Sexologist’s take on John Oliver sex ed video
7.2 million people yesterday were all like, “OMG Dr. Jill! What do you think of this sex ed video from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver?!?!” Thanks for asking! Here are my thoughts:
It’s nice when something you’ve been shouting at the top of your lungs for a decade and everyone ignored is finally, suddenly, magically, touted as genius when a guy says it in a comedy routine. And by nice I mean, unbelievably important and exciting for the cause, but rather deflating for my professional self-efficacy.
But my ego aside, I’m so glad Oliver shined light on the embarrassing disgrace that is sexuality education in America, and I’m thrilled mainstream media is at least pretending to give a shit about the crisis (and it is a crisis). He did an astounding job examining the intricacies of the problem.
The part where he discussed fear-ridden, misogyny-focused, and often Christian-based abstinence-only sexuality education lies and misinformation programs that liken women who have sex before marriage to old shoes, chewed up gum, and dirty tape was especially important to me for a few reasons:
First, the dirty tape program is the “sex education” program that I myself endured as a high schooler. It did so much damage, it is in part why I decided I wanted to become a sexologist when I was 15. I wrote about the horrible experience in my book, and in my college program “Virgins and Sluts” where I talk about the harm of the virgin/whore dichotomy, I reenact the lesson with the students and have them unpack and examine, frankly, how utterly fucked up these messages are.
Second, I know despite many people being vocal about these horrible programs, including me, and Elizabeth Smart, who has been quite outspoken about how she was made to feel like a “used up piece of chewing gum nobody wanted” because she’d been raped, the chewing gum, dirty tape, and a new one (prickly rose stem with the petals all gone) lesson plans are STILL promoted by private Christian organizations, and STILL being taught to teenagers in PUBLIC school classrooms, including my high school, to this day.
Oliver in 21 minutes hit on a number of truths in the tragic state of sexuality education. These include:
- The disproportionate power of one Puritan parent to cause a ruckus, get the media and the school district to throw the teacher under the bus, and ruin the opportunity for every other student to have access to medically accurate information about their bodies, health, and sexuality. This happens with parents of college students (read: ADULT STUDENTS) too, which I’ve written about here, and here. I also talk about this phenomenon in my college workshop “Sex Ed in America”.
- Ridiculous, embarrassingly cheesy, outdated, shame-filled, and/or fear-based sex education videos that continue to be played in classrooms. I play some examples for the audiences in my Safer and Sexy college workshops to provide context for the very different way I teach about pregnancy and STI prevention, and you can view a few clips of them here (starts at :27).
- The total lack of cohesion in sex education mandates. Some states don’t have any sex education, some states do, but don’t require the material to be medically accurate (HELLO!!!), and the experiences of sexuality education varies so widely from district to district, school to school, and even teacher to teacher. All of these decisions about whether to have a sex ed curriculum, and if so, what subjects lies to include are, sensibly, made by people who have absolutely no training whatsoever in human sexuality.
- The correlation between states without sex education and soaring teen pregnancy rates. It’s infuriating how many people willfully ignore such thorough science and data because “I have *feelings* and sex is icky!”. Actually, it’s criminal that people charged with educating and preparing youth can so spectacularly fail, withhold life saving and life changing information from students, ignoring all evidence, and still have jobs and get funding for their programs of lies and shame.
- The cleverness and resourcefulness of sexuality education professionals who find ways to impact students despite a lack of funding, lack of support from the district and state, and the ever looming fear of a rogue parent ruining their career. I’m happy Oliver played the clip of the educator who wasn’t allowed to discuss condoms teaching students how to properly “roll a sock on a foot and then put the foot in the shoe”.
- The rampant homophobia and slut-shaming, both subtle and egregious, that are in programs offered at schools.
- An across the board failure to have meaningful discussions about consent, and consent lesson plans that focus on a heterosexual context of girls’ “no” being dismissed because it wasn’t “firm enough” instead of focusing on, ya know, training all parties to value autonomy and only engage in sex with an enthusiastic “yes”. And when you promote, fund, and allow this flawed message to be taught to students, as Oliver pointed out, “you are abetting an already troubling culture where a bunch of frat guys can march around Yale feeling completely comfortable yelling out “NO MEANS YES, YES MEANS ANAL”.
His summation line, “There is no way we’d allow any other academic program to consistently fail to prepare students for life after school, and human sexuality, unlike calculus, is something you actually need to know about for the rest of your life” I thought was especially on point.
And then Oliver produced a star studded sex ed video for the people who have been failed by the system. It checks off quite a few of the items that I think need to be included in any good sex ed program:
- pleasure, fun, exploration, and toys (including lube!)
- it’s OK to say no to sex, and it’s OK to say yes to sex, and if anyone wants ridicule you about either choice, they’re “assholes”.
- contraceptives exist to help protect against unwanted pregnancy and infections, but you may have already experienced either, and this doesn’t make you a bad person.
- skill building demonstration and practice
- what giving and rescinding consent looks like in myriad ways, including stopping mid sex act, and saying yes to some sex acts but not others
- sexual language (”if you call it a who-ha, you’re not ready for sex”)
- general sex-positivity and normalizing of sexuality.
There are a few things I would have liked to have seen be different in the sex ed video:
- OMG IT’S A VULVA, NOT A VAGINA
- mention of sexual identities
- a blurb about what the clitoris actually does
To John Oliver- thank you!
To the news media- remember this the next time an outraged parent wants you to run a story about how, GASP, their kid is learning that genitals do more than piss, and these other things are kinda fun.
To readers who agree with all of this- we need you to do more than “like” this! Find out what is being taught in the schools where you live. If they don’t have sex ed, or have “girls are chewed up gum” type of sex ed, voice your concern! Write to your representatives about stopping abstinence only education and funding comprehensive sexuality education. Tell the school board you want them to hire a professional sexuality educator to develop a curriculum for the district.
We need to reframe this conversation from “Tonight at 6, a parent is outraged about a poster in a classroom that lists SEX ACTS!” to “Tonight at 6, the community is outraged that Christian moralizers are paid millions from tax dollars to tell girls in public school they’re worthless if they have sex or are raped. The entire city, except two parents, are calling it ‘scandalous and disgraceful’ that professional sexuality educators and scientists are being cast aside while preachers are granted unvetted access to children to indoctrinate them with medically-inaccurate lies about their bodies that data demonstrates can lead to disease and/or a lifetime of mediocre sex, as well as instilling shame about their sexual identities, and contributing to a culture of sexual violence”.
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