(Picture: Erin Aniker for Metro.co.uk)

Unless you were blessed with a wonderful teacher dedicated to inspiring a healthy attitude towards sex in young people, your sexual education experience was probably a lot like mine.

It started with a video about how our bodies would change during puberty.

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Then we chatted about periods (with the boys in a separate room, of course). Then as we got older, the education turn into all the different ways sex would get us pregnant, give us a serious infection or disease, and likely kill us.

Sex, declared these lessons, was a dangerous thing to be afraid of. The best thing to do was to avoid it entirely, just to stay safe.




While safe sex, contraception, and the inner workings of the reproductive system were mentioned, one thing wasn’t: the concept of pleasure.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Throughout sex education, there really wasn’t any indication that people might be having sex because they enjoy it.

There was the lack of mention of the clitoris (no wonder so many people can’t find it). Male orgasms were discussed, but only because they play a part in making a baby – the only reason people have sex, our education system appears to imply. Foreplay, oral, the very idea that sex could be delightful – nothing.

And that’s a problem.

When we’re not told about pleasure, sex educators contribute to a whole host of damaging attitudes around sex.

Our belief that sex is supposed to be painful – we’re told losing our virginity will be excruciating – isn’t refuted. So we believe that painful sex is normal, accepting pain as it happens and wincing in anticipation.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for metro.co.uk)

Painful sex isn’t something to just be accepted, to be clear. It’s not something women just have to put up with. It’s a sign that something is wrong, whether it’s that you’re too tense, not wet enough, there hasn’t been enough buildup, or there’s a physical issue.

If we don’t introduce the idea of pleasurable sex, painful, unsatisfying sex is allowed to be seen as the norm.

The other rubbish norm that’s being maintained? That sex isn’t something women are supposed to enjoy.

The TV wife who rations out sex and paws away their sex-crazed husband, accompanied by zero mention of pleasure in sex ed, creates the idea that women don’t, or can’t, take joy in sex.

That causes issues for everyone.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Women accept unsatisfying sex, because they think that’s just a part of relationships. Their partners don’t make the effort to satisfy their partners, because they don’t think women’s pleasure is important.

Over time, we figure it out. We learn that sex can be brilliant and that women deserve pleasure.

But the lack of pleasure-focused sex education means we have to learn these lessons alone – through years of rubbish, disappointing sex.

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Alex Phillips, SRE policy lead at Terrence Higgins Trust, told metro.co.uk: ‘Our research shows that nine out of ten (89%) young people are not taught about sex in relation to pleasure – instead, what’s being taught is usually focused on the biological basics, how to avoid pregnancies and so on.



‘It is so important that young people hear the message that sex is supposed to be pleasurable and consensual.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

‘Sex and relationships will play a central role in adult life and solely focusing on the dangers of sex, without any discussion of the subject in relation to pleasure, can cause unhealthy attitudes to sex which can affect future relationships and take years to untangle.’

We need to be taught about the importance of foreplay, the clitoris, and just the simple concept of having pleasurable sex. Because sexual pleasure is important.

Sexual pleasure needs to stop being seen as ‘wrong’ or ‘inappropriate’. We need to stop being embarrassed about it.

Because if the silence around sexual pleasure continues in education, we won’t be prepared to deal with loads of important parts of being an adult.

When we don’t mention pleasure, we’re ignoring LGBTQ relationships, pretending that sex is just a way to make babies.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

When we don’t mention pleasure, we’re not really discussing consent. Because you have to understand why someone would want to have sex to understand why and when they wouldn’t.

When we don’t mention pleasure, we skip over the physical and mental health benefits of sex and masturbation (because again, why would we masturbate if sex isn’t pleasurable?), and make sex something scary, dangerous, and something to be ashamed of.

We leave sex education unprepared for the complicated bits of sex. When we skim over pleasure, we aren’t taught about the ins and outs (ha) of why people make the sexual decisions they do – why they cheat, why they’re attracted to some people over others, why relationships often fail as your sex life sours.


We aren’t taught about intimacy or the emotional parts of sex. So we don’t understand why it might not be great to have sex with someone who isn’t nice to us. We aren’t prepared for sex going badly, or changing things.

(Picture: Erin Aniker for Metro.co.uk)

And in the simplest terms, when we don’t mention pleasure, we don’t mention stuff like oral sex (which is worth mentioning, considering the majority of women don’t come from penetrative sex), the fact that the stuff you see in porn is rarely an indication of what people actually enjoy, and the very basic idea that pleasure requires time, effort, and actually caring about how the person you’re having sex with feels.

This lack of education about pleasure and how to achieve it leaves us feeling like failures, with young men unable to understand why their partners aren’t achieving orgasms, and young women feeling like they’re not performing properly because they’re not giving their partners the orgasms they think they should be having.

Alex Phillips told us: ‘Schools need to be given full and proper guidance to cover topics such as pleasure and consent in an age-appropriate, sensitive and meaningful way.

‘We are calling for the government to make sure teachers get allocated time, resource and training to do justice to this vital subject.

‘Only then can we ensure that all young people – wherever they go to school, and whatever their sexuality – are empowered to make positive and informed decisions and to have healthy relationships, which they are ready for, and want.’


We need to be taught that pleasure is complicated, but brilliant. That sex is more than just making babies or catching infections. That great sex is to be enjoyed, and that rubbish, painful, or unwanted sex isn’t something we have to ‘put up with’.

We need to mention pleasure in sex education, because sex is all about pleasure. And by failing to mention that, we’re failing to prepare young people for the reality of sex – and the joy it can bring.

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