Today has been a particularly frustrating day for me. Today is the day that my MFT cohort is forced to take Sex Education. You’d think that I would be excited about the idea of studying sexuality. In the research arena I pretty much thrive on sex research. Keeping up to date on all of it excites me.
Unfortunately, my expectations are way too high for most schools. When I attend any class, on any subject, I expect that I’ll be receiving accurate, scientific, up to date information. In general, this seems like a reasonable expectation but for some reason when it comes to the study of sex, it generally appears like more of an afterthought than an actual educational experience.
The class that I’m sitting in is designed to prepare future therapists to work with sexual issues, but in reality all that it is doing is reinforcing misinformation and spreading antiquated ideas of how the sexual response cycle works. I find myself blanking out, hoping to disassociate completely before a seed of this crap creeps into my brain setting back years of sex positive study.
The class I’m sitting in today reminds me of how far sex education has to go. The amount of knowledge in this room is so varied. On one side of me is a woman who is well versed in the unique issues facing the LBGTI community, on the other side is a woman who can not say the word penis out loud.
Just as I was typing that the woman made a comment about “how no one wants to see videos featuring nonperfect bodies”. Can you feel my pain?
So as I sit here typing, trying really, really hard to keep my mouth shut long enough to get an A, I wonder what I can take out of this horrifying experience. It reminds me that when I’m working with clients as a therapist, students as an educator or peers as a friend, they too have had to sit through this crap and may have virtually no idea that a sex positive world exists. Many of them have heard a professor use the word “normal” when relating to sexual topics. Many of them have heard messages that don’t feel quite right to them, but they have no other source of information.
I guess the lesson for me is to remember that we are all still learning. There is no such thing as an ultimate guide to sex. Sex is a subjective, personal experience that varies greatly from person to person. As an educator, I can share my experiences and provide the latest information as I know it but still, the important message is that the only true expert on your body and its responses is YOU.

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