What kind of sex education did you receive in school?

I was wondering what kind of sex education members received in school. Was it cursory and virtually useless, more detailed, strictly physical reproductive oriented or did it touch on more practical sexual matters like masturbation, gay sex, or did any member even get schooled in sexual abstinence or less usual kinds of imparting/restricting sexual ed? Or was anyone ever shown sex ed films, however silly or beating round the bush they were?

My own experience was getting sex ed classes in a Jesuit school in Belgium in 1965 from a Jesuit priest. There was very little practical about the whole thing. Not ‘birds and bees’ stuff, but almost as useless. The priest had written a book or two on the subject , but it most mostly so poetic and beating around the bush and about feelings, feelings, feelings, that it didn't really impart much practical information. He did advocate for guiltless sexuality not feeling guilty about things like masturbation or having a crush on a same-sex friend, but in the typical Jesuit manner of frowning upon such sexual activity anyway, as in ‘we are supposed to be better than to give in to such base instincts and drives’.

He was also known for inventing sexual euphemisms that were often ridiculously silly and far too poetic for their own good. It's hard to translate them from Dutch into English, but even when he later garnered some media attention, he was often mercilessly kidded about his concocted euphemisms.

One of them was his euphemism for sexual intercourse with penetration (PIV of course). He called it ‘de diepste draai’ which translates as ‘the deepest twisting’. Sounded like something from a Joni Mitchell or Cat Stevens song …ha ha. Most kids laughed about it. I didn't even really get it at all, it was so refined and etherical.

The priest in question in later years somehow got to run an old brewery out in the country as a sort of meeting place, retreat, very basic hippy-dippy ‘commune’ of sorts where schoolkids/people could come and stay for a while to get their heads screwed on back right. He got a lot of media attention, especially when it was found out that quite a lot of nudism was allowed. He later went on to found the first Green Ecological movement in Belgium which became the base for the first Green Party.

That was my first source of sexual education. Wishy-washy and virtually useless from a practical, implemental point of view. For instance I do not think it was ever said out loud that a penis goes into a vagina, let alone an erect penis. They did like to go on about useless etymologies about old-fashioned words for sexual organs like a ‘roede’ (stick/penis) and a ‘schede’ (sheath/vagina) and how swords were put into sheaths and such kind of euphemisms. Actually almost as useless as birds and bees when it came down to it.

Even so, the priest was considered daring in 1965 and apparently not all parents thought it a good idea to give any kind of sex ed in school at all. Probably the kind of parents who wouldn't do much explaining themselves either.

My real sex ed came from buying English language sex books in less conventional book stores some years later.

We had a supply teacher do our sex ed lesson. She was fantastic, explained everything with great gusto and left nothing to the imagination…

WE didn't have Sex-Ed classes. We had a “Health Class” but I don't recall anything being said about sexual organs or sex. My formal Sex-Ed training was schoolyard discussions and locker room jokes with classmates.

WE didn't have Sex-Ed classes. We had a “Health Class”

Come to think of it, in Belgium it wasn't called sexual education either.

There was a special, nutty and smutty sounding word called ‘Voorlichting’ which translates into something like ‘enlightening’, as in revealing the secrets of procreation and all that. One can sometimes in special circumstances use the word in a normal conversation meaning to simply explain something, but for people of my generation it is still enough to cause us to start snickering like nerdy teens …

What kind of sex education did you receive in school?

All I remember from my 4th grade health class was that my woman teacher seemed to be into enemas.. describing how she felt giving herself one in detail. She also mentioned enemas at other times.

The closest thing to sex ed I had was not in school where there was NOTHING at all, not even “health” classes. My best friend Davy Crockett, that was his real name, had a copy of Playboy with Marilyn Monroe as the centerfold which we inspected every time I went to his house. I don't count all the false crap that came from the other self proclaimed experts I was surrounded with because I was at least smart enough to not believe them. I suffered from that lack of information for the next forty years until the advent of the internet. That lack of knowledge ruined my dating life in high school. Not that the girls knew any more than I did but they knew I didn't supply what they liked. It affected what I/we should have known when we got married and for years after. Knowing nothing about the need for lubrication made sex for me and the wife quite painful at times and even caused some injuries to both of us, physically and mentally.

It affected what I/we should have known when we got married and for years after.

Well, I was naive to say the least when I got married as well. I thought that women did not, nor could they enjoy sex and they only tolerated sex to please their husbands. I thought that in time they got used it… I was surprised that my bride liked it, wanted it, and would moan and groan during it.

Well, I was naive to say the least when I go married as well. I thought that women did not nor could they enjoy sex and they only tolerated sex to please their husbands. I thought that in time they got used it… I was surprised that my bride liked it, wanted it, and would moan and groan during it.

That “please their husbands” seemed to be a regular theme in older movies and a lot of literature when I was young. I specifically remember a B&W movie where the young woman is talking to an older woman about her husband wanting sex and the older one tells her it's something she must do for her husband even though she finds it disgusting. My half sister from my father's first marriage was 18 years older and she remembered when our grandmother remarried after her first husband died. She soon divorced him right away because “the dirty old man wanted sex”. I guess it works both ways though because I remember sis visiting when I was little and complaining to dad about her second husband not being interested in sex. He must have been a real doofus because my half sis was a beautiful red head with a body to die for. I always thought of her when I heard this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWDYAr45RnY

@roscoe I wouldn't have minded spending a few hours with Barbi Benton LOL

Boy, it's been so long. But it was through my church youth group. We had slides and such, and discussed what we saw, and how we felt about it. I seem to remember passing around things like IUDs and whatever else. We used Changing Bodies, Changing Lives as our textbook (predecessor, I believe, to Our Bodies, Ourselves). I held onto that book for a good number of years, but my mother eventually threw it out. Before that happened, four of the neighborhood girls were hanging out in my room and one of them pulled the book out and flipped through it. Asked me a thing or two about a few pic she saw. That was interesting. I kind of wonder what the remainder of her sex ed was like.

I also did some sort of sex ed class at my university, but the professor made a very clear warning to the class of about 30 that that session---the one about physical disability in sexuality---was to be our “free day”. We could stay in class if we wanted, but he made great pains to convey how uncomfortable and awkward the session might be because of the content. So the final exam would not have anything on that classday.

So, that was demoralizing and ableist. I have spina bifida. I primarily use a wheelchair. I am not in a relationship, but that is, at least nowadays, voluntary. I don't want kids and don't want to be married. But sexual and sexological site like this are a huge part of me. Education is important. You never know how you will use it. That goes for sex and many other things.

The fifth grade there was a “presentation” for girls about the changes and menstruation. Probably talked a bit about ovulation and all…but it's been a few years ago and my memory is lacking. As I had started my period just the summer before.

Other than that I am not remembering much else in school about it. Though in another class a group I was a part of gave a presentation on the sexual reproduction system. No has the makes. So a bit of reading, research, was done to do my presentation.

In my school we got the whole dog and pony show including fresh bananas and condoms , after properly applying the condom the bananas would become a snack ( I don’t have any idea what became of the condoms but they were still latex back in those days ) . I am actually quite proud of when and where I went to school and graduated because I was one of the last classes to get a full regular education curriculum with a whole slew of elective classes from auto mechanics to wood shop , I took drivers education as an elective and got my permit in the school car ( it was purchased new in 65 it was Pontiac station wagon , it was only used by students in drivers Ed and maintained by the auto mechanics and metal shop classes ) I thank god every day for the things my school did for us before the public education system was gutted of funding and that “no child left behind crap “ completely obliterated all that made me & My classmates well rounded educated people , yeah sure we drank and smoked pot behind the gym like every other group of kids to grace those hallways , but every single one of us ,regardless of where we call home are still giving back to our small town and trying to ensure todays kids get as much of what we got in them as possible .

Went to school in southern Kentucky, it was useless. In middle school we had Postponing Sexual Involvement which was mostly people from the high school talking to us about the horrors of pregnancy and STDs. We had two weeks of “sex ed” in health class which barely covered anatomy and then harped on how dangerous sex is and because we're underage its also a crime! In high school they just screeched about the values of abstinence when it was covered.

Went to school in southern Kentucky, it was useless. In middle school we had Postponing Sexual Involvement which was mostly people from the high school talking to us about the horrors of pregnancy and STDs. We had two weeks of “sex ed” in health class which barely covered anatomy and then harped on how dangerous sex is and because we're underage its also a crime! In high school they just screeched about the values of abstinence when it was covered.

And yet here you are, on a perverted sex forum … ha ha

@roscoe That “please their husbands” seemed to be a regular theme in older movies and a lot of literature when I was young. I specifically remember a B&W movie where the young woman is talking to an older woman about her husband wanting sex and the older one tells her it's something she must do for her husband even though she finds it disgusting.

I must have seen the same movie, as believed that sex was something a wife had to do… We were never taught that women possessed a clitoris that was source of pleasure.

Zero, zip, nada. Absolutely nothing. I went to a Catholic elementary school and the closest I got to it in HS was the content of my AP Biology text on reproduction

Context: 1990s, UK, South east secondary school. Very basic sex education. All designed to make one avoid it all costs, nothing about enjoyment. The (limited) syllabus focused on condom use. I learned more from positive home education - cool parents etc.

It was mainly focused on nothing is foolproof except abstinence, you're not as well prepared to raise a baby as you think you are, just don't do it. Middle school was more focused on puberty, then later on they introduced the idea of an STD. High school was when a more “balanced” discussion started happening, the hard work of raising a baby, no birth control except one is foolproof. They talked about other methods of birth control, but it was all slanted as this is not the best, this is not 100% effective.

Whether it's expanded since then is unknown. There were a lot of areas that over folks had to fill me in on. The most sex positive discussion we ever had in school was not in health class, but in advanced English. We were reading the Scarlet Letter, and our teacher asked who do you think had the more positive view of sex, north or south. Most of the class answered south, and she said no and did a great impression of a mother instructing her soon to be married daughter “You have to lie with the master of the plantation to have heirs, but it's not enjoyable, the only women who do enjoy it are prostitutes” and how this led to becoming confused when they found it was enjoyable. She then explained the north's view that was if it was within the bounds of marriage, it was seen as a good thing.

Post high school, when I was touring campuses most of them mentioned that you could get testing and contraception through the student health center with various degrees of overt or covertness. The one religious school I toured, not a single mention beyond “here's the student health center, you go here if you're sick or hurt or want to see a counselor” as it was assumed we'd wait until marriage.

Very little. Something around 6th grade, mostly a dumbed down biology lesson, but we paid attention when the teacher talked about getting our periods!

My parents were terribly shy about such things. They bought some books meant to help me understand. I did read them and look at the pictures, but they never engaged me about it. I learned a lot from talking to other girls, especially girls with older sisters. I was an only child.

There was only one day a year our biology nun teacher was absent. The day we had to cover the reproduction chapter, with a quiz at the end. Otherwise, just learned in the locker room and a playboy or two. Still not sure if I have learned enouhh.🤪

Some BS Catholic based stuff during something called religion class that we were supposed to attend from 9-12 grade one evening a week. I put up with this nonsense until grade 12, found a job that required me to work that particular evening so I ended that part of my religious education. After attending college, majoring in nursing, working in the ED for many years before going into administration, I got a worldly education in sex, sex education and everything related to it.

I don't recall that we had a formal sex education class in school. However, we did have one or more sessions where we were shown the old 16mm black & white films on sex and it's “evils”. This was back in the 1950s, so my memory of the film's content is very vague. During the time I was in high school, my mother was very ill and she spent a lot of time in hospitals, and with working and visiting her, my father had very few words of advice, other than don't". I received my education in that area from the doctors and nurses at that hospital and the ones I worked in during college.

I went to a Catholic Grade School and in 5th grade they pulled out the “Family Life” Books that very clinically told you what reproduction was, how it happened and that was it… In like 7th or 8th grade I was in Public School and they mentioned condoms etc but even that was pretty basic despite teen pregnancy being a pretty big problem in my High School.

Catholic school for me as well, 12 years of it. Not a word about sex, reproduction or anything even remotely related.

Raised Catholic until 5th? grade, finished H.S. mid 50's. No sex ed, nothing from parents. Maybe the reason I still ‘study" the subject today or I’m just horny.

In catholic grade school a deacon (at the time, now a priest) gave us boys sex education. The only thing I remember is not to stop the cum from (he didn't use the wrd cum) coming out, just let it go. His little boy friends later molested me (in another post).

My mom was pretty open with me & my sisters from a young age about sex, where babies come from etc. 8th grade life science is where we had official Sex Ed class. Watched movies about STD's, ovulation to birth

My mom was pretty open with me & my sisters from a young age about sex, where babies come from etc. 8th grade life science is where we had official Sex Ed class. Watched movies about STD's, ovulation to birth

@chelle300 I wish I could have had what you did but there is 40 years between us and I do feel my mother was pretty forthcoming for the time. The only thing that really touched on anything sexual was before I started school in 1945 she wanted to be sure I knew that some boys I might see would look different because they had some skin cut off their penis. Nothing at school or from her that touched on actual sex advice though. Absolutely NOTHING throughout my 12 years in school.

Were any of your school classes co-ed? I personally feel boys and girls should both get the same information and even better if they are together in the classes. They need to know that the other knows. Boys need to know about girls problems and feelings and so do girls need to know the same about boys. They both need to know what stupid and incorrect information the other has already learned.

Does a couple of Hot sexy teachers count ??

Does a couple of Hot sexy teachers count ??

In 10th grade we had a HAWT teacher - I don't even remember the subject (wonder why?). Right after the James Bond movie Goldfinger came out she was laughing and teasing with us about the name of the female character “Pussy Galore”. Would've loved to “galored” her pussy!! 😈