The condom works in all situations? Paradoxical messages in mainstream sex education in Sweden

Abstract

The condom plays a vital part in safe sex, the ideal outcome of mainstream Swedish sex education. As researchers have pointed out, however, the condom is not a neutral object; rather, it plays a part in shaping, in different ways, both sexual practices and the idea of what sex is. This paper focuses on sex education television programmes produced in Sweden from 1998 to 2011, and particularly on the condom's role in maintaining a hierarchy of sexuality that favours heterosexuality and vaginal intercourse. The analysis shows that the condom is presented as self-evident, as always available, and as unique in the protection it provides against sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Through over-simplified messages, such as ‘the condom is appropriate on all occasions’, the coital imperative is sustained and practices that do not include a penis are excluded from concepts of ‘sex’. From a safer sex perspective, this approach leaves unanswered questions about protection during other sexual practices, in particular from STIs such as herpes, for which no prevention strategies are presented. From a wider perspective, the sole focus on condoms, with its specific emphasis on the penis and penetration, runs contrary to the inclusive agenda of contemporary Swedish sex education.

Keywords::

• coital imperative
• condom promotion
• safer sex promotion
• sex education
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council under grant 2011-5850. The author wishes to thank Anna Bredström, Jenny Bengtsson and Eva Reimers for valuable comments and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. Swedish universities differ in how much, if any, sex education they include in teacher education. Some universities provide optional courses and additional training for those who want it. The Swedish National Agency for Education supports such initiatives and organises conferences and courses in collaboration with universities, offering teachers the opportunity to achieve adequate education in the field, but there is a major lack of concordance and continuity.

^2. The lower secondary school curriculum in 1994–2011 included reference to sexuality in biology and to a lesser degree in the social sciences syllabi. In the new curriculum from 2011, sexuality and other related concepts (for instance gender and identity) are given more emphasis and have been included to some extent in other subjects such as arts and physical education.

^3. With the exception of ‘Highlights’, the 2009 Ramp episodes are not subtitled.

^4. Translations of Sex on the Map are taken from the English-subtitled version.

^5. However, in the teacher's guide to Sex on the Map (Foxhage 2011, 21) both dental dams and the possibility of cutting up a condom are mentioned. The text then operates with formulations such as the use of ‘so-called dental dams’, ‘can be difficult’, ‘may be used’, ‘for those who want’, in summary offering a strikingly different modality than the self-evident tone presenting condoms. See also Braun (2013, 366–367) for another example of how protection other than condoms, especially dental dams, is linguistically marked as ‘odd’.