Sex Education is more about EDUCATION than SEX

The success of the British TV show lies in the approach it takes on sex and sexuality, and the way it is taught to teens; the ease and simplicity with which issues rarely explored in youth oriented TV shows are treated give the series a special proxmity to its viewers, who are not exclusively young.

The protagonist of this story is Otis Melbourne (Asa Butterfield), a quite shy 16-year-old who attends an American-style school. Melbourne, driven and somewhat coerced by an apparently rude and rebellious girl, Meave Wiley (Emman Mackey), creates a sex clinic after she discovered Otis, the son of a sex therapist, has a gift: even though he’s a virgin, he’s great at giving sexual counseling. So, naturally, she saw this as a greta opportunity –being the entrepreneurial gal she is.

This is how the first season of Sex Education begins, and with it countless stories that not only revolve around sexual issues, but also, approach different social issues that are constantly surrounding 'millennials'.

One of the virtues of the series created, directed, produced, and EVERYTHING ELSE, by Netflix, is the way in which they tackle things that have historically been considered “taboo”, matters that even in the XXI century continue to be regarded as impure or obscene. The first reason why the series so perfectly fulfills its function to naturalize sex, and it does so in a genuine way, from the dialogues to making use of classic English humor to recreate episodes of everyday life that everyone has faced at least once in their lives (I would have said “once a week”, but thought it might come out as exaggerated, but it IS TRUE tho).

Each episode of Sex Education introduces the story of a student who turns to Otis for an unconventional sexual advice, where issues such as vaginismus, masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, asexuality, anal washing, and ejaculation are discussed. What’s great about this is that, with each of these issues, problematics or whatever you’d like to call them, the show takes the opportunity to offer a social message on said subject.

De entrada, expone la amistad entre Otis y Erick (Ncuti Gatwa), su mejor amigo, gay, que goza del travestismo y que durante las dos temporadas revela su proceso, pero que sin duda da una de las principales lecciones de la serie: la no discriminación. Su fuerte amistad va desde el apoyo emocional hasta las demostraciones de afecto sin que esto sea visto como algo extraño.

Sex Education tries to move aside from the idealization of sex and give space to reflect on the importance of intimacy, recognition and acceptance of your own body, mental health, sexual freedom, family trauma, addictions, bullying and harassment. The latter is a problematic discussed throughout the second season and leaves a clear message of what solidarity should look like in a society, given that in ours we don’t seem to care what happens to those around us.

It is precisely in this same season that the role of sexual education of young people is strongly questioned, which has been relegated to just dealing with issues such as the use of condoms, the sexual reproduction system or what is the use of a tampon. In many cases, the terms ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ are even euphemized as if not wanting to mention them out loud, and the patriarchal and conventional belief that all men should perform in a certain “macho” way during sex and that women's pleasure is secondary to man’s pleasure continues to be normalized.

The story created by Laurie Nunn has become an open book that explores the insecurities and sexual problems and issues of every student at Moordale and every teenager of the world.