Tell a Good Lie, Not a Stupid Lie," or an "intelligent fiction" instead of the real deal. That's the difference between a good and bad liar, not between a good and bad child. If I had had a daughter, I wouldn't have allowed her to read books about how to be dishonest and manipulative. ## PORNOGRAPHY * * * _A Letter to My Daughter_ , by Nora Ephron (Knopf, 2010) It seems to me that much of what passes for sex education in America consists of warnings about how "bad" pornography is. We tell teenagers to never look at it, because it's a lie. Because the images in porn aren't real. Because the images are a lie that has taken the place of the real. Because looking at these images will desensitize young people to violence and make them addicted. You should read books that treat pornography and the body and sex honestly, with respect. And you should ask people who are knowledgeable about pornography how it affects people and how it has changed. Porn has become a big business. It is not just a harmless pastime or a form of entertainment. There are people who make a living peddling porn, because it's so easy to do. There are movies about it. I did read pornography in the past, but not while I was growing up, and I was aware of all of the arguments against it. I know that what's in those images can't really be as exciting as the movies make it look, because I have seen it too. The actors in these movies must have fake orgasms, because their eyes are always closed during the sex. In the last five years, everyone has seen the movie _9 ½ Weeks_ , in which a very pretty woman falls in love with the idea of having an affair with a very ugly man, played by Mickey Rourke. But as the two of them have sex, I'd say that the sex would have been more exciting if she had known that the ugliness had been put on. All these movies lie. I'm certainly not the most moral person in the world. I can understand how porn can hurt people, especially if you look at it for too long. You start to think, That's what sex is. That's what men want. That's what women want. I think it's harmful for everyone involved, and it's made easier by the fact that it's readily available. But I don't think I have any right to make a judgment on what people are doing in their homes. And I don't think that what you see in porn or on a screen has anything to do with real life. If you want to look at pornography, you're more likely to get away with it if you can say you've seen someone else do it. I try to be careful, in part because I have children, but I don't see a way to avoid it entirely. I think it's important for a man to see it, because some men think that all women love sex, even when it's horrible. They think they'll never get a woman if they're ugly. This was a problem for me, because I wasn't interested in talking to girls, even though I liked the way they looked. There is also a kind of competition in boys. "My girlfriend saw this guy, and he gave her three orgasms. I did better. So why am I not as good as he is?" I was not at all aware of women who loved to have sex with men they didn't love. It was only at the end of my marriage that I met a woman who didn't have sex with men she didn't like. When I realized that most men don't do that, I felt much better. The thing about sex in America is that it doesn't exist without porn. A few years ago, there was a sex study in Japan that said the younger generation had far less interest in sex than the older generation. And I think they were right. The young Japanese are told not to think about sex, and the young American is told to. You're both wrong. Sex is real. Sex should be something that you look forward to in your life. But you can't really think about it. You can't have any fun. But the young women don't know they're supposed to have fun when they get sex. Pornography has always existed, but not on this scale. A friend of mine is the mother of two teenagers and she says she's been embarrassed, because her children know more about sex than she does. What can you do? She told me she didn't even know the words "vagina" and "vulva." "I'm not supposed to talk to them," she said, "and they're getting their information from me!" I'd feel the same way. The first time I really knew what "vulva" was, I was in college. It took me years to find out about anal sex. We're not raising our kids to be experts on sex, and I wish we were. But we're raising them to be ignorant and afraid. In doing that, they are going to have far more trouble with their own bodies. My advice: Be honest. If your children don't know something, tell them the truth, and also do what you can to open up their minds about the world around them. The last person I know well who's into pornography is my editor at Random House, Mark Chiusano. He's old enough to be my father, and a good guy. He loves music, and I love a good book. I've been very lucky that I have someone in my life who is a good sexual person. There are probably people who read this who think Mark is a monster, but that's not true. If you want to make love with Mark, he'd be the first to tell you to stop thinking about it. You have to give people some privacy in this. ## LYING * * * _Mere Christianity_ , by C. S. Lewis (HarperOne, 2004) I don't believe there is anything evil about lying. It's a matter of where you do it. And lying can be a way of communicating information, like in politics. But you have to respect people enough to tell them what you think. And when you lie to people, you're communicating that it doesn't matter what they think. That's not respectful. I love it when the New York Times gives you something more important to write about than the weather. That's a way of giving me information that the government can't give me: It's a form of respect. And respect is very important to me. There are different kinds of lies, and you have to understand what the liar's needs are. You've got to know the situation. Some people like to be lied to, because it makes them feel important. But that's just part of the human condition. Everybody likes to be important. The liar has to know the person she's lying to. My own experience is that one of the reasons I don't like to lie is that I'm not good at it. So I tell a half truth, like "Yeah, I lost my job, but it was a great one." And the other half of that is saying, "I'm going to give you what you want." If I give her the facts, she can start to take them and make them her own. I've told many a lie in my life, but the two most important things I said were the lie that got me out of Nazi Germany and the lie that got me out of Soviet Russia. You have to make the decisions you can, not the decisions you can't. But when I say I know everything about politics, it's an untruth. And if you take that knowledge and try to do things with it, it's useless. The only thing that counts is that people are free. Everything else is crap. Lies are not a bad thing, but they become a bad thing when you need the world to start telling them. To lie is to say something for your own purposes that you don't believe. And the problem with a lie is that you can't expect the other person to understand what's going on in your head. A good liar is a liar that tries to communicate without lying, and that's rare. I'm always looking for the best way to communicate, rather than the easy way. For me, that's a form of humility. I try to behave the way I want people to behave. And it's very, very hard. If you're a young person, you're far more likely to get in trouble for lying to your parents than you are for lying to your boyfriend or your friends. If you lie to your parents, it's just more evidence of disrespect. But it's also dangerous, because you have to remember what the consequences are when you do it. And remember, the problem with teenagers and lying is that their lives are not over if they get caught. I think that's important to realize when you're a parent. I think it's an entirely different issue for parents to lie to their children about their own sex lives, and so on. The last thing I want to say about lying is that there's a time when lying is good. Sometimes, what's right is not always what's pleasant. And there's a place for lies. I'm not averse to white lies. For instance, when I see my niece and nephew, I know I should tell them the truth, but we