By Mx. Cleo Mizrahi
Sex Education is a British show that follows Otis Milburn, the son of a sex therapist who, together with his best friend Eric and too-cool-for-school classmate Maeve, start an underground sex clinic in his school. |
| Teens, as usual, played by actors in their late 20's |
The ongoing changes to ensure the content is more pluralistic don't detract from the reality that cishet couples/relationships are more centered, while everyone else is an aberration. While Otis tries his best to help his schoolmates with their sexual problems, the fact remains that he is an unqualified, non-licensed version of a young Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung. A cishet white man, who is using his limited sexology research and lived experience. This is both a flaw of the show, but one that the show is aware of: In the absense of qualified sexual education, teens (or even adults) will turn to more dubious sources. Like conservative priests/imams/rabbis repressing, projecting, and writing criminalized laws, to create a culture of stigma towards the evolution of sex, sexuality, and attraction that is naturally of the world, which is beautifully is exhibited by humxns of all genders, orientations, ages, and abilites.
Three seasons in, it's clear Moordale High is filled with your typical misfits who carry a slew of problems that contemporary teens in Wales, who are coming of age, are encountering. But does exploring different sexual situations through the scope of dysfunction rather than healthy relationships serve to further the cause of sexual education, or just to dramatize the show?
I wonder how GenZ, Millenials, and GenAlpha are absorbing the streaming material. Is it benefitting their sex life, or if the screenwriters are hindering their impact by confusing their viewers with highly voaltile content? Does it place further pressure and unrealistic expectations on anyone's search for fulfilling & wholesome intimacy with another person that fits our unique selves the best?
