While most would like to forget the awkward but inevitable “birds and the bees” talk, one Ball State professor has declared it his area of expertise.
Justin Lehmiller is the director of social psychology graduate program and an instructor of counseling psychology at Ball State. However, he is also a well-known expert on sex.
Lehmiller didn’t always intend to study sex. He first wanted to go into journalism before taking an interest in psychology. He went to graduate school at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., to study romantic relationships.
“While I was [at Purdue] I got to be a teaching assistant for a human sexuality course,” Lehmiller said. “That experience made me realize that studying sex was even an option.”
Kenzie Kuhn, a freshman telecommunications major, notes that sex is an important area of study, though not something she would choose.
"I think it's interesting," Kuhn said, "I wouldn't want to do it, but somebody has to."
While sex is a hot topic in the media, there is little understanding of the science that backs up much of what is being taught, Lehmiller said. He wanted to make a contribution to the understudied area.
Luckily for Lehmiller, people like talking about sex. He has appeared on Huffington Post, Business Insider and Thought Catalog because of his research on the topic. He also writes a column for Playboy, called “Hard Science,” after meeting an editor at an academic conference.
“I think [Playboy] is a fantastic platform for teaching a large international audience about human sexuality research,” Lehmiller said. “There is a great hunger out there for accurate information about sex and, unfortunately, there aren’t many sources that ground their information in science.”
He has also been a guest on the show “Taboo” on the National Geographic Channel, as well as other programs.
Lehmiller filmed his first set for National Geographic in a hotel room with a green screen behind him.
“It was nothing like I expected,” he said. “It wasn’t as glamorous as…the Hollywood experience.”
Overall, Lehmiller focuses on giving people information about sex rooted in science. There are many times in popular media when sex studies are sensationalized, and his goal is to fill this void of information with his research and his blog.
“My overriding goal is to use science to help people develop happier and healthier sex lives and relationships,” Lehmiller said.
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