A show full of sex that every teen should see and, no, it’s not Love Island...
I’M not a prude. Well, I am, but only in the privacy of my own home. I’m very happy for others to do whatever they want with whoever, whenever they want, while I keep the bulk of my clothes on and my eyes averted. But the TV series Sex Education is quite something – even if you’re not at least three parts an aged Catholic aunt.
The creation of playwright Laurie Nunn, it follows the mostly sexual escapades of a group of 16-year-olds at fictional Moordale High.
The main character, Otis, has absorbed so much knowledge about carnal matters from his sex therapist mother Jean (played by Gillian Anderson) that it’s put him off the practice itself.
Cool loner Maeve swiftly spots a business opportunity here and turns Otis’s expertise into a money-making scheme, with him giving advice to fellow students in need of an education in real sex.
A second series of the drama launched on Friday on Netflix and it covers a huge amount of ground. From a couple who injure themselves during intercourse, to the inability to masturbate, via gay and lesbian sex, virginity loss, vaginismus and much more. Indeed, an awful lot of human life is here, and explicitly so.
Unsurprisi ngl y, t he first series received much criticism and I suspect the new one (which, as a TV reviewer, I’ve seen in its entirety) will do likewise. Not least because it begins with a bravura sequence proving that Otis has finally overcome his mental block.
You ought to watch it. No matter how many parts aged aunt you are, this is an important programme. And you must urge your children (from low teens and up) to watch it, too.
Because – as well as being superbly written and hysterically funny – it has a vital message.
Although to the untrained eye it looks like something born of, and feeding straight back into, the soulless, pornified culture in which too many are steeped and which the internet generation sadly believe is normal, I strongly believe that it is a potent and necessary antidote to it.
Sure, it treats many and various sex acts for laughs. But it also handles the accompanying emotions with utmost respect. Its moral message centres on the crucial difference between sex and intimacy. Intimacy does not necessarily involve sex. Sex does not necessarily imply intimacy. And one is always better when both are involved. Yes, I realise this is an old-fashioned coupling of two notions that long ago became divorced from each other.
Indeed, the experience of a friend, whose job as a doctor had changed beyond all recognition, made this clear.
She retired recently, more willingly than she expected after a career teaching sexual health and wellbeing in schools. Her job involved explaining to young teenagers why boys should never bully/coerce/cajole (delete according to temperament of boy) girls into ‘doing things’ that they then record on phones and send the images to friends.
Sex Education may be crude ( the actors, for the avoidance of doubt, are all in their 20s, not teens) but its storylines show young viewers that sex should be enjoyed – by everyone involved.
Moreover, this does not require the slavish copying of behaviour they’ve seen on the internet and porn sites. It requires communication as equals.
Amid the jokes and physical disasters of the TV drama is the message that, speaking honestly, eliciting not just consent but enthusiasm for any sexual activity is a far better way – and will set you free to enjoy yourself far more.
Now that an education.