To right the wrongs of his all-American sex education, 36-year-old health reporter Alex Liu goes on a quest to uncover naked truths and hard facts—no matter how awkward it gets.
From neuroscience labs to church pews, A Sexplanation features provocative conversations with psychologists, sex researchers, a Jesuit priest, and several generations of Alex’s own family. With humor and grit, Alex takes audiences on a playful, heartfelt journey from a shame-filled past to a happier, healthier, sexier future.
Like so many American children of the ’90s, Alex’s introduction to sex was through the internet. His formal schooling laced sex education with fear, shocking him with videos of childbirth and all-too-graphic images of untreated sexually transmitted infections. Because he knew early on that he was gay, these scare tactics worked.
Now in his 30s and out of the closet, Alex has turned his fear and loathing into something positive and humorous. The documentary, A Sexplanation, seeks to turn a personal pursuit of shame-free pleasure into a call for comprehensive sex education for everyone. And surprisingly, he discovers it’s never too late to have “The Talk”—especially with the family he’s kept at a distance.
Alex hopes his documentary will help him—and everyone—embrace sex and pleasure, free from other’s political, religious, and social agendas, and recognize the need for shame-free, comprehensive sex education. “By nature, to be a human being is to be a sexual being,” says Alex. “It’s unavoidable. And that’s beautiful.”
Screened at 32 film festivals on four continents, eight countries, and 18 states, the film currently has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and has won nine festival awards. LGBTQ film festival screenings and awards include Frameline, Inside Out LGBTQ (Audience Award Documentary Feature), MIX COPENHAGEN, AGLIFF/Prism, Honolulu Rainbow (Best Documentary Feature), Queer Screen (Sydney), Seattle Queer, Out on Film (Atlanta), Reel Q Pittsburgh International LGBT Festival (Audience Award Documentary Feature), qFLIX (Philadelphia), ImageOut Rochester LGBT, and Roze Filmdagen (Amsterdam).
