ABSTRACT
Sex talk has always been a part of newspaper advice columns, even though these same columns have not always talked about sex—or at least sex as we have come to expect it. What newspaper advice columns do that other mediated and indeed other interpersonal contexts can not do is make human sexuality discourse available and acceptable to mass audiences. Despite radical cultural, technological, and industry-related shifts, newspaper advice columns from "Beatrice Fairfax" to "Carolyn Hax" have sustained popularity as a place to talk about issues that are rarely discussed elsewhere for over a century within the pages of the mainstream press. Advice columns are especially helpful when the problem that needs to be "talked out" is not the sort of issue that passes as appropriate dinner conversation. Columnists recognize the emotional release provided by talking out a problem in written form, and often this therapy is the only help needed.
