[Applause]
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 the Jacklyn Asian
comes out with penis at just under 30
miles per hour so it needs to be no air
in the tip for it to withhold the spurt
did you know that did you know that when
you first started having sex when you
first 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 would
she be talking about it sooner rather
than later and why we should be talking
about pleasure we pleased to note
there's no audience participation in my
talks you can call like 3 the sigh of
relief
what is sex 4 why do we have sex I'm
gonna 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 his 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 and 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 talk about with sex
and we freely discuss desire and
pleasure most mostly the lack of it but
one thing that we used to really love
talking about is a masturbation we spoke
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 now
I'm sure many of you have seen this film
those of you 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 they're about to
go to college and they make this pact to
try and lose their virginity
before their high school problem 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 so a
storyline running concurrently with the
boys trying to have sex there are two
female characters called Vicky and
Jessica and they discuss orgasms in such
a normal way that that became normal for
me in my friends to discuss orgasms
additionally there's this really
wonderful scene where Vicky receives
oral from her boyfriend and he's he's
gifted this Bible of like tongue
twisters and instructions and his 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 a mission 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 any
time that 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 gonna need one of these if
you're gonna
really hey
so she mailed it with no sound and to
demonstrate how this managed the
incoming penis she probed at it with her
T fingers and this demo cap it was so
old that she just tore a massive hole
into her it nobody captured dude by the
way they're very sturdy and that was it
ten minutes not even 10 minutes she left
we carried on with our lesson and all of
us were like what's happened what's this
happened I didn't know where is meant to
go or why really I needed one did the
girls in the class who likes girls need
one as well for a while afterwards I
thought it was meant to like perch on
the end of a penis haphazardly
oh it was meant to like lie at the
entrance of my vagina like some sort of
trampoline in the ground causing
whatever was to answer to like bounce
off of it and I didn't have the internet
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 piqued my interest
but at that age and in that time sex
wasn't really around that much I don't
really see it anywhere so I continued
growing up I read about it in Judy Blume
books a glance at the top shelf of a
news agents 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 and a lot of that work
has been very relationship based so 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 goods erotic
filthy transcending playful hilarious
loving orgasmic connecting empowering
the bad weird tastes with mouth with
noises the dog walking in having sex
with women you should really be having
sex with like your boss or your
ex-partner or someone else's partner
these are encounters which are they're
still light-hearted and the situation is
still it's still fine for you to have
still have a good sexual encounter
just a bit cringing maybe a little bit
regretful but then there's the ugly
shameful manipulative humiliated
harassed aust
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've got a job
teaching sex education to teenagers and
running sexual health dropping 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
sti's and contraception and consent
there was still something we still you
know we weren't actively discussing
pleasure so I started asking them you
know um all these effective times people
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 was hearing about sexual activity for
these young people in which they were
passive where acts would unto them and
at them instead of being active equal
participants
and not only does I see myself in that
but I just saw history repeating itself
almost twenty 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 and
on the other side of it those who are
doing it at their partners not with them
did they really want to be doing that
looking at how sex education is
currently - 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 are
disabilities and learning aids 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 as
something hidden something half obscured
in the hope that they'll just just get
it sex education still has a really long
way to go and 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
in 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 the
news agents 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 it's a
fallacy sex in the way we talk about
with sex in the way that we talk about
it deserves so much more than a lesson
on a timetable because it's feeling it
makes the world go round 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
they're gonna type in a question that
has the word sex in the in the sentence
one is also gonna 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 was the most
searched-for terms 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 that's still
really worrying
now pornography and the concept of being
turned on by it what sick
representations isn't you there's
nothing wrong with it
there's 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 feel
what that does to young people's brains
not only that I fear about 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 gonna be like I know
that this feels really uncomfortable for
a lot 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 once you
adult into bigger 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 you know 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 a radar so what's the
solution
how do we have these kind of
conversations so when a child or a
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 is
an opportunity to give them real
information and it'll keep the
conversation open for when they get
older it's how P navigates 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 thief it's a vulva and a
vagina okay the vagina is on the inside
the vulva makes up everything that's on
the outside of someone who has
biologically female sex organs using the
correct terms it's not dirty and 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 stance 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 but we have less or more
sex would really 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 it doesn't have to be be brave
break it down and talk about sex thank
you