In this episode, I join my fellow queer studies friends and colleagues Robert McRuer and Anthony Michael D’Agostino to make a case for why teaching sex matters more than ever to the intellectual and interpersonal growth of generations of American youth. In the absence of any standardized sex education at the K-12 level, and in the face of a growing loneliness epidemic exacerbated by social media addiction and our society’s post-covid emotional hangover, we discuss how studying the history of sexuality can grant Gen Z a greater sense of agency, freedom and awareness about how different groups of people across history have organized their intimate and erotic relationships. We especially stress how the history of LGBTQ sexuality offers many powerful examples of alternative community formation, including the celebration of long-term friendship and mutual aid that emerged out of different forms of exclusion from a predominantly heterosexual society. Not only does sex matter to higher education because it is a fundamental part of our species existence, but also because it provides equipment for living in a time of intense alienation and social atrophy. Moreover, in a world dominated by rampant sexual harassment, abuse and intimate partner violence, the study of sex and sexuality in all its dimensions (sociological, psychological, cultural, historical and political) has the potential to produce less abusive, more thoughtful, caring, and self-aware citizens who just might have healthier friendships, romantic relationships, marriages, and community networks because of it. We think the real scandal is how aggressively politicians and members of the public want to banish discussion of sex and sexuality from the very university spaces where those conversations need to be happening if we want a future where more people have better and more humane sex, and like it!