How the CEO of Cadence OTC Gave the Sex Talk

When Samantha Miller sat down to give her son the pre-college sex talk, she had a plan to go outside the box. “My thinking was that obviously I want to have the regular sex talk that is all about safety,” she tells SheKnows. “But the other element that was so important is that women experience intimacy differently than men do. And the sooner you can understand that, the better it is for you, and the better it is for your partner.”

Miller’s approach to the sex talk with her teen son focused on how to give his partner a good experience, alongside all the usual points on safety and consent — and that was deliberate. “As a woman thinking about raising sons, you want your son to take a strong role in cleaning and cooking and parenting,” she says. “It kind of goes along the same lines, that equity in the bedroom is also so important.”

As the co-founder and CEO of Cadence OTC, Miller has made gender equity in reproductive rights a pillar of her career. The sexual health company is best known for its mission to make the birth control pill available over-the-counter and bring emergency contraceptive pills to convenience stores — the idea being that the morning-after pill should be just as easily accessible as condoms, and ideally sold right next to each other.

That’s why Miller also sent her son off to college with a supply of emergency contraception for the times when condoms aren’t enough. “A lot of men think about contraception being the responsibility of women, and his responsibility is to have a condom,” she explained. “That’s the division of labor. I just wanted him to be aware that not all women are on long-term contraception… so they might be relying on the condom, and that condoms fail 10-15% of the time.”

It’s a simple, effective way of narrowing the responsibility gap between men and women for preventing pregnancy. As Miller points out, “It’s easy to have [emergency contraception] on hand. It has a long shelf life.”

Of course, all good intentions aside, having a sex talk with your teen is going to be awkward. But for Miller, the discomfort was worth the education. “When you’re young, it’s awkward to talk about [pleasure], and you’re not necessarily gonna hear it from [your partner],” she explains. But as his mother, and the adult in the room, “I don’t mind talking about it.”

Miller wanted to share a few basic facts, like that “women need to move more slowly, that it’s harder for them to experience sexual pleasure, and that it’s important to check in with each other.” She encouraged him to ask questions, and noted that “just straight intercourse is often not going to do the trick.”

She went into the conversation knowing that her son likely wouldn’t want to ask questions or make it much of a back-and-forth conversation — and that was OK. “I don’t need him to talk,” she shared. “I’m just gonna share this information. He’s not going to engage in a dialogue, but he’s gonna take it in, and think about it, and be better for it.” Of her son’s reaction, Miller says, “he listened and was patient with it.”

That’s her advice to other parents having this conversation with their teens: accept the fact that it might be a one-way dialogue, and don’t feel like you need to ask questions to get them engaged. And, if you have teen sons in particular, don’t assume that their father (or father figure) needs to be the one having this conversation. “It can be important for the mom to talk to her sons for two reasons,” Miller says. “One is to share a woman’s perspective, but also, women can just be more relaxed and blunt about these topics.”

And make sure to leave the door open in case they do have questions down the line. They might be hearing this information for the first time, especially if it has to do with women’s pleasure, which — as many of us know — is still far too much of a mystery for far too many people.

“I feel sorry for men that don’t have honest conversations with a woman who is bold enough to tell them some key facts about women and sex that will help them to be more successful,” Miller says, “and also take a more equitable, woman-friendly approach.”