My favourite was in a secondary school class discussing being LGBT circa 2005, when a girl piped up with "eww but if someone is a lesbian then they might fancy me!" and the teacher just looked at her and replied, deadpan, "why would they fancy you?"
When I was in (Catholic) secondary the boys were sent to play football and all the girls were brought into a classroom. The woman spoke about bodily changes etc and it was quite good. Near the end she was discussing sanitary towels and randomly threw one, it hit me in the face. She said, "And this is why we don't flush sanitary towels, imagine swimming in the sea and that happening!" Yeah...
@@elisebanks8774 Oh this happened often! I remember in primary the girls of the class were all taken away to learn sewing and the boys went out to play.
My 5th grade class had something similar but the guys had their own mysterious lesson to endure so I didn't feel as bad. I remember this class being really really helpful in helping me find what questions I needed to ask and to learn about puberty and periods. I know the guy's class must have been wild though since when we walked back into the classroom they were learning in there was a fetus on the chalkboard. I had a great time, and my parents had a great time not having to teach me these things. 10/10. Edit: 9/10, should have just had the 2 gendered classes merged because I feel like people would be less freaked out about puberty if they knew everyone was suffering from it not just the girls.
I think one of the biggest reasons FOR sex education is that a lot of times abuse victims from particularly isolated lives say that they had no idea what sex was, what their body did, or that their abuser was doing anything wrong. When a person is informed about what is normal, it's much easier to identify what is not normal and not okay. It also gives them the language to report it beyond 'I dont like that person'. I've seen a lot of documentaries where a child came from a strict religious upbringing where sex was a completely taboo topic and never spoken about, who were then abused or assaulted under the guise of it being 'normal' or 'okay' or even 'expected', but because they had no idea what it was or what the potential results where they often ended up a victim for many years. For those that attempted to report it all the knew how to say was that they didnt like a certain person or didnt want to play with them but of course no adult is going to take a child saying 'I dont like that person' as 'that person abused/assaulted me and I think we should report this to the police because I am a victim of a vicious crime'.
Yep, especially when many parents teach their kids cutesy nicknames for their genitalia, so even if they tell someone what's happening that person won't understand. If a kid says "My uncle touched my cookie" it's not gonna raise red flags.
@@Smithpolly unfortunately that is a real example that a teacher did not realize. The teacher didn't know people taught their kids weird names for their genitals.
It's always crazy to me when men basically say men completely lack a nurturing instinct. It makes me think they're in denial or a sociopath. We're not insects, we don't just breed and disappear. A man should be as nurturing to his baby as a woman is.
That video honestly made me feel sick, and I can know that some boomers have grown up hearing that and now believe it. I'm a "woman" (non-binary but assigned female at birth and have no maternal instinct. I like to birth ideas and have an active job if anything or I go insane. Women aren't all fluffy-headed breeding machines.
@@upsidedownrose7102 I have a close friend who also has no desire to ever have kids and she's always told she must be lonely and unfulfilled but if it were a man expressing the same thing it's viewed as something positive.
@@RNS_Aurelius yeah, people are really weird about AFAB people not wanting kids. Even if they do want kids, but not through pregnancy. I'm non-binary and I've had a hysterectomy. I've also had people directly suggest I should end my life "because it's basically over anyway, it has no meaning". I want to adopt, but apparently that doesn't matter.
@@upsidedownrose7102 fr the idea that a woman might not want kids is treated like a discision we're not smart enough to handle and have autonomy for. I hate hearing stories of "but your husband might!" or "you're young, you'll change your mind" and "your [relative] thought so too until they had one" as if we're not individuals.
Plus nothing bad happens if someone doesn’t have kids. Many bad things happen if someone has kids when they don’t want them, they’re not smart enough to raise them, etc. Like it doesn’t take any intelligence to decide not to have kids, that’s a decision with zero repercussions (besides maybe some FOMO but that happens to everyone). Having kids is a decision that changes your entire life and gives you a ton of responsibilities that you need to be ready for. To be a parent you have to be a teacher, a therapist, a chef, a cleaner, a chauffeur, and a lot of other things all at once. You have to be willing and able to learn a ton of skills.
I cannot overstate how appreciative I am that you are allying with trans youth here, and not in a "ooh there are both sides" way. You are a staunch trans ally, and I appreciate you so much.
This video is outstanding. ‘No one is listening to young people 👏🏻’ Most of the backlash is plain old queerphobia and shame in relation to sex and sexuality.
As the child of conservative, religious parents my sex education was abysmal. I learned more about sex by helping my mom breed horses than I learned from my parents OR any of the religious schools I went to. It wasn’t until I was 20 and found sexplanations here on YT that I finally started getting some decent education. Finding out that sex is a spectrum of behavior and that since grinding is in fact a sex act I had been sexually active since I was 13 even if my clothes hadn’t come off. What I needed even beyond talks if sex was conversations around healthy relationship dynamics and boundaries because I did not have good relationship modeling in my life until college.
I was watching an interview with a lesbian who came out of an ultraorthodox Jewish cult basically, Judaism as a whole isn't obviously but groups within it are. She was like they told me stop kissing girls but no one even thought it was equal to having sex with men, women just weren't sexual. She and her kids are much happier now
I find it so interesting the putting more focus on the "relationships" part. When I had sex-ed in school it was just one or two PSHE lessons and there was absolutely no focus at all on actually having a relationship with another human being. We were told about body changes, shown a diagram of sex, shown babies being born, and told NOT TO HAVE SEX. It took later research and doing a diploma that included animal biology to actually know the names of different anatomical parts.
When I was in year 6 at primary school we had a sex Ed class where, at the start of the lesson, the teacher got us to say all the words we knew to do with sex and she wrote them on the white board. As you can imagine there were some rather colourful words up there. At the end of the class she realised she’d accidentally used permanent marker instead of whiteboard marker, and there was a year 2 class using the room next! 😂
I distinctly remember when I was 10, being taught about periods. The teacher kept telling us “facts” about periods: they’re not painful, you only bleed a few tablespoons, they never last more than 5 days and they happen every 30 days… a fellow student who had started her period at 9 or so kept putting up her hand and saying “that’s not true - mine last 7 days or longer!” Etc. etc. I am so grateful for that child but I also feel so angry for her now. The education was too late for her, and after learning the hard way she was basically being told her experience was wrong. Sex and relationships teaching being “appropriate” means catering to the average child - aka leaving half of them at a disadvantage due to timing or inclusiveness. Futhermore, the first Sex Ed I remember at school was a video cartoon man chasing a woman around with a feather and was utterly confusing and abstract. I still remember my mum had to sign a form for me to be allowed to watch it though… I hope things have improved since 2007 😬
Omg my primary sex ed was in 2006 and the only thing I remember was that weird fucking video with them running round with a feather haha! Such a relief I hadn't somehow hallucinated it, so damn bizzare!
Yep, the first time I got anything even close to resembling a proper period education I was 13. A bit too late. Thankfully I'd learned that periods were a thing before that, but that was literally "you're gonna bleed sometimes, you're not dying, it's normal". My teacher was much the same though, periods *are* 4 days long, they happen *exactly* every 28 days, cramps are normal and not an excuse.... Yeah, not accurate.
As a medical student I have been taught numerous times that questions regarding sex are an important part of general medical history of a patient. At the same time our simulated patients have reported numerous times that they were weirded out by these questions. I think the sex ed discussion is viewed at in one direction only and that is with kids as a subject. People seem to forget that kids turn into adults. Not having sufficient Sex Ed as a kid may turn you into an adult that has wrong ideas about Sex, Bodily functions and Sex Ed. I think it would be a good idea to give the parents an idea about their kids Sex Ed by giving them their own lesson at the start of the respective school year (so they don't withdraw their kid the night before by claiming it is sick). I think this would clear up issues about their possible insufficient Sex Ed and at the same time lower the inhibition threshold for kids to talk to the parents ("Your parents have seen this movie as well") and vice versa. (I hope this is intelligible; non native speaker).
Yeah, like the only time I get annoyed by sex questions is when the person asking them refuses to believe I'm not sexually active and have no desire to be. I've had people come up with more and more ridiculous and out there ways to ask me, even though the answer is going to be no no matter how they ask. Cause it's really frustrating to spend more time convincing the doc I don't have sex than I do talking about what I'm actually there for.
@@waffles3629 I am sorry that you have this experience... I wouldn't be too surprised if someone mentioned this, but now that you have brought it to my attention we didn't discuss any cases of people that aren't sexually active.
@@pfandilicious yep, it's sadly never talked about so many places. Like I get that sex is still seen as a shameful thing to talk about for many people, but sometimes it's not shame, some people just don't want to have sex. I had a doc so convinced I was sexually active that he straight up called me a liar (like I told him "I've never had sex" and he replied "Yes you have") and pregnancy tested me multiple times and still thought I was pregnant despite them all being negative. I was so thankful for my gyn who just agreed to stop asking me as long as I promised to tell her if that changed. Thankfully my uterus has since been evicted so convincing people I can't be pregnant has gotten easier. Unfortunately it's still not a sure thing.
RUclips was my sex ed and I'm so thankful for it! I'm now a really educated young person that feels cofortable in their body, relationships and sexuality. This wouldn't have been possible with the very limited and not very inclusive information I got from school or my parents. Now I even teach other young people about it in workshops which has been great so far!
My sex-ed schools in '00s at a non-religious school in the US consisted of girls signing a purity pledge, separating girls and boys, apparently teaching boys how to use condoms, telling girls how pregancy happened after the sperm get inside you with no mention of how they got there, making girls wear pregancy bellies, and telling us if we had sex we were going to get stis (called stds at the time), get pregnant, and either die or have a terrible life.
Yeah, like what is with the "Don't have sex or you'll get pregnant, get every STD in existence, and die" narrative. Like my sex ed was so bad several cis boys thought they'd get pregnant.
My first memory of sex ed is being in year 5 and a teacher came in and said 'right girls we're all going to go upstairs now and bring your bags with you'. We were then given a talk on periods, each handed a pack of pads - the purpose of the bag being to hide the pads (because of course no one could know what was happening that would be terrible...) and then walked back downstairs like nothing had happened. That kind of memory is what lead to the embarrassment of using period products in secondary school for the first three years after that it's awful!!
I'm from Southern Illinois and I didn't know any trans people growing up. I knew some gay people (both male and female). I know when they started GSA (gay straight alliance) at my school and I was part of it (before I came out as bi 4 years later) our club had a LOT of hate and someone took a rainbow flag and burned it. We had people "the country boys" fly confederate flags on the bed of their lifted trucks. Parents thought GSA and lgbtq sex ed was turning their kids gay and they believed it too. It sucks. Mental health awareness was also not popular. Idk why I commented but I feel it's disgusting how people hate and say "it's just how I am"
Btw there are queer nonbinary people too. I think its an appropriate place to share your experience with this topic (mentioned in the video). Its ironic they say "its just how I am" about problematic behaviour they can change and dont want to accept someones gender identity / sexuality though they claim queer people could turn cisstraight people gay...
I was homeschooled by conservative evangelical parents. Surprisingly, my sex ed (via textbook), of course, was more comprehensive than most of friends who actually went to school. But, having since figured out that I’m non-binary/bisexual/demi-romantic/polyamorous, well, I wish I had been taught comprehensively about all these topics.
Once upon a time I worked as a T.A. in UK primary school. Deputy Headteacher was due deliver the lesson but couldnt get past talking about body parts without laughing so hard he had to step outside... For a *long* time. I'd already been studying this area of the curriculum ao I offered to take the lesson and he didnt argue. Really not ideal.
My school years aligned with the years Section 28 was in effect. It didn't stop schoolmates from being gay; it did mean they didn't tell anyone until afterwards.
The thing about needing parental consent to use a child’s preferred name and/or pronouns is ridiculous. It is such common place in the UK to call people by nicknames. The amount of times I’ve heard: Teacher: what’s your name? Kid: Christopher Teacher: would you like to be called Chris or Christopher. I bet they don’t need parental consent for that!
Yep, some places have gone so over the top to prevent trans kids from using their preferred name that students need their parents permission to go by their middle name at school. It's literally their name!!
When I was in middle school there was a birth control lecture with an out side teacher. She kept talking about chance as an ineffective method everyone laughed every time she said chance because that was the name of a guy in class. After the fourth time she asked why everyone kept laughing after she was told she agreed it funny
YES HANNAH!! I've worked in primary/nursery education for nearly 20 yrs and feel very passionately about children getting information that will empower them. I am very thankful that I had a mum who was the youth coordinator for Wandsworth Borough and would go round different schools giving classes on sex and relationships. I got more information from her than in the classroom. I equate sex and relationship education with the following: I have a nut allergy, so instead of my parents trying to keep me from harm, they told me how to check what things had nuts in them, how to administer an epipen, how to call for help and give information across. These are all life lessons that I have used to help me stay confident and empowered so if I do have a reaction or need to help another person i can. ❤
I am so glad that you get sponsored to produce less popular or 'controversial' topics. Its so important that we talk about this so that the government understands how short-sighted it is to gut RSE education!
At my school, we had a “girls only” sex ed session when we were around 11/12 years old, which mainly just talked about how to manage periods and symptoms etc. Nothing too heavy (pardon the pun 😂), but it somehow resulted in multiple ambulances being called out. Mid talk, a girl near the back of the assembly hall started having an asthma attack (I think unrelated to the talk we were listening to), which then resulted in a couple of other girls nearby having panic attacks about their friend’s asthma attack. Cue 2/3 ambulances rocking up to our school to sort out all the medical drama (everyone involved was fine btw). Safe the say, the boys were very confused when we reunited with them and wondered what on earth we were talking about that was so bad that ambulances had to attend the scene 😂
Thank you for acknowledging and advocating for the effort teachers put into RSE. It's really hard being blamed for the state of RSE in schools despite desperately wanting it to be better.
In the US sex ed is often done as a unit within a health or biology class. I love the idea of an exclusive RSE class. Having an entire semester-long course would provide so much more time and space for students to start to feel comfortable with the topics, to dive deeper into more aspects of sex and gender, and importantly to talk about relationships! As others have said, the minimal sex education provided was often only biological and didn't give any insights into actually having relationships with human beings.
When I was about 15, my school gave a great talk on all the different contraceptive options available... But then followed it up with the line "You need to know this as you'll all be having sex at some point." Really put a downer on what was otherwise a great lesson. I left feeling odd and excluded as someone who didn't think sex was for them.
I found your channel at 15 and was immediately hooked. I'm 21 now and still a big fan! But I think part of the reason I was seeking out so many sex ed resources online as a teen was because I felt that my sex and relationship education wasn't comprehensive enough in my schooling. I'm from New Zealand so the topics you talked about today weren't quite reflective of my experience but still somewhat relevant. I'd say the best part of my SRE experience in school was that my teacher showed the class actual pictures of genitals including photos that showed us what STIs look like. And the worst part is my teacher asked me and the other queer students to educate the class on queer identities- It felt like an honour at the time but in hindsight was really inappropriate as it outed us to the whole class. Great that they included queer relationships in the education though.
In my sex ed class in the US, we had a session during which we wrote down our "type" in a sexual/romantic partner. And most of the boys in my class had a weight limit as one of their stipulations ughhhh, and the male teacher did absolutely nothing to mitigate the impact of these comments at all!!
we actually had a philosophy lesson were we had a similar task. We had to write down what was important to us in a partner. Long story short: that was the day we taught our philosophy teacher what demisexuality is
Homeschooler here, the world view of the public educator does not align with the world view taught from within my home. Many in my state, dare I say hundreds, of families are leaving the public school for similar reasons. It’s that simple. That is to not even mention, the failed federal programs (no child left behind and bullying). The homeschooling life is just better for the mental health of most kids that I’ve met. And now that so many families are doing it, we get to share projects and field trips. my kids look forward to learning.
Thank you Hannah for being a good trans ally- as other comments have pointed out you do a wonderful job of not trying to argue that the transphobic rhetoric 'has a point' the way a lot of people who label themself as progressive do. Its so validating to hear someone who isn't directly in the community stick up for us, I wish it was more common, but people are often afraid of judgement- even when they are cis and therefore have some power a lot of trans people don't. It means a lot 💞
Denying young people knowledge about themselves and their peers. Block teaching about how to treat others with respect. Trying to control someone else's sexuality. Those things are inappropriate to do! Thanks to all that works with and for sex ed around the globe, you're truly helping to make the world a better place!
The point that puberty can start at the end of primary school reminded me of the best sex ed I ever recieved - it was in fourth grade. A sexual educator came to our school and explained what bodily changes to expect in the next few years, we learned the anatomy of both male and female sexual organs and us girls were taught about pads and tampons (not sure what the boys were doing during that time). And yeah it was really good to know at least the basics before you started noticing changes in yourself.
I’m 19 and have been following this channel (and the Doing It podcast) for a few years now. I have definitely learnt so much more from you than I did at school. At my school, we were literally taught about LGBT people in the context of religious views on then (why people would agree or disagree with their existence). I’m so lucky to have found this channel and I hope more people find it too.
I was in Year 10 during Section 28. Our teacher completely ignored it. They explained what heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual. She also explained what estrogen and testosterone did to the body, including taking them for whatever reason. On a side note, we were also set to study both 'The Color Purple' and 'Oranges are not the Only Fruit' but this was changed at the last minute to 'Brave New World' and '1984'. By which point most of us had read both books in preparation.
Given your viewer age survey, I'm the old minority. :) So the gouvernment does not have the best of children in mind, or even the best of citizens, and politicians not knowing anything about a topic are responsible for decisions - I am not surprised. It's been like that when I was young already. On busting myths, one more: The human experience is more wide than any single human can understand and using the average as normative is discrimination, even in the scientific sense. Reality is not shaped by what people believe, want to believe, or even understand. Great episode, keep that passion!
Hannah, thank you for this video! This topic is just so damn frustrating as I just cannot understand the people that are choosing to be against other’s basic human rights. 😕
Because we have a Government that thinks Section 28 was far too liberal and would rather not promote anything other than heterosexual relationships...Rishi Sunak's comments at the Tory Conference about a man being a man and a woman being a woman, or something like that, is really offensive to anyone who is either Intersex or non-binary, to say nothing of their hell bent wish to remove any rights that transgender people have...sometimes I despair that we have ended up where we are in the twenty first century. Sorry, I'm really hacked off with this, rant over! Unfortunately I'm at an age where there was no sex education in school for boys, only the girls had "health" education separate from us, and having parents who were religious and any discussion of sex was a taboo...you've guessed it, I had to figure it all out on my own.
I'm Canadian and in the 00's we got sporadic sex ed (one talk on puberty stuff a year (separated by sexes) from grade 4-6, one short unit in health class in grade 8 or 9, and one short unit in Career and Life Management (a mandatory class for graduation) in high school) which was very cis-heteronormative. And I know that's a lot better than what a lot of people get. I didn't know that being non-binary was a thing when I was a teen, so I defaulted to being a girl (my asab) because I knew I wasn't a boy. I didn't know that being ace was a thing until I was 19. The lack of education on queerness did not make me any less queer, I just didn't have the words to describe myself. Edit: I should add that I did not receive any kind of sex ed from my parents. My mom put a package of pads in my bathroom cabinet about a year before I needed them, then just pointed me towards them when the time came. My dad gave me a talk on drugs, but certainly nothing about the birds and the bees.
Actually i remeber sex ed in grade 9 (4 years ago for me lol) and the school nurse was going through forms of birth control and she showed an iud. One of the boys who had never heard of this before and had played a lot of video games yelled. ‘AN IED? GET UNDER THE TABLES, ITS GONNA BLOW”. He defineitely learned something that day lol.
I remember that a theater group came to our school and performed a sex ed piece and after that we could discuss questions with our teacher. To be honest the only thing I still remember from that day, is learning about double penetration, which is of course good to know, but I would have preferred to learn more about my body, menstruation, relationships etc. And now here I am, 30 years old and catching up with everything I didn't learn in school by watching you and Mama Dr. Jones on RUclips 😄
As a parent of a young daughter (almost 4) I've started to take an interest in this stuff. As a summary, it's not that I'm against her learning about this stuff, more just the way it's taught. You're right about "Whose values?" but that also goes the other way. You can't just diminish and mock parents with genuine concerns about the way their kids are taught anything. If her teacher was teaching things that are literally not true about gender, sexuality or biology, I'm having an issue with that, not because I'm a bigot, but because I want her to learn accurately at school. I'd have an issue likewise if her teacher was stating climate change wasn't happening or the Holocaust is a hoax. At her age we don't need to impose or restrict gender norms, and likewise we don't need to talk about mechanics of sex. "Mummy and Daddy made you because we wanted to add to our family", is totally sufficient and will be for many more years. Honestly, if she's discussing the pleasures of anal sex at 4, she is in an oversexualised environment, either at home, school or the world at large. I absolutely think age thresholds should exist, and I'm pretty sure exposing a child to adult material is illegal, so clearly if it's graphic enough to stray into that realm, that's a problem. I do think parents have been too willing to let somebody else teach their kids stuff they should be teaching them. We teach her that boys and girls are different, and that's ok and normal. But we also make clear that boys are different to other boys and girls different to other girls, so everybody is special. We also don't overthink it. She loves clothes and dressing up, and taking care of her soft toys, but she's never been into dolls. Likewise, she loves trains, and really anything that moves. I think most of what I've said is fairly middle of the road, but zealots from both fringes will absolutely see schools as an acceptable battleground for their ideas, and it's my job as a parent to explain that to her in age appropriate ways, until she has the ability to approach things systematically and make up her mind about what she thinks. The idea that kids know what they want and therefore we should just accept it is flawed. If I listened to my daughter about what she thinks she should eat, for example, she'd only eat ice-cream, crisps and chocolate. Obviously we all know that isn't a good foundation for a healthy approach to food, and so it's odd to me we would assume kids should set a good foundation here.
When I was in High School they put on a birth video in Biology class. The only problem was they hadn't rewound the tape first so we all got treated to the ABSOLUTELY horrifying video of a vulva essentially eating a baby as we had to watch it in reverse...
Oh man, so on the plus side, we had pretty thorough anatomy education over multiple years in my schools and some conversation around healthy/non healthy relationships, and one of my sex ed teachers wrote “Sex is fun” on the blackboard the first day and emphasized repeatedly that sex was was not a negative thing, which as a young girl in a fundamental religious house was somewhat new information. On the negative, no conversation around lgbtq+ at ALL whatsoever, no mention of maturation and very focused on abstinence (having sex in the right context -aka marriage). Also, the anatomy we learned included the clitoris, but absolutely zero mention of its function I remember learning where it went but literally just learning the word rather than anything about it 🤦♀️
We had 'growing up day' in the 2000s (UK west midland school) but it was with cartoons. Then we had a ginger bread man style diagram we had to label what parts of the body we knew (there were no parts on the figure). This was in year 6. Then next thing was year 7 in PSHE and Citizenship we learnt about Health and STI and Contraception. Then in high school we had two very short sessions between yr 8 and 10 about sex and was a little more descriptive as the teacher was more specialised! This is where i first properly understood about periods and still didnt understand whether mentral resources could 'pop your cherry' or not and anything about body fluid and hair being natural (thankfully I was a late blooner otherwise i would have had more struggles and confusion)❤ Year 11 i fianlly saw multiple female body examples during my Child Development course in GCSEs!
Recent documentation on teaching in England stated that fewer than 25% of those teaching RSE had any qualifications or training in the subject. Some schools make all classroom teachers teach RSE as a compulsory part of their teaching timetable without any training. Instead they give script-like lessons for teachers to deliver and hope against hope that no students ask any questions for fear of saying the wrong thing. This can result in students not getting the guidance and support they need to keep themselves safe.
my parents never taught me anything about sex, so i just had the few lessons in year 6 and like 2 PSHE days in high school about sex and relationships. i picked up things about periods over time but wasn't taught anything about them until i had my first partner at 17 the things that stick out to me from sex ed are: one of the teachers talking about beauty standards and saying that different people like different things, which is good, followed by her example that she likes men with love handles, which was unnecessary; a lesson about different kinds of contraception (it was quite comprehensive) and different STIs in which the teacher used a condom she'd brought from home to show that you can get latex-free condoms if you have an allergy or smth; and a lesson in which the boys and girls were sent into different rooms to learn stuff that i do not remember until we were given model ball sacks with unpleasant textures to practise feeling for lumps
At Primary school all the girls were taken out of the classroom into the teachers office (which was a big deal, we didn't usually go in there for any reason!). We were shown how to put a pad in some underwear, how to remove it and roll it up neatly. Our teacher finished by saying "there, now that's not offensive to anyone". I'm sure she meant well, but at 10 years old all I heard was that my body was going to do something that would be offensive to other people if I didn't manage it properly....
Speaking as a late 40s guy who realised he is on the asexual spectrum last year, not learning about asexuality didn't turn me straight. I still experienced the confusing feelings that should have been clear that I wasn't straight. Maybe I'd have felt less broken if I'd have known about the aspec in the 80s. All queer kids deserve to understand who they are.
My main memory from sex ed was knowing more than teachers, especially in high school. I remember one class in late primary school, which was actually quite usefull, all about periods and such, but later it was either barely existent, or way too little to late. It pains me, that 20 years later we have exactly same conversations, with those same tiring arguments...
I was discussing this in Class for my education masters today. Ive been researching this topic alongside watching your insightful videos relating to this for several years now. We are looking at the way the new Curriculum for Wales has made inclusive, pluralistic Relationship and Sex Ed mandatory in all schools, (which i personally think is a good and helpful step). Yur videos are a great resource and also have helped me find lots of other great resources, research, and educators in the field of RSE and how it can be effectively taught in schools, using phased, upfront and inclusive approaches. Thank you so much for your inspiring work in this sector.
In 2016, I was in year 1 (im young Ik Ik get over it) and my teacher took a whole day and taught us about everything LGBT in detail, and I am pretty sure he got fired as some parents complained, but the two good bits are that he was dis and straight, and my class was never homophobic and were very open minded and progressive, as I am now in secondary school, and a Bisexual, I realise how much of an impact that one day had on me, as most pupils in my school are very indiscreetly homophobic, and I realise how amazing that teacher was.
so during our sex ed unit in health class my teacher had a box in the back of the room where students could ask a question anonymously and he would go through the box and answer them a couple times a week. the intention was for students to ask questions based on sex ed. someone asked "are you supposed to brush your teeth before or after breakfast in the morning?" not sex ed related at all, but it did get a laugh and a debate going.
YES YES YES YES YES! Amazing video Hannah, thank you! I received no sex education at home, and all I remember from school is in primary school a teacher handing a condom around and people told about periods, pads and tampons (the teacher put a tampon in a cup of water and traumatised us all by how big it got), and in high school putting a condom on a (very unsexy looking) dildo and being shown pictures of the effects of STIs. I felt like an alien in school because I had no interest whatsoever in sex in the way it was taught. I'm now a very sex-positive person who enjoys having sex - but I was shown nothing about gay or lesbian relationships and I didn't realise I was gay until 15, by which point my sex education had finished. I luckily found you and other sex-positive creators where I slowly learnt about sex positivity and masturbation and about LGBT+ inclusive sex! My friend has vaginismus and was basically resigned to never have or enjoy sex, until she happened to have good sex on a hookup and realised it could be enjoyable. This is not the way we should be learning! Pleasure-centred sex education please!!!
As a social worker I've seen a huge increase in primary schools (UK) using the PANTS rule. Check out the NSPCC for the info, theres even a song, and this is something I use when talking to children in sexual abuse cases. It always surprises me how many children and young people don't know proper terms for their body parts. Again speaking about sexual abuse cases but it makes it so difficult for prosecution with terms some children are using like "muffin" etc. I firmly believe the PANTS rule needs to be taught in all primary schools and talk to all my families about it.
I am always curious about sex ed in other countries. My sex ed in Germany was quite alright but I believe it was more because I had teachers that saw the importance of it. I don't really know what the rules for sex ed are in Germany and because schools are a state matter, it could be very different from my experience in other parts of Germany. I had multiple different kinds of sex ed at different ages. The first was around age 7 or 8 where we learnt about what puberty is, what changes to expect, what different parts of our bodies are called and we watched an old "child-friendly" animated film about "how babies are made". All of that was taught by our primary teacher. A little later a couple of theatre people came and did some sessions about what kinds of touching and looking is ok, how to say "no" to unwanted touches/looks. These included catchy songs and were quite fun actually. There was even an entire session about the potential that adults could behave innappropriately (an example was a stranger whipping his dick out at the park, but I think abuse in the family was also mentioned briefly) and how to react. The focus was strongly that you have the right to say "no" to any touching and if you have a bad feeling about something you should trust that no matter who is giving you the bad feeling. A few years later (around age 12-14) we had a sex ed portion in biology class that focussed a lot more on contraception and the biology of bodies, sex and gender (including stis, pregnancy, erections and wetness etc.) and even included mentions of errectile problems, the usefullness of lube and, if I remember correctly, trans and intersex people were in fact mentioned but only briefly and kind of like a "weird quirk of nature" rather than normal human beings. In the same year we had a special sex ed day where we spend a good chunk of the day talking about relationships (including some mentions of gay or bi people here and there) and later that day we were split up into boys and girls (boys being taught by a male teacher and girls by a female teacher) and we were encouraged to ask any and all questions we had about sex and gender. As an ace person myself I found a lot if it kind of uncomfortable because attraction and desire were very much declared to be the normal human thing (I didn't even know ace was a thing you could be at the time, instead believing I was either a very late bloomer or just kind of broken.) All in all I think it was alright considering I went to school from 2001 to 2014 and compared to what I hear from people going to school in other countries. But it of course could have been a lot better, especially when it comes to lgbtq* issues.
I'm French and from what I remember it seems to be a little different here. Human reproduction was part of the science program and then one lesson would be specifically about "sex Ed" like safety practice, std, abortion, pleasure, etc. And we have these courses at 13 and then 16. 13 was still late but I do think I was pretty lucky with my sex Ed :)
I remember my sex education in secondary school being running through various forms of contraception then the teacher said “but there’s only one form of contraception that’s 100% effective, and that’s abstinence” 🙄🤣 at least we did get taught about contraception though!
This was at a public school in Ontario in the early 2010s. Grade 9 (age 14) gym and health class was sex/gender segregated the entire year. Typically the health and sex ed portion of the course is taught by the same teacher as the phys-ed portion. However my teacher, being a man in his 30s, was very uncomfortable teaching that section of the course and so usually had a nurse from the local sexual health clinic come in. For whatever reason they couldn't organize things on time my year and so he had to attempt to teach it himself. He was ok with the "don't do drugs" portion of the course but the moment we got to contraception and sex-ed he fell apart. He fully did not know how a lot of contraception worked to the point where myself and my classmates were answering each others questions based on what we had been told from our family or friends. I had to teach myself a lot after that course and credit it with why my minor was in sexuality studies.
I feel like in these sorts of conversations, people (primarily those who oppose comprehensive education) tend to conflate “morally appropriate” and “developmentally appropriate.” When we’re talking about public school curriculum, the conversation about “appropriateness” is entirely from a developmental standpoint; what are childrens’ minds equipped to be exposed to? For example, when I started elementary school, I was deemed mentally ready to learn about my classmates’ family structures: I knew that my friend Erin lived with her mom, stepdad, and her younger half-sisters, and that her biological dad lived in a different state; I knew that my friend Emmet was adopted, and that some of their siblings were as well, but others were their parents’ biological kids. Back then, I didn’t necessarily know what it meant for parents to “have” children in a reproductive sense, and it wasn’t developmentally appropriate yet for that to be explained to me, but I was ready to know that my parents “had” me, and that Erin’s dad wasn’t the one who “had” her, and that Emmet’s parents didn’t “have” them. At no point was I prescribed a moral standpoint to take on any of those dynamics, at least not by my teachers (my religious mother has certain opinions about divorce, but the home is, ostensibly, where morals are supposed to come from, so that was squarely within her jurisdiction to try-unsuccessfully, might I add-to impart).
I'd have been a healthier, happier child had someone taught me about trans people at the age of 3. That's the appropriate age to inform kids about gender identity and acceptance.
I went to an all girls school and we received a lesson from some kind of community police officer about how when girls share 'indecent' pictures and those pictures get leaked, it is all the girls' fault and that literally "boys will be boys". My class was the first to receive it in my friendship group and to be honest we so shocked at the time we didnt even know what to say. But we knew that some of our other friends would be receiving the lesson later in the day so they staged a bit of a coup in the lesson to speak out against it. The school/police were obviously trying to teach us about the law in terms of distribution of underage p*rn, but it was so loaded against girls, promoting such an environment of shame that I'm sure that many in that class would have been too scared to tell an adult if they then found themselves in that situation. No or very little mention of the fact that the person who shared the pictures would be committing a crime as well (and surely a far worse one??!)
I will forever stand by the fact if I had good sre by school, university or even parents, my life would be HUGELY different and I wouldn’t have suffered for so long in a MULTITUDE of ways.
Highly recommend the film Blue Jean about a gay PE teacher in the north of England during Section 28. Can't believe that was during my lifetime and I didn't even know.
Being completely blind, and being raised very fundamentally protestant in the deep south, sexuality was just not some thing that was ever really discussed. As an adult, I fully admit that I even still today have things that I am not sure how to approach people on because I don’t want to sound stupid nor do I want to be a typical member of my gender who is basically an asshole and only wants one thing in life. I’ve also always wanted a friend, from the United Kingdom. You take every box. I would love it if you replied to this.😂
My kids primary school has made a lot of allowances for the trans child in the class, allowing them to wear a different uniform and change their name mid year. This has been difficult for us as parents to explain to our child. "He is now a girl" etc are the sweeping statements made and for children who see things as black and white it is not a conversation that is easy to explain that they now see themselves as a girl but ultimately they are still a boy. These topics are so hard to navigate as a parent and i would have never expected to have these types of convos at age 5. Whilst i support teens and adults who wish to explore gender etc i think being so willing to make these allowances so young may cause further confusion in such a young mind. Sex ed is needed but as a parent i of course worry about the over sexualisation of children. What is considered age appropriate for a 7 year old? Sometimes i feel like the world is way over sexualised. Boundaries and body autonomy yes but learning about masturbation at that age - not needed! But saying anything even remotely critical is shouted down now so parents feel quite lost with it all 😢
I started watching RUclips sex ed at 13 or 14, im 19 now. My sex life as a highschool student was shit, I honestly don't know how much worse it would have been without the education I got from RUclips. I grew up in a conservative city in PA (U.S). My teachers were judgmental, didn't talk about pleasure, preached absentince, masturbation wasn't even a subject. As a result most of my early sexual experiences were terrible, and as someone with endo when I started have penetrative sex. It was painful and I didn't feel comfortable going to the doctor. Because my sex ed teachers also talked about the gyno in a shaming way. And obviously no mention of queer people which I also was. I think one of the things people miss when it comes to the "its the parents job" ext.... That while yes it is. If the culture you walk into everyday is telling you something. Despite having supportive or even well informed parnets. You will still Internalize social scripts from the dominant culture. Which happened to me, despite RUclips sex ed. My own view of myself and sexuality was much shaped by the culture in my physical space. My bf who had much better sex ed than me. Is much more well rounded, less judgmental, informed. In his H.S they talked about pleasure and the clit, my school left that out (from what I can remember).
I got sex education for the first time in school at 14 years old which was in 2019. I was sexually assaulted at 12 and 13 by a boy in my school and i think a lot of that could have been avoided if they spoke to us in australia was when we entered highschool at 11/12 years old. Most 11 year olds when i was starting high school had watched porn and only knew what sex was in that way. Lots of sexual violence and just total confusion is the result of this in young kids. 11 year olds need to know 1 dont r*pe people and 2 how to know what sexual abuse looks like and how to talk about it.
I started following you and bought the Doing It book as a teenager! I think the only sex ed I had in school was during science class in like 8th grade maybe? Reproduction and stuff classes then 1 class that was like an anonymous q&a about sex ed... Not grat but not bad by any means! All students together too, no separation of boys and girls
I think learning about horrible things like war criminals in history class has basically only made students more wholesome and rounded people. So I can only see learning more about good things like healthy relationships and sex as beneficial to everyone and at any age. The people who object to RSE are the types who think playing video games creates violent people.
In Kent, UK, around 2011 (at an all girls secondary, aged 15/16, we had a sexual health expert host a pshe class. The week before we had the opportunity to write down ANY questions anonymously. Many of us asked about positions. Which makes sense for a bunch of girls starting to have sex; what feels good, how do you even get into that position, what positions are normal and what is just for porn? They answered everything except positions. Didn't even acknowledge that positions had been asked about. By the end of the lesson there was a general murmur of disempowerment as we realised it wasn't going to be covered.
When I went to school, back in the last millennium, sex education consisted in physical education teachers telling students "just say no!" and "and use a condom." I became sexually aware by doing what felt good, when I was alone. I recall the fist time I ejaculated. It scared me. I wasn't sure exactly what happened and if it was supposed to happen or if I had just soiled myself. It was very confusing and embarrassing. Apart from National Geographic, the first naughty pictures I got hold of was by way of a school mate who had an older broker, whose stash of porn he raised surreptitiously. Naked women were featured, also horses and a Great Dane. We had zero relationship counseling. I don't think I heard the term "consent" until I was in uni. I suffered under a great number of misconceptions and dogma and my spouse and I had significantly worse sex for years as a result. Thankfully, she was blessed with infinite patience and we have been together for more than 45 years. I give her all the credit, because owing to a great deal of ignorance or superstition, I was not an ideal partner, which form the basis for most of my sincere regrets.
Oh man... the Section 28 portion ( 3:01 ) made me cringe so hard... That's happening in America right now. We are so behind... how have we not learned from history yet?
I grew up in the 1980s and early 1990s in the US, living in a conservative, mostly Roman Catholic region with Reaganite conservative evangelical/fundie Christian parents. While I attended public school the sex education was only about a few STIs and with very dated information about HIV and AIDS (focused only on Karposi Sarcoma; I guess they was a big and be issue of it when the book was written.) My parents would only say "sex is strictly for marriage" and, of course, that was with "marriage is for life." I'm trans and knew early (expressed that I was at age 2) and that was especially not well received.
99% of the sex ed I received was from the media. Porn, Google image search, books, websites, Family Guy, and Friends. The other 1% was from school. In a French Catholic school system in Canada, we had a grand total of 4 days of sex ed in elementary school. 1 day (boys and girls separated) in 5th grade for puberty (some girls got their period in 3rd grade so that was hella late). 1 day in 7th grade (boys and girls together) to talk about puberty (again?). 1 day in 8th grade (boys and girls together) to talk about relationships (aka fun things you can do with your partner that don't include sex). 1 day in 8th grade (boys and girls together) to talk about STIs and contraception (hella late again because many people were already having sex). In high school we had 1 unit in gym class (boys and girls separated) on health. That unit included sex so we spent maybe 1 or 2 weeks on it, and it was just anatomy. Literally just anatomy. Our test was to memorize all the sexual organs and label them on a diagram. And that was the end of sex ed forever. I'm absolutely shocked we didn't have a teen pregnancy at my school (there were abortion rumors but no one went to term). Anyone who didn't do their own research and had sex before 14 years would have had no idea what contraception was. Edit to add: We had 1 other 75 minutes of sex ed in 11th grade that wasn't mandatory. We were reading Brave New World in English class and our teacher noticed that we had a lot of questions about sex when the orgies were brought up. So, she invited the part-time school nurse to do a Q and A. That was when we learned that we had a school nurse who had condoms. That was the most engaged I'd ever seen my classmates in English class. They had more questions than the poor nurse had time to answer.
Wow. I'm from Sweden and had my first sex ed around 1984 (10 years old) and the second one in 1988 (14 years old) (I could be off by a few years) and I think because we had the AIDS epidemic at the time they felt it was very important to inform us about gay people, AIDS and STDs. Before then I had no idea gay people existed and with the second sex ed we had they invited a couple of gay people so we could ask them questions. Apart from that, compared to now, I believe our sex ed was rather sparse. We got very basic information and then we were made to copy down on paper all of the STDs. 😄 Still, it's rather shocking to hear that the UK is having such difficulties with sex ed these days.
Our Sex Ed was literally watching a video of a guy (representing sperm) diving into a pool and swimming towards a lady on a lilo (representing an egg) 🤦🏼♀️ I was concerned I’d get pregnant whilst swimming and wouldn’t touch a lilo for years! 😅
My parents didn't mention anything about sex or puberty to me until I was caught watching adult content at 13. Everything surrounding sex was treated as gross, awkward, shameful and not to be discussed. To this day my family acts like seeing a woman take her shirt off in a movie is inappropriate to the point they will skip whole sections of movies and tv shows even though there is not a person in the house under 21 and you never see anything more naught than a woman in a bra, or at the very most maybe a back with no bra strap. I was also taught that being anything other than straight was a terrible sin and generally disgusting, my mom has gotten better but she still frequently makes faces when she sees gay people portrayed in tv, movies, and commercials. Any government that thinks the average parent will give their kids anything beyond the most basic sex ed is either incompetent or lying through their teeth because parents are rarely willing to have tough or awkward talks with their children, especially if there's any nuance.
(From UK) my sex ed was a bit of a mix They really focused on drugs, like year we get it We did have a good session on all the different types of contraception, but this was in year 10 which I feel is a little late They definitely need to talk about periods earlier as I got mine at 10 (year 5) and there was nothing on it then Also glad that my school did discuss LGBTQ+ topics, but I find it horrifying that this is not standard and could even be banned There are only positives to education!
I feel like my school had much better sex ed than those around me (Kansas, US). We were taught about all of the risks of sex and drugs (and that some STIs can be passed through things like sharing needles). We covered what abusive relationships look like. We were also taught about pregnancy and birth along with puberty. AND we were informed that if we wait until we are ready and for a person we trust, it can be really nice. Looking back though, it was very cishet-focused even though there were mentions of gay men and that "trans" is a thing. I didn't realize until years later that I was bi because I didn't know it existed. Still better than my husband's. He was told that you can't get STIs if you are married.
Such an awesome video!! I'm not in England but if I were a parent there, your video would be very helpful in keeping me informed on this important topic!
I went to a Catholic school in NI ( 1999 to 2007) at didn't get sex ed specifically but the year that came after me did ( prob after the 2003 ). However we had a student teacher for biology who covered reproduction. she dictated notes to us that said 'moving the penis in and out of the vagina can be pleasurable ' i was full on shocked at age 13, it had never occurred to me before 😂
It was mixed boys/girls in the class. Only other sex ed was primary school where they did separate into boys and and girls and talked about periods and body changes just. The teacher asked had anyone started their period and I was too embarrassed to say I started mine at age 10.
Hello hello - lovely and educational video but could we have the references in the description please. Would be great to do some further reading and research on these topics! Thanks 👍🏾
I'm from Poland and had sex ed back in the early 2000. Tbh it was pretty great, for sure better than now, and it was taught by a biology teacher. Tho I'll never forget how once she told us that if we picked on our pimples in the forehead/nose area we could get brain cancer asdfghjkl. It's probably not impossible, bacterial infections can be really dangerous, but come on 😭 I'm pretty sure this traumatized me in some way for years after
I was in secondary school in the late 2000's and our 'sex ed' was completely void of any LGBT+ representation, sex positivity or answering people's questions. There was nothing about consent or identifying whether you are in an unhealthy relationship (maybe I wouldn't have ended up in an incredibly emotionally and sexually abusive relationship when I was 16 if this had been taught to me.) Our Sex Ed was literally showing us explicit photos of genitals with STI's, warning us about pregnancy and scaring us away from having sex at all. It's so disheartening to learn that not much progress has been made on a policy level. Having more comprehensive and inclusive RSE would be SO SO beneficial, its ridiculous to me why people would oppose something that is so essential for young people to gain knowledge, confidence, reassurance and ownership of their own bodies as well as relationships.
I graduated high school in 2007. My freshman year people from the health department came and showed a slideshow about STDs and safe sex and while it was harrowing, it was useful. My senior year, however, they had switched to "abstinence only" sex Ed programs and some wild conservative bullshit program took place in the gym. One of the key arguments was "telling your kid not to have sex, but if you do use a condom is the same as saying don't play with a chainsaw, but if you do wear a helmet". No lie.
I was taught that women are responsible for men's erections, and if we "give a man an erection without relieving it for him" then it can be very painful and damaging. So yeah. It's our fault 💁🏻♀️ but also no sex outside of marriage, so just make sure you never turn a guy on, EVER. Really helped my ability to be/feel sexual when I finally did marry 😅
I have vivid memories of my health teacher telling our year 9 (13yo) class that she used a diaphragm as her protection of choice. Good for her, but literally seared into my brain 😂
I’m 27 and the sex ed I can remember was primary school - periods and pregnancy then high school - graphic close up photos of STIs. Absolutely no mention of anything other than cis het monogamous couples having sex only to have a baby. Also plenty of cis kids in my school went by nicknames which teachers also used so why is it different if the child is trans?
My favourite was in a secondary school class discussing being LGBT circa 2005, when a girl piped up with "eww but if someone is a lesbian then they might fancy me!" and the teacher just looked at her and replied, deadpan, "why would they fancy you?"
devastating AND hilarious.
When I was in (Catholic) secondary the boys were sent to play football and all the girls were brought into a classroom. The woman spoke about bodily changes etc and it was quite good. Near the end she was discussing sanitary towels and randomly threw one, it hit me in the face. She said, "And this is why we don't flush sanitary towels, imagine swimming in the sea and that happening!" Yeah...
thats pretty much exactly what my lutheran primary school did in year 6 ! i hated that the boys got to go play
@@elisebanks8774 Oh this happened often! I remember in primary the girls of the class were all taken away to learn sewing and the boys went out to play.
My 5th grade class had something similar but the guys had their own mysterious lesson to endure so I didn't feel as bad. I remember this class being really really helpful in helping me find what questions I needed to ask and to learn about puberty and periods. I know the guy's class must have been wild though since when we walked back into the classroom they were learning in there was a fetus on the chalkboard. I had a great time, and my parents had a great time not having to teach me these things. 10/10.
Edit: 9/10, should have just had the 2 gendered classes merged because I feel like people would be less freaked out about puberty if they knew everyone was suffering from it not just the girls.
I think one of the biggest reasons FOR sex education is that a lot of times abuse victims from particularly isolated lives say that they had no idea what sex was, what their body did, or that their abuser was doing anything wrong. When a person is informed about what is normal, it's much easier to identify what is not normal and not okay. It also gives them the language to report it beyond 'I dont like that person'. I've seen a lot of documentaries where a child came from a strict religious upbringing where sex was a completely taboo topic and never spoken about, who were then abused or assaulted under the guise of it being 'normal' or 'okay' or even 'expected', but because they had no idea what it was or what the potential results where they often ended up a victim for many years. For those that attempted to report it all the knew how to say was that they didnt like a certain person or didnt want to play with them but of course no adult is going to take a child saying 'I dont like that person' as 'that person abused/assaulted me and I think we should report this to the police because I am a victim of a vicious crime'.
Yep, especially when many parents teach their kids cutesy nicknames for their genitalia, so even if they tell someone what's happening that person won't understand. If a kid says "My uncle touched my cookie" it's not gonna raise red flags.
@@waffles3629 To be fair, if I heard a kid saying that, I'd definitely have some questions.
@@Smithpolly unfortunately that is a real example that a teacher did not realize. The teacher didn't know people taught their kids weird names for their genitals.
It's always crazy to me when men basically say men completely lack a nurturing instinct. It makes me think they're in denial or a sociopath. We're not insects, we don't just breed and disappear. A man should be as nurturing to his baby as a woman is.
That video honestly made me feel sick, and I can know that some boomers have grown up hearing that and now believe it. I'm a "woman" (non-binary but assigned female at birth and have no maternal instinct. I like to birth ideas and have an active job if anything or I go insane. Women aren't all fluffy-headed breeding machines.
@@upsidedownrose7102 I have a close friend who also has no desire to ever have kids and she's always told she must be lonely and unfulfilled but if it were a man expressing the same thing it's viewed as something positive.
@@RNS_Aurelius yeah, people are really weird about AFAB people not wanting kids. Even if they do want kids, but not through pregnancy. I'm non-binary and I've had a hysterectomy. I've also had people directly suggest I should end my life "because it's basically over anyway, it has no meaning". I want to adopt, but apparently that doesn't matter.
@@upsidedownrose7102 fr the idea that a woman might not want kids is treated like a discision we're not smart enough to handle and have autonomy for. I hate hearing stories of "but your husband might!" or "you're young, you'll change your mind" and "your [relative] thought so too until they had one" as if we're not individuals.
Plus nothing bad happens if someone doesn’t have kids. Many bad things happen if someone has kids when they don’t want them, they’re not smart enough to raise them, etc. Like it doesn’t take any intelligence to decide not to have kids, that’s a decision with zero repercussions (besides maybe some FOMO but that happens to everyone). Having kids is a decision that changes your entire life and gives you a ton of responsibilities that you need to be ready for. To be a parent you have to be a teacher, a therapist, a chef, a cleaner, a chauffeur, and a lot of other things all at once. You have to be willing and able to learn a ton of skills.
I cannot overstate how appreciative I am that you are allying with trans youth here, and not in a "ooh there are both sides" way. You are a staunch trans ally, and I appreciate you so much.
This video is outstanding. ‘No one is listening to young people 👏🏻’
Most of the backlash is plain old queerphobia and shame in relation to sex and sexuality.
Most of the "backlash" is plain old naziism and religious terrorism by other means.
As the child of conservative, religious parents my sex education was abysmal. I learned more about sex by helping my mom breed horses than I learned from my parents OR any of the religious schools I went to. It wasn’t until I was 20 and found sexplanations here on YT that I finally started getting some decent education.
Finding out that sex is a spectrum of behavior and that since grinding is in fact a sex act I had been sexually active since I was 13 even if my clothes hadn’t come off.
What I needed even beyond talks if sex was conversations around healthy relationship dynamics and boundaries because I did not have good relationship modeling in my life until college.
I was watching an interview with a lesbian who came out of an ultraorthodox Jewish cult basically, Judaism as a whole isn't obviously but groups within it are. She was like they told me stop kissing girls but no one even thought it was equal to having sex with men, women just weren't sexual. She and her kids are much happier now
@theashwoodfaerie Nope I was an enthusiastic participant and the other person was around my age. It was just exploration.
I find it so interesting the putting more focus on the "relationships" part. When I had sex-ed in school it was just one or two PSHE lessons and there was absolutely no focus at all on actually having a relationship with another human being. We were told about body changes, shown a diagram of sex, shown babies being born, and told NOT TO HAVE SEX. It took later research and doing a diploma that included animal biology to actually know the names of different anatomical parts.
When I was in year 6 at primary school we had a sex Ed class where, at the start of the lesson, the teacher got us to say all the words we knew to do with sex and she wrote them on the white board. As you can imagine there were some rather colourful words up there. At the end of the class she realised she’d accidentally used permanent marker instead of whiteboard marker, and there was a year 2 class using the room next! 😂
what an absolute nightmare, XD the poor teacher
I distinctly remember when I was 10, being taught about periods. The teacher kept telling us “facts” about periods: they’re not painful, you only bleed a few tablespoons, they never last more than 5 days and they happen every 30 days… a fellow student who had started her period at 9 or so kept putting up her hand and saying “that’s not true - mine last 7 days or longer!” Etc. etc. I am so grateful for that child but I also feel so angry for her now. The education was too late for her, and after learning the hard way she was basically being told her experience was wrong.
Sex and relationships teaching being “appropriate” means catering to the average child - aka leaving half of them at a disadvantage due to timing or inclusiveness.
Futhermore, the first Sex Ed I remember at school was a video cartoon man chasing a woman around with a feather and was utterly confusing and abstract. I still remember my mum had to sign a form for me to be allowed to watch it though… I hope things have improved since 2007 😬
Omg my primary sex ed was in 2006 and the only thing I remember was that weird fucking video with them running round with a feather haha! Such a relief I hadn't somehow hallucinated it, so damn bizzare!
Yep, the first time I got anything even close to resembling a proper period education I was 13. A bit too late. Thankfully I'd learned that periods were a thing before that, but that was literally "you're gonna bleed sometimes, you're not dying, it's normal". My teacher was much the same though, periods *are* 4 days long, they happen *exactly* every 28 days, cramps are normal and not an excuse.... Yeah, not accurate.
As a medical student I have been taught numerous times that questions regarding sex are an important part of general medical history of a patient. At the same time our simulated patients have reported numerous times that they were weirded out by these questions. I think the sex ed discussion is viewed at in one direction only and that is with kids as a subject. People seem to forget that kids turn into adults. Not having sufficient Sex Ed as a kid may turn you into an adult that has wrong ideas about Sex, Bodily functions and Sex Ed. I think it would be a good idea to give the parents an idea about their kids Sex Ed by giving them their own lesson at the start of the respective school year (so they don't withdraw their kid the night before by claiming it is sick). I think this would clear up issues about their possible insufficient Sex Ed and at the same time lower the inhibition threshold for kids to talk to the parents ("Your parents have seen this movie as well") and vice versa. (I hope this is intelligible; non native speaker).
Yeah, like the only time I get annoyed by sex questions is when the person asking them refuses to believe I'm not sexually active and have no desire to be. I've had people come up with more and more ridiculous and out there ways to ask me, even though the answer is going to be no no matter how they ask. Cause it's really frustrating to spend more time convincing the doc I don't have sex than I do talking about what I'm actually there for.
@@waffles3629 I am sorry that you have this experience... I wouldn't be too surprised if someone mentioned this, but now that you have brought it to my attention we didn't discuss any cases of people that aren't sexually active.
@@pfandilicious yep, it's sadly never talked about so many places. Like I get that sex is still seen as a shameful thing to talk about for many people, but sometimes it's not shame, some people just don't want to have sex. I had a doc so convinced I was sexually active that he straight up called me a liar (like I told him "I've never had sex" and he replied "Yes you have") and pregnancy tested me multiple times and still thought I was pregnant despite them all being negative. I was so thankful for my gyn who just agreed to stop asking me as long as I promised to tell her if that changed. Thankfully my uterus has since been evicted so convincing people I can't be pregnant has gotten easier. Unfortunately it's still not a sure thing.
RUclips was my sex ed and I'm so thankful for it! I'm now a really educated young person that feels cofortable in their body, relationships and sexuality. This wouldn't have been possible with the very limited and not very inclusive information I got from school or my parents. Now I even teach other young people about it in workshops which has been great so far!
My sex-ed schools in '00s at a non-religious school in the US consisted of girls signing a purity pledge, separating girls and boys, apparently teaching boys how to use condoms, telling girls how pregancy happened after the sperm get inside you with no mention of how they got there, making girls wear pregancy bellies, and telling us if we had sex we were going to get stis (called stds at the time), get pregnant, and either die or have a terrible life.
💀 that kind of disinformation is outright child abuse.
Yeah, like what is with the "Don't have sex or you'll get pregnant, get every STD in existence, and die" narrative. Like my sex ed was so bad several cis boys thought they'd get pregnant.
My first memory of sex ed is being in year 5 and a teacher came in and said 'right girls we're all going to go upstairs now and bring your bags with you'. We were then given a talk on periods, each handed a pack of pads - the purpose of the bag being to hide the pads (because of course no one could know what was happening that would be terrible...) and then walked back downstairs like nothing had happened. That kind of memory is what lead to the embarrassment of using period products in secondary school for the first three years after that it's awful!!
I'm from Southern Illinois and I didn't know any trans people growing up. I knew some gay people (both male and female). I know when they started GSA (gay straight alliance) at my school and I was part of it (before I came out as bi 4 years later) our club had a LOT of hate and someone took a rainbow flag and burned it. We had people "the country boys" fly confederate flags on the bed of their lifted trucks. Parents thought GSA and lgbtq sex ed was turning their kids gay and they believed it too. It sucks. Mental health awareness was also not popular. Idk why I commented but I feel it's disgusting how people hate and say "it's just how I am"
Btw there are queer nonbinary people too. I think its an appropriate place to share your experience with this topic (mentioned in the video). Its ironic they say "its just how I am" about problematic behaviour they can change and dont want to accept someones gender identity / sexuality though they claim queer people could turn cisstraight people gay...
I was homeschooled by conservative evangelical parents. Surprisingly, my sex ed (via textbook), of course, was more comprehensive than most of friends who actually went to school. But, having since figured out that I’m non-binary/bisexual/demi-romantic/polyamorous, well, I wish I had been taught comprehensively about all these topics.
Hi you sound very interesting and sweet 🙂😎👣👣
Once upon a time I worked as a T.A. in UK primary school. Deputy Headteacher was due deliver the lesson but couldnt get past talking about body parts without laughing so hard he had to step outside... For a *long* time.
I'd already been studying this area of the curriculum ao I offered to take the lesson and he didnt argue. Really not ideal.
My school years aligned with the years Section 28 was in effect. It didn't stop schoolmates from being gay; it did mean they didn't tell anyone until afterwards.
The thing about needing parental consent to use a child’s preferred name and/or pronouns is ridiculous. It is such common place in the UK to call people by nicknames. The amount of times I’ve heard:
Teacher: what’s your name?
Kid: Christopher
Teacher: would you like to be called Chris or Christopher.
I bet they don’t need parental consent for that!
Yep, some places have gone so over the top to prevent trans kids from using their preferred name that students need their parents permission to go by their middle name at school. It's literally their name!!
When I was in middle school there was a birth control lecture with an out side teacher. She kept talking about chance as an ineffective method everyone laughed every time she said chance because that was the name of a guy in class. After the fourth time she asked why everyone kept laughing after she was told she agreed it funny
YES HANNAH!! I've worked in primary/nursery education for nearly 20 yrs and feel very passionately about children getting information that will empower them. I am very thankful that I had a mum who was the youth coordinator for Wandsworth Borough and would go round different schools giving classes on sex and relationships. I got more information from her than in the classroom.
I equate sex and relationship education with the following: I have a nut allergy, so instead of my parents trying to keep me from harm, they told me how to check what things had nuts in them, how to administer an epipen, how to call for help and give information across. These are all life lessons that I have used to help me stay confident and empowered so if I do have a reaction or need to help another person i can. ❤
I am so glad that you get sponsored to produce less popular or 'controversial' topics. Its so important that we talk about this so that the government understands how short-sighted it is to gut RSE education!
At my school, we had a “girls only” sex ed session when we were around 11/12 years old, which mainly just talked about how to manage periods and symptoms etc. Nothing too heavy (pardon the pun 😂), but it somehow resulted in multiple ambulances being called out. Mid talk, a girl near the back of the assembly hall started having an asthma attack (I think unrelated to the talk we were listening to), which then resulted in a couple of other girls nearby having panic attacks about their friend’s asthma attack. Cue 2/3 ambulances rocking up to our school to sort out all the medical drama (everyone involved was fine btw). Safe the say, the boys were very confused when we reunited with them and wondered what on earth we were talking about that was so bad that ambulances had to attend the scene 😂
Thank you for acknowledging and advocating for the effort teachers put into RSE. It's really hard being blamed for the state of RSE in schools despite desperately wanting it to be better.
In the US sex ed is often done as a unit within a health or biology class. I love the idea of an exclusive RSE class. Having an entire semester-long course would provide so much more time and space for students to start to feel comfortable with the topics, to dive deeper into more aspects of sex and gender, and importantly to talk about relationships! As others have said, the minimal sex education provided was often only biological and didn't give any insights into actually having relationships with human beings.
When I was about 15, my school gave a great talk on all the different contraceptive options available... But then followed it up with the line "You need to know this as you'll all be having sex at some point." Really put a downer on what was otherwise a great lesson. I left feeling odd and excluded as someone who didn't think sex was for them.
I found your channel at 15 and was immediately hooked. I'm 21 now and still a big fan! But I think part of the reason I was seeking out so many sex ed resources online as a teen was because I felt that my sex and relationship education wasn't comprehensive enough in my schooling. I'm from New Zealand so the topics you talked about today weren't quite reflective of my experience but still somewhat relevant. I'd say the best part of my SRE experience in school was that my teacher showed the class actual pictures of genitals including photos that showed us what STIs look like. And the worst part is my teacher asked me and the other queer students to educate the class on queer identities- It felt like an honour at the time but in hindsight was really inappropriate as it outed us to the whole class. Great that they included queer relationships in the education though.
In my sex ed class in the US, we had a session during which we wrote down our "type" in a sexual/romantic partner. And most of the boys in my class had a weight limit as one of their stipulations ughhhh, and the male teacher did absolutely nothing to mitigate the impact of these comments at all!!
we actually had a philosophy lesson were we had a similar task. We had to write down what was important to us in a partner. Long story short: that was the day we taught our philosophy teacher what demisexuality is
"Men are usually better at giving birth to ideas" Thanks I hate it indeed!
Homeschooler here, the world view of the public educator does not align with the world view taught from within my home. Many in my state, dare I say hundreds, of families are leaving the public school for similar reasons. It’s that simple. That is to not even mention, the failed federal programs (no child left behind and bullying). The homeschooling life is just better for the mental health of most kids that I’ve met. And now that so many families are doing it, we get to share projects and field trips. my kids look forward to learning.
Thank you Hannah for being a good trans ally- as other comments have pointed out you do a wonderful job of not trying to argue that the transphobic rhetoric 'has a point' the way a lot of people who label themself as progressive do. Its so validating to hear someone who isn't directly in the community stick up for us, I wish it was more common, but people are often afraid of judgement- even when they are cis and therefore have some power a lot of trans people don't. It means a lot 💞
Denying young people knowledge about themselves and their peers.
Block teaching about how to treat others with respect.
Trying to control someone else's sexuality.
Those things are inappropriate to do!
Thanks to all that works with and for sex ed around the globe, you're truly helping to make the world a better place!
The point that puberty can start at the end of primary school reminded me of the best sex ed I ever recieved - it was in fourth grade. A sexual educator came to our school and explained what bodily changes to expect in the next few years, we learned the anatomy of both male and female sexual organs and us girls were taught about pads and tampons (not sure what the boys were doing during that time). And yeah it was really good to know at least the basics before you started noticing changes in yourself.
I'm 19 now, but I have watched u for a few years now. Have definitely learned more accurate info about sex and relationships from u than school!
I’m 19 and have been following this channel (and the Doing It podcast) for a few years now. I have definitely learnt so much more from you than I did at school. At my school, we were literally taught about LGBT people in the context of religious views on then (why people would agree or disagree with their existence). I’m so lucky to have found this channel and I hope more people find it too.
I was in Year 10 during Section 28. Our teacher completely ignored it. They explained what heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual. She also explained what estrogen and testosterone did to the body, including taking them for whatever reason.
On a side note, we were also set to study both 'The Color Purple' and 'Oranges are not the Only Fruit' but this was changed at the last minute to 'Brave New World' and '1984'. By which point most of us had read both books in preparation.
Given your viewer age survey, I'm the old minority. :) So the gouvernment does not have the best of children in mind, or even the best of citizens, and politicians not knowing anything about a topic are responsible for decisions - I am not surprised. It's been like that when I was young already. On busting myths, one more: The human experience is more wide than any single human can understand and using the average as normative is discrimination, even in the scientific sense. Reality is not shaped by what people believe, want to believe, or even understand. Great episode, keep that passion!
Hannah, thank you for this video! This topic is just so damn frustrating as I just cannot understand the people that are choosing to be against other’s basic human rights. 😕
This curriculum goes against human rights and body autonomy!!
Because we have a Government that thinks Section 28 was far too liberal and would rather not promote anything other than heterosexual relationships...Rishi Sunak's comments at the Tory Conference about a man being a man and a woman being a woman, or something like that, is really offensive to anyone who is either Intersex or non-binary, to say nothing of their hell bent wish to remove any rights that transgender people have...sometimes I despair that we have ended up where we are in the twenty first century. Sorry, I'm really hacked off with this, rant over!
Unfortunately I'm at an age where there was no sex education in school for boys, only the girls had "health" education separate from us, and having parents who were religious and any discussion of sex was a taboo...you've guessed it, I had to figure it all out on my own.
I'm Canadian and in the 00's we got sporadic sex ed (one talk on puberty stuff a year (separated by sexes) from grade 4-6, one short unit in health class in grade 8 or 9, and one short unit in Career and Life Management (a mandatory class for graduation) in high school) which was very cis-heteronormative. And I know that's a lot better than what a lot of people get. I didn't know that being non-binary was a thing when I was a teen, so I defaulted to being a girl (my asab) because I knew I wasn't a boy. I didn't know that being ace was a thing until I was 19. The lack of education on queerness did not make me any less queer, I just didn't have the words to describe myself.
Edit: I should add that I did not receive any kind of sex ed from my parents. My mom put a package of pads in my bathroom cabinet about a year before I needed them, then just pointed me towards them when the time came. My dad gave me a talk on drugs, but certainly nothing about the birds and the bees.
Cis is not a word in the English language
Actually i remeber sex ed in grade 9 (4 years ago for me lol) and the school nurse was going through forms of birth control and she showed an iud. One of the boys who had never heard of this before and had played a lot of video games yelled. ‘AN IED? GET UNDER THE TABLES, ITS GONNA BLOW”. He defineitely learned something that day lol.
Commenting for engagement sake. This is super important spread the word!
I remember that a theater group came to our school and performed a sex ed piece and after that we could discuss questions with our teacher. To be honest the only thing I still remember from that day, is learning about double penetration, which is of course good to know, but I would have preferred to learn more about my body, menstruation, relationships etc.
And now here I am, 30 years old and catching up with everything I didn't learn in school by watching you and Mama Dr. Jones on RUclips 😄
As a parent of a young daughter (almost 4) I've started to take an interest in this stuff. As a summary, it's not that I'm against her learning about this stuff, more just the way it's taught. You're right about "Whose values?" but that also goes the other way. You can't just diminish and mock parents with genuine concerns about the way their kids are taught anything.
If her teacher was teaching things that are literally not true about gender, sexuality or biology, I'm having an issue with that, not because I'm a bigot, but because I want her to learn accurately at school. I'd have an issue likewise if her teacher was stating climate change wasn't happening or the Holocaust is a hoax.
At her age we don't need to impose or restrict gender norms, and likewise we don't need to talk about mechanics of sex. "Mummy and Daddy made you because we wanted to add to our family", is totally sufficient and will be for many more years. Honestly, if she's discussing the pleasures of anal sex at 4, she is in an oversexualised environment, either at home, school or the world at large. I absolutely think age thresholds should exist, and I'm pretty sure exposing a child to adult material is illegal, so clearly if it's graphic enough to stray into that realm, that's a problem.
I do think parents have been too willing to let somebody else teach their kids stuff they should be teaching them. We teach her that boys and girls are different, and that's ok and normal. But we also make clear that boys are different to other boys and girls different to other girls, so everybody is special. We also don't overthink it. She loves clothes and dressing up, and taking care of her soft toys, but she's never been into dolls. Likewise, she loves trains, and really anything that moves.
I think most of what I've said is fairly middle of the road, but zealots from both fringes will absolutely see schools as an acceptable battleground for their ideas, and it's my job as a parent to explain that to her in age appropriate ways, until she has the ability to approach things systematically and make up her mind about what she thinks. The idea that kids know what they want and therefore we should just accept it is flawed. If I listened to my daughter about what she thinks she should eat, for example, she'd only eat ice-cream, crisps and chocolate. Obviously we all know that isn't a good foundation for a healthy approach to food, and so it's odd to me we would assume kids should set a good foundation here.
If you think parents have the right to coerce their children into gender conformity, you are the extremist here.
When I was in High School they put on a birth video in Biology class. The only problem was they hadn't rewound the tape first so we all got treated to the ABSOLUTELY horrifying video of a vulva essentially eating a baby as we had to watch it in reverse...
I had something similar happen in middle school. It was horrifying.
OMG, must have been a horror then but still got me laughing now. I gave birth twice so my perspective is very different from a school kid
Oh man, so on the plus side, we had pretty thorough anatomy education over multiple years in my schools and some conversation around healthy/non healthy relationships, and one of my sex ed teachers wrote “Sex is fun” on the blackboard the first day and emphasized repeatedly that sex was was not a negative thing, which as a young girl in a fundamental religious house was somewhat new information. On the negative, no conversation around lgbtq+ at ALL whatsoever, no mention of maturation and very focused on abstinence (having sex in the right context -aka marriage). Also, the anatomy we learned included the clitoris, but absolutely zero mention of its function I remember learning where it went but literally just learning the word rather than anything about it 🤦♀️
We had 'growing up day' in the 2000s (UK west midland school) but it was with cartoons. Then we had a ginger bread man style diagram we had to label what parts of the body we knew (there were no parts on the figure). This was in year 6. Then next thing was year 7 in PSHE and Citizenship we learnt about Health and STI and Contraception. Then in high school we had two very short sessions between yr 8 and 10 about sex and was a little more descriptive as the teacher was more specialised! This is where i first properly understood about periods and still didnt understand whether mentral resources could 'pop your cherry' or not and anything about body fluid and hair being natural (thankfully I was a late blooner otherwise i would have had more struggles and confusion)❤ Year 11 i fianlly saw multiple female body examples during my Child Development course in GCSEs!
Recent documentation on teaching in England stated that fewer than 25% of those teaching RSE had any qualifications or training in the subject. Some schools make all classroom teachers teach RSE as a compulsory part of their teaching timetable without any training. Instead they give script-like lessons for teachers to deliver and hope against hope that no students ask any questions for fear of saying the wrong thing. This can result in students not getting the guidance and support they need to keep themselves safe.
my parents never taught me anything about sex, so i just had the few lessons in year 6 and like 2 PSHE days in high school about sex and relationships. i picked up things about periods over time but wasn't taught anything about them until i had my first partner at 17
the things that stick out to me from sex ed are:
one of the teachers talking about beauty standards and saying that different people like different things, which is good, followed by her example that she likes men with love handles, which was unnecessary;
a lesson about different kinds of contraception (it was quite comprehensive) and different STIs in which the teacher used a condom she'd brought from home to show that you can get latex-free condoms if you have an allergy or smth;
and a lesson in which the boys and girls were sent into different rooms to learn stuff that i do not remember until we were given model ball sacks with unpleasant textures to practise feeling for lumps
At Primary school all the girls were taken out of the classroom into the teachers office (which was a big deal, we didn't usually go in there for any reason!). We were shown how to put a pad in some underwear, how to remove it and roll it up neatly. Our teacher finished by saying "there, now that's not offensive to anyone". I'm sure she meant well, but at 10 years old all I heard was that my body was going to do something that would be offensive to other people if I didn't manage it properly....
Speaking as a late 40s guy who realised he is on the asexual spectrum last year, not learning about asexuality didn't turn me straight. I still experienced the confusing feelings that should have been clear that I wasn't straight. Maybe I'd have felt less broken if I'd have known about the aspec in the 80s.
All queer kids deserve to understand who they are.
My main memory from sex ed was knowing more than teachers, especially in high school. I remember one class in late primary school, which was actually quite usefull, all about periods and such, but later it was either barely existent, or way too little to late. It pains me, that 20 years later we have exactly same conversations, with those same tiring arguments...
I was discussing this in Class for my education masters today. Ive been researching this topic alongside watching your insightful videos relating to this for several years now. We are looking at the way the new Curriculum for Wales has made inclusive, pluralistic Relationship and Sex Ed mandatory in all schools, (which i personally think is a good and helpful step). Yur videos are a great resource and also have helped me find lots of other great resources, research, and educators in the field of RSE and how it can be effectively taught in schools, using phased, upfront and inclusive approaches. Thank you so much for your inspiring work in this sector.
In 2016, I was in year 1 (im young Ik Ik get over it) and my teacher took a whole day and taught us about everything LGBT in detail, and I am pretty sure he got fired as some parents complained, but the two good bits are that he was dis and straight, and my class was never homophobic and were very open minded and progressive, as I am now in secondary school, and a Bisexual, I realise how much of an impact that one day had on me, as most pupils in my school are very indiscreetly homophobic, and I realise how amazing that teacher was.
so during our sex ed unit in health class my teacher had a box in the back of the room where students could ask a question anonymously and he would go through the box and answer them a couple times a week. the intention was for students to ask questions based on sex ed. someone asked "are you supposed to brush your teeth before or after breakfast in the morning?" not sex ed related at all, but it did get a laugh and a debate going.
YES YES YES YES YES!
Amazing video Hannah, thank you! I received no sex education at home, and all I remember from school is in primary school a teacher handing a condom around and people told about periods, pads and tampons (the teacher put a tampon in a cup of water and traumatised us all by how big it got), and in high school putting a condom on a (very unsexy looking) dildo and being shown pictures of the effects of STIs. I felt like an alien in school because I had no interest whatsoever in sex in the way it was taught. I'm now a very sex-positive person who enjoys having sex - but I was shown nothing about gay or lesbian relationships and I didn't realise I was gay until 15, by which point my sex education had finished. I luckily found you and other sex-positive creators where I slowly learnt about sex positivity and masturbation and about LGBT+ inclusive sex!
My friend has vaginismus and was basically resigned to never have or enjoy sex, until she happened to have good sex on a hookup and realised it could be enjoyable. This is not the way we should be learning! Pleasure-centred sex education please!!!
As a social worker I've seen a huge increase in primary schools (UK) using the PANTS rule. Check out the NSPCC for the info, theres even a song, and this is something I use when talking to children in sexual abuse cases. It always surprises me how many children and young people don't know proper terms for their body parts. Again speaking about sexual abuse cases but it makes it so difficult for prosecution with terms some children are using like "muffin" etc. I firmly believe the PANTS rule needs to be taught in all primary schools and talk to all my families about it.
I am always curious about sex ed in other countries. My sex ed in Germany was quite alright but I believe it was more because I had teachers that saw the importance of it. I don't really know what the rules for sex ed are in Germany and because schools are a state matter, it could be very different from my experience in other parts of Germany.
I had multiple different kinds of sex ed at different ages. The first was around age 7 or 8 where we learnt about what puberty is, what changes to expect, what different parts of our bodies are called and we watched an old "child-friendly" animated film about "how babies are made". All of that was taught by our primary teacher. A little later a couple of theatre people came and did some sessions about what kinds of touching and looking is ok, how to say "no" to unwanted touches/looks. These included catchy songs and were quite fun actually. There was even an entire session about the potential that adults could behave innappropriately (an example was a stranger whipping his dick out at the park, but I think abuse in the family was also mentioned briefly) and how to react. The focus was strongly that you have the right to say "no" to any touching and if you have a bad feeling about something you should trust that no matter who is giving you the bad feeling.
A few years later (around age 12-14) we had a sex ed portion in biology class that focussed a lot more on contraception and the biology of bodies, sex and gender (including stis, pregnancy, erections and wetness etc.) and even included mentions of errectile problems, the usefullness of lube and, if I remember correctly, trans and intersex people were in fact mentioned but only briefly and kind of like a "weird quirk of nature" rather than normal human beings. In the same year we had a special sex ed day where we spend a good chunk of the day talking about relationships (including some mentions of gay or bi people here and there) and later that day we were split up into boys and girls (boys being taught by a male teacher and girls by a female teacher) and we were encouraged to ask any and all questions we had about sex and gender. As an ace person myself I found a lot if it kind of uncomfortable because attraction and desire were very much declared to be the normal human thing (I didn't even know ace was a thing you could be at the time, instead believing I was either a very late bloomer or just kind of broken.)
All in all I think it was alright considering I went to school from 2001 to 2014 and compared to what I hear from people going to school in other countries. But it of course could have been a lot better, especially when it comes to lgbtq* issues.
I'm French and from what I remember it seems to be a little different here. Human reproduction was part of the science program and then one lesson would be specifically about "sex Ed" like safety practice, std, abortion, pleasure, etc. And we have these courses at 13 and then 16. 13 was still late but I do think I was pretty lucky with my sex Ed :)
I remember my sex education in secondary school being running through various forms of contraception then the teacher said “but there’s only one form of contraception that’s 100% effective, and that’s abstinence” 🙄🤣 at least we did get taught about contraception though!
This was at a public school in Ontario in the early 2010s. Grade 9 (age 14) gym and health class was sex/gender segregated the entire year. Typically the health and sex ed portion of the course is taught by the same teacher as the phys-ed portion. However my teacher, being a man in his 30s, was very uncomfortable teaching that section of the course and so usually had a nurse from the local sexual health clinic come in. For whatever reason they couldn't organize things on time my year and so he had to attempt to teach it himself. He was ok with the "don't do drugs" portion of the course but the moment we got to contraception and sex-ed he fell apart. He fully did not know how a lot of contraception worked to the point where myself and my classmates were answering each others questions based on what we had been told from our family or friends. I had to teach myself a lot after that course and credit it with why my minor was in sexuality studies.
I think it’s because older people are just afraid / feel intimidated by things they don’t know or understand
That’s a crock
I feel like in these sorts of conversations, people (primarily those who oppose comprehensive education) tend to conflate “morally appropriate” and “developmentally appropriate.” When we’re talking about public school curriculum, the conversation about “appropriateness” is entirely from a developmental standpoint; what are childrens’ minds equipped to be exposed to? For example, when I started elementary school, I was deemed mentally ready to learn about my classmates’ family structures: I knew that my friend Erin lived with her mom, stepdad, and her younger half-sisters, and that her biological dad lived in a different state; I knew that my friend Emmet was adopted, and that some of their siblings were as well, but others were their parents’ biological kids. Back then, I didn’t necessarily know what it meant for parents to “have” children in a reproductive sense, and it wasn’t developmentally appropriate yet for that to be explained to me, but I was ready to know that my parents “had” me, and that Erin’s dad wasn’t the one who “had” her, and that Emmet’s parents didn’t “have” them. At no point was I prescribed a moral standpoint to take on any of those dynamics, at least not by my teachers (my religious mother has certain opinions about divorce, but the home is, ostensibly, where morals are supposed to come from, so that was squarely within her jurisdiction to try-unsuccessfully, might I add-to impart).
I'd have been a healthier, happier child had someone taught me about trans people at the age of 3. That's the appropriate age to inform kids about gender identity and acceptance.
I went to an all girls school and we received a lesson from some kind of community police officer about how when girls share 'indecent' pictures and those pictures get leaked, it is all the girls' fault and that literally "boys will be boys". My class was the first to receive it in my friendship group and to be honest we so shocked at the time we didnt even know what to say. But we knew that some of our other friends would be receiving the lesson later in the day so they staged a bit of a coup in the lesson to speak out against it. The school/police were obviously trying to teach us about the law in terms of distribution of underage p*rn, but it was so loaded against girls, promoting such an environment of shame that I'm sure that many in that class would have been too scared to tell an adult if they then found themselves in that situation. No or very little mention of the fact that the person who shared the pictures would be committing a crime as well (and surely a far worse one??!)
I will forever stand by the fact if I had good sre by school, university or even parents, my life would be HUGELY different and I wouldn’t have suffered for so long in a MULTITUDE of ways.
Highly recommend the film Blue Jean about a gay PE teacher in the north of England during Section 28. Can't believe that was during my lifetime and I didn't even know.
Being completely blind, and being raised very fundamentally protestant in the deep south, sexuality was just not some thing that was ever really discussed. As an adult, I fully admit that I even still today have things that I am not sure how to approach people on because I don’t want to sound stupid nor do I want to be a typical member of my gender who is basically an asshole and only wants one thing in life. I’ve also always wanted a friend, from the United Kingdom. You take every box. I would love it if you replied to this.😂
My kids primary school has made a lot of allowances for the trans child in the class, allowing them to wear a different uniform and change their name mid year. This has been difficult for us as parents to explain to our child. "He is now a girl" etc are the sweeping statements made and for children who see things as black and white it is not a conversation that is easy to explain that they now see themselves as a girl but ultimately they are still a boy. These topics are so hard to navigate as a parent and i would have never expected to have these types of convos at age 5. Whilst i support teens and adults who wish to explore gender etc i think being so willing to make these allowances so young may cause further confusion in such a young mind. Sex ed is needed but as a parent i of course worry about the over sexualisation of children. What is considered age appropriate for a 7 year old? Sometimes i feel like the world is way over sexualised. Boundaries and body autonomy yes but learning about masturbation at that age - not needed! But saying anything even remotely critical is shouted down now so parents feel quite lost with it all 😢
'ultimately' she isn't a boy. she's a girl
The existence of trans kids in your kids' school does not sexualize children. Your obsession with genitals is what does that.
I started watching RUclips sex ed at 13 or 14, im 19 now. My sex life as a highschool student was shit, I honestly don't know how much worse it would have been without the education I got from RUclips. I grew up in a conservative city in PA (U.S). My teachers were judgmental, didn't talk about pleasure, preached absentince, masturbation wasn't even a subject. As a result most of my early sexual experiences were terrible, and as someone with endo when I started have penetrative sex. It was painful and I didn't feel comfortable going to the doctor. Because my sex ed teachers also talked about the gyno in a shaming way. And obviously no mention of queer people which I also was.
I think one of the things people miss when it comes to the "its the parents job" ext.... That while yes it is. If the culture you walk into everyday is telling you something. Despite having supportive or even well informed parnets. You will still Internalize social scripts from the dominant culture. Which happened to me, despite RUclips sex ed. My own view of myself and sexuality was much shaped by the culture in my physical space.
My bf who had much better sex ed than me. Is much more well rounded, less judgmental, informed. In his H.S they talked about pleasure and the clit, my school left that out (from what I can remember).
I got sex education for the first time in school at 14 years old which was in 2019. I was sexually assaulted at 12 and 13 by a boy in my school and i think a lot of that could have been avoided if they spoke to us in australia was when we entered highschool at 11/12 years old. Most 11 year olds when i was starting high school had watched porn and only knew what sex was in that way. Lots of sexual violence and just total confusion is the result of this in young kids. 11 year olds need to know 1 dont r*pe people and 2 how to know what sexual abuse looks like and how to talk about it.
in my secondary school we were not given any sex education. 7 people from my year group are parents now. i’m 18. sex education is so important
I started following you and bought the Doing It book as a teenager! I think the only sex ed I had in school was during science class in like 8th grade maybe? Reproduction and stuff classes then 1 class that was like an anonymous q&a about sex ed... Not grat but not bad by any means! All students together too, no separation of boys and girls
Great*** (also this was in a catholic private school, but it was an effort made solely by my science teacher at the time)
I think learning about horrible things like war criminals in history class has basically only made students more wholesome and rounded people. So I can only see learning more about good things like healthy relationships and sex as beneficial to everyone and at any age.
The people who object to RSE are the types who think playing video games creates violent people.
In Kent, UK, around 2011 (at an all girls secondary, aged 15/16, we had a sexual health expert host a pshe class. The week before we had the opportunity to write down ANY questions anonymously. Many of us asked about positions. Which makes sense for a bunch of girls starting to have sex; what feels good, how do you even get into that position, what positions are normal and what is just for porn?
They answered everything except positions. Didn't even acknowledge that positions had been asked about. By the end of the lesson there was a general murmur of disempowerment as we realised it wasn't going to be covered.
When I went to school, back in the last millennium, sex education consisted in physical education teachers telling students "just say no!" and "and use a condom." I became sexually aware by doing what felt good, when I was alone. I recall the fist time I ejaculated. It scared me. I wasn't sure exactly what happened and if it was supposed to happen or if I had just soiled myself. It was very confusing and embarrassing. Apart from National Geographic, the first naughty pictures I got hold of was by way of a school mate who had an older broker, whose stash of porn he raised surreptitiously. Naked women were featured, also horses and a Great Dane.
We had zero relationship counseling. I don't think I heard the term "consent" until I was in uni. I suffered under a great number of misconceptions and dogma and my spouse and I had significantly worse sex for years as a result. Thankfully, she was blessed with infinite patience and we have been together for more than 45 years. I give her all the credit, because owing to a great deal of ignorance or superstition, I was not an ideal partner, which form the basis for most of my sincere regrets.
I’m a primary school teacher and I had to deal with 6 YEAR OLDS sexually harassing each other!! There’s absolutely not enough guidance in schools
I overheard two women talking about how the new sex ed is “giving kids ideas and options.” Ugh, that’s not how it works. 🤦🏼♀️
Oh man... the Section 28 portion ( 3:01 ) made me cringe so hard... That's happening in America right now. We are so behind... how have we not learned from history yet?
I grew up in the 1980s and early 1990s in the US, living in a conservative, mostly Roman Catholic region with Reaganite conservative evangelical/fundie Christian parents. While I attended public school the sex education was only about a few STIs and with very dated information about HIV and AIDS (focused only on Karposi Sarcoma; I guess they was a big and be issue of it when the book was written.) My parents would only say "sex is strictly for marriage" and, of course, that was with "marriage is for life." I'm trans and knew early (expressed that I was at age 2) and that was especially not well received.
Because if you teach children consent and how their bodies work, they're empowered to speak out against abuse. Can't be having that
99% of the sex ed I received was from the media. Porn, Google image search, books, websites, Family Guy, and Friends. The other 1% was from school. In a French Catholic school system in Canada, we had a grand total of 4 days of sex ed in elementary school. 1 day (boys and girls separated) in 5th grade for puberty (some girls got their period in 3rd grade so that was hella late). 1 day in 7th grade (boys and girls together) to talk about puberty (again?). 1 day in 8th grade (boys and girls together) to talk about relationships (aka fun things you can do with your partner that don't include sex). 1 day in 8th grade (boys and girls together) to talk about STIs and contraception (hella late again because many people were already having sex).
In high school we had 1 unit in gym class (boys and girls separated) on health. That unit included sex so we spent maybe 1 or 2 weeks on it, and it was just anatomy. Literally just anatomy. Our test was to memorize all the sexual organs and label them on a diagram.
And that was the end of sex ed forever.
I'm absolutely shocked we didn't have a teen pregnancy at my school (there were abortion rumors but no one went to term). Anyone who didn't do their own research and had sex before 14 years would have had no idea what contraception was.
Edit to add: We had 1 other 75 minutes of sex ed in 11th grade that wasn't mandatory. We were reading Brave New World in English class and our teacher noticed that we had a lot of questions about sex when the orgies were brought up. So, she invited the part-time school nurse to do a Q and A. That was when we learned that we had a school nurse who had condoms. That was the most engaged I'd ever seen my classmates in English class. They had more questions than the poor nurse had time to answer.
Wow. I'm from Sweden and had my first sex ed around 1984 (10 years old) and the second one in 1988 (14 years old) (I could be off by a few years) and I think because we had the AIDS epidemic at the time they felt it was very important to inform us about gay people, AIDS and STDs. Before then I had no idea gay people existed and with the second sex ed we had they invited a couple of gay people so we could ask them questions. Apart from that, compared to now, I believe our sex ed was rather sparse. We got very basic information and then we were made to copy down on paper all of the STDs. 😄
Still, it's rather shocking to hear that the UK is having such difficulties with sex ed these days.
Hannah: "We (commenter's notes: Brits) live in an erotophobic society."
Me, a Texan: "lol, sex education is still forbidden here."
So much truth, thanks!
Our Sex Ed was literally watching a video of a guy (representing sperm) diving into a pool and swimming towards a lady on a lilo (representing an egg) 🤦🏼♀️ I was concerned I’d get pregnant whilst swimming and wouldn’t touch a lilo for years! 😅
At least they weren’t lying to children. No one is born in the wrong body. No one is assigned their sex a birth. This is a dangerous trend.
My parents didn't mention anything about sex or puberty to me until I was caught watching adult content at 13. Everything surrounding sex was treated as gross, awkward, shameful and not to be discussed. To this day my family acts like seeing a woman take her shirt off in a movie is inappropriate to the point they will skip whole sections of movies and tv shows even though there is not a person in the house under 21 and you never see anything more naught than a woman in a bra, or at the very most maybe a back with no bra strap. I was also taught that being anything other than straight was a terrible sin and generally disgusting, my mom has gotten better but she still frequently makes faces when she sees gay people portrayed in tv, movies, and commercials. Any government that thinks the average parent will give their kids anything beyond the most basic sex ed is either incompetent or lying through their teeth because parents are rarely willing to have tough or awkward talks with their children, especially if there's any nuance.
The "scare you off sex" std pictures are my biggest memory of sex ed 😂
(From UK) my sex ed was a bit of a mix
They really focused on drugs, like year we get it
We did have a good session on all the different types of contraception, but this was in year 10 which I feel is a little late
They definitely need to talk about periods earlier as I got mine at 10 (year 5) and there was nothing on it then
Also glad that my school did discuss LGBTQ+ topics, but I find it horrifying that this is not standard and could even be banned
There are only positives to education!
Thanks
I feel like my school had much better sex ed than those around me (Kansas, US). We were taught about all of the risks of sex and drugs (and that some STIs can be passed through things like sharing needles). We covered what abusive relationships look like. We were also taught about pregnancy and birth along with puberty. AND we were informed that if we wait until we are ready and for a person we trust, it can be really nice. Looking back though, it was very cishet-focused even though there were mentions of gay men and that "trans" is a thing. I didn't realize until years later that I was bi because I didn't know it existed.
Still better than my husband's. He was told that you can't get STIs if you are married.
The US is going through section 28 again now
Such an awesome video!! I'm not in England but if I were a parent there, your video would be very helpful in keeping me informed on this important topic!
I went to a Catholic school in NI ( 1999 to 2007) at didn't get sex ed specifically but the year that came after me did ( prob after the 2003 ). However we had a student teacher for biology who covered reproduction. she dictated notes to us that said 'moving the penis in and out of the vagina can be pleasurable ' i was full on shocked at age 13, it had never occurred to me before 😂
It was mixed boys/girls in the class. Only other sex ed was primary school where they did separate into boys and and girls and talked about periods and body changes just. The teacher asked had anyone started their period and I was too embarrassed to say I started mine at age 10.
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Hello hello - lovely and educational video but could we have the references in the description please. Would be great to do some further reading and research on these topics! Thanks 👍🏾
I'm from Poland and had sex ed back in the early 2000. Tbh it was pretty great, for sure better than now, and it was taught by a biology teacher. Tho I'll never forget how once she told us that if we picked on our pimples in the forehead/nose area we could get brain cancer asdfghjkl. It's probably not impossible, bacterial infections can be really dangerous, but come on 😭 I'm pretty sure this traumatized me in some way for years after
I was in secondary school in the late 2000's and our 'sex ed' was completely void of any LGBT+ representation, sex positivity or answering people's questions. There was nothing about consent or identifying whether you are in an unhealthy relationship (maybe I wouldn't have ended up in an incredibly emotionally and sexually abusive relationship when I was 16 if this had been taught to me.) Our Sex Ed was literally showing us explicit photos of genitals with STI's, warning us about pregnancy and scaring us away from having sex at all. It's so disheartening to learn that not much progress has been made on a policy level. Having more comprehensive and inclusive RSE would be SO SO beneficial, its ridiculous to me why people would oppose something that is so essential for young people to gain knowledge, confidence, reassurance and ownership of their own bodies as well as relationships.
I graduated high school in 2007. My freshman year people from the health department came and showed a slideshow about STDs and safe sex and while it was harrowing, it was useful. My senior year, however, they had switched to "abstinence only" sex Ed programs and some wild conservative bullshit program took place in the gym. One of the key arguments was "telling your kid not to have sex, but if you do use a condom is the same as saying don't play with a chainsaw, but if you do wear a helmet". No lie.
That was then this now. Te stakes are way higher than STDs
I was taught that women are responsible for men's erections, and if we "give a man an erection without relieving it for him" then it can be very painful and damaging. So yeah. It's our fault 💁🏻♀️ but also no sex outside of marriage, so just make sure you never turn a guy on, EVER. Really helped my ability to be/feel sexual when I finally did marry 😅
I have vivid memories of my health teacher telling our year 9 (13yo) class that she used a diaphragm as her protection of choice. Good for her, but literally seared into my brain 😂
I’m 27 and the sex ed I can remember was primary school - periods and pregnancy then high school - graphic close up photos of STIs. Absolutely no mention of anything other than cis het monogamous couples having sex only to have a baby. Also plenty of cis kids in my school went by nicknames which teachers also used so why is it different if the child is trans?