Let’s talk about sex…
SOCIALLY awkward high-school pupil Otis might not have experience in the lovemaking department, but he gets good guidance on the topic in his personal sex-education course – living with mom Jean, a sex therapist.
Being surrounded by manuals, videos and tediously open conversations about sex, Otis has become a reluctant expert.
When his classmates learn about his home life, he decides to use his insider knowledge to improve his status at school, so he teams with whip-smart bad girl Maeve to set up an underground sex-therapy clinic to deal with their classmates’ problems.
Through his analysis of teenage sexuality, Otis realises that he might need some therapy of his own.
He can’t masturbate. It should be simple – he’s a high-school boy, after all – but he’s repulsed by the mere idea of it. What he can do is talk to teens about their sexual hang-ups, using techniques he has observed from Jean (Gillian Anderson). Mom’s pathological openness about coitus is probably why Otis (Asa Butterfield) can’t hoist his own petard.
A sweet, progressive British dramedy from newcomer Laurie Nunn, Sex Education (premiering on Friday on Netflix) blends teen sexromp tropes with a refreshing level of empathy.
While there’s plenty of sexploitation humour – prepare for close-ups of human nether regions and phalluses – the show is focused on how its teen characters learn to respect one another, and themselves.
Sex Education begins on the first day of school, and though Otis would prefer to fade into the crowd at Moordale Secondary, his best friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) has one goal: to move up the social and sexual food chain. What Eric doesn’t know is that sex is proving problematic for many pupils, including well-endowed bully Adam (Connor Swindells). After Otis gives Adam some impromptu advice about his performance anxiety, Maeve (Emma Mackey) persuades Otis to open a de facto sex-therapy clinic at school.
He is good at helping his peers with their intimacy problems, whether it’s a lesbian couple having terrible sex or a girl with an overactive gag reflex.
Butterfield brings an appealing authenticity to both sides of Otis’s personality – the awkward geek and the mature therapist – and his scenes with Gatwa brim with the goofy chemistry of boyhood best mates.
As Otis’s mom, Anderson exudes confident sexuality while allowing the character her vulnerabilities. The series also showcases Anderson’s under-appreciated comedic skills.
But Sex Education belongs to the kids. It might not be the first show to portray teens as real people, but its commitment to considerate intercourse (in both senses of the word) between young men and women is rare.
It should be noted that most of the series is written by Nunn and/ or other female writers, so yes, Otis could be considered an idealised version of male enlightenment – a beacon of positive masculinity who’ll render toxic dudes extinct.