For my mum, as a teenager at a country high school in the mid 1960s, sex education consisted of being ushered into a building along with the other girls, to watch a clinical film about "reproduction".

Decades later my friend Holly, at a Catholic school in Wollongong, was simply warned by a nun not to hold hand with boys, because "that is a slippery slope to sin".

And at a Sydney public high school in the mid 1990s, a physical education teacher dutifully told my friend Kate's class about the existence of HIV, but added the caveat "only drug users and gay people get it ... and I hope that's none of you in here!"

Ask any group of friends or family about their memories of sex education at school and you'll get a mixed bag of giggles, awkward questions, condoms unfurled on fruit, useful information, stark omissions and the odd infuriating furphy. (I'm happy to say Kate, who is a lesbian, marched out and reported that PE teacher to her principal. The teacher later apologised.)

But memories of sex education, or lack thereof, can be painful, as was shown during a surprisingly engaging episode of QandA on Monday night.