Netflix’s original series ‘Sex Education’ has been a juggernaut for the streaming platform.
The content giant (notoriously cagey with revealing viewer numbers) has reported that 40 million households worldwide watched the show within its first four weeks of streaming.
Its second season was announced less than a month after the first season’s release.
The show sees teenager Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) bless his classmate with sex and relationship advice, using the absorbed information from his VERY open sex therapist Mother (Gillian Anderson).
It also seems to be filling the informational gaps surrounding sexuality that have been left in young people by formal institutions.
One episode ends in the class screaming “it’s my vagina” Spartacus-style at a school assembly after a girl has an unfavourable pic of her nether regions circulated.
Another follows a female character’s discovery that sex can (and should) be a pleasurable experience for women after receiving Otis’ sage advice (“So, you’re prescribing a wank?”).
This isn’t the first show in Netflix’s canon to address these squeamish issues. ‘Big Mouth’ follows a group of animated 13-year-olds as they tackle puberty and it pushes the envelope even further (think anthropomorphised genitals and multiple musical numbers about body positivity.)
It’s particularly upfront about issues of gender equality.
When awkward teen Andrew asks his crush Missy if there’s a male equivalent to the online group she's just joined ('Girls Are Perfect and There’s Not a Thing Wrong With Any One of Them and Anyone Who Would Tell You Otherwise Is Actually Just Afraid of Your Power!'), she replies, “Oh ho ho yeah, it’s called, ‘society’ you privileged white, cis-hetero male!”
Lets talk about sex, Baby
Liana Rawlings is program coordinator for YEAH, a team of peer educators that tour the country to discuss topics of sexuality, drugs and health. She sees shows like 'Sex Education' and 'Big Mouth' as refreshingly honest takes on a too-taboo subject.
“It doesn't sugar coat it or scare kids into not having sex. It’s more an honest conversation about the realities or going through puberty and being a teenager.”
It’s these open conversations that Edith Cowen University Senior Lecturer and sex education scholar David Rhodes says are missing from Australia's sex education curriculum.
“There’s lots of gaps. LGBTIQ+ inclusion is one considerable area of neglect [as well as] explicit teachings about sexuality and relationships.”
I think there's some false belief that we’re trying to protect young people, protect their innocence but really what we’re doing is not providing them with the opportunities to reach their full potential.
Sex education in public schools is dictated by that fall underneath health and physical education. However, each state and territory can interpret and create their own curriculum.
Deakin University Professor Debbie Ollis has spent 30 years researching and teaching about young people’s experience and voice in sexuality education.
She says that this model is a recipe for inconsistent and unsatisfactory education.
We’re still got a real focus on fear, shame and harm minimisation.
“What need to move into positive sexualities, making people feel good about who they are and taking a sex positive approach.”
It’s this idea of sex positivity that features in the ‘Big Mouth. The second season sees characters Andrew, Missy and the rest of their friends defeating a monster called the Shame Wizard.
Years of societal shame surrounding sexuality are presented in a neat, animated, 24-minute episode.
Stepping it up in the real world
Rhodes maintains that while Netflix’s catalogue of informative, entertaining sex education programming is important, it shouldn’t be a replacement for the real thing.
He says it’s sad that society expects young people to go to Netflix to engage with these issues.
What I find really sad is that we, as a society, are expecting young people to go to Netflix.
“The shows are great but they may not have been great and that would be the only places that young people can access that information. We need to be providing it in schools.”
