USA, Catholic school - Sex Ed was nonexistent

In elementary/middle school at a small Catholic school in a progressive major North American city, it was a week or two where we got some workbooks and were separated by sex (this was as gender discussions were beginning to hit the mainstream). They were fine, they were certainly informative and educational and didn’t lie. I do recall them focusing on abstinence but it was mostly about the biology and family planning iirc.

I then went to the largest public high school in my city. Freshman year we had a health class and an entire unit was focused on sexual health. We learned about different contraceptive methods and their efficacy, STIs (had to do group presentations on them), the biology and in/outs of reproduction, sexual and gender orientation (iirc), the legality of things and actions and some stuff about consent (as a kink practitioner and queer person, I would’ve liked more but it’s probably a lot more than most have ever learned about consent), and things along those lines. We were also given resources and our teacher was super nice and helpful about this stuff.

We also learned about drugs, the different types of drugs, their effects, withdrawals, and risks. It was municipally mandated, if not state mandated, educational content so it was standardized at least across the city, but I kinda doubt it’s taught as equitably as it was in my high school. But it was incredibly comprehensive and extremely educational. While I still made a lot of mistakes as a dumb horny teenager, did things i shouldn’t have, and got hurt/hurt people by being a dumb horny teenager (no SA/SH), it prepared me very well for my experiences and set me up to be the safe and respectful person I am today (who knows how to safely disrespect you when you ask nicely <3)

Lots of info about STDs and several instances of putting condoms on a banana. I actually learned more in biology and real life experience than in sex ed.

In Scotland we had a VHS the class watched when we were 9/10 which had a basic diagram of intercourse. The voiceover said, “Note how they fit together, like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Seared into my brain. I remember asking if the sperm from the video “could think” like tadpoles did. Never got a proper answer!

Then secondary school had lessons about the reproductive cycle in mandatory biology class. Slightly later, when we were 14 or so, they had demonstrations about how to put on condoms.

Edit: btw does anyone know if sperm can think? k thanks

There was a bit at 3rd grade “difference between boys and girls and where babys come from” (no no sex talk)

In 5th grade I was absent in hospital but in 5th grade you learn sexual biologie, contraceptions, menstruation, puberty and i think STDs. When i got back from hospital it was mid way into the lessons about female genitalia and tampons so i didnt learn it from school but from books at home. I dont know if they talked about different sexualitys existing, if not this needs to change.

7th grade has puberty and hormones, genetics, pregnacy and birth.

I dont know what it was in 9th grade but there defenetly was also something that could fall under 'sex ed".

It always was open, no shaming and professional

Germany Bavaria. It is manditory and you cant take your child out of those classes because its part of the regular biologie class

Maryland early 2000s. We had a real health teacher. It was pretty clinical and factual for the most part. The only thing that really stood out was the teacher telling us that peeing killed any sperm left in the urethra and a kid asking if he could “piss in his woman and not wear a condom.” This poor old teacher has to say “Do not piss in your woman.”

Only what was on the biology national exam spec. Lots of hormone cycles of FSH and lutenising hormone, literally nothing outside the cervix.

Middle School (Mississippi): Basically all lies: having sex with a condom will give you AIDS, abortions are evil and most women who get them die of cancer or suicide. Even 6th grade me knew that shit was fucking wrong, but I was already on thin ice in that school for fucking up the curve, thank Homosexual Jesus that I was only there half a year.

Junior High (New Jersey): Skip ahead to 9th grade. Sex-Ed was taught by a terrified gym teacher who was just adorable. This was pretty comprehensive, lots of biology and factual information. It was the early 90s so a big part of it was teaching how to avoid getting HIV, teaching both abstinence and condoms. Some mention of same-sex relationships, but when asked about the risk of HIV transmission from lesbian sex he blanched and said he didn’t know. No real fault here given the time period. They also taught various forms of birth control and other STIs. There was an undercurrent of promoting abstinence but also some pragmatic realism. In retrospect it could have been better, but compared to most of the country it was very good.

I’m in Finland, in my 40s. I don’t remember much. I think in the early teens we did have lessons in school about sex and reproductive biology. What I do remember is the “real” sex education stuff around 15-16 years of age, that was part of the health education classes, because, well, I think it got inadvertently weird. The physical education / health education teacher we had was retiring that year. To no one’s surprise, the stuff in the textbook was left for us to read on our own. Because “ummm I don’t think I need to cover this, uhhh heh heh, ummm, you kids probably already know about this”. And everyone was, like, thank God we were spared of that.

Being extremely queer in an extremely conservative family, *INHALES*

Texas: We had it three times. All three times were ineffectual or outright wrong.

First was in 3rd grade (9 years old) where the boys and girls were split into different classrooms. This was mostly the “your body is going to change, your penis will sometimes get hard, you’ll get hair in new places, please for the love of god wear antiperspirant” talk. They didn’t really touch on the opposite sex at all in this one, except to vaguely say that the girls would also experience some changes of their own.

Second was in middle school, probably 7th grade (13 years old). They marched us all into the gymatorium and had us sit on the floor in front of the stage. They brought in a dude who looked and acted a lot like a church youth leader. Very much the “hey kids, I’m the cool relatable teacher” type. This was an abstinence-only sex talk. We were told that condoms don’t prevent pregnancy or STIs, (“on the microscopic level, latex looks like Swiss cheese”), and can actually increase the risk of STIs in some cases by “sealing everything in”. We were told that women’s birth control is ineffective and probably shouldn’t even be legal to sell because of the horrible side effects. We were shown lots of gory and graphic images of sex organs in various states of disease or decay. This was basically the start of the “if you have sex you’re going to catch a ton of diseases and then die” messaging. We were told that the only safe way to have sex is to wait until after marriage.

Then in high school, we had Health as a required elective. It could be taken anywhere from 9th to 12th grade (15-18 years old). The class was mostly focused on things like nutrition (using the very outdated food pyramid) and exercise (without any actual practical portions where we went to the gym). Sex ed in this class consisted of a single class session (~55 minutes) of more “if you have sex it’ll rot, and then you’ll die” messaging.

Naturally, kids had a lot of unprotected sex, because teenagers are horny. They tried sex, realized they didn’t seem to get sick, and then kept having it. And they didn’t use protection, because they were told that condoms were ineffective. IIRC we had around a dozen girls get pregnant in high school. Also, all three sex talks were entirely heteronormative, with zero mention of LGBTQ+ stuff.

Edit: My partner went to school in a neighboring town. They didn’t get the middle school talk, and Health was an optional elective for their high school. So the only one they actually got was the first talk in elementary school.

Mostly porn as a kid, then actual research on my own. Sucks that sex ed is so ignored

Technical, but no mention of the social, psychological, or emotional aspects of sexuality.

Female orgasm was literally never discussed or even spoken of. This was in the very conservative city of Anaheim, in very conservative Orange County, California.

I remember in elementary school we had a lesson on sex organs. When I turned in my test paper, I curiously asked my teacher, “If the sperm is in the male, and the egg is in the female, how does the sperm transfer over?”

All she said was, “Well, what do you think?” To which I replied, “I don’t know.” Then I quietly returned to my desk. Later I discussed it with my friend and we concluded that a male must pee into a female. Because at the time, pee was the only thing we knew came out of the penis.

Christian teachers showing us pictures of STI infections that had been left alone for probably years before the patient went to/was able to go to a doctor in an effort to scare us into celibacy. Generally a scarring experience that didn’t really teach us anything other than to practice safe sex.

*This was in the early 2000s IIRC.

Reading through the comments I remembered about a really great sex-positive TV show I would always watch late at night at around the same time my public education failed in teaching me about sex. The hosts were a really attractive Asian-looking guy with flowy hair and always wore a silk shirt with the top 2-3 buttons undone and a really attractive white girl that always wore a lot of tight clothes. They went over a lot of topics regarding attraction, safe-sex, how to deal with STIs; however, I don’t think there were any specific segments on anything LGBTQ+, but IIRC they didn’t need to because they way they presented things were easily applied to any sexual orientation. As in they talked about anal sex and how to do it safely and whatnot without specifically saying gex. I would love to read more about it, so if you know what it was called please lmk.