I’m in Finland, in my 40s. I don’t remember much. I think in the early teens we did have lessons in school about sex and reproductive biology. What I do remember is the “real” sex education stuff around 15-16 years of age, that was part of the health education classes, because, well, I think it got inadvertently weird. The physical education / health education teacher we had was retiring that year. To no one’s surprise, the stuff in the textbook was left for us to read on our own. Because “ummm I don’t think I need to cover this, uhhh heh heh, ummm, you kids probably already know about this”. And everyone was, like, thank God we were spared of that.
Middle School (Mississippi): Basically all lies: having sex with a condom will give you AIDS, abortions are evil and most women who get them die of cancer or suicide. Even 6th grade me knew that shit was fucking wrong, but I was already on thin ice in that school for fucking up the curve, thank Homosexual Jesus that I was only there half a year.
Junior High (New Jersey): Skip ahead to 9th grade. Sex-Ed was taught by a terrified gym teacher who was just adorable. This was pretty comprehensive, lots of biology and factual information. It was the early 90s so a big part of it was teaching how to avoid getting HIV, teaching both abstinence and condoms. Some mention of same-sex relationships, but when asked about the risk of HIV transmission from lesbian sex he blanched and said he didn’t know. No real fault here given the time period. They also taught various forms of birth control and other STIs. There was an undercurrent of promoting abstinence but also some pragmatic realism. In retrospect it could have been better, but compared to most of the country it was very good.
Being extremely queer in an extremely conservative family, *INHALES*
INHALES
Whoa whoa whoa! Leave some penis for the rest of us!
Mostly porn as a kid, then actual research on my own. Sucks that sex ed is so ignored
Technical, but no mention of the social, psychological, or emotional aspects of sexuality.
Female orgasm was literally never discussed or even spoken of. This was in the very conservative city of Anaheim, in very conservative Orange County, California.
It was pure abstinence only. Our teachers were only allowed to tell us not to have sex, and that was pretty much it. Never even saw a diagram of a vagina or a penis.
We had some diagrams about the sex organs. And an overview of birth control (IUD, condom, etc.). I had it twice. Once in Middle School, and it was a generic overview at best (mostly “for the love of God, don’t”) and then a more detailed one in high school. I believe they also showed us a woman giving birth.
IED
Uhh?
Lmao, I meant “IUD.”
My parents had bought a book on the subject to read to us kids. I got a hold of it first and read it by myself. When my dad brought me to bed, I “educated” him about where kids come from. It’s still one of my parents’ favorite stories about me as a kid.
In school, sex ed was alright. They taught us everything we need to know incl. how to prevent STDs and pregnancies. The only thing I would criticize in hindsight is that they used giant test tubes (25cm) to teach us how to put on condoms. That made a lot of boys feel inadequate.
I remember in elementary school we had a lesson on sex organs. When I turned in my test paper, I curiously asked my teacher, “If the sperm is in the male, and the egg is in the female, how does the sperm transfer over?”
All she said was, “Well, what do you think?” To which I replied, “I don’t know.” Then I quietly returned to my desk. Later I discussed it with my friend and we concluded that a male must pee into a female. Because at the time, pee was the only thing we knew came out of the penis.
In the UK in the 1970s we were shown cross sections of male and family reproductive organs and copied pages out of a textbook about the essential mechanics. I can’t remember any discussion or moral guidance in the slightest. But then at that point I was well into my ‘hedge porn’ stage so that’s how I really educated myself.
Hedge porn? What is that?
Porn you found in hedges. It was a big part of growing up in England back then, trust me.
Can confirm, hedge porn was a thing in Scotland too.
As for sex education, our chemistry teacher once showed us how to put a condom on a banana. That was about it.
Christian teachers showing us pictures of STI infections that had been left alone for probably years before the patient went to/was able to go to a doctor in an effort to scare us into celibacy. Generally a scarring experience that didn’t really teach us anything other than to practice safe sex.
*This was in the early 2000s IIRC.
Reading through the comments I remembered about a really great sex-positive TV show I would always watch late at night at around the same time my public education failed in teaching me about sex. The hosts were a really attractive Asian-looking guy with flowy hair and always wore a silk shirt with the top 2-3 buttons undone and a really attractive white girl that always wore a lot of tight clothes. They went over a lot of topics regarding attraction, safe-sex, how to deal with STIs; however, I don’t think there were any specific segments on anything LGBTQ+, but IIRC they didn’t need to because they way they presented things were easily applied to any sexual orientation. As in they talked about anal sex and how to do it safely and whatnot without specifically saying gex. I would love to read more about it, so if you know what it was called please lmk.
This plus being forced to watch a video of a woman giving birth for us. Also that birth control methods in general, including condoms, aren’t very reliable. Well, guess what happens when you tell teenagers a condom might not even make a difference in preventing pregnancy…
Absolutely nothing about consent either, so the nastiest shit was said about a teenager who got pregnant from statutory rape (7+ year age difference). LGBT? Absolutely nothing. I think someone might have said something in one of my classes asking if we were going to cover it, and the (gym coach) teacher making loud disgusted noises while laughing and saying no.
Christ, the 90s and 00s were not great in a lot of ways.
Yeah, I had the same thing with the photos of diseased bodies and the disparaging of contraception. I remember in particular that the textbook chapter on abstinence was immediately followed by the chapter on parenthood, which felt like it left a pretty conspicuous gap.
Amusingly there were two very different Health Class experiences to be had at my school. You were assigned one at random, you couldn’t choose which teacher you got. One was a first-year math teacher and member of an unsuccessful local Christian rock band. He’s who I had. The other possibility was a lesbian gym teacher, whose class was apparently (and unsurprisingly) a LOT more useful.
But yeah, the 90’s kinda sucked, and I hate that the US is trundling back towards that kind of “education.”
All of what you just said made me remember it more clearly, and all of what you just said is pretty much exactly my experience as well. Goddamn christians.
The school took us on a field trip to the hospital where they told us that if we have sex we will get aids and die.
A nurse told us a horror story of a teenage mother who died and they showed us some fetuses in jars.
This was in central FL in the 90s
North Florida.
We had some short, no nonsense discussion of what sex was, the fact that stis were a thing, and that was about it. And then some health class in my high school made extremely graphic displays of what your genitals would look like if you got stis (and they weren’t treated for years) that were left up all year for some reason
I was raised partially in a Unitarian Universalist church which believes in comprehensive sex education. I was still a dumbass about it but they definitely tried to inform me and I think I have a healthier sex life than most people have had.
9th grade. Public school. Teacher opens the first class with “All penises are the same size” and “I don’t answer questions. That’s what your handouts are for”. I can’t for the life of me understand how my generation had such a high teenage pregnancy rate, can you?
My sex ed was pretty thorough I feel. It was part of our health units in school from grades 5-9. In the earlier grades, the class would be split into boys and girls, but as I got older the entire class was part of the lesson.
Most sex ed classes involved: -Showing diagrams of female and male reproductive organs (we had to label each one which I hated doing) -Students being able to ask questions about sex or puberty -Learning about consent -STI and safe sex -Birth control methods
There was also a LGBT/gender portion that was added to the curriculum later on. It covered things like: -Differences between gender and sex -Sexual vs romantic attraction (also covered ace/Aro people I believe)
- What makes a person binary trans people or non binary -Defining different sexualities (gay, lesbians, bi, etc) -Differences between gender identity and gender expression
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with how all this was taught to me.
Goddamn your school sounds awesome. Do you mind if I ask what era this was? I’m assuming more recent?
It was from like 2014-2019 I think? I’m really bad with years lol
Holy crap! That’s awesome. I had NO classes. Wish I had. At some point I checked out a book from the library and learned more than most of my classmates.
