"Sex Education": Exactly What We Need Right Now

I’ve just finished watching the second season of Sex Education and, while I had reservations about this show at first, I must say that I’m now fully on board with the message it’s trying to send. Put simply, Sex Education is promoting the healthy discussion of sexuality and targeting that discussion toward those that need it most: youth.

Ahhh yes, the famed “It’s Perfectly Normal” sexual handbook

I can still remember my mother handing me a copy of Robie Harris’ book, It’s Perfectly Normal, after I started asking questions about my body and vocalizing my doubts that a stork could possibly deliver every single baby to its family. I mean, that just sounded like a logistical nightmare, not to mention animal cruelty!

However, as I watched Sex Education, I found myself thinking “If only this had been around when I was growing up.” Truly, kids these days are so fortunate to have these unprecedented discourses on LGBTQ+ rights and human sexuality so readily available to them. Never before has society been so open to these topics, and it’s in no small part due to shows like this that keep the discussion moving forward.

Just a few days ago, I saw the announcement that Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade’s 12 year old had made the decision to transition to “she/her” and rename herself “Zaya.” I thought “Wow, good for her.” When I think back to what I was doing at 12 years old, I don’t think gender identity ever factored in. Maybe I’m just lucky and it was never really a question, or maybe it was that nobody had bothered to ask. Fortunately, my gender is not something I’ve had to wrestle with, but so many people do, and it’s oftentimes such an uphill battle.

In Sex Education, no topic is off limits. The show shares that sex can be for recreation, not just procreation; emphasizes the importance of asking for consent; and covers the whole spectrum of sexual orientations, including — but not limited to — gay, lesbian, asexual, and bisexual. There’s so much I’ve learned from Otis’ wealth of copulative knowledge, but there is perhaps one lesson that stands out from the rest: that it’s okay not to know.

Late in the season, when Anwar is confronted with the opportunity to dabble in anal sex for the first time with his boyfriend, he understandably freaks out a little bit. Having never done it before, the idea of the preparatory douching is daunting. How do you do it? What happens if you do it wrong? Can you do it wrong? To find resolution, Anwar turns to Otis, and for the first time, we genuinely see him clueless. This is uncharted territory for them both.

Rahim’s guide to anal douching - for reference ;)

But rather than scoff and shirk his responsibility as a mentor and a friend, Otis considers it a learning opportunity and jumps at the chance to sit through a blow-by-blow of douching etiquette provided by his best friend’s boyfriend, Rahim. This sort of acceptance — this endeavor to understand — is what we’ve been lacking.

For so long, the status quo was “If you don’t understand it, it’s probably wrong.” You can imagine how limiting that was, especially for those in the LGBTQ+ community. Yet in recent years, there has been a paradigm shift in how the world looks at sexuality. One’s sexuality and gender classification now make up a large part of one’s identity, even maybe sometimes more than one would like.

Toward the end of the second season, there is a scene where a group of girls is forced into detention due to their suspected involvement in slut shaming a teacher. In addition to the glaring homage to The Breakfast Club (1985), there was one aspect of this forced collective that put a pit in my stomach.

Tasked with finding a mutual interest, these girls sat amongst themselves pulling topics at random to find the common thread. Chocolate? No (I know, it’s hard to imagine that anyone could not like chocolate). Fantasy gaming? No. Shopping? No. Eventually, they got off topic as a lover’s spat arose between two characters, with a third screaming “Stop fighting over a stupid boy!”

In an emotional confession, she goes on to describe the assault she experienced on a public bus weeks beforehand that had left her scarred beyond comprehension. Suddenly, they’ve found common ground. Assault, harassment, predation. That’s the tie that binds them. It’s the tie that binds all women.

I felt sick to my stomach listening to their stories of being groped, followed, or harassed. I related too much to Ola’s recollection of being stalked by a man on her way home, just for him to flee at the sight of her father waiting for her. To have to “be dependent on another man to protect me,” as she put it, brought to mind my own experience of being caught in a precarious situation.

To thwart any unwanted advances from a man who approached me in my own backyard recently, I had to act like my older, stronger brothers were just inside waiting for me. I hated it. It should be enough for me — or any woman — to just say “No.” It shouldn’t be necessary to come to terms with the fact that we wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight if it came down to it. I’m reminded of Margaret Atwood’s famous line from The Handmaid’s Tale: “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.” And it’s true — we are.

I’m not often resentful for my sex and gender identity but it’s moments like that where I can’t help but feel this aching dread that can only come from being a woman in a man’s world. Yet that scene in Sex Education reassured me. While I loathe the thought of all women relating to one another in their histories of assault and harassment, it’s also the one thing that unites us. It’s the driving force behind the Me Too and Time’s Up movements that are ripping to shreds the very fabric of this patriarchal society.

Sex Education has proven to be more than just a satirical take on human sexuality in one’s prepubescent years. It promises shelter from the storm that is the onslaught of misunderstanding and misrepresentation that has played such a pivotal role in society in years past. But no more. It says “You’re different, and that’s okay” without singling anyone out or leaving anyone behind, and that’s a very hard thing to do. I, for one, can’t wait to see where this series will take me and, more importantly, the discussion at hand.