Alex Liu on why straight people need to calm down and “saying gay” should be a part of sex ed
Don’t Say Gay” bill, the long-standing debate over the role of sex education in schools has reached a fever pitch. Thankfully, the documentary A Sexplanation—from filmmaker, journalist, and former Queerty columnist Alex Liu—could not have come at a better time.Years in the making, Liu initially set out to craft a film he envisioned as “the sexiest episode of Nova,” one that dives into the nature of American sex education: Where is it happening, how is it happening, and—if it is indeed happening—how come so many of us grow up with such fear and shame around sex?Along the way, he realized just how universal his own experience (or lack thereof) with sex ed was.
Like so many of us, what he learned in school health classes was only scratching the surface, and the education he was presumably meant to receive at home from his family never happened.
Not that he can blame his parents—they never learned how to talk about sex either—but he began to see it as an endless cycle, one which has made it almost impossible for our society to shake negative stigma around sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex in general.In an effort to combat that stigma, Liu’s journey of discovery forms the arc of A Sexplanation, inviting audiences to follow the filmmaker as he ventures from “neuroscience labs to church pews” to his own childhood home in search of answers, speaking with experts from a wide variety of fields (and, yes, his own parents) to figure out how we can make way for a “happier, healthier, sexier future.”With the award-winning documentarynow available to rent and stream via VOD services everywhere, Queerty jumped at the opportunity to talk with Liu about the film and why it’s so crucial that everyone has access to “comprehensive.
