What kind of sex education did you receive in school?

Absolutely none!

@Nurse_Phillips the old learn reproduction by accidentally reproducing trick !

None at all. All my learning was extra-curricular.

@Nurse_Phillips the old learn reproduction by accidentally reproducing trick !

Which may explain why I was a mother at 19

I went to a public school. They did sex ed units annually from 5th grade through 10th. This included watching films and slide shows as well as lectures and book work. It was maybe 50% about puberty and 50% biological reproduction. A little bit about “moods” and adolescent social behaviors but not a lot. Most of it was how a sperm fertilizes an egg or else about how you are getting hair all kinds of places and having wet dreams.

Being Catholic in my house didn't automatically push you into the Catholic school institute of … learning(?)

I went to a public Jr High and Senior High school, okay a very well funded set of schools. And the liberals were just making their push to sway all brains full of mush to their agendas. My sex ed teacher was pretty cool as a matter of fact. The only major problem was when the males all got perfect scores on their female reproductive tests and very few females did because of one question.. how often did a woman have her menstrual cycle. Correct answer: Once every 28 days….. right…. just like the book says…

But she was very cool about some hot topic questions and how to deal with STDs and the importance that if you were having random sex to go get tested for HIV and extra. Also had an in depth discussion about condoms and the various models and textures and lube vs unlubed. Ribbed vs smooth. She was the most fun. She even allowed a discreet show and tell about favorite devices. And I didn't know Kathy's mom had sooooooo many toys.. what a slut.

As I've mentioned in the past my sex ed partner in crime was my best friend Jeb. He let me be as aggressive as I wanted to be And I encouraged him to be more open and up front with me. He was my first kiss. My first boobs being felt up. My first fingers between my thighs (from someone else). First finger in my hole. As he was my first hand job, blow job, And first one to have real sex with me.

So by the time college came, I was well rounded and well informed.

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

@agracier Internet access will do that for you.

I'm pretty much responsible for my own sex education. My parents certainly didn't teach me anything as they were very prude. I observed and I read a lot, and when the time came for me to put my theoretical knowledge into practice, I believe I did the best I could.

In the late fifties and early sixties there wasn’t any sex education in Junior or Senior High per say. We did have Health class in both Junior & Senior High that barely covered the human body, let alone anything else. The funny thing was, during the chapter on home first aid, there was a discussion and 16mm film on how to fix and administer enemas. The only sex education my siblings and I got was investigating each other's private parts and playing around with each other. The primary reason mom had our RN grandmother teach us personal hygiene as preteens, was to avoid answering sexual questions that could arise during an enema once puberty started. Afterwards, we were responsible for ourselves in the enema department. Strangely enough, that gave us the opportunity to explore our sexuality in part through enemas. Giving us the freedom to give ourselves and each other enemas whenever we wanted for health or pleasure. For my brother and I it was enemas, but for our sister, it was both enemas and douching. In short, my siblings and I became our own sex education teachers. Doing so, by exploring and experimenting with each other.

Little to none from school, learned most of it from my female classmates. 😉

I remember two things distinctly. First was 6th grade where they took all of the boys in one room and the girls in another room. My recollection was that was mostly about puberty and changes that were happening and just a little bit about sex itself. I do remember the various permission slips that came home before that.

The second was in high school in 9th grade health class that you had to take. An entire unit on sexuality and development. I think we mostly just joked about it between each other because the teacher was an mostly an idiot though fascinated about STDs and which ones could be cured versus not.

beyond that self taught at the library and then some from friends. Internet was mostly still being developed so the occasional magazine and VHS tape.

Very basic including black and white films and a few very dog-eared books in the library.

nothing really usefull.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM let me think. Public school. Sex Education?

I do not remember that class. And I did go to all my classes.

I am older, but in the late 50's and 60's, nope No Sex Education classes.

I was 12 years old at school when we first had sex education classes . I remember how excited/embarrassed everyone was about them. We were lucky and had a very good teacher. It was all very matter of fact and biological but he did talk about things slightly outside of that scope , such as masturbation, orgasms, promiscuity, he did make the classes interesting. Some kids who were in the class next to ours had a teacher who refused to teach it. So once a week when they were scheduled to come to our teacher for religious education he taught them sex education instead, kind of behind the other teachers back.

I am going to go to school with Laura L.

Her classes sound like fun compared to no classes at all.

Many years ago, when I was in High School, the school wanted a new gym. They announced that, because gym classes were overcrowded, the next year we would have sex ed classes for one semester. Some parents freaked out because if the students knew about sex they would do it. After a lot of controversy, it was decided to have drug education so that the students wouldn't do drugs. It didn't make sense to us either. The drug education class was a joke. A gym teacher went to a summer class on drug education. When he taught our class and got things wrong one of the stoners in the class would explain things to him. The result of all this was a new gym and no change in the amount of sex or drugs.

the next year we would have sex ed classes for one semester. Some parents freaked out because if the students knew about sex they would do it.

Just because students know about algebra or logarithms, doesn't mean they will start doing them for fun … ha ha ha.

Don’t recall much except that they divided us. Girls with the two female teachers, boys with the male teacher. I so wanted to be a fly on the wall in the boys’ classroom! At least the women teachers informed me of a few things my own parents never did.

I remember i was on the 4th grade and it was really technical and i didn't learned much. It was basically how the babies were concieved.

I remember i was on the 4th grade and it was really technical and i didn't learned much. It was basically how the babies were concieved.

We got it in the equivalent of 9th grade and didn't even get taught that much practical at all.

Mostly it was about feelings and still trying to maintain a suitably non-physical relationship. It wasn't any bible-thumping, abstinence-only, scaring the bejesus out of kids with venereal disease stuff either though, thank goodness. It was much more polite and civilized, but essentially not all that much different in the end.

Thinking back on it - our health ed class didn't bring up anything about sex (at least as I remember). But our male gym teacher (boys only) did talk about sexual feelings, arousal etc. Our foot ball coach told us to keep it in our pants!

Our foot ball coach told us to keep it in our pants!

In my case, think of a highly educated Jesuit with an almost poetic way with words pretending to be very progressive and all, but basically saying the same thing, only much more flowery and wishy-washy.

We had no sex education at all. Although the female biology teacher did announce during one lesson that she was going to cover the facts of life. The class went deathly quiet, you could hear a pin drop. But all she talked about was the female pelvis and how it was different to the males to accommodate childbearing and childbirth. I had my sex education down the local park after school, you learn on the job and it's much more fun…

@GraceT

Don’t recall much except that they divided us. Girls with the two female teachers, boys with the male teacher. I so wanted to be a fly on the wall in the boys’ classroom! At least the women teachers informed me of a few things my own parents never did.

I feel the boys and girls should be together in the same classes. Don't the girls want to know what questions the boys have and the same for the boys about the girls? Wouldn't it be nice if you both had some idea about what you're doing the first time?

Thankfully my parents were fairly open about sex, reproduction etc as back when I was growing there was basically nothing in school.

@agracier - so did my old man!! That was it!

In the second grade (1983), we threw around a lot of words without knowing what they meant. Or, maybe *I* did not and my classmates did, who knows? Whichever the case may be, one evening over spaghetti dinner when Granddad was visiting, I asked him flat out - with complete, 100% honesty - If he was gay.

I do not remember the answer. Nor do I remember the rest of dinner. But I do remember sitting out on the back steps with my dad this evening, when he placed The Joy of Sex in my lap. My instructions were to look at the pictures, read the definitions, and ask my questions.

That was how I learned about The Birds and The Bees - in full, photographic, literary detail. Later on, I saw the real thing when he disrobed and encouraged hands-on Q&A. I was told about masturbation, that I needed to touch myself so that I would know what I liked so that I would know how to communicate that with My Future Partner(s).

Then, when my mom decided it was time to have The Talk with me, she plopped a copy of Sanger’s What Every Girl Needs to Know on my lap, then walked away.

Thank goodness for Montgomery County Maryland public schools.

A letter was sent home in the fifth grade. If our parents signed it, we were separated by gender into different classrooms and taught through very educational films depicting with animation the union of the egg and sperm. I think we went to this class for three afternoons. One afternoon filled us appropriately with Fear that encouraged Abstinence… but if you cannot wait, here’s how to put a condom on a banana… and you need to know that because, otherwise, you would get pregnant outside of marriage and probably get a horrible sexually transmitted disease.

It sounds flip, in the retelling, which I suppose I am. But looking back on it, sometimes I want to laugh at the way I learned these things, and sometimes I marvel at exactly how much - despite what was given to me - I still did not realize/know/understand.

So with the benefit of hindsight, I took my girls, on the day that they started their periods, for ice cream. Then, with correct anatomical terms, very frankly explained the basics of sex.

DH is responsible for educating our sons.

And we speak very frankly in our home. Of course, that is not to say we do not modulate the content of the subject matter such that it is age-appropriate. But we talk, preferring that to handing someone a book and walking away.

DH is a high school teacher and he loves a good documentary - no matter the subject. So if there is a particularly good documentary on conception, pregnancy, etc., the kids have been known to sit and watch along.

The world of sex that our kids are venturing into seems so different! And that makes me feel exactly as old as it makes me sound, LOL. I do have to admit, though: sometimes I will get the unexpected question that I do not know the answer to, I may say “Google it,” to the two older kids (adults).

So with the benefit of hindsight, I took my girls, on the day that they started their periods, for ice cream. Then, with correct anatomical terms, very frankly explained the basics of sex.

But we talk, preferring that to handing someone a book and walking away.

Handing kids a book is still far better than pressure groups wanting to prevent such books being available to kids at all in the first place. And that because many parents still don't really know how to have The Talk.

Like they say about being responsible for your own orgasms, I had to be responsible for my own sex education and was lucky enough to be able to buy the appropriate books on my own.

I'm not sure parents are the right people to be teaching their own kids about sex. They have a too close relationship. I think it should be taught in school but those pressure groups are still too influential.

It's like my pilot friend who refused to teach me to fly. He said you never teach someone you know. He was the best dam pilot I knew and the only person I wanted as an instructor. He had 2 B17s shot out from under him, left the service after the war got called back to fly the Berlin airlift. Out again and called back for Korea. The last thing he flew for the Air Force was a B36. When I knew him he was flying agricultural in the summer and in the rest of the year towing banners and air taxi into Logan. He was famous for towing a banner behind a J3 backward over Hampton Beach and nitelite banners/UFOs near Boston. Plus teaching flying to anyone but me.

So I feel sex ed should be taught by professionals. Around here a minor can go to a doctor without telling their parents and the privacy laws make it illegal for the doctor to tell them. If you can get an abortion without telling your parents the school should certainly be allowed to teach you how to not need one without parental approval.

How I learned:

As a child - my mom's medical and nursing books.

As a tween - sex segregated “health” class in the US public school system. I can't really remember the details of this, other than it inspired a lot of fantasies about my female classmates. My real education came from my best friend's mom, who left a copy of The Joy of Sex where it could be found by the curious. I read that book cover to cover several times and it contained all the “mainstream” sex practices you would be familiar with. It really didn't cover “kink”. It was because of that book that I had a clue what to do when presented the opportunity.

As a young teen and onwards - Men's magazines. A lot of “kink” got covered in Penthouse and its letters section.