Perhaps you know what this is.
This is called a demo, and it's sometimes used in schools
to show young people how to put on a condom correctly.
And there is a correct way because ejaculation comes out of the penis
at just under 30 miles per hour.
So there needs to be no air in the tip for it to withhold the spurt.
Did you know that?
(Laughter)
Did you know that when you first started having sex,
when you started to have relationships?
Perhaps you were lucky
and someone showed you how to put on a condom using one of these.
Or maybe penises just aren't your thing,
and you needed to be told about an alternative method.
But did you know what to ask for what you really enjoyed when you first had sex?
I want to talk to you today about changing the narrative
within sex education,
why we should be talking about it sooner rather than later,
and why we should be talking about pleasure.
You'll be pleased to know that there's no audience participation in my talk,
so you can all breathe a sigh of relief.
What is sex for?
Why do we have sex?
I'm going to be blunt and presume that the majority of people
aren't having sex for just procreation purposes,
but that we have sex for reasons that are a lot more ...
exciting.
Connection, enjoyment,
pleasure, and play.
By avoiding these simple truths when we talk about sex,
we are doing a huge disservice to both ourselves and the next generation
because we and they deserve these kind of experiences
within our sex and relationships.
Not only that, but by boxing it up as biology with crudely drawn diagrams,
we create this idea that there's one normal approach to sex and relationships.
Thus totally excluding this wonderful spectrum of activity in human beings
that our world is made up with.
Now, growing up,
I was really lucky that I had a great group of friends
who I could talk to about sex.
And we used to freely discuss desire and pleasure,
mostly the lack of it.
But one thing we used to really love talking about is masturbation.
We used to talk about it all the time, a lot.
And the way that we discovered what masturbation was
is nothing short of a feminist miracle.
It was from the film American Pie.
(Laughter)
Now, I'm sure many of you have seen this film.
Those of you who haven't,
American Pie is this really lewd coming of age movie from the late 90s,
and it's about this group of boys who are about to go to college
and they make this pact to try and "lose their virginities"
before their high school prom.
There's some really ridiculous and embarrassing moments
that are ethically questionable and totally toxic,
but I want to focus on the bit that really interested us.
So a storyline running concurrently with the boys trying to have sex,
there were two female characters called Vicky and Jessica.
And they discuss orgasms in such a normal way
that that became normal for me and my friends to discuss orgasms.
Additionally, there is this really wonderful scene
where Vicky receives oral from her boyfriend,
and he's gifted this bible of tongue twisters and instructions
because he really wanted to be good for her;
he wants her to really enjoy it.
And that was it, there it was.
The female orgasm was talked about and depicted in a really big film,
and it was normalized.
And suddenly that became normal for me and my group of friends.
And it was almost a kind of permission.
We had permission to experience desire and pleasure,
and we talked about it, and it was really fun.
Now, whilst that was a great discovery for me and my friends,
that can't be said for my formative sex education.
So the first time I was taught anything sex-like
was a few years previous to American Pie,
when an elderly school nurse sat at the front of my class
aggressively brandishing a cap,
one of these.
And we all looked on, perplexed.
She said: "You're going to need one of these
if you're going to (Muffled) 'have sex'."
(Laughter)
Really? Oh?
So if you imagine it with no sound.
And to demonstrate how this managed the incoming penis,
she probed at it with her two fingers,
and this demo cap, it was so old, that she just tore a massive hole into it,
which is not what a cap should do, by the way; they're very sturdy.
And that was it, 10 minutes, not even 10 minutes, she left,
we carried on with our lesson, and all of us were like,
"What's happened? What's just happened?"
I didn't know where it was meant to go
or why really I needed one.
Did the girls in the class who liked girls need one as well?
For a while afterwards,
I thought it was meant to perch on the end of a penis haphazardly.
Or it was meant to lie at the entrance of my vagina
like some sort of trampoline in the ground,
causing whatever was to enter to bounce off of it.
And I didn't have the internet at home to ask any questions,
and I didn't really want to ask anybody else either.
American Pie would come out a few years later,
and you know, pique my interest.
But at that age and in that time, sex wasn't really around that much.
I didn't really see it anywhere.
So, I continued growing up.
I read about it in Judy Blume books.
I glanced at the top shelf of a newsagent's.
I struggled to figure out who I liked, who I loved, all pretty blindly.
Nobody talked to me about connection, nothing about enjoyment,
nothing about pleasure, and nothing about play,
and that sucked.
A few formative experiences in my life
later influenced my decision to become a psychotherapist.
A lot of that work has been very relationship based,
with both adults and teens.
So over that time I've naturally heard quite a few sex stories.
And I really have heard them all,
the good, the bad, and the ugly.
It's wonderful to hear the good:
erotic, filthy, transcending,
playful, hilarious, loving,
orgasmic, connecting, empowering.
The bad:
awkward, embarrassing,
weird tastes, weird smells, weird noises,
the dog walking in.
Having sex with somebody you shouldn't really be having sex with,
like your boss, or your ex-partner, or someone else's partner.
These are encounters which are still light-hearted,
and the situation is still fine for you to still have a good sexual encounter,
just a bit cringy, maybe a little bit regretful.
But then, there's the ugly, shameful,
manipulative, humiliated,
coerced, forced,
and I heard so many of those sex stories that I just thought I have to do something
that's a bit more proactive when it comes to sex education.
So, I decided to teach it.
I got a job teaching sex education to teenagers
and running sexual health drop-in clinics.
So during that time in the drop-in clinic,
I got asked anything and everything, which was great, so great.
But I noticed amongst all of the conversations we were having
around STIs and contraception and consent,
there was still something we weren't actively discussing:
pleasure.
So I started asking them:
"You know all these sex toys you're having,
is it fun?
Does it feel good?
Does your partner care about it feeling good for you, and vice versa?"
And then suddenly I was having these conversations with young people,
and realizing that there's another category of sex stories,
sad ones.
I heard about sexual activity for these young people
in which they were passive, where acts were done to them and at them
instead of being active, equal participants.
And not only did I see myself in that, but I saw history repeating itself
almost 20 years later.
It became clear that by not being open with pleasure information,
we're just helping this pleasure gap widen,
and we're still creating this huge blind spot
in how young people learn to have sex.
And what broke my heart
was that I heard so few good sex stories in that age range.
And I also learned there's a fine, fine line
between the bad and the ugly.
I learned that for so many teenagers
a sexual encounter was about power dynamics,
or pushing boundaries, or an obligation.
Lying back and thinking of England.
On the other side,
those who were doing it at their partners, not with them.
Did they really want to be doing that?
Looking at how sex education is currently taught in schools,
there's definitely some things to be really pleased about.
We're having more conversations around consent and healthy relationships,
and we're being more inclusive with LGBTQ+,
and those with disabilities and learning needs.
But there is still a gap,
and young people still aren't getting all the information that they really need.
Most notably, there's still a lack of real pleasure information
and blunt appreciation for what sex is for:
connection, enjoyment, pleasure, and play.
And that it is for every body.
We're still reluctant to talk to our young people
as sex as being a pleasurable and connecting act,
something we do because we really enjoy doing it.
We still keep it as something hidden,
something half obscured, in the hope that they'll just get it.
Sex education still has a really long way to go,
with new legislation coming in to make it a mandatory part of the curriculum,
now is the time to be thinking about how it could be rebooted.
So firstly, I want us to see sex education as a broad term,
because it is broad.
We learn it from lots of different places, not just in our education system.
We learn it from friends, partners, parents,
guardians, TV, film,
advertising, social media.
Nowadays, it is everywhere.
Sex is everywhere.
It's no longer just in Judy Blume books, or on the top shelf of a newsagent's.
To believe that we can compartmentalize sex education
into a lesson or two at school,
probably thrust upon some unsuspecting, overworked teacher,
and for that to be enough,
is a fallacy.
Sex and the way we that we talk about it
deserves so much more than a lesson in a time table,
because it's feeling.
It makes the world go around.
It connects us.
In the absence of robust sex education starting from an early age,
we know what young people are turning to:
the internet.
The fountain of all knowledge and also cat pictures,
but where anyone decides that they're going to type in a question
that has the word "sex" in the sentence,
one is also going to naturally stumble upon something
that is, oh, so ready to be discovered:
free access pornography, which has no boundaries.
I don't need to tell you that this kind of pornography
is rarely a wholesome source of impartial information
for young people to learn about sex.
Pornography is a big business
and an industry that has very little regard for what it's teaching.
I took the liberty of going to a few free access websites
to see what was on their landing pages and what were the most searched-for terms.
[gang, fake rape, teen, barely-legal, step-brother, screaming, unwanted, son]
It's estimated over half of 11- to 16-year-olds
have seen pornography online,
with the average age of first seeing it being 11 years old.
Some argue that that could be even younger.
The stats show that this is usually by accident
or by someone actively showing them,
but that's still really worrying.
Now, pornography and the concept of being turned on
by erotic representations isn't new.
There's nothing wrong with it, nothing shameful,
and it's normal to engage in fantasy for arousal.
And I want to be clear that I'm not here to demonize all of pornography.
What I do have a problem with is how easy that was to find,
and how so much of that content
is categorizing and fetishizing particular human beings,
usually through degradation and humiliation.
And I fear what that does to young people's brains.
Not only that, I worry about objectification,
and I worry what that repeated exposure
does to their ability to connect with others.
Around a third of sexual abuse of children is carried out by their peers.
Where is that coming from?
If we're so unprepared to talk about connection and enjoyment,
then what are their relationships going to be like?
I know that this feels really uncomfortable for lots of adults,
and as adults and parents, we want to keep children as safe as possible.
You might think that by talking about this you might be affecting them negatively
or even impacting their childhoods.
We want them to enjoy naivety and innocence,
and to not frighten them with something that feels too big,
or too adult, and too big a conversation to be having.
You might also be really worried that it might be seen
as crossing a boundary, being inappropriate
or hyper-sexualizing children,
but the aim here is that we want the next generation
to understand that sex and relationships
is about connection, enjoyment, pleasure, and play,
so that they can recognize it when it is not these things.
As much as I want us to come at this from a fun and pleasurable point of view,
I also really want us all to be vigilant
and to safeguard against abuse that might be hiding under our radar.
So what's the solution?
How do we have these kind of conversations?
So, when a child or teenager asks you about sex,
please don't run away.
Step into it.
They come to you for a reason.
Their curiosity has brought them to you,
who they trust to provide them with some answers.
Don't rebuke them with an "I'll tell you when you're older."
See this as an opportunity to give them real information,
and it'll keep the conversation open for when they get older.
To help you navigate, remember these three key things.
Number one: use the correct terminology from the get-go.
It avoids confusion and it keeps them safe.
For example: it's not a tuppence, it's not a fuff.
It's a vulva and a vagina.
Okay?
The vagina is on the inside, the vulva makes up all that's on the outside
of someone who has biologically female sex organs.
Using the correct terms, it's not dirty; they're not dirty words.
Number two: sex, talking about sex,
and having sexual feelings isn't shameful.
Avoid telling them off. Stay curious.
Remember that it's normal, natural, and healthy.
And number three: if everything else fails you,
keep fun and connection at the basis of your conversation.
Because at the heart of it, what is sex?
It's love in its rawest form.
It's a meeting of ourselves and human beings in vulnerable states.
It's swimming together,
being in your own little bubble, your own little world.
It's being in a space to explore
and trusting that that person will treat your body with respect.
It's being inside your own body, experiencing what it can do,
being empowered in your sexuality and choosing what to do with it.
I wonder if we'd always been taught about connection, enjoyment,
pleasure, and play.
How would we make love?
How would we express desire?
Without the pressure to perform, what sounds would we make?
Where would our eyes go?
What positions would we place our bodies in?
How would we have ourselves be touched?
Which erogenous zones would actually drive us wild?
Would we have less or more sex?
Would we be different with each other?
Would you be different?
How would the world be?
I really believe in the next generation,
and I believe they're capable of love and connection,
and to hear this kind of information.
I know talking about sex can feel really awkward,
but it doesn't have to be.
Be brave, break it down, and talk about sex.
Thank you.
(Applause)