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Dr. Seuss once wrote a scene in which the protagonist finds himself facing a horde of perilous poozers while armed with just one little peashooter and one little pea.

That may best capture how a parent feels in a sex-saturated era in which the chat term "CD9" warns "parents are around," where nobody has the definitive answer on just what Fergie means when she sings about her London Bridge going down, and where Nielsen ratings show "Desperate Housewives" is the most popular television show among kids ages 9 through 12.

If it's enough to make parents yearn for the return of the chastity belt, the antidote might be as simple as embracing "Let's Talk About Sex," the 1990s anthem by rap queens Salt-n-Pepa.

At least that's the premise of "Real Life. Real Talk," a crash course designed to encourage Tucson parents to broach the subject with their children.

"People are asking how they as parents can stand up in the MTV-MySpace culture that's out there," said Amy Oggel, director of social marketing for the local Planned Parenthood.

"It's an environment that parents didn't grow up with, and they're finding it difficult to navigate," Oggel said. "I think the philosophy behind this is to balance that out with a conversation between parents and children."

Funded by the Ford Foundation, 18 events have been held, attended by about 200 parents, Oggel said. Although the 90-minute program is a Planned Parenthood initiative, there are more than two dozen other partnering organizations, including the Metropolitan Education Commission, the Sahuaro Girl Scout Council and the YWCA of Tucson.

Tucson is one of three pilot sites nationally, chosen in large part because of the sizable Hispanic population here.

"In our culture, it is really almost taboo to talk about sex," said Rudy Ayala, director of community relations for Devereux Arizona, one of the sponsoring organizations.

It was after noting the disproportionately higher number of teen pregnancies in the Hispanic community that Ayala decided to join the program.

"And while it's difficult for parents to talk with their kids, they really have to get more involved," he added. "I'd rather do it myself than have someone else — like their peers or the media — do it."

The reasons are legion.

Although fewer teens are having sex today compared with a decade ago, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nationally, 47 percent of high school students have had sex at least once — with that number growing to 63 percent by their senior year.

Sexually transmitted infections are on the rise, with an estimated 9 million cases among 15- to 24-year-olds in the United States. And while more teens now are using condoms compared with their 1995 counterparts, 34 percent of currently sexually active high school students reported they didn't use one during their last encounter.

Alyssa Padilla, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Arizona, said the closest she got to "the talk" was when a commercial came on television, exhorting parents to talk with their kids about sex, drugs and alcohol. "My mother said: 'No sex. No drugs. No alcohol.' "

When Padilla was 18, she finally asked her parents why they never said anything.

"They just assumed that I was a bright kid and that the school was teaching me anything I needed to know," she said.

School wasn't, of course, but Padilla found that she wasn't alone. Many of her peers told her they didn't talk with their parents either, or if they did, they were "weirded out" by it.

At a small "Sex Ed for Parents" session Thursday night at Child & Family Resources, 2800 E. Broadway, a trio of mothers launched into a discussion about the difference between the world they grew up in and the world teens are in now.

Songs such as "Afternoon Delight," from 1976, may have been full of sexual innuendo, facilitator Jeff Dozoretz said, but it often slipped past young people.

"I thought it meant the ice cream truck was coming," he joked.

Now, despite any efforts by the Federal Communications Commission, there's often no mistaking the graphic imagery.

Technological advances mean it's harder than ever to know what kids are up to — and Dozoretz noted that two-thirds of teens in at least one survey indicated they had done things online that they wouldn't want their parents to know about.

The old sleuthing standbys of "accidentally" picking up the other telephone line or listening outside the door won't work with cell phones and text messages, making open communication particularly important.

With a focus on withholding judgment and talking about safer sex, the "Sex Ed for Parents" program might not work for parents who strongly believe in abstinence only. But otherwise, the program accommodates a range of values.

A video segment suggests that parents should shift the focus from having one dreaded "big talk" to opening an ongoing dialogue. It encourages parents to set limits, make rules and enforce them. It cautions parents against using "the voice" — the idea is to listen and instill values, not judge.

And it tries to interject a dose of reality into the mix: Raising a teen is all about delayed gratification. They may not really like the rules, but a parent's job is to help teens grow to be responsible adults, not be their best friend.

One of the participants, Diana Jimenez-Young, a program director at Child & Family Resources, has three boys, ages 3, 7 and 10. While dinnertime has been a catalyst for many important conversations, she said, the "s-word" (sex) hasn't come up yet. But she knows it's coming, and she was hopeful that the workshop might increase her comfort level when it happens.

Jimenez-Young, 38, said afterward that she found the program "validating."

"I think when I went in, I expected to get more how-to tools about how to open up the conversation, but what I heard is that you really need to build this discussion around your own values," she said. "It makes it more personal, and it acknowledged that different strategies will work for different families, and that's OK. The more important thing is to create a partnership with your children."

Her jitters aren't exactly gone. "I think I'm still a little nervous, but I'm also looking forward to it," she said. "Once the door is open, it will just open up more conversations."