Writing for Slate magazine (11.18.2011), Amanda Marcotte points at several signs that “truly comprehensive sex education [is] an idea whose time has finally come.” For years now, she writes, the debate over sex education in the mainstream has been along the lines of, “Do we tell kids sex is an awful thing and they shouldn’t do it at all, or do we tell kids sex is an awful thing, but if they must, here’s how to be safe?” Marcotte argues for a third approach — a comprehensive sex education program that teaches young people to have not just healthy, but pleasurable sex.
And here’s where porn presents a problem: Teenagers who don’t learn much about sex beyond how to use a condom from trusted adults, tend to turn to porn. And while according to Marcotte, porn has a great many valid uses, sex education isn’t one of them. In particular, porn fails miserably when it comes to educating about girls and women’s pleasure.
An experienced adult could contribute a lot in helping young women understand why they are not enjoying sex with their boyfriends: “Their boyfriends learned their ‘technique’ from porn, and as anyone who’s seen porn can tell you, what’s going on there may work for the camera but isn’t really doing anything for the recipient, which is why she gets the moniker ‘actress.’”
Along with information about birth control, young women need to be told they can pipe up and say what is pleasing and what is not, and in this manner help their partner learn “how to please a real life lady,” notes Marcotte. Education along these lines for young men, as well, would go a long way in building healthier, more pleasurable sex lives for many young couples.
Educating our young people can “subtly remake their vision of what sex can be, giving them more power in their lives and especially in their relationships, along with more pleasure.”