On September 4, we mark World Sexual Health Day, which was created in 2010 to tackle the stigma and taboos around sexual health. With this year’s theme being Consent, and last year’s theme being Let’s Talk Pleasure, it got my mind buzzing around the genuine effectiveness of our supposedly polished queer sexual education.
I have just turned eighteen, having escaped the clutches of the education system, and not once, in my 1,825 days of school, did I learn about queer pleasure, non-penetrative sex, or consent within the queer community. For a large part of my adolescence, queer sex was shrouded in taboo and uncertainty.
“School shouldn’t just be a ‘grab a grade and graduate’ scheme, it’s where we are taught lessons that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.”
The first time I ever had queer sex I had had no preparation – I was clumsy, confused and embarrassed because an age-old institution seems to be stuck in the 1800s. I’m not quite sure what they’re so afraid of – does queer sex education invoke images of teachers brandishing sex toys like swords and letting out a battle cry? I mean, a 1970s softporn video had more information than my sex-ed class.
The issue expands outside sex education. When I was in year 11, I had to design my own educational platform called History Untold for my peers, where I wrote lessons on queer history. In the middle of my GCSEs, I had to do the government’s work for them – try to use Pythagoras to figure that one out, Sunak.
“For a large part of my adolescence, queer sex was shrouded in taboo and uncertainty.”
Sex education remains hugely heteronormative, so where do the queer youth go? Porn. A violent, shaved, slick, edited and polished version of sex. (Might I quote Jameela Jamil – “nobody needs that shit.”)
Pleasure and consent haven’t manifested themselves into mainstream pornography, so children are being denied knowledge in the one place that is meant to have an expanse of it. School shouldn’t just be a ‘grab a grade and graduate’ scheme, it’s where we are taught lessons that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives, where we grow into the adults who will become the future politicians, teachers, artists, scientists and writers of the world. We must empower the children who will become leaders, not lead them to believe their identity is a sex symbol.
In Prime Minister’s Question Time, March 2023, Conservative MP Miriam Cates expressed her concern over the RSE curriculum, claiming that it is “age inappropriate, extreme, sexualising, and inaccurate”, proclaiming that children were learning “graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely, and 72 genders” (an entertaining collection of checkpoints – ‘Now kids, enough about Henry VIII – let’s talk light BDSM!’). She called the issue a “safeguarding scandal” – which seems more fitting for the kids being redirected to Pornhub rather than their classroom, I digress – and proposed that sex education should be about children being “safely taught biological facts”.
Considering World Sexual Health Day for the past two years has centred around consent and pleasure (two things not inherently biological), it appears that Cates hasn’t quite surpassed the time of putting condoms on cucumbers in biology class. She leaves no space for giving the benefit of the doubt when accusing the content of being “disproportionately dominant” to queer topics.
This may be a hot take, but I find it hard to comprehend that any queer content could even attempt to be “disproportionately dominant”, due to being repeatedly forgotten, disregarded and isolated from education surrounding our history, stories and relationships. We act as if Section 28 (a local government act in 1988 under Thatcher which prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality by local authorities”) is an archaic concept, but don’t forget that this was in place for 15 years, only being removed in 2003.
“We are loud, proud, stripped of shame, and we aren’t going anywhere.”
Need I even mention Florida’s ‘Don’t-Say-Gay’ bill, which was protested by an estimated 200 people earlier this year, who marched from Westcott Fountain to the Florida Capitol. The bill claimed that “these topics of gender identity and sexual orientation have no place in the classroom”, according to Alex Canfranconi – Director of Communications for the Department of Education, who quickly followed up with “keep indoctrination out of our schools”.
I have never considered my lesbianism to be an ideology, and even then I imagine Florida is overestimating my brainwashing skills – I can’t decide what I want for breakfast, let alone on a Lesbian Agenda World Domination scheme (future autobiography title?)
“We act as if Section 28 is an archaic concept, but don’t forget that this was in place for 15 years, only being removed in 2003.”
We have made incredible leaps, however. In 2020, 17 years after Section 28 was removed, the Department of Education made relationships and sex education compulsory in all secondary schools, enabling teachers to educate with inclusivity. Bringing it right back to home, in 2020 primary schools in Brighton were encouraged by Brighton’s officials to go “above and beyond” the statutory sex education, saying “our city is well known for our free thinking, open and inclusive nature. We promote acceptance and respect for difference at the heart of everything we do… it enables them (children) to understand and respect in age appropriate ways the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities in Brighton & Hove.” Let’s raise a glass to that!
A report by LGBTQ+ youth charity Just Like Us, published earlier this year, found that students with supportive school and home environments are twice as likely to be happy in early adulthood, with those who don’t being nearly twice as likely to be prone to depression. We must work to ensure that future generations of queer children are being empowered instead of disregarded by their schools – sex is not dirty, and we are not sex symbols.
We are loud, proud, stripped of shame, and we aren’t going anywhere. My generation and the generations to come, need to be enriched with confidence and self-assurance, a form of self love that will be passed down to our children, and their children. Those who furiously marched in 1988 against the introduction of Section 28 did not fight to see us crumble now. Remember, power lies within knowledge, and we intend to be powerful.
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