Further [sex] Reading

It's funny how a series of events all come along at once, that are so perfectly linked. Following on from my last blog post, Sex Education, I've come across a couple of other articles and events that tie into it nicely and further highlight the importance of writing sex right.

The day after my original post I attended a Critical Sexology talk held at Queen Mary University, London. The theme of the lecture was Sex and Pedagogy. Unfortunately, I was only able to stay for the first two speakers as other deadlines and work commitments meant I couldn't go for the whole afternoon.

The first talk was titled, “More than Words? Erotica, Sex Education and Responsibility: How Adult Media Can Provide Adult Advice” Massively interesting; in brief it discussed how far do the materials adults use for sexual satisfaction (erotica, porn, magazines), and in some cases inspiration, need to include particular messages to promote greater sexual awareness and how can it be used positively to further adults sexual education. Although I haven't got access to the lecture, the chair of the event was tweeting, so you can get a fair idea here and I strongly encourage you to take a look and have a read.

The second talk was at the other end of the spectrum and looked at how sex education is received by young people. Again, all the tweet links are here so you can look into it. What struck me about this talk was a model sex educator Jen Hazel, was putting out there that in the UK we still teach sex ed on quite an archaic model working on the basis of what's considered "normal" and what's "other". For example, being heterosexual is "normal", therefore most sex ed for young people will be taught from this p.o.v. Other sexualities such as gay, bi, asexual may be touched on, but would fall under the "other" category.

What Hazel suggests is finding a common starting ground for sex, something that everyone will at some point experience and then branching out the education to fulfil the needs of the audience you're dealing with. She called it an 'Inclusive Pedagogy' - I think from what I remember - and means that you start with shared experiences and then work outwards to cover all angles. I'm doing a really bad job of explaining this so briefly, but I don't want this post to get bogged down with me regurgitating the whole lecture. Seriously, read the Tweets.

Ok, so this then links in with another blog article I came across and about how in the media we're still getting it so wrong and looking at furthering our sex education in a sensationalist manner, rather than a positive or practical one. Rewriting The Rules discusses how we're still framing important debates around sex and sexuality in a very narrow minded manner and asking the wrong questions.

Finally, if this has in any way tickled your fancy and you're starting to question whether the sex ed you're reading is good for you or not, or you're a writer in the media and concerned that you're not doing sex writing justice, there are a couple of upcoming events you may enjoy/benefit from.

The first is Eroticon 2013. This is all about 'writing sex right' and ideal for anyone from amateur sex bloggers to sex researchers and professional authors. Short notice, but it's taking place this weekend (March 2-3) in London.

The second is another, new, lecture evening on March 17th called 'Birds, Bees, Please' and has been organised by adult performer Johnny Anglais. I urge you to find it on FB by doing a quick search of the title as it's set to be a really interesting evening of sex positive talks from professionals across the sex industry.

Phew, right, I think that's it. Hope you find some of this useful. I certainly have and am only just realising how much of a questionable impact some of the material out there is having on the sexual progression of adults. Sex ed certainly DOES NOT end at high school.