Sex Education and Media
How Does Media Influence Our Sexual and Gender Exploration, Education, and Acceptance?

by Maren Sage

Introduction

In recent years the state of sex education has been a target of conservative legislation. The ability of teachers to provide their students with accurate information is being restricted. When those types of restrictions are in place, we need to recognize that young people in this age have access to media like no other generation before, and will turn to their resources to supplement what wasn’t available to them through formal education or maybe even at home with their families.

My research was based on the hypothesis that the media that we consume has a massive influence on our lives as an external form of education and exploration relating to sex education. That we utilize the media access we have, however little, to try to figure ourselves out and make up for what the education system lacks, whether we realize it or not. This can be mainstream media such as books, movies, TV, video games, and music, or specifically sex-focused media, porn, erotica, etc., especially the intersections of the two.

Background

In order to fully understand why people may turn to media as a supplemental sex education resource, the current state of sex education in this country needs to be addressed. In recent years with more conservative legislatures popping up in many states, what is allowed to be taught as a part of sex education has changed drastically.

As of April 30 of 2023, only twenty-five states and DC require both HIV and sex education. Within those twenty-five states, only seventeen require that the information being taught is medically accurate, twenty-nine states require that abstinence be stressed, nineteen require the inclusion of information on condoms or contraception, and only eleven require the importance of consent to sexual activity to be covered.¹

Outside of general sex education, some requirements target LBGBTQ+ students specifically, four states require only negative information to be provided on homosexuality if it can be talked about at all, and even in states that require lgbtq+ inclusive sex education, there is no guarantee a teacher will commit to the curriculum. In addition to specific sex education laws, we see many states following in Florida’s footsteps to implement Don’t Say Gay bills.² Since the beginning of May of 2023, there are nine states including Florida that have implemented related Don’t Say Gay or Trans bills.³

Despite the push by conservative groups in our country, there is significant proof that comprehensive sex education is possible and has a positive influence on young people. “Inclusive sex education programming decreases negative outcomes of sexual health by which LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately affected, increases supportive school climates which promotes positive outlooks about LGBTQ+ and decreasing homophobia.”⁴

Concerning comprehensive sex education, the debate surrounding the media’s influence on sexuality and gender is not new. We can see censorship dating back to the Hays Code surrounding what was allowed and not allowed to be shown on screen, as to uphold the moral standing of our country.⁵ But as media has evolved, so has the way it intersects with education. Initially, porn was the main concern when it came to media and education. As pornography became readily available, adults started to wonder about the effects of this type of erotic media on young people, the belief that young people would become even more sexually irresponsible after consuming porn was a topic of hot debate.

As social media and the internet began to make their way into people’s pockets, parents and scientists still posed concerns about how access to sex in mainstream media, music, books, and pornography, could affect young people. “The media-saturated world in which children live is a world in which sexual behavior is frequent and increasingly explicit…Youth today can hear and see sexual talk and portrayals in every form of media.”⁶

Ongoing, anxious, public debates about young people’s online sexual practices and the dangers posed by Internet pornography (IP) have proliferated with the rise of the Internet. The concern in essence is that young people will imitate what they see in IP, leading to problems ranging from unrealistic expectations of their own or others’ sexual performance to the re-enactment of sexualised violence.⁷

Despite how long these concerns have existed research on the topic is unclear and contradictory at best. “The concerns about youth engagement with IP have driven much of the research in this area, which joins the plethora of media effects research concerned with identifying harmful consequences of ‘exposure’ on young people.”⁸ However, the research that has been conducted, fails to address the intersectionality of sex education and the background of the young people being studied.

Before the late 1800s, delivering sex education in the United States and Canada was primarily seen as a parent’s responsibility. This allowed communities of color to pass on essential information relevant to their sexual health but also limited what people learned to what was accessible and socially acceptable in their communities. When medical institutions and government schools supplanted parents, they pathologized and misinformed minority groups. The legacy of erasure and distrust that manifested through these programs has led marginalized communities to create by-and-for sex education initiatives, many of which incorporate social media. In digital spaces, individuals can connect and share knowledge directly rather than relying solely on top-down information streams.⁹

The studies also fail to assess the fact that sexuality education and the learning we do about ourselves isn’t during a one-time period of our lives, as we grow we learn new things, meaning that pornography consumption isn’t just something that is being consumed by young people, it can be a life long resource. “Sex education is only discussed in relation to young people, neglecting attention to lifelong learning about sex and sexuality. According to this dataset, pornography use can offer useful information about the mechanics of sex.”¹⁰

Though there is little research on how other forms of media can intersect, there is some analysis that suggests that social media can be extremely beneficial when it comes to communities that are traditionally neglected within mainstream sex education. “Since sex education became institutionalized, LGBTQIA+ people, POC, and QTPOC have been filling knowledge gaps and addressing the damage that school-based sex education has created.”¹¹

Although addressing these gaps can be extremely beneficial, there are still difficulties with accessibility to these online resources through social media as much content that is deemed ‘sexual’ or ‘inappropriate’ can make it difficult to access without the proper resources. “We recognize that using social media comes with new ethical challenges and questions, but we ultimately celebrate its presence because of the overarching benefit it can have in uplifting voices that are traditionally left out of sex education.”¹²

Methodology

This project was based on interviews I conducted with students from Bennington College. I chose to interview my fellow students, as most of us fall within a four-year post-high school period. This means that their experiences in school may be fresher in students’ minds, especially since what was learned or not learned in school can affect students a lot during their college experience while navigating relationships, sex, hookup culture, and health both mental and physical.

To find participants, I posted the link to a signup Google form on different Populis, spoke about my project in my classes, and posted flyers around campus with a QR code to the signup form. Once people signed up to participate in the project, they received another form to fill out that addressed informed consent since interviews were recorded. With this form, they also received more in-depth details about the project as well as the core questions that would be asked during the interview. After filling out the consent form they scheduled a time to meet.

The interviews took place in a private classroom, one on one. Before starting, each interviewee was informed that all questions were optional and that they could end the interview or choose to no longer participate at any time. Each participant was asked the same core questions: Where are you from? How do you identify? What was your experience with sex education like? What is your favorite type/piece of media? I aimed to keep conversations open-ended, in an attempt to allow each participant to speak to their own experiences and follow their unique thought process. As each person brought up points unique to their interview I asked questions relating specifically to their experiences.

After the participant answered the final question or finished speaking, I asked if they had any questions for me, or if there was anything they wanted to speak about that I hadn’t addressed through my questions. After they answered, the recording was stopped and each participant was informed that they would receive a copy of the final product before it was submitted so that they could have a final say on how their participation was portrayed in this paper.

Findings

In total, seven interviews were conducted, three with men, and four with women. Interviews lasted between 12 - 40 minutes in length. After the interviews were completed I went through the transcripts and theme-coded them, looking for common thoughts, ideas, and suggestions from the participants. I’ve broken down these themes into categories: impact of location, at-home education and The Talk, in-school education, and self-exploration.

When looking at how location may impact the quality or type of sex education received in school, I don’t have a comprehensive idea of how this looks across the country, as the majority of my participants were from the Northeast. But two of my participants were from the same state in the Midwest, which gave me interesting insight. Based on location, people who had education in the Northeast, even if it wasn’t comprehensive, were adequate in some regards covering condom usage, STIs, anatomy, possibly pregnancy, birth control, and menstruation. As we moved into the Midwest it was maybe the basics of condom usage, but mostly left alone. If it was taught, fear tactics were common and classes were separated by gender depending on the topic, and often taught by underqualified, misinformed, or conservative organizations.

In terms of education at home, I found it to be very gendered. It was often mothers speaking with female-identifying children and vice versa for males. ‘The Talk’ that was had with each of my participants varied in effectiveness, accurate information, and length. Most got the talk starting in mid to late childhood or early teen years, and at least two participants didn’t receive the talk at all. For those who had close relationships with a specific parental figure, the talk occurred earlier and was more open to LGBTQ+ and sex-positive topics. For others, it was not an outright conversation but more of an open-door policy for questions, which may or may not have been answered.

In relation to sex education’s connection to media, this is where my hypothesis was challenged. The media and self-exploration aspects were highly personal, and not confirmed to a specific demographic based on my limited interviews. Three participants had little to no interaction with a specific piece or form of media and had no desire to seek out a specific type or look for anything in the media they were consuming. I found this was more common in cisgender/heterosexual participants, there was less interaction with media as the way they were represented in media was very prominent and not something they had to seek out. On the other hand, four participants were actively engaged with multiple forms of media that were access points to self-exploration and discovery, and I found that this majority fell within the LGBTQ+ community. “I think it's important, um, for you to watch media like that because it, um, humanizes the characters. It doesn't portray the stereotypes”(Participant 2). Not only were they seeking representation in the media they consumed but also community that they may have lacked or wanted to expand upon.

Especially online on social media. That was where I sort of first accessed like a real, sort of queer community where it was sort of a critical mass of people who also identified as queer and, yeah, it was like it was like a regular thing and there was like a culture around it (Participant 5).

They also spoke to the importance of queer characters and plotlines in different pieces of media, even if it wasn’t canon or explicit. Seeing yourself in media even if it’s just queer coding, allows many young queer people to explore their self-expression and their identities through fictional characters and pieces of media that they can access on the down low and take their time with.

I definitely think that it's important for queerness and, queer as you were saying, like queer vibes, to sort of be present in media for young kids, because I feel like for me, it was like media was probably the first time that I was, like, exposed to the concept of like, the possibility of being trans and being queer (Participant 5).

The genre of media that came up most during my interviews was fantasy in multiple mediums, video games, books, and movies.

Interviewer: You mentioned video games and stuff…Do you think they are as influential as like, TV or movies?
Participant 3: Honestly, better.
Interviewer: Better?
Participant 3: Better. 100% Because you can BE the character. Like for Dragon Age, origins, and Dragon Age Inquisition, you build the character itself. So like, you get to create the character’s looks and all of that, and then random romance wherever you wish. Out of a whole big group of people and yeah, that was like, the freedom to explore virtually, instead of personally.

Participants used these fantasy pieces as a form of escapism and self-expression especially when they didn’t necessarily have that freedom in the physical world. Allowing them to explore their own identities and desires without putting themselves in unsafe physical situations. However, not all participants felt that self-exploration was completely safe, some wished there was a happy medium.

No matter what you do, it's kind of detrimental. Like not really, but I'm just thinking about my friends who were like, got way too deep into like, watching or consuming porn and erotica, that was really graphic at a very young age, and that like fucked them up. And I have the opposite, where I'm like, I didn't. I didn't ask any questions, because I was way too ashamed to face what I didn't know. That like, I still got fucked up (Participant 6).

But if they were left to fend for themselves searching for representation within their media, and they felt comfortable exploring, there were still obstacles to finding representation, especially for queer women, as gay media is often dominated by gay men.

I found a lot of comfort in like, like male/male relationships. Like, I think that when we were younger, like that was a lot of the queer media, or at least like a lot of like, fanfiction culture. You know what I mean? Like, it was like, you couldn't find lesbian things wherever you looked. So I kind of like relied on the male sex lens to figure out my sexuality (Participant 4).

The self-exploration aspect didn’t just involve media consumption either, it was about exploring your body so that you’re comfortable with it and so that you understand it, a part of sex education that is rarely talked about which can instill shame about the way you look, if you know enough, etc. “People should explore their bodies. Not even for, like, you don't even have to be like it's for pleasure. You should just be like, you should know what the fuck is going on down there. And that's important” (Participant 6). Despite their differences in experiences at home, at school, and through their own exploration, all participants had extensive things to say about the current state of sex education and what they would like to see changed. Some expressed concern about the assumption by educators that students would do their own exploration outside of school.

I'm not like watching porn. I'm not going to any other sources of information, what you're teaching me is all I have. So I have all of these, like, half bits of like, and this is a thing [oral sex], we're not going to tell you what it is, but we are (Participant 6).

There were also a few participants who were of the opinion that the consumption of porn should be brought into school in an educational context.

But I feel like, honestly, if I was in middle school, and like, I saw porn in the class, and it was, like, educational and not like, this is a really shitty, like, 90s Porno. You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't be like, oh, like, this makes sense. You know? (Participant 4)

Some even went so far as to suggest that having outside parties come in to teach about porn and porn literacy would be more beneficial, especially if they were involved in the industry.

I think porn is definitely too villainized when it comes to educational practices… Like, you turn on porn for that specific purpose. I don't feel like we should just turn on a random video. I feel like you should have specific videos dedicated to sex education because who better to learn about sex than porn stars? Because they have sex, that's their job is to have sex. It's better, they know what's pleasurable. They know how, like, how to avoid an STD they know that shit… because that's the job. (Participant 3).

Participants also addressed the concern about consent education. And that it shouldn’t be a one-and-done thing, it should be taught from a young age and throughout sex education.

People should like, introduce ideas of consent very young, just even for just like anything. I think that's very healthy. So I like, yeah, like age six, just introduce ideas and do that and kind of build off that as a child grows (Participant 1).

The idea of consent education was something that all participants brought up at one point or another, and something most of them wished was covered more in their own sex education experiences, some saying that it would’ve changed the way they went about relationships.

Not only did participants address what they wanted to see more often in sex education, but they also spoke about what they wished would disappear.

I would take away the taught shame that exists in abstinence-based education. I think that it really wasn't helpful for anyone. And it really gave me a negative view of sex, despite the fact that I was sexually active it almost made it isolating because you have your friends that are also sexually active, but then you have your friends that think it's disgusting, and think you're disgusting…It made it really hard to talk about and it made it even though I did have that positive relationship with my parents. It really it made it really hard to like, tell my mom because it was this ingrained sense of shame (Participant 7).

The emotion when addressing what they wish could’ve been taken out of their own sex education was clear in the majority of participants whether it related to slut shaming, repression of LGBTQ+ identities, body shaming, or scare tactics. It is clear to see that sex education can have long-lasting effects on our lives, both positive and negative, lessons and beliefs that may follow people throughout the entirety of their lives.

Conclusion

Despite looking through the research and the interviews, I’m not sure if I confirmed my hypothesis. I was surprised by the number of people who had little to no strong connections with a piece of media, although I was not surprised that those who did were part of the lgbtq+ community. I think if I could expand on this project in the future I would attempt to enlarge my participant pool and see how that changes for people from the west coast or even other countries.

Although I would call this a successful project, there were a few hurdles. Finding participants, scheduling interviews, and making questions as open-ended as possible while still collecting usable data. In addition to methodological hurdles, there were also roadblocks in finding related literature. There is sufficient research on the topic of pornography in relation to sex education, but when looking at the intersections of other forms of mainstream media there is little analysis of the connection between what people are consuming and how it affects their ability to self-educate or supplement their institutional education.

This project was largely based on my own experiences with self-education and sex education’s connection to media. I feel like the successes I did have with this project were based largely on how I’m known on campus. Many people on campus know me because of my outreach work with safe sex education and my passion for being an educator and an advocate. I believe that this allowed participants to understand my interests and trust that their anonymity would be kept, while also allowing them to open up to me about topics that can be somewhat difficult or taboo to discuss.

Although my research pool was small, I feel like it shows the value of these types of studies. Research like this is so important in figuring out what is missing from sex and gender education in the United States. Media can be a source of sex education or an influence within it, but it’s vastly different depending on interests, familial relationships, media access, etc. so we need to provide people with as many resources as possible and tools for navigating the complicated media driven society we are a part of. Teachings like porn and media literacy, LGBTQ+ inclusive education, and healthy relationships are topics rarely covered in schools and many parents don’t know how to address these topics with their children because they weren’t taught these subjects either, so by providing educators with these tools to provide young people, we are giving them access to a safe and healthy future.

1. Office 202 296-4012, Public Policy. “Sex and HIV Education.” Guttmacher Institute, March 14, 2016.

2. “Sex and HIV Education.” Guttmacher Institute

3. Movement Advancement Project. "Equality Maps: LGBTQ Curricular Laws."

4. McBride, Cole. “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQIA ) Health Disparities in Sexual Health and Sexual Education.” Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses, May 1, 2023.

5. (The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code), n.d.) Your Bibliography: Artsreformation.com. n.d. The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code).

6. Brown, Jane D., and Sarah N. Keller. “Forum: Can the Mass Media Be Healthy Sex Educators?” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 32 (September 1, 2000): 255–56.

7. Healy-Cullen, Siobhan, Tracy Morison, Joanne E Taylor, and Kris Taylor. “Performing Smart Sexual Selves: A Sexual Scripting Analysis of Youth Talk about Internet Pornography.” Sexualities, January 22, 2023, 136346072311525.

8. “Performing Smart Sexual Selves: A Sexual Scripting Analysis of Youth Talk about Internet Pornography.”

9. Manduley, Aida E, Andrea Mertens, Iradele Plante, and Anjum Sultana. “The Role of Social Media in Sex Education: Dispatches from Queer, Trans, and Racialized Communities.” Feminism & Psychology 28, no. 1 (February 2018): 152–70.

10. Litsou, Katerina, Paul Byron, Alan McKee, and Roger Ingham. “Learning from Pornography: Results of a Mixed Methods Systematic Review.” Sex Education 21, no. 2 (March 4, 2021): 236–52.

11. “The Role of Social Media in Sex Education: Dispatches from Queer, Trans, and Racialized Communities.”

12. Ibid.