker and you’d be marked as “that girl.”
If you didn’t get your info from school or friends, your next option was teen magazines. Remember Seventeen or YM? They gave us sex quizzes and advice columns that were basically written by 20-somethings pretending to be therapists. They told us how to “please your man” before we were even sure what we liked ourselves. They taught us how to look sexy, not how to feel safe or powerful or respected.
And let’s not forget TV and movies.
We learned a lot there—most of it completely wrong. Sex on screen was always passionate and spontaneous. Nobody ever discussed protection. Women were magically satisfied after 30 seconds. And if you lost your virginity? It either came with fireworks or complete devastation.
So where did we turn for answers? MTV. Pop stars. Movies.
Pop culture became our unofficial sex-ed classroom, and let’s be honest—it was a chaotic mess of glitter and mixed messages. MTV came in like a tidal wave, showing us women who were powerful and sexy, but always through a male lens. We saw Madonna roll around in a wedding dress singing Like a Virgin, Janet Jackson dance with unapologetic sensuality, and rock stars with groupies draped over them like accessories. And we absorbed it all, wide-eyed, before we even got our periods.
We were too young to understand the nuance, so we mimicked what we saw. We thought sexuality meant performance. We thought being desired meant dressing like a music video girl and mastering the “cool but hot” vibe. We were taught that our value came from how well we could attract male attention—and worse, we internalized it. It was empowering and disempowering all at once. No one taught us how to separate fantasy from reality, or how to know the difference between power over us and power within us.
What about our parents? Well…
Most of our moms didn’t talk about sex.
Not because they didn’t care, but because they were never taught how. Their generation—the Boomers—was raised on silence and shame. Many of them were told that sex was something you put up with to keep a husband. Some had trauma they never spoke of. Some handed us books and hoped for the best. Some just never brought it up at all.
And our dads? Hah. If they did say anything, it was usually a stern warning to “watch yourself” or “don’t get pregnant.” That was it. That was the lesson.
So what did we do?
We absorbed a lifetime of mixed signals.
Be sexy, but not too sexy.
Say yes, but not too fast.
Say no, but not in a way that bruises his ego.
Look hot, stay pure, figure it out, but don’t you dare talk about it.
We became experts at faking confidence. We laughed at dirty jokes we didn’t understand. We had crushes we didn’t know how to handle. We made decisions based on fear, pressure, or wanting to be liked. We weren’t given tools—we were given shame and assumptions and told to make it work.
And now? We’re here. Midlife. Wiser. More self-aware. Maybe a little scarred—but no longer silent.
We’re unlearning what never served us. We’re finally asking: What do I want? What feels good to me? What makes me feel alive in this skin that’s mine and mine alone?
Some of us are rediscovering desire after years of being touched out, shut down, or told we were too much. Some of us are exploring new kinds of love. Some are healing from past hurt. Some are experiencing sexual joy for the first time. And you know what? That’s beautiful.
We may not have learned it the easy way.
We may not have had open conversations, healthy resources, or affirming support.
But now we have something better: choice.
We get to choose how we relate to our bodies now.
We get to rewrite what sexy means.
We get to be playful, honest, and bold.
And we get to teach the next generation what we never got to hear:
Your body is yours.
Your pleasure matters.
You don’t owe anyone your silence—or your shame.
We may have learned about sex in the shadows. But we’re stepping into the light now. And damn… it looks good on us.
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