One afternoon, Dan and I took the kids to NEMO, Amsterdam’s science museum. Drifting together and apart among scores of other parents and kids, we spent the better part of a day exploring everything from kinetics to DNA. When we finally tumbled outside into the afternoon sunshine—one lucky stroke in an otherwise rain-soaked September—Dan dug out water bottles and handed them to the kids as they climbed into the boxbike. Then he turned to me, amazement on his face. “Could you believe that exhibit?” he asked.

“Which exhibit?”

Clearly, I’d missed something juicy.

“You need to go back in there,” he said. “It’s a huge display on the middle floor. Tons of pink and neon. You’ll want to take your time.” There was humor in his hazel eyes as he hopped onto the bike.

A few minutes later I was posing for a selfie next to a long, luminous tube like a giant emergency glow stick mounted on the wall. Inside, gooey strings and globules stretched and swirled in a thick, moon-white mix. It was a little like a lava lamp, but also nothing like a lava lamp, because the liquid was meant to be semen. Fifty-three liters, to be exact: the average amount a man ejaculates in a lifetime. How had I missed this?

With their usual composure, the Dutch families milling around seemed to barely register the sex-and-puberty extravaganza, a permanent feature of the museum. To them, it was apparently no more remarkable than the brain-science display upstairs or the engineering experiments on the mezzanine. But after reading how many orgasms a woman can have in sixty minutes (134) compared to a man (16—oh, well), watching two giggling women arm wrestling with giant tongue puppets in a French-kissing diorama, and taking a computerized quiz that revealed my abysmal “sexual assertiveness” score (the onscreen game-show host actually laughed at me), I was admittedly a bit red in the face. Despite all of my recent reading and my resolve to raise my kids with modern-minded openness about sexuality, I could feel in my burning cheeks that my hang-ups were alive and well. After all, there I stood: a married American mother in her mid-thirties, learning all manner of new sex facts from an exhibit designed for children.

"With humor, humility, and gentleness, Bonnie Rough takes us on her journey of discovery and leaves us somewhere surprising and wonderful. Along the way, her practical tips add up to a transformative rethinking of what it means to teach our children about sex. This is a book that can help everybody: parents who know what they’re doing, parents who worry they don’t have a clue, and the rest of us, too, who never got the loving, tender teaching we deserved."
- Lisa Wade, bestselling author of American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus

"What a gift! Bonnie J. Rough offers a much-needed breath of fresh air in her wonderful new approach to discussing sex, love, and equality with our kids. Her smart, vigorously well-researched, and funny book is a great guide for families to read and discuss as their kids grow up."
- Caroline Grant, Co-Director, Sustainable Arts Foundation

"Finally: a parenting book that abandons preachiness for a joyful and thoughtful inquiry into how we might guide our kids, and grow with them, as they become healthy, happy young adults. Bonnie J. Rough's experience in the Netherlands and her wide-ranging research offer an inspiring and practical alternative to help children (and their parents) become more comfortable in their own skins."
- Sonya Huber, author of Pain Woman Takes Your Keys

“Beyond Birds and Bees is a must-read for every parent. With humor and grace, Bonnie Rough invites readers to learn alongside her as she embarks on a journey to understand how we can create truly gender equal societies and raise happy and healthy children who celebrate their own bodies. I wish I’d read this book when my daughters were little, but I’m grateful for it now, because it is never to late to talk openly with our kids about sex, sexuality and our bodies. This book is validating, eye-opening and truly life-changing.”
- Kate Hopper, author of Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers and Ready for Air: A Journey Through Premature Motherhood

“This book made me want to shed shame like an itchy sweater on a warm spring day. The conversation Rough starts about sexuality and gender equality in Beyond Birds & Bees is one we all need to be having—with our partners, our kids, our kids’ teachers, our legislators—well: everybody. Read it. Start talking.”
- Jill Christman, author of Darkroom: A Family Exposure and Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood