Sexual health educator Jay Friedman met with UW-Madison students Monday to discuss safe sex practices and disease prevention, as well as to offer some comedic relief on serious sexual topics.

“Every year we bring in one pretty big speaker during our sex health week. This year we wanted to do something different,” said Paula Tran, events coordinator for Sex Out Loud, the student group that sponsored the event.

She said the event kicked off SOL’s National Sexual Health week, which runs April 7-12.

Friedman told students he became involved in sex education after he experienced an unplanned pregnancy with his girlfriend in college. He said after realizing how sexually ignorant he was, he became active in educating college students.

“My audiences demand, desire, deserve quality information about sex,” he said.

Friedman focused his speech on the lack of adequate sexual education in the United States and also addressed why society has negative attitudes toward masturbation, female sexuality and homosexuality.

He said the American sex education system is far behind those of other countries.

“Americans have conservative Victorian attitudes related to sex,” he said.

According to Friedman, young adults should be presented realistic information about sexual behavior beginning in their early teen years. He said the extremely high teen-pregnancy rates in the United States indicate the failure of abstinence-only sexual education programs.

He said all young adults should follow a three-step process before having sex:

“Affirm that you know the other person, accept responsibility and assure there is mutual pleasure,” Friedman said.

He said it is especially important for both partners to obtain contraceptives and consent from one another.