Many people lament that they had inadequate sex education, and it’s arguably still an imperfect subject today. What was it like for you?

  • Björn@swg-empire.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 days ago

    Only thing I distinctly remember is one girl speculating that erections are caused by a bone and the whole class laughing at her (yes, we still remember that embarrassing thing you said 25 years ago). I wish I had known back then that some mammals actually do have a penis bone. I felt kind of sorry for her.

    Oh, and I remember that we learned that intersex people existed. At least the purely biological side. And that was at a catholic school.

    • light-bites@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 hours ago

      yes, we still remember that embarrassing thing you said 25 years ago

      If you remember pointless stuff like this, you didn’t have much to think about during that period.

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 days ago

    I remember having sex ed in middle school and I just felt as though it was awkward because they didn’t separate us by gender so we couldn’t ask the questions we really wanted to because of the girls in the class

    • FoolsQuartz@lemmynsfw.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      If i remember correctly they let us write questions on paper and hand it over anonymously. That way you could ask questions regarding the opposite sex without seeming so weird to them.

  • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    3 days ago

    I liked it. Educationally of course. I’m glad I had sex Ed because I was more aware of potential issues and why protection was necessary. I think it’s important to talk about uncomfortable topics especially because it shows that even if it may be embarrassing, it can still be spoken about. This kind of helped translate doctor discussions.

  • arctanthrope@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    3 days ago

    we had sex ed, drug prevention, and nutrition all together in a class simply called “health,” and while the material was apparently much better quality than what most others get, the woman they got to teach it was dumb as a bag of hammers. couldn’t pronounce “bulbourethral gland,” didn’t know the difference between “metastasis” and “metastasize,” claimed that the cause of diabetes is that “sugar molecules are sharp and cut up the insides of your arteries” (I don’t count that one against the material because it didn’t come out of a book, she was clearly just ad-libbing out of her own head)

  • lazyneet@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    2 days ago

    I had one day of sex education in elementary in the early 2000s. The seminar was gender-segregated and consisted of a video from the 80s

  • AccoSpoot@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    2 days ago

    I had sex-ed around the late 90’s early 00’s, I remember ours being pretty standard if a little lacking. The main thing I remember tho is how disruptive the our classes were, most of them devolved into hurling homophobic insults at one another.

  • BigDiction@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 days ago

    Mid 2000s in the US, totally fine as I remember. It was our married PE teachers who taught it.

    90% of what I remember was pregnancy and STD prevention, so the technicals. Not much at all about communication and consent which are equally important imo, but I suppose far less studied in published academia at the time and even today to teach in public school.

  • Mora@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    3 days ago

    Only bad. This was around 15-18 years ago.

    We had a half day sex education workshop. Like 4 stations, rotating small group of students through each one once. The only station I remember is a an educator trying to create some story around HIV. I assume the point was to get to “how to prevent, what to do if accidents happen, how to live if not prevented, etc”. Well the educator tried to get the input for the story from the students. Every input. The hypothetical guys name, current location, job, hobbies, etc. The story derailed hard and nothing was learned. And that is the only thing I remember of actual sex education in school aside from some biology lessons explaining the purely biological side of how humans are made. Obviously queer people did not exist in this equation at all.

  • DavidDoesLemmy@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    Good question! I remember it being alright. I’d already had the talk with my parents so there wasn’t much new to me, but they covered all the major bases.

    One thing they didn’t emphasise was the pleasure aspect of sex. Just that it was what people did and how babies happened.

    • BigDiction@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 days ago

      Ha yeah I recall they defined what an orgasm was -maybe that came up in the Q&A, but they definitely did not give middle schoolers pro tips on how to get there.

    • FoolsQuartz@lemmynsfw.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      I honestly NEVER had ‘a talk’ with my parents, they just let me get it all from school sex-ed and the internet. Tbf, probably less awkward hearing it from our wacky PSHE teacher rather than from my parents. I think treating these things like an event makes them uncomfortable, and mentioning things in passing (should any topic arise) is better.

      • DavidDoesLemmy@lemmynsfw.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 days ago

        I don’t get why it’s awkward. Sex is a thing. It’s important to know about. I would definitely talk to my kids about it.