Sex education - Why we need to talk about pleasure | Stephanie Healey | TEDxBristol

Stephanie Healey made the decision to become a sex educator in order to have real, sex-positive conversations with young people about their bodies and how to navigate the complexities of sex and relationships in the internet era.

During her twenties, she spent time reflecting on the terrible sex education that she and her friends had received. She realised that young people today face cruel double standards. They spend hours of their lives immersed unsupervised in a hyper-sexualised digital world with no real guidance from adults and institutions around them.

Her TEDx talk explores where sex education is failing and how important it is to talk to young people about sex as a pleasurable and connecting act.

Stephanie Healey is a psychotherapist and sex educator based in Bristol. She has spent over a decade working with teenagers and adults, helping them understand how to have healthy relationships and how to have good sex.

Stephanie spends hours at her therapy practice talking about relationships and intimacy. She says she is unshockable when it comes to sex stories! “I have seriously heard it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. At my core, I believe everyone is deserving of respectful sex and relationships – including you.”

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Perhaps you know what this is.

This is called a demo,
and it's sometimes used in schools

to show young people
how to put on a condom correctly.

And there is a correct way
because ejaculation comes out of the penis

at just under 30 miles per hour.

So there needs to be no air in the tip
for it to withhold the spurt.

Did you know that?

(Laughter)

Did you know that
when you first started having sex,

when you started to have relationships?

Perhaps you were lucky

and someone showed you
how to put on a condom using one of these.

Or maybe penises just aren't your thing,

and you needed to be told
about an alternative method.

But did you know what to ask for what
you really enjoyed when you first had sex?

I want to talk to you today
about changing the narrative

within sex education,

why we should be talking about it
sooner rather than later,

and why we should be
talking about pleasure.

You'll be pleased to know that there's
no audience participation in my talk,

so you can all breathe a sigh of relief.

What is sex for?

Why do we have sex?

I'm going to be blunt and presume
that the majority of people

aren't having sex
for just procreation purposes,

but that we have sex
for reasons that are a lot more ...

exciting.

Connection, enjoyment,

pleasure, and play.

By avoiding these simple truths
when we talk about sex,

we are doing a huge disservice
to both ourselves and the next generation

because we and they deserve
these kind of experiences

within our sex and relationships.

Not only that, but by boxing it up
as biology with crudely drawn diagrams,

we create this idea that there's one
normal approach to sex and relationships.

Thus totally excluding this wonderful
spectrum of activity in human beings

that our world is made up with.

Now, growing up,

I was really lucky that I had
a great group of friends

who I could talk to about sex.

And we used to freely discuss
desire and pleasure,

mostly the lack of it.

But one thing we used to really
love talking about is masturbation.

We used to talk about it
all the time, a lot.

And the way that we discovered
what masturbation was

is nothing short of a feminist miracle.

It was from the film American Pie.

(Laughter)

Now, I'm sure many of you
have seen this film.

Those of you who haven't,

American Pie is this really lewd
coming of age movie from the late 90s,

and it's about this group of boys
who are about to go to college

and they make this pact
to try and "lose their virginities"

before their high school prom.

There's some really ridiculous
and embarrassing moments

that are ethically questionable
and totally toxic,

but I want to focus on the bit
that really interested us.

So a storyline running concurrently
with the boys trying to have sex,

there were two female characters
called Vicky and Jessica.

And they discuss orgasms
in such a normal way

that that became normal for me
and my friends to discuss orgasms.

Additionally, there is
this really wonderful scene

where Vicky receives oral
from her boyfriend,

and he's gifted this bible
of tongue twisters and instructions

because he really wanted
to be good for her;

he wants her to really enjoy it.

And that was it, there it was.

The female orgasm was talked about
and depicted in a really big film,

and it was normalized.

And suddenly that became normal
for me and my group of friends.

And it was almost a kind of permission.

We had permission to experience
desire and pleasure,

and we talked about it,
and it was really fun.

Now, whilst that was a great discovery
for me and my friends,

that can't be said
for my formative sex education.

So the first time I was taught
anything sex-like

was a few years previous to American Pie,

when an elderly school nurse
sat at the front of my class

aggressively brandishing a cap,

one of these.

And we all looked on, perplexed.

She said: "You're going
to need one of these

if you're going to (Muffled) 'have sex'."

(Laughter)

Really? Oh?

So if you imagine it with no sound.

And to demonstrate how this
managed the incoming penis,

she probed at it with her two fingers,

and this demo cap, it was so old,
that she just tore a massive hole into it,

which is not what a cap should do,
by the way; they're very sturdy.

And that was it, 10 minutes,
not even 10 minutes, she left,

we carried on with our lesson,
and all of us were like,

"What's happened?
What's just happened?"

I didn't know where it was meant to go

or why really I needed one.

Did the girls in the class
who liked girls need one as well?

For a while afterwards,

I thought it was meant to perch
on the end of a penis haphazardly.

Or it was meant to lie
at the entrance of my vagina

like some sort of
trampoline in the ground,

causing whatever was to enter
to bounce off of it.

And I didn't have the internet
at home to ask any questions,

and I didn't really want
to ask anybody else either.

American Pie would come out
a few years later,

and you know, pique my interest.

But at that age and in that time,
sex wasn't really around that much.

I didn't really see it anywhere.

So, I continued growing up.

I read about it in Judy Blume books.

I glanced at the top shelf
of a newsagent's.

I struggled to figure out who I liked,
who I loved, all pretty blindly.

Nobody talked to me about connection,
nothing about enjoyment,

nothing about pleasure,
and nothing about play,

and that sucked.

A few formative experiences in my life

later influenced my decision
to become a psychotherapist.

A lot of that work has been
very relationship based,

with both adults and teens.

So over that time I've naturally heard
quite a few sex stories.

And I really have heard them all,

the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It's wonderful to hear the good:

erotic, filthy, transcending,

playful, hilarious, loving,

orgasmic, connecting, empowering.

The bad:

awkward, embarrassing,

weird tastes, weird smells, weird noises,

the dog walking in.

Having sex with somebody
you shouldn't really be having sex with,

like your boss, or your ex-partner,
or someone else's partner.

These are encounters
which are still light-hearted,

and the situation is still fine for you
to still have a good sexual encounter,

just a bit cringy,
maybe a little bit regretful.

But then, there's the ugly, shameful,

manipulative, humiliated,

coerced, forced,

and I heard so many of those sex stories
that I just thought I have to do something

that's a bit more proactive
when it comes to sex education.

So, I decided to teach it.

I got a job teaching
sex education to teenagers

and running sexual health drop-in clinics.

So during that time in the drop-in clinic,

I got asked anything and everything,
which was great, so great.

But I noticed amongst all
of the conversations we were having

around STIs and contraception and consent,

there was still something
we weren't actively discussing:

pleasure.

So I started asking them:

"You know all these
sex toys you're having,

is it fun?

Does it feel good?

Does your partner care about it
feeling good for you, and vice versa?"

And then suddenly I was having
these conversations with young people,

and realizing that there's
another category of sex stories,

sad ones.

I heard about sexual activity
for these young people

in which they were passive, where acts
were done to them and at them

instead of being active,
equal participants.

And not only did I see myself in that,
but I saw history repeating itself

almost 20 years later.

It became clear that by not being
open with pleasure information,

we're just helping
this pleasure gap widen,

and we're still creating
this huge blind spot

in how young people learn to have sex.

And what broke my heart

was that I heard so few good
sex stories in that age range.

And I also learned
there's a fine, fine line

between the bad and the ugly.

I learned that for so many teenagers

a sexual encounter
was about power dynamics,

or pushing boundaries, or an obligation.

Lying back and thinking of England.

On the other side,

those who were doing it
at their partners, not with them.

Did they really want to be doing that?

Looking at how sex education
is currently taught in schools,

there's definitely some things
to be really pleased about.

We're having more conversations
around consent and healthy relationships,

and we're being more
inclusive with LGBTQ+,

and those with disabilities
and learning needs.

But there is still a gap,

and young people still aren't getting
all the information that they really need.

Most notably, there's still a lack
of real pleasure information

and blunt appreciation
for what sex is for:

connection, enjoyment,
pleasure, and play.

And that it is for every body.

We're still reluctant
to talk to our young people

as sex as being a pleasurable
and connecting act,

something we do because
we really enjoy doing it.

We still keep it as something hidden,

something half obscured,
in the hope that they'll just get it.

Sex education still
has a really long way to go,

with new legislation coming in to make it
a mandatory part of the curriculum,

now is the time to be thinking
about how it could be rebooted.

So firstly, I want us to see
sex education as a broad term,

because it is broad.

We learn it from lots of different places,
not just in our education system.

We learn it from friends,
partners, parents,

guardians, TV, film,

advertising, social media.

Nowadays, it is everywhere.

Sex is everywhere.

It's no longer just in Judy Blume books,
or on the top shelf of a newsagent's.

To believe that we can
compartmentalize sex education

into a lesson or two at school,

probably thrust upon some
unsuspecting, overworked teacher,

and for that to be enough,

is a fallacy.

Sex and the way we that we talk about it

deserves so much more
than a lesson in a time table,

because it's feeling.

It makes the world go around.

It connects us.

In the absence of robust sex education
starting from an early age,

we know what young people are turning to:

the internet.

The fountain of all knowledge
and also cat pictures,

but where anyone decides
that they're going to type in a question

that has the word "sex" in the sentence,

one is also going to naturally
stumble upon something

that is, oh, so ready to be discovered:

free access pornography,
which has no boundaries.

I don't need to tell you
that this kind of pornography

is rarely a wholesome source
of impartial information

for young people to learn about sex.

Pornography is a big business

and an industry that has
very little regard for what it's teaching.

I took the liberty of going
to a few free access websites

to see what was on their landing pages
and what were the most searched-for terms.

[gang, fake rape, teen, barely-legal,
step-brother, screaming, unwanted, son]

It's estimated over half
of 11- to 16-year-olds

have seen pornography online,

with the average age of first seeing it
being 11 years old.

Some argue that
that could be even younger.

The stats show that this
is usually by accident

or by someone actively showing them,

but that's still really worrying.

Now, pornography and the concept
of being turned on

by erotic representations isn't new.

There's nothing wrong
with it, nothing shameful,

and it's normal to engage
in fantasy for arousal.

And I want to be clear that I'm not here
to demonize all of pornography.

What I do have a problem with
is how easy that was to find,

and how so much of that content

is categorizing and fetishizing
particular human beings,

usually through degradation
and humiliation.

And I fear what that does
to young people's brains.

Not only that, I worry
about objectification,

and I worry what that repeated exposure

does to their ability
to connect with others.

Around a third of sexual abuse
of children is carried out by their peers.

Where is that coming from?

If we're so unprepared to talk
about connection and enjoyment,

then what are their relationships
going to be like?

I know that this feels really
uncomfortable for lots of adults,

and as adults and parents, we want
to keep children as safe as possible.

You might think that by talking about this
you might be affecting them negatively

or even impacting their childhoods.

We want them to enjoy
naivety and innocence,

and to not frighten them
with something that feels too big,

or too adult, and too big
a conversation to be having.

You might also be really worried
that it might be seen

as crossing a boundary,
being inappropriate

or hyper-sexualizing children,

but the aim here is that
we want the next generation

to understand that sex and relationships

is about connection, enjoyment,
pleasure, and play,

so that they can recognize it
when it is not these things.

As much as I want us to come at this
from a fun and pleasurable point of view,

I also really want us all to be vigilant

and to safeguard against abuse
that might be hiding under our radar.

So what's the solution?

How do we have
these kind of conversations?

So, when a child or teenager
asks you about sex,

please don't run away.

Step into it.

They come to you for a reason.

Their curiosity has brought them to you,

who they trust to provide them
with some answers.

Don't rebuke them with
an "I'll tell you when you're older."

See this as an opportunity
to give them real information,

and it'll keep the conversation open
for when they get older.

To help you navigate,
remember these three key things.

Number one: use the correct
terminology from the get-go.

It avoids confusion
and it keeps them safe.

For example: it's not
a tuppence, it's not a fuff.

It's a vulva and a vagina.

Okay?

The vagina is on the inside, the vulva
makes up all that's on the outside

of someone who has
biologically female sex organs.

Using the correct terms, it's not dirty;
they're not dirty words.

Number two: sex, talking about sex,

and having sexual feelings isn't shameful.

Avoid telling them off. Stay curious.

Remember that it's normal,
natural, and healthy.

And number three:
if everything else fails you,

keep fun and connection
at the basis of your conversation.

Because at the heart of it, what is sex?

It's love in its rawest form.

It's a meeting of ourselves
and human beings in vulnerable states.

It's swimming together,

being in your own little bubble,
your own little world.

It's being in a space to explore

and trusting that that person
will treat your body with respect.

It's being inside your own body,
experiencing what it can do,

being empowered in your sexuality
and choosing what to do with it.

I wonder if we'd always been taught
about connection, enjoyment,

pleasure, and play.

How would we make love?

How would we express desire?

Without the pressure to perform,
what sounds would we make?

Where would our eyes go?

What positions would we
place our bodies in?

How would we have ourselves be touched?

Which erogenous zones
would actually drive us wild?

Would we have less or more sex?

Would we be different with each other?

Would you be different?

How would the world be?

I really believe in the next generation,

and I believe they're capable
of love and connection,

and to hear this kind of information.

I know talking about sex
can feel really awkward,

but it doesn't have to be.

Be brave, break it down,
and talk about sex.

Thank you.

(Applause)