Time4Facts.com is a new online video course for kids, with segments on masturbation and pubic hair and hormones (etc.) presented by a Planned Parenthood certified sex educator, Jennifer Devine: parents buy it, review it, decide what to show their kids, and either watch it together or let them have at it alone. You gotta give props to anyone who, in this age of abstinence-only education, makes an effort to get kids good information about sexuality and sexual health. That said, we're not getting out our pom-poms just yet.

Now, we haven't seen the whole program; we're going by the 2-minute preview and the press release. BUT, the site says the vids are aimed pre-teens and teens, and we know of no teenager who could watch these mini-lectures without rolling their eyes. Kids, especially these days, are media savvy: they need humor and high production value, or at least low-budge stuff that looks hip in its minimalism. No 15-year-old is going to be charmed by Jennifer Devine's kooky hat collection (she dons a new one every time she answers a "real kid's" question) or her stilted dialogue ("What's an erection, you ask?"). And what's with the mention of "venereal diseases" in the press release?! If you want to talk to kids, you've got to at least be operating in the 21st-century. Plus, the program is a 100-freakin-dollars...

It reminds us of another teen health site by one of the nicest people we've ever had the pleasure of receiving an email from, Dr. Mache Seibel. The site is HealthRock, and it used to have songs like "STDs" and "The M Word" but now it's just got songs about bullies and B.O. (you can still find them here though). Dr. S's heart is in the right place, bless him--and he does good work. But we highly doubt anyone in their teens would consider this "rock."

Don't these people remember when they themselves were teenagers, and they hated anything that was specifically made for teenagers? Kids want the grown-up stuff, and most of them can handle it. (Em was reading Jackie Collins novels at 13 and Lo wrote an 11th-grade English paper on Lady Chatterly's Lover, and look how we turned out...okay, maybe don't do that). Perhaps the problem is that creating anything that suggests some teenagers are actually having sex will get you in big trouble with the sex-ed police. Maybe that's why Dr. S's sex-related songs are no longer on his site. Or is it that you can't start talking about sexuality matters with young people in this country until they've hit puberty without being labeled a corrupter of youth, or worse, a pedophile? Do these educators label their work "for teens" to play it safe, knowing that most parents will take this as code for "pre-teens, maybe even younger"?

Guess we'll just have to write our own teen sex manual someday. In the meantime, we'll take the brave Midwest Teen Sex Show anyday.