Why do pronouns matter?

School of Sexuality Education’s youth consultant Jessi Borg explains about pronouns and their importance.

One main thing that affects my daily life are pronouns. I identify as non-binary and I use they/them pronouns. We hear about pronouns a lot, especially as a lot of celebrities have marched on social media to talk about them, such as Piers Morgan and Boy George (ironically!). But what are pronouns?

To me, pronouns are an extension of someone's name, it’s how someone feels comfortable with being identified, for example “Hi I'm Jess and my pronouns are they/them”. Saying this, you wouldn’t then call me Marty or Lilly because that is not my name, the same way you wouldn’t refer to me as she/him as those are not my pronouns. Pronouns are a form of self-identification to help battle gender dysphoria in daily life.  Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity (NHS definition). For example, a transgender person may alter their appearance to make them feel more comfortable in their own skin and body. Pronouns are a form of this: by calling someone by their pronoun you help people feel more comfortable and help fight gender dysphoria. This is also why many transgender people undergo top surgery or gender reassignment surgery, hormones, name changes and pronouns, as these help them battle gender dysphoria. 

What do we mean by being transgender? Transgender is when a person’s gender is different from the one they were assigned at birth. This includes trans men, trans women, non-binary and gender fluid people. The opposite of this is cis-gender, which refers to people who identify with their gender assigned at birth. 

A term also associated with pronouns are dead names. The dead name is the name given at birth which they no longer identify with and have changed. Instead, transgender people often change their names to fit their gender. Their new name may be similar to their birth name, or it may be completely different. Imagine you are called a turtle your whole life, treated like a turtle, made to act like a turtle, but you are human. You want to be called a human and act like a human. That is what gender dysphoria feels like and pronouns and calling people by their names (not dead names) can help someone connect with their gender in daily life. 

But what is gender? 

Gender itself is an idea that has been made up by society to put people into different categories and define people by certain attributes. In other words, gender is a social construct. Women are pictured to be feminine, docile and more motherly due to society's view of  women, while men must be strong and masculine. This is portrayed throughout the media and has been enforced for years, so much that it has become second nature to understand the stereotypical 'man' and 'women'. This is gender.

So what do we mean by ‘non-binary’ or ‘gender fluid’? Well, non-binary is feeling either both or neither of the things that society push on gender norms. A non binary person  may feel that they do not fit in the boxes of man or woman, or fit in both instead of just one.. Gender-fluid is similar, but a gender-fluid person may feel a man one day and a woman the next day, or neither. Their gender is not solid, and moves around a lot.

But gender identity only exists now, so these identities can't be real, right? Wrong! There is actually a long history of non-binary and different gender identities in the past. The most famous example of non-binary gender identity in historical culture is the Native American 2-spirit. Native Americans believed that people are born with feminine, masculine or a mix of both spirits. These spirits are our gender, rather than the biological bodies we are born into.

Inclusivity through language

So how do we conduct gender inclusive language in our daily lives? Well, as mentioned above, introducing each other with names and pronouns e.g. "Hi I’m ... and my pronouns are ..." . Although I understand that we may not always be able to ask/say pronouns in every interaction so non-gendered language can help. For example, instead of saying 'ladies and gentlemen' say 'everyone' (though I know it is less dramatic if you are in the theatre business).

Another one I like is, 'guys, gals and non-binary pals' if you want to be less formal. Or if you still want to be dramatic, 'ladies , gentlemen and all that fall in-between'. Those are a few greetings to use. Another one, if just referring to someone is to use they/them pronouns. For example, "they are by the bookshelf" or "they went to the toilet". Or simply just using 'person' instead of women and men. For example, instead of 'that woman/man', 'that person'. 

If a particular term or name feels right for you, then use it. If you want to be called he/she/they then ask for people to call you that, and it’s their responsibility to not be transphobic and be respectful. Whatever pronoun you use, you are valid and that is what matters.

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

For more information about School of Sexuality Education’s work including training, get in touch.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Getting back on the bus: Non-consensual penises and the force of female solidarity in Netflix’s Sex Education Season 2

BY DR TANYA HORECK, READER IN FILM, MEDIA AND CULTURE (ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY) AND School of Sexuality Education ADVISOR.

**Warning: spoilers from the beginning about Season 2 of Sex Education

After a female teacher (Rakhee Thakrar) is slut shamed at school via a lipstick scrawl on a bathroom mirror (‘Miss Sands is a dirty talking slut’), a group of female students are rounded up as suspects and put in detention. The teacher in question asks them to write a report on what binds them together as women; as she tells them: ‘One, or all of you, wanted to tear a fellow female down, now you can spend some time reflecting on what you have in common instead’. This scene, from the penultimate episode of the second series of Netflix’s Sex Education, both recalls, and significantly reworks, the premise of John Hughes’ 1985 film, The Breakfast Club. Famously, that film begins with a group of teenagers in detention. Each of the all-white male and female teenagers assembled for the Saturday ‘breakfast club’ detention represent a clearly recognizable American high school stereotype; in the language of Hughes’ film, they constitute, respectively, a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. The white male assistant principal, who is deeply disdainful of the young people in his keep, peevishly demands that they write a 1000-word essay in which they each ‘describe who they think they are’.

Sex Education is a series that knowingly riffs on the various motifs and tropes of the teen genre, and its nod to The Breakfast Club forms a significant part of its feminist subversion of the casual misogyny of earlier iterations of the teen-comedy drama. What the group of female teenagers in Sex Education eventually come to realise is that their experience of sexual assault and harassment in public spaces is what brings them together. This shared recognition is the culminating moment of a key story arc for the season – the sexual assault of the character Aimee (Aimee Lou Wood). In Episode 3, Aimee gets on a crowded bus and a male stranger masturbates onto her jeans. Over the course of the remaining five episodes, Sex Education explores how Aimee copes with the trauma of this assault which she is at first reluctant to even name as such, only going to the police station at the urging of her feminist friend Maeve (Emma Mackey). As the group of young women, of different races, classes, sexualities, sizes, shapes, backgrounds and experiences, sit in the school library during their detention and share their stories of sexual assault, Sex Education lays bare an all-pervasive gendered reality that a teen movie such as The Breakfast Club could not – or would not – acknowledge. As I watched the detention scene in Sex Education, I recalled Molly Ringwald’s widely circulated New Yorker opinion piece from April 2018, in which she revisits her role in The Breakfast Club and reflects on how the #metoo reckoning made her reconsider the more troubling aspects of that film’s handling of teen heterosexuality and male-female relations. Recounting how painful it is for her to watch The Breakfast Club now, Ringwald observes that her character, Claire, is, in fact, sexually abused in one scene and sexually harassed throughout the others by the male rebel of the film, John Bender (Judd Nelson). Claire’s sexual harassment occurs in public space for all to see and yet it remains strangely unseen – both by other characters within the film and by film-goers of the time. Bender’s sexual bullying of Claire is ultimately normalized as a natural part of heterosexual relations. Of Hughes’ teen films, Ringwald writes:

The films are still taught in schools because good teachers want their students to know that what they feel and say is important; that if they talk, adults and peers will listen. I think that it’s ultimately the greatest value of the films, and why I hope they will endure. The conversations about them will change, and they should. It’s up to the following generations to figure out how to continue those conversations and make them their own—to keep talking, in schools, in activism and art—and trust that we care. (2018)

It’s significant that Ringwald ends her piece with this reflection on the teachability of Hughes’ teen films and their value for future generations. Sex Education, I assert, is a powerful example of a TV series that takes up the threads of the conversation identified by Ringwald, and invents new ways of framing it for 21st century youth culture. As Laurie Nunn, the female writer and creator of Sex Education has said of her development of the series: ‘I realized very quickly that it was an amazing opportunity to have a frank but funny conversation with a younger audience…The conversations happening at the moment in that area are interesting, and moving so quickly, it felt like a timely thing to do’ (cited in Frost 2020).  

‘Frank but funny’ is indeed central to the show’s approach to sex education, even when dealing with serious issues such as sexual assault. At the police station with Maeve, a nervous Aimee considers leaving, rationalizing that the ‘jizz’ on her jeans is basically equivalent to someone sneezing on her because ‘cum is kind of like a penis having a sneeze’; this observation is quickly followed by another: ‘ugh, that means that when you swallow someone’s cum it’s like eating their snot’. Later, while waiting in the police interrogation room, Aimee tells Maeve she hopes she does get her jeans back because they are the ‘perfect bootleg’ and ‘you don’t find that very often’, right before she farts (‘I’m sorry, I’m really nervous’). There is something liberating about these frank and funny moments, which take place in the context of a storyline that insists upon the need to take sexual assault seriously. There is also something very satisfying about Maeve’s calm, assured, and unwavering insistence to police officers that her friend Aimee was sexually assaulted on the bus and that what she was wearing, and whether or not she smiled, is of no consequence. The show supports this feminist knowledge and worldview, and demands that the rest of us do too.  

What makes Sex Education such a culturally resistant, politically productive series, is that it refuses to tell stories that dwell on pain, darkness, and suffering. It exists in the space of what-should-be, where the possibilities for personal happiness, equality, and social justice are found in acts of connection, empathy, and solidarity. In short, Sex Education creates the world its young characters deserve. In this respect, it reminds me of Dan Levy’s Schitt’s Creek (2015-2020), another recent Netflix series that is determined to tell ‘queer stories that don’t end in tragedy’ (Velazquez 2019) and that is rooted in a utopic world where its characters can thrive accordingly. 

It is also worth comparing Sex Education to 13 Reasons Why (2017-) – another popular Netflix teen series that attempts to ‘start a conversation’. Both series address a youth audience and attempt to tackle issues of consent, sexuality, and rape culture in the #metoo era. But the differences in how they do so are instructive. In the 13th and final episode of 13 Reasons Why, one of the young female characters, Jessica Davis (Alisha Boe), tells the court of her experience of sexual assault and how it has impacted upon her life. This testimony gives way to a montage, in which an array of female characters from the series, one after the other, speak directly to camera about their sexual assaults. Referencing the #metoo movement that first emerged online in 2017, the scene attempts to collectivize sexual assault and show how it effects girls and women of all ages, races, and classes. Though powerful, the montage and its evocation of shared female experience does not really match up with the rest of the series’ narrative content, which is somehow never really about female friendship at all. In its concern with covering a range of Serious Social Issues, 13 Reasons Why presents a turgid and bleak view of teenagers’ lives. There is an overwhelming, depressing sense of determinism, and of characters without agency, that pervades the series. Even though 13 Reasons Why includes overt images of political organizing, with, for example, a storyline in Season 3 about female students staging a protest against the patriarchal sports culture at Liberty High, it comes nowhere near the irreverent power of the female bonding to be found in Aimee and Maeve’s chats about the similarities between snot and cum, or in the detention conversation in which the group of girls deliberate over why some men are ‘so obsessed with getting their dicks out’.   

In their important book, Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture, Kaitlynn Mendes, Jessica Ringrose and Jessalyn Keller argue for the importance of exploring the productive, creative, and ‘innovative ways in which girls and women use participatory digital media as activist tools to dialogue, network, and organize resist and challenge contemporary sexism, misogyny and rape culture’ (2019, 2). Sex Education takes place against the backdrop of the networked media culture explored in Digital Feminist Activism, and examines issues that are intensely relevant for how young people navigate the now tightly bound relationship between online and offline spaces. As noted by Mendes, Ringrose, Kellner and other feminist scholars (Rentschler and Thrift 2015), humour is a useful political tool for shedding ‘light on the absurdity of victim-blaming narratives’ (Mendes et. al 2019, 17) and is often deployed in feminist hashtags as a ‘weapon of cultural critique’ (Rentschler and Thrift cited in Mendes et. al 2019, 17). Sex Education similarly uses humour in a way that ‘nurtures a politics of joy and resilience in the face of sexism, rape culture, and its apologists’ (Mendes et. al 2019, 17-18). 

As the girls describe how sexual assault, or the threat of sexual assault, has curtailed their movement through the public spaces of the bus, the train station, the street, the swimming pool, and the trailer park, their pain and discomfort is presented through the lens of their wit and resilience. The show’s approach to exploring how female bodies are treated as ‘public property’ is exemplified in the cold open to Episode 7, which flashes back to a younger Maeve, in shorts, walking through the trailer park where she lives as a group of boys jeer and cat call. When an older woman tells young Maeve she should be ‘careful dressing like that’, Maeve retorts: ‘And you should be careful perpetuating old-fashioned patriarchal ideology’. As older Maeve tells her friends during the detention bonding session: ‘So I went home and cut them [the shorts] even shorter. Because fuck them’. Sex Education acknowledges the statistic that ‘two thirds of girls experience unwanted sexual attention or contact in public spaces before the age of 21’, but it never traps its female characters inside of that statistic: it allows them to own their own stories. 

Back to the detention room. When Miss Sands tells the young women that they are free to go, (they were never responsible for the slut shaming in the first place – a lone white male student is to blame), she asks what they managed to come up with regarding what they had in common. ‘Other than non-consensual penises Miss, not much’, one of the girls matter-of-factly tells her as the group walk off together down the hallway. Visually, this is followed by an image of all six girls walking down the steps of the high school together, as Aimee states: ‘I don’t feel sad, I just feel angry’. 

This anger is given expression through a later scene in which the young women smash up abandoned cars and other detritus in a junk yard as a form of group therapy. The other girls cheer as Aimee smashes a car window with a baseball bat and shouts: ‘I’m angry that a horrible man ruined my best jeans and nobody did anything and now, I can’t get on the fucking bus!’ In the episode’s final scene, the young women help Aimee find the strength to get back on the bus: the final shot is of the young women sat close together as they fill up the back seat.

The political purchase of such an image is not to be under-estimated. As feminist activists, scholars, and educators have long argued, to challenge sexual assault it is essential to learn about the dynamics of rape culture. What is also essential is that we learn about the creative and resilient practices of young women as they push back against a culture that does not want them to take up space. In giving us joyful images of female solidarity and inventive resilience in the midst of societal circumscription, Sex Education creates the space to take the cultural conversation about rape and resistance forward in a way that centres female agency. 

Illustrations by Evie Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Works Cited

Frost, Caroline. 2020. ‘Sex Education creator Laurie Nunn on transforming the awkward teen experience into a TV masterpiece’. Royal Television Society, January, https://rts.org.uk/article/sex-education-creator-laurie-nunn-transforming-awkward-teenage-experience-tv-masterpiece

Horeck, Tanya. 2019. ‘Streaming Sexual Violence: Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why’. Participations. 16.2, https://www.participations.org/Volume%2016/Issue%202/9.pdf

Mendes, Kaitlynn, Jessica Ringrose and Jessalyn Keller. 2019. Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ringwald, Molly, 2018. ‘What about “The Breakfast Club”? Revisiting the movies of my youth in the age of #MeToo’. The New Yorker, April 6, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/what-about-the-breakfast-club-molly-ringwald-metoo-john-hughes-pretty-in-pink

Velazquez, Alex. 2019. ‘How “Schitt’s Creek Is Helping Usher in the Era of the Gay Rom-Com’. Shondaland, April 10,  https://www.shondaland.com/watch/a27100922/schitts-creek-era-gay-romcom/

Digital defence in RSE: Researching young people's image sharing experiences

School of Sexuality Education’s Sophie Whitehead and Amelia Jenkinson have been working with academics - Professor Jessica Ringrose (UCL) and Dr Kaitlyn Regehr (University of Kent) – on a research project centred around young people’s digital practices and image-sharing experiences. Part of the project has involved developing and using arts-based activities which can help young people to learn about SRE issues while enabling them to refigure and talk about their lives online. In one activity, students were given templates of Snapchat and Instagram screens and were asked to draw examples of their experiences online. The team recently published a paper on some of their findings around these methods. Some conclusions from the paper are detailed here: 

Our research demonstrates that many young people experience unsolicited sexual images on social media, and for girls, receiving unwanted “dick pics” or being harassed for nudes puts them in the position of passive recipient and “victim”... Drawing enabled a way of re-mattering this digital content - a reorientation of phallocentric power. The activity of drawing the unsolicited content that young people receive is easily translatable to a lesson… It can be a somewhat generic task that opens up spaces of exploring the ways complex private and public elements of pornographic content is received and experienced by young people on their mobile phones. The key is to frame this discussion explicitly within a conversation about sexual ethics, rights, and consent (Renold and McGeeny, 2018)…

Drawing the sexualised genital images to which they are involuntarily exposed demonstrates their ubiquity and normalisation for young people, but comes as a shock for many adults. We see the power of disrupting age-appropriate ideas about SRE and the jolting of adults out of complacency. Through the intra-action of seemingly childlike mediums (drawing with felt tips) with the taboo images of dick pics, the materiality of the images works to highlight the gap between “adult” perceptions of age-appropriate content young people should be taught about in schools and what young people’s lived experiences of sexually explicit imagery and pornography actually are (Mulholland, 2015). The fact that the felt tip drawings of masturbating videos and dick pics are so shocking reveals an important truth about our collective will to construct a false notion of “childhood innocence” (Renold et al., 2015) that ultimately, if  maintained, works to place children in harm through lack of information and guidance in the name of protection and “safeguarding”.

We are confident that our ongoing research in this area, as outlined here, demonstrates the need for digital literacy and digital defence as components of SRE as well as highlighting the importance of incorporating the experiences of young people into curriculum design.

The full research report can be found here https://www.ascl.org.uk/ibsha

Following this research project, we co-created comprehensive guidance on tackling Online Sexual Harassment. This document provides a comprehensive understanding of online sexual harassment for anyone working in secondary schools in England. Including the relevant laws, evidence-base and best-practice approaches to understanding, preventing and managing young people’s experiences of online sexual harassment.

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

School of Sexuality Education Conference 2019

What does sex education fit for the 21st Century look like?

Illustration by Evie Karkera

We live in an age of increasing digital connectivity: we no longer develop our relationships, or express and understand our identity through face-to-face interactions alone. Particularly for those at school, online and offline worlds are no longer distinct entities, and play ever more significant part in their learning, personal interactions and well-being.

But, this change is taking place at such a rate that we are failing to adequately support young people to navigate digitally-facilitated issues such as unsolicited dick pics, online harassment, image-based abuse, trolling, targeted advertising, body shaming posts, internet misinformation and more.

This year, our annual conference asked how we can provide sex education fit for the 21st Century; what does this need to address and how can we do that? Below are the talks, panels and workshops which tackled this from various angles:

• Protection vs. Rights: Reducing risk and harm in young people’s sexual cultures through discourse of rights by Dr Emily Setty

• Felt-tip dick pics: exploring digital intimacy and sexting amongst young people today by Sophie Whitehead and Nathaniel Cole

• Period Trackers: Intimate Friend or Corporate Spy? Dr Emma Chan & Ronald Stewart

• Pornography: a reflection through collage by Gayathiri Kamalakanthan

• Self care & digital habits by Sarah Adefehinti

• Panel: Pornography as pedagogy: what young people learn abut sex from mainstream porn, Chair - Almaz Ohene, Panellists - Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, Anastasia Meredith-Goujon, Nadia Deen, George Karkera

• Forever on Fortnite: How to talk to young people about Gaming by Andy Thornton

• Navigating Queer Spaces Online by Adam Clarke & Andy Thornton

• Internet is a dangerous place: online communities & sexual content by Dr Enrico Mariconti

• Digital sex ed and the issue of misinformation by Lucy Whitehouse

• Re-framing “Revenge Porn” as Sexual Violence: Girls and Women Speak Out by Dr Tanya Horeck.

• Panel: Digital Dating: Navigating first dates and relationships in the era of swipes, Chair - Becky Lund-Harket, Panellists - Diana Scott, Erdvile Girininkaite, Sarah Adefehinti, Leah Kurta.

During the day, School of Sexuality Education’s Andy Thornton created the fantastic images below, capturing the discussion and themes explored.

For more information about our events please contact info@schoolofsexed.org

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

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An open letter to the BBC

Transphobia in the media needs to stop.

This morning I listened to Justin Webb interview Jo Swinson about her stance on transgender rights and her proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. I work for an inclusive, comprehensive and feminist sex and relationships education organisation (School of Sexuality Education) as a researcher and teacher and was appalled to hear Justin's line of questioning (more like attack) on trans rights. The language he used contributes to a media representation of trans people as deviant and dangerous - this needs to be recognised and addressed.

Further to this, he positioned one question by suggesting that feminists are against trans women accessing refuge and support because it puts cisgender women at risk. In my experience, the vast majority of feminists do not support this view and would deem it transphobic. All women experience an increased and gendered risk of sexual violence and trans women, in fact, experience a heightened risk based on Stonewall research. The safety of trans women and cis women should not be a zero-sum game and to suggest that it is misses the point of feminism entirely. All women are women and all deserve protection and respect.

I'm honestly stunned that this kind of offensive and dehumanising rhetoric is being used by a BBC interviewer and feel strongly that Justin Webb owes trans and feminist communities a sincere apology. Words have consequences.

Written by a School of Sexuality Education facilitator to the BBC on 09 December 2019.

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

What is sex positivity?

SOPHIE WHITEHEAD SPEAKS TO THE SCHOOL OF SEXUALITY EDUCATION TEAM ABOUT WHAT SEX POSITIVITY MEANS TO THEM.

In our work with young people, we always advocate for a sex positive approach both in the classroom and in general. Sometimes the term can generate a bit of confusion with different interpretations and definitions contradicting one another. This post is about what we take sex positivity to be; how it helps us to frame school workshops and understand the place of sex and sexuality in people’s lives.

If you Google ‘sex positivity’, you’ll find several lists of what is isn’t. These lists rightfully state that sex positivity isn’t about promoting sex, always liking sex, encouraging others to have sex or always talking about sex. Rather, it’s about communicating, respecting, being curious and being open. I spoke to some members of the School of Sexuality Education team to hear their take on the term and their thoughts contributed to the ideas complied here…

Firstly, sex positivity is about communicating without shame or embarrassment. It could be talking to sexual partners about likes and dislikes, wants and needs. It could also be listening to partners about their preferences and, most importantly, being able to have this dialogue in a non-judgemental, honest and open way. This communication goes beyond the here and now too - sex positivity could mean being open to listening to a partner’s past sexual experiences or, conversely, respecting when a partner doesn’t want to have those conversations. The communication should ultimately be a source of empowerment between all people involved to ensure they feel safe, respected and can have fun!

While non-judgemental communication with partners is crucial, sex positivity goes beyond conversations in sexual relationships. It can also be a part of communication between children and families when growing up, or teachers and students at school, about destigmatising masturbation or giving young people the space to ask questions when they do want to explore their sexuality with a partner. The ability to engage in these discussions without shame or taboo is essential for sexual pleasure but it’s also essential for understanding safety and consent. Talking about sex removes its mystique and ensures young people know their rights.

Practising talking about sex as part of sex positivity is also important so that we avoid making assumptions about how someone wants to engage in sex or who with. It means stepping away from heteronormative and monogamy-based assumptions and, instead, working to understand our own and each other’s desires openly and without presumption. There are a variety of sexual preferences and practices – we’re all a little different. Being sex positive is about accepting and learning about that diversity in order to approach sex with a nuanced awareness of everybody’s multi-faceted, fluid sexual identity.

This includes being non-judgemental and accepting about sexual practices that are considered to deviate from the norm. It also means recognising that some people may not want to engage in sex or may want specific limits on this. It’s important to recognise and validate people who are asexual or demisexual, for example. Even though sex is healthy and ‘normal’, it’s not a necessary part of a healthy and normal life. According to School of Sexuality Education facilitator Almaz, ‘we live in a time and a culture where sexuality is conflated with sex acts most of the time and that needn’t be the case, so, for me, sex positivity is about accepting the full spectrum of sexuality.’

This acceptance of the full spectrum of sexuality applies to all ages too. For children, questions about sex and sexuality come from a place of curiosity. School of Sexuality Education facilitator Charlie advocates for the notion of ‘positive curiosity’. This means never judging but asking questions to understand other people’s perspectives and experiences and being open to learning from them. Too often, the curiosity we have around sex and our own sexual desires is framed as negative or taboo, cloaking the topic in feelings of shame. Interpreting this curiosity through sex positivity reimagines it and dismantles the oppressive framework of taboo and judgement, instead creating space for communication and open exploration.

Ultimately, sex positivity is about being non-judgemental, openly communicating and reducing embarrassment around sexuality in its many forms. Research has shown that sex-negativity and shame-oriented narratives have been linked to social problems such as homophobia, sexism, racism and gaps in sex education. Sex positivity can challenge this by avoiding stereotyping and dehumanising language which can prevent people from having important conversations around consent, pleasure and sexual health. Sex positivity isn’t about shouting sex stories or always thinking sex is great. It’s about recognising and affirming the sexual aspect of each person’s identity with all its nuances, wants, questions and needs – shame- and stigma-free.

Thanks to the School of Sexuality Education facilitators Emma, Gayathiri, Almaz, Charlie and Bex for sharing your thoughts for this post.

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Our take on the school uniform debate

School of Sexuality Education’s Sophie Whitehead explains the issue with school dress codes, and what needs to change.

School uniform is a long-contested topic in British education circles, so much so that it’s now become an overused classroom debate motion for the students themselves. Supporters of traditional school wear think it’s democratic, fosters a sense of school community and improves student focus during lesson time. Conversely, and in our view, more accurately, some argue that it creates additional expense for parents, limits self-expression and has to be policed by teachers, ultimately creating a disruption to learning. As those who spend time in schools will know, uniforms are rarely as democratic as they seem.

The gendered aspect of school uniforms is also at the centre of the debate. Uniform is problematic for non-binary, gender questioning or transitioning students who are made to exist within a system of boy/girl. The enforced binary undermines students’ rights to gender neutrality, fluidity and experimentation and therefore undermines the message of inclusivity and LGBTQ+ support which many schools ostensibly advocate.

In some schools, gender-neutral uniforms have been introduced in a bid to address some of these issues. Though well-intentioned, in practice, these policies can make the whole uniform masculine by enforcing ‘trousers for all’ type rules. Masculinity is coded as neutral whereas femininity is, well, feminine. Alternatively, some schools adopt a gender-neutral uniform policy by stating that all students can wear anything from the clothes available – i.e. ‘girls can wear trousers’. Again, though this is a well-meaning shift, in practice, social convention can mean that girls feel uncomfortable making that shift and so everything carries on as it was.

On top of these problems, we know that school uniform is inherently sexist. Even though many schools now offer trousers for girls to wear, the tightness of those trousers is routinely monitored and disciplined. If not trousers, girls are expected to wear skirts and thin blouses. The length of skirts is measured and the thinness of blouses leads to comments on bras seen through clothing and more. In some draconian cases, girls’ skirts have been blamed for distracting male peers and making male teachers feel uncomfortable. A self-evidently victim blaming suggestion. Add to that the itchy synthetic fabric of tights in the winter months and many girls are left with a choice between cold and discomfort.  

One student we work with commented, “I think it’s important not to call out a girl if they’re wearing too short a skirt or too low cut a top etc in front of the whole class because that’s humiliating, one of my teachers said to a girl “your skirt is very short” and then something along the lines of it’s not covering much. I thought that was really unnecessary, could have easily been said in a more respectful and private way.”

This isolated anecdote exists in different iterations in classrooms nationwide and demonstrates the way sexism and school uniform interact. Though it’s been argued that it’s is all in favour of smartness and pseudo-professionalism, misogynistic ideas about what constitutes professional clothing are evident in school dress codes. From skirt lengths to exposed collar bones, uniform enforcement goes hand in hand with the sexualisation of young women. It’s a uniquely gendered phenomenon.

At School of Sexuality Education, the work we do seeks to counter rape culture, victim blaming, binaries and body shaming. It seems that school uniform in its current form, even with attempts at gender neutrality, undermines the messages we often share in classrooms. Though some educators have tried, it’s hard to know whether a progressive uniform policy can exist, given the legacy it would be following on from. With this in mind, for us, no uniform is the way forward. We advocate for school policies which allow all young people the freedom to dress in a way that feels right and comfortable for them. No gender rules. No skirt measuring. No sexism. No binaries.

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

How to teach about sexual health: empowerment instead of shame

teaching methods used to help young people understand the importance of safe sex often use shame and shock to get the message across - but this is ineffective and even harmful.

Showing pictures of genitalia presenting symptoms of sexually transmitted infections has long been used a way to teach young people about the risks of unprotected sex. The rationale given is that these pictures shock students into taking sexual health seriously. However, despite the widespread use of this teaching device, School of Sexuality Education argues that not only is this method ineffective in aiding students’ learning, but it can also instil attitudes that negatively impact someone’s sexual health.

The distraction the pictures create inhibits learning

For most students, these images will be the first time a teacher has shown them a photo of genitals in school. Whilst we live in a society where grown adults use euphasisms to talk about the gentials, young people cannot be expected to respond in a way other than with shock and horror - and in fact, the learning outcomes are reliant on their collective disgust. But this emotional response creates a distraction which means students will be less able to productively engage with the key learning messages about sexual health. Sexual health, as with all aspects of physical well-being should be approached with a calm, rational and positive mindset: this is feeling we should aim to create in RSE.

The key learning messages are misleading

Importantly, focussing on symptoms of STIs can skew a vital learning messages: that a large proportion of STIs are asymptomatic. By looking closly at symptoms students could be left with the inaccurate impression that they will have visible symptoms if they have an STI (not necessarily); symptoms look the same for everyone (they don’t, of course); and that they could self-diagnose through learning about these symptoms (definitely not). Effective sexual health teaching therefore focusses on prevention and good personal health practise. This involves learning about different methods of protection and correct use; when to get tested; what testing involves (stressing that STI screening is very normal, sensible and should be treated as just another part of your personal self-care); getting to know your own body; and the importance of open and accurate communication with sexual parters and medical professionals.

The shame associated with sex is detrimental

There is still an enormous amount of stigma surrounding sex and sexual health. This culture of shame directly damages the attitudes and behaviours we need to promote in order to reduce sexually transmitted infections. Namely, we must feel empowered and confident in order to discuss using protection; to access sexual health services with the recommended frequency; and to communicate any relevant information to both medical professionals and sexual partners.

The affected response of the class - again, arguably the intended response - is one of repulsion. This crowd-judgement of a picture of someone’s genitalia with an infection is extremely powerful for contributing to our internalised shame around our bodies and sexual health. It reminds us that our genital health is something that is shameful and should be kept a closely-guarded secret, otherwise we will be subject to this same disgrace. Our response, naturally, may be that we avoid or delay speaking up, to the detriment of ourselves and others.

All of this raises the question: why have these photos stuck as a teaching strategy for so long? Most likely, because they align with the long-standing trend of abstinence-based SRE, in which scare tactics are used to try and discourage people from having sex. It’s time we move onto a scientifically accurate, empowering and useful approach, which young people need and deserve.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Internet disinformation: The blue waffle myth

By Dr emma Chan

Sometimes being a facilitator for School of Sexuality Education involves attempting to hold the attention of young people through wit, honesty and sheer confidence as you explain a specific curriculum point as your unembarrassable self. At other times it involves asking questions your audience may not have considered before and standing back whilst a tide of answers hits you.

“Can anyone name any sexually transmitted infections?” My colleague asked of a group of year 10 students just outside of London. Three of us were delivering a workshop on sexual health. This was definitely going to be one of the latter type of encounters. Luckily, this group wasn’t a shy one and answers came flooding forward.

“Chlamydia”, “syphillis”, and “gonorrhea” were proffered. All good answers and affirmed as such.

“Mono” was suggested, the infection also going by the name of ‘mononucleosis’ or ‘glandular fever’ – the ‘kissing disease’. By our extremely wide definition of ‘sex’ (any behaviour that someone finds arousing) completely valid and a good opportunity to bring this in.

Illustration by Dr Emma Chan

“HIV” was another suggestion, to me offered surprisingly late. Once seen as the sexually transmitted infection in the UK, hopefully this reflects a reduction in stigma and fear around this disease as treatment and prevention becomes so incredibly effective.

“Crabs” one pupil proffered - a nice segue in to talking about parasites. Another good talking point.

And then it came. The complete surprise.

“Blue waffle” one student called out.

This caught me by surprise a little. I had heard of this before, but only come across it in training and never actually in the classroom before.

If you haven’t come across it before, blue waffle is a fictional STI. It was something that Amelia and Hazel, School of Sexuality Education’s founders, remembered from their own school days, and had come across when talking to children in their research. The story doing the rounds at the time was that blue waffle was a disease contracted by women who had had a large number of sexual partners. Sometimes the ‘main’ blue waffle image is just shared around for shock.

At the time a google image search would return pictures of vulvas covered in lesions - very nasty looking lumps and bumps. To my clinical eye, some of the images looked to be lesions caused by genital warts. Others, including the ‘main’ picture, looked like erosion and growths caused by vulval cancers.

There are also fake-medical webpages dedicated to “blue waffles disease”.

Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly) the rumour ran that it was transmitted to people with vulvas and did not trouble penises at all. Even though this is how the disease was said to be spread. Turns out misogyny can be a powerful vehicle for keeping a lie alive – who’d have thought it!

This turned out to be the case for the young person who had introduced it in to the classroom in this instance. He was quite resistant to my telling him that it was a made-up thing.

“But Miss, if you look on Google, there are pictures!”

I tried to gently unpack this, explaining what I thought these images were actually of. It was a nice opportunity for a discussion about being critical of sources, particularly those on the internet. However, I left with the distinct impression that I had only created an aura of doubt in this person’s mind. I had not completely convinced him it was a total urban myth and an element of belief in blue waffle remained.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Why education that promotes equality and diversity should not be up for debate

School of Sexuality Education has published a response to the no outsiders protests and why education must be inclusive of all - available here.

Elmer by David McKee is one of the No Outsiders books.

Debate has recently been raised as to whether or not education should be LGBTQIA+ inclusive at all ages. This has been in response to the No Outsiders programme, a scheme of work developed by teacher Andrew Moffat for primary schools.

In fact, to describe the protests as being in response to LGBT inclusive education for primary school children is almost a bit of an overstatement. The No Outsiders programme centres around a series of lovely children’s books that promote equal rights regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, including And Tango Make Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and Odd Dog Out by Rob Biddulph. In reality, what is being challenged are children learning messages like, “did you know we are all different, and that’s a good thing” or, “by the way there are families that exist where there are two dads”.

The rhetoric surrounding the challenges to the No Outsiders programme has been strongly reflective of Section 28, which banned the so-called ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools. Although it was repealed in 2003, its legacy remains, resulting in the attitudes we have seen here.

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School of Sexuality Education provides LGBTQ+ inclusive sex and relationships education workshops for secondary schools, youth groups and universities, and training for staff. If you would like to work with us please get in touch.

Thank you to our volunteer Eve Pardoe for designing this piece.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Banning porn won’t work. So how can we best support young people’s digital intimacies?

WRITTEN BY PROFESSOR JESSICA RINGROSE AND THE School of Sexuality Education TEAM. originally published on the institute of education blog.

In recent weeks, conversation has been reignited around the UK’s porn block for under 18s. The plan to prevent teens from accessing porn has been long delayed, but the government recently reiterated that it is soon to come into effect.

Concerns have focused primarily on privacy: there is a particular danger that data breaches and data mining could occur because users will have to submit identity data so their age can be verified. The dilemmas for children and their parents and carers are vast.

But many experts who advocate for young people’s online rights and digital literacy do not believe that simply banning porn or mobile technologies will solve anything. Rather – in an age of widespread data mining, fake news and disinformation – we must ensure that digital literacy is the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths. We need to cultivate a well-informed citizenry that can navigate cyberspace. Protection from digital harm must be balanced with providing educational opportunities. And because young people also have rights to sexual health and information about their bodies, digital rights and sexual rights need to be considered in tandem.

Why the ‘don’t do it’ message won’t work

The failure to prioritise how the digital intersects with sexuality education was made particularly apparent in the recently updated government guidance for schools on Relationships, Sex and Health Education. As Jessica Ringrose explained on the IOE blog, the guidance fails to address important digital topics in enough depth or detail, even though porn is often one of young people’s main sex educators.

The two references to porn in the new guidance are: “that specifically sexually explicit material e.g. pornography presents a distorted picture of sexual behaviours, can damage the way people see themselves in relation to others and negatively affect how they behave towards sexual partners” (page 28); and that secondary school pupils should know the law around pornography (page 30). There are no links provided to in-depth lesson plans, policies or explanations to help teachers cover this topic, or information about why it is important to do so. Similarly sexting is only mentioned once to highlight that it is illegal under the age of 18. This is a worrying omission considering the depth and complexities of youth sexting.

So how are young people to learn about navigating digital intimacy, which is nowadays an everyday extension or antecedent to ‘in person’ sexual activity? How will they learn about sexual safety, respect and consent in the digital domain?

It is difficult to see how banning or limiting children’s access to certain technologies or digital spaces can answer these tough questions. Banning technology will not promote young people’s welfare when it is not paired with high quality education. Rather, the porn block seems more like a tokenistic tick-box exercise to appease groups who take a sex-adverse stance. But it is one that leaves young people at even greater risk than before.

Indeed, it is acknowledged that banning access to mainstream porn sites will not entirely restrict young people’s access to pornographic content, which is readily available on Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Google images.

The ‘don’t do it’ rhetoric surrounding teen digital intimacies can also be sex-negative. Stigmatising narratives can shut down much-need open and honest dialogue, and prevents people from reaching out when they need support, for fear of being shamed or blamed.

Sex-positive porn lessons

In partnership with expert advisor Professor Jessica Ringrose, School of Sexuality Education is working to tackle these issues. We work with a range of secondary school students who consume porn for a huge variety of reasons. Porn can sometimes provide much-needed reassurance that they are not alone in feelings, desires or identity – particularly for students who are not heterosexual. There is no denying that there are highly problematic tropes in much mainstream porn but the focus on banning access is overshadowing conversations around tackling this through effective education, through critical engagement and open discussion. Safeguarding young people’s rights and well-being requires in-depth exploration of these topics in age appropriate ways which is informed by up to the minute research.

Our lessons prioritise enabling young people to critically engage with topics like sexting, image based abuse and pornography. In each case the priority is placed on helping children with moral reasoning, ethical decision-making; and to advocate for their own and each other’s rights. Putting this into practise means understanding sexual consent, how it plays out in digital spaces, the signs of a respectful relationship, the role of bystanders and how systems of power operate in our society. This framework must be applied to explicit and relevant examples, rather than vague analogies or metaphors.

Our ‘porn lesson’ is tailored to help young people understand consent in real relationships in their own specific contexts and supports them to deal directly with questions and concerns in ways that unpack nervousness and anxiety. Discussions examine why porn is so popular and ask students to consider the economy of porn rather than something decontextualized that people simply consume online.

We also discuss much of porn’s orientation towards fast masturbation and prioritizing male desire in ways that can neglect consent and the needs and desires of others.

Let’s give young people the educational tools to navigate sexuality rather than relying on banning technology or digital content­ – a tactic that won’t work anyway. By carefully tackling taboo topics with young people, School of Sexuality Education’s approach has had meaningful impact on many young people’s lives. These research-informed lesson plans can help young people explore and develop their sexuality in a way that is safe, healthy, and shame-free.

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Our response to the statutory RSE guidance

From September 2020, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education will be compulsory in all UK secondary schools, whilst relationships and health education will be compulsory in primary schools.

In light of this, the guidance on these subjects is being updated for the first time since 2000. On 25th February 2019 the government released a second draft version of the guidance. This followed a public consultation last year on the initial draft.

At School of Sexuality Education we have published a detailed response to this new draft - available here.

We have laid out the positive changes, but also how this guidance can be used and built upon to ensure we bring SRE into the 21st century with inclusive and comprehensive provision for all.

You can read the new guidance here.

Thank you to our volunteer Eve Pardoe for designing this document.

Illustrations use in this blog are by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Perspectives for an Inclusive Sex Ed

Ahead of the close of the Government consultation on the new draft RSE Guidance, School of Sexuality Education decided to hold an event to provide a space to hear perspectives that have historically been marginalised from mainstream SRE.

We had a host of amazing speakers covering a huge range of topics, including sexual pleasure, queer identity in education and negative masculinity. The speakers and audience included young people, campaigners, activists, teachers, academics and social entrepreneurs.

At School of Sexuality Education we feel passionately that all young people should have equal access to a high quality, inclusive and relevant Sex and Relationships Education. The issues and themes raised during the conference were submitted as part of School of Sexuality Education’s response to the draft guidance.

If you didn’t manage to attend our conference, you can still…

• View the programme for the event

• Read our wonderful Speaker Bios

• Read our write-up on the event, including recommendations and reflections from the day!

You can also read Lucy Emmerson’s (Director of the Sex Education Forum) thoughts on the draft guidance in her article in School’s Week.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the event - watch this space for the next!

Illustrations by Evie Karkera, unless otherwise credited.

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.