“My Sex Ed Teacher Was Extremely Averse to Talking About Sex”: Massachusetts Students’ Experiences With and Recommendations for Sex Education

Abstract

This qualitative interview study investigated the opinions of 28 high school–attending youth in Massachusetts related to the content of their sexuality education, what they wished they could learn from a sex education class, and whether and how pornography was addressed. Participants felt that the sex education they received was not in-depth and did not provide them with the information they needed. Further, participants indicated that their instructors were not engaging, approachable, or credible sources of sex-related information. There was strong support for including healthy relationships education as part of sex education as well as including multiple subtopics related to pornography (e.g., body image and pornography, compulsive pornography use, misogyny and pornography). Although there was no clear consensus on whether the ideal modality for delivering sex education is in-person or self-delivered, there was enthusiasm for the “gamification” of sex education content.

Keywords:

• Sex education
• pornography
• dating violence
• relationships
• adolescent health

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Data availability statement

De-identified data are available from the first author upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Health under grant R21HD105482.