The comedian who has spent recent years working in health is coming to the south-west next week to speak to parents about educating their kids on sex. 

“For a lot of parents it’s terrifying, it’s an uncomfortable subject,” she said. 

“I hear parents say that it makes their children uncomfortable but I think, is it them who’s uncomfortable or is it really you?” 

Sex education, in schools at least, has come a long way since Ms Thomas went to high school in the 1980s. 

“If we had sex education at all it was just about the birds and the bees. 

“In my day it was about how not to get pregnant” she said. 

But even now, she insists it’s parents who need to talk to kids instead of teachers. 

“Some schools do great sex ed, some do it a little bit and some don’t do it at all.” 

“I think the chlamydia rate in your area (the south-west) is one of the highest in Australia.” 

The strictly adults-only talk will also focus on teaching respect and ethics of sex. 

“A lot of the kids between 10 and 18 are exposed to an enormous amount of sexual material, more than any other generation has been,” she said. 

“If you think you can keep up with that by blocking internet access you’re deluded.”

Ms Thomas’ answer is that pornography should be critiqued in schools and assessed on its ethics. 

“How were girls treated in those films? They’re treated in such a rough way and humiliated,” she said. 

“Culturally we are surrounding these kids with sex and when they get it wrong we hate them for it and when someone tries to talk to them about it we hate them for it”. 

Nelly Thomas will give “The Talk” in Hamilton on Tuesday, November 25 at the Western District Health Service Education Centre at 6.30pm and in Warrnambool the next day at Deakin on Timor (165 Timor Street) at 6.30pm.