Inside the Sex-Positive, Socially Distanced Rebirth of Sex Ed

Among SIECUS’s recommendations was the online sex-ed resource AMAZE.org, which has rolled out an “at-home sex ed series” on its Facebook page and last week launched a six-day newsletter program for parents. The newsletter features traditional sex-ed exercise prompts, like having parents privately practice using the correct biological terms for body parts (no “flower” or “cookie”), as well as advice tailored to this particular moment. One exercise advises parents to use social distancing as a conversation starter with kids around consent and the importance of respecting personal space by asking for permission before touching someone. The newsletter is paired with links to AMAZE’s pre-existing podcasts and animated video series for parents.

The goal isn’t to saddle over-burdened parents with yet more expectations around home-schooling, says Lincoln Mondy of Advocates for Youth, one of the organizations behind AMAZE, although he does note that in all those viral color-coded parental curricula, sex ed is conspicuously absent. Instead, the idea is to set parents up to have ongoing casual conversations with their kids around sex. “From what we know about the patchwork quilt of sex-ed laws across the country, a lot of kids are getting really harmful abstinence-only education or nothing at all,” said Mondy. “I think this provides an opportunity to really check in: Is my kid being given all the tools and resources they need to develop healthily mentally and socially—and, if not, what can I do to help them?”

Porn is really not the enemy. What is problematic is parents not talking to kids about porn.

Ideally, these parent-kid conversations would have already been taking place, but these particular circumstances have sparked a unique and pressing need, says Mondy. “There’s more time at home and on computers and phones,” he said. “Does that mean their kids are going to be watching porn more? Does all of their relationships moving from physical to texting come with a lot more sexting? What are the legal and consent ramifications from that?” AMAZE has launched a series of Facebook Live events to help field some of these questions. This week featured a Q&A with Carnagey about talking with kids about porn. “Porn is out there,” she said. “Porn is really not the enemy. What is problematic is parents not talking to kids about porn.”

The AMAZE newsletter similarly encourages parents to “initiate the conversation about porn with your child” and links to the organization’s animated video for teenagers, which features a casual, chatty narrator who says, “Being curious about sex and looking at pictures or films of naked bodies, or people engaging in sexual behaviors, is perfectly normal, but you have to remember that porn contains some misleading messages.”

Young people’s age-old sex questions persist as before, but now they often come with a social distancing twist, according to sex educators. Shafia Zaloom, a health educator, was teaching a recent virtual class when a student used an anonymous question form to ask, in her paraphrasing, “‘With all the sheltering in place, I am so much hornier than usual and I’m not really sure why and masturbation isn’t helping. What’s going on?’” Everything from the amped up anxiety to the no-contact rules of this moment inevitably impact young people’s sex lives. “Kids whose parents are making them shelter in place… are creating videos, sending pictures, sexting so much more, because they’re not doing it in person and they’re desperate to stay connected in that way,” says Zaloom.

Similarly, Carnagey explains that “the need for connection is high.” She adds, “Sexting is an opportunity for young people to connect and, if families are not talking about these things and are avoiding the conversation, they miss an opportunity to plug into what’s going on with a young person during this time.”

Just as with real-world sex ed, virtual sex ed has already inspired some conservative, right-wing pushback. Recently, Elizabeth Johnston of the homophobic, anti-abortion Activist Mommy blog wrote, “As children across the nation have been kept from school in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, parents may have been heaving sighs of relief that their children would not be exposed to ‘comprehensive sex education,’ if only for a short time,” she wrote. “That was, of course, until Amaze… announced to parents that they would be making resources available to give their children lessons on pornography, masturbation, and abortion.” (Earlier this year, AMAZE published a fact-based, non-stigmatizing animated educational video on abortion.) The Massachusetts Family Institute—a group opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage, and comprehensive sex ed—was similarly outraged.

Such responses only expose the disingenuousness of ongoing conservative attacks on sex ed on the grounds that such decisions should be left up to parents. Now more than ever, these decisions are up to parents—and parents alone. For sex-ed opponents, this means the traditional argument must temporarily shift. For sex-ed supporters, it introduces a need—or, more optimistically, an opportunity (the kind no one actually wants, not like this).

“Now is the time, as you’re home more, to heighten awareness around those opportunities that may arise in which you can ask a simple question or make a comment around something you notice,” said Zaloom. She suggests watching whatever show a tween or teen is binging on Netflix, either with them or separately, and then talking about it. “Ask a simple thing like, ‘What do you think of this character and how they interacted with so-and-so? Do you think they’re really into each other? How can you tell?’” She describes this as a way to prompt kids to “educate us on what they’re thinking and what their thought process is as they’re consuming media.” Parents can then offer up their own perspective and wisdom, she says, before adding, “All the professional sex educators I know believe that parents are the primary sex educators in a child’s life.”

Of course, these professionals want to help—but, as with so much right now, demand often outpaces supply. Carnagey is being inundated by parental requests for one-on-one coaching and she’s already had to expand the size of her virtual classes. Still, she says, “I can’t offer classes quick enough for the need.”

Title has been changed for accuracy.