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To date there has been little research on young people and sexuality in Northern Ireland. This paper draws on the first major study in this area to analyse the delivery of formal sex education in schools. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to access young people's opinions about the quality of the sex education they had received at school. Overall, they reported high levels of dissatisfaction, with notable variations in relation to both gender and religious affiliation. In one sense their opinions mesh well with those of young people in other parts of these islands. At the same time the specificity of sexuality in Ireland plays a key role in producing the moral system that underlies much of formal sex education in schools. Underpinned by a particularly traditional and conservative strain of Christian morality, sex education in Northern Ireland schools is marked by conservatism and silence and by the avoidance of opportunities for informed choice in relation to sexuality on the part of young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I reflect on how the culture of schooling that I experienced throughout the 1970s and early 1980s scaffolded a formative awareness of sexual difference. Quinlivan and Town have pointed out that ‘School communities seldom have to move beyond the personal deficit model in attempting to meet the needs of Lesbian and Gay youth’ (Quinlivan & Town, 1999, p.251). In reconstructing the memories of those days, months and years, I offer a personal account of how schooling reinforces heterosexual identification, through gender display, and situates students in activities where deviation from what is considered and accepted as ‘normal’ is pathologised. I hope to convincingly tell what it felt like to be positioned within institutional discourses that naturalised and rehearsed a collective knowledge about sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rationale behind using medical students as sexual health educators in light of current UK governmental policy agenda and research on effective interventions is described in this paper, which also examines the results of a cross-sectional survey of the sexual health knowledge and attitude of 14–15 year-olds in some South Wales schools. Major current sources of sexual health information include school, magazines and other young people. Young people are generally well informed about contraception but ill informed of contraceptive services while tending to have a negative attitude towards their utilisation. Reasons for this include insufficient information and education on services, inaccurate perceptions of the levels of confidentiality of services and embarrassment towards general practitioners. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of the development of an effective sexual health education programme using medical students as educators in South Wales secondary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human sexuality is a significant issue for educators to understand and teach about, and for young people to learn about. The development of interactive multimedia technologies has added a range of new dimensions associated with designing pedagogies for sex education on Interactive Multimedia (IMM). Here, a module on CD-Rom on Sexuality and Human Relationships designed for student teachers is presented as an example of a resource, and analysed for the pedagogical considerations that accompany it. The paper concludes that the conceptualisation and design of IMM on CD-Rom on sexuality is able to address a range of commonly used pedagogies. The most significant pedagogical renegotiation appears to lie in the transposing of human-to-human interaction, as in discussion, real life scenarios, simulation, role analysis, values and attitude clarification, to human-to-screen interaction. This may be addressed principally by using camera phones where human-to-human interaction occurs visually and in real time, whilst email and discussion groups can cater for delayed, typed text human-to-human interactions. For some learners, using IMM on CD-Rom for sex education may be less effective, but for others it may be ideal as it provides for privacy, solo contemplation, self-dialogue, and negates embarrassment in front of peers or teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between school-based sex education policies and sexual health-related statistics of young1 people in four developed countries: the Netherlands, France, Australia, and the United States of America. Drawing upon literature searches in relevant CD-ROM databases, Internet websites, government reports and libraries, school-based sex education policies and a range of sexual health indicators for young people are described for each country. While the average age of first intercourse is approximately the same for each country, the analysis indicates that those countries with pragmatic and sex positive government policies (France, Australia and especially the Netherlands) have better sexual health-related statistics than the one country with a primarily sexual abstinence-based policy (the United States). The findings suggest that abstinence-based policies do not necessarily result in improved sexual health outcomes for young people. Furthermore, liberal policies do not necessarily ‘promote’ sexual activity and may serve to better equip young people with skills that enable sexual health sustaining behaviours. Although a causal relationship between school-based sex education policies and sexual health outcomes cannot be proved, the analysis does suggest that young people's reproductive and sexual health is best served when sex between young people is acknowledged, accepted and regulated rather than proscribed in all contexts outside marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores student teachers' understandings of child sexual abuse and strategies to deal with it that are appropriate for the primary school classroom. Evidence of surface and deeplearning were obtained from a content analysis of student teachers' responses to an essay-type exam question, using Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. The results show that participants were most likely to be rated as having achieved at intermediate levels, and less likely to be at either the lowest or highest levels. The data suggest that greater provision should be made for addressing child sexual abuse during the training of such professionals to enhance their deeper thinking about child sexual abuse and strategies to deal with it. Since pre-service teacher education plays a significant role in enhancing the quality of future teachers, it is important that they are helped to achieve the highest levels associated with understanding universals, principles,generalizations and abstractions. The implications of these results for teaching in primary schools strongly suggest the importance of comprehensive, enhanced, longer, and on-going programmes on child sexual abuse across pre-service education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The family--via communication (or lack thereof)--is a primary avenue for sexuality education. While most research on family sexuality communication has examined the content of parent-child communication (e.g. topics discussed), relatively few studies have assessed the process, the way in which communication occurs. This paper presents an analysis of communication process based on data collected during a qualitative, observational study of family sexuality communication with thirty low- and middle-income African American mothers and their adolescent daughters living in an urban area in the southeastern USA. Two dimensions of communication process emerged: affective and stylistic. Elements of the affective dimension included connection, empathy, comfort, anger, and silence. Elements of the stylistic dimension included interactive versus didactic communication styles, use of a variety of persuasive techniques, body language, and setting. Results suggest that the process of sexuality communication is as, if not more, important than content and that affectively open and stylistically interactive sexuality communication is related to the context of close and connected mother-daughter relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social and political climate of sex education over the last two decades has dramatically changed, with parents now being encouraged to work in partnership with professionals. This paper seeks to further the argument that involving parents in their child's sex education does matter and can have an impact on their child's future sexual health. It discusses the reality of parents' roles and skills in providing sex education within the family. In particular, the discussion explores myths parents associate with sex education, involving fathers in provision, siblings as peer educators, health professionals' attitudes towards involving parents, and school partnerships. The author calls for professionals to involve parents alongside other sources of sex education in health and educational strategies to address sexual health issues and improve sex education. Otherwise future generations of children will experience a closed cultural attitude towards sexual matters and we will not achieve lower teenage pregnancy rates or view sex education positively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Human Rights Act 1998 is the most significant British statute to have been passed in the last decade. It has already been the catalyst for a series of high profile cases, ranging from the privacy rights of celebrities (Douglas v Hello! [2001] QB 967) to the Home Secretary's sentencing powers in murder cases (R (Anderson) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002] 4 All ER 1089). Yet, beyond the media spotlight, the real influence of the Human Rights Act 1998 lies in the fact that individuals and groups have, for the first time, been accorded the opportunity to invoke in the national courts a series of fundamental human rights. In this paper I will consider one area that is likely to be affected—the extent to which the Human Rights Act will have an impact on the law relating to sex and relationship education (SRE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multi-method project was conducted in a Local Education Authority (LEA) in the north of England. The relationships between girls' friendships, bullying, school attendance and transfer were explored through documentary analysis, LEA school admission statistics, group interviews and q-sort technique. This paper reports selectively on those elements of the study that focussed on girls' popularity in high school. The qualitative data indicated that these girls thought their relationships altered once they settled in at secondary school, changing from an intimate dyadic same-sex friendship to a more fluid and strategic set of relationships set within a context of heteronormativity. The participants in the study expressed great interest in discussing and analysing personality and relationships through the research activities, and the author suggests such techniques might be valuable to explore these issues in regular Sex and Relationship Education lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people engaged as peer educators are increasingly important in sex and relationship education (SRE) programmes in a variety of settings and are particularly valued in the APAUSE programme (Rees et al., 1997). The increase in popularity of peer education raises a need to value the inputs of young people and to give formal recognition to peers. An assessment process focusing on aspects of performance including communication, teamwork and relationships skills has been developed to assess volunteer peer educators on the APAUSE programme that aims to reconcile the typical tension in assessment of showing public recognition of competence and the ability to motivate learners. This paper reports initial findings from a pilot of this assessment process in 28 schools, involving 484 peer educators across England. Initial data suggest this has been extremely well received by teachers and peers. Experience of the process provides teachers with a method of feedback, which, by sharing the language of assessment with peers, enables the young people to be clearer about their tasks, making them more effective as peers and better able to articulate their experiences. These data are used to describe the contributions that an assessment process, focused on assessing performance in authentic situations, can make to SRE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data from a study of four projects in which young mothers deliver school sex education sessions, with the aim of giving pupils ‘informed choices’ regarding their sexual behaviour. Eleven focus group discussions were carried out with pupils, and semi-structured interviews were carried out with 14 young mothers in order to assess the extent to which the sessions were of value in this way. The findings show that pupils perceived the sessions to be beneficial, not necessarily through providing new information as implied by the notion of ‘informed choice’, but because they fostered a deeper level of understanding and acceptance of the potential consequences of their decisions regarding sex and contraception. The main reason for this outcome, that is pupils' beliefs that they were hearing the whole truth from their peers, is demonstrated and critically explored in relation to the young mothers' own perceptions of the sessions. The implications of the somewhat different understandings of the sessions that emerged for the key notion of ‘informed choice’ are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although young people in Nigeria become sexually active at a very early age, little is known about how they view sex, sexuality, and relationships with the opposite sex. Yet knowledge of their notions and expectations regarding these issues has the potential to improve care and inform the development of sexuality education programmes. This paper reports the findings of a study which relied on in-depth individual interviews and focus group discussions to investigate notions of sex, sexuality, and relationships among 120 boys aged 10-21 in rural southeastern Nigeria. Emerging data suggest that the popular images of sex, sexuality, and relationship among the boys support the notion of the cult of the male, which consists in a heady mixture of paternalism, systematic subordination of girls, and the glorification and idolization of male sexuality and sexual prowess. Boys generally held a penis-centred view of sex and tended to liken sexual intercourse and relationships with girls to encounters during which girls were conquered, subdued, and demystified. The ideology of a double standard, in which males feel morally and physically edified by multiple sex encounters and viewed females as morally demeaned by the same, was observed among the boys. The findings show the need for approaches to sexuality education to be sensitive to the cultural contexts within which these notions are formed and sustained among boys in local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist poststructuralist approaches to research can authorize different ways of working with different types of texts in search of insight into the discursive constitution of subjects. In this paper I undertake a close reading of women's memories about early sexual experiences generated in a small collective biography workshop. The collective poetic text that emerges from the workshop is analysed in terms of recent feminist sociological research on girls' experiences of (hereto)sex and in terms of Foucault's work on power. Analysis reveals the discursive complexity and deep (and often dangerous) contradictions through which girls negotiate their shifting subjectivities as they become sexual. My readings of this text imply that school sex education programs might attend more closely to the ambiguities of agency and desire experienced by adolescent subjects of the curriculum. Finally, I suggest that reflexive readings of our own (sexed) subjectivities can be productive professional development strategies for teachers of sex education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are concerned with the ways in which social constructions of age can contribute to reducing or exacerbating the vulnerability of young people, and for this reason we refer to the issue as one of 'the politics of innocence'. The focus of this paper is on gender, youth and HIV prevention/ AIDS awareness in the context of South Africa and investigates the uses (and abuses) of images of 'childhood', 'youth' and 'adolescence' in the age of AIDS. Notwithstanding the particular case of South Africa where the incidence of new cases of HIV infection amongst young people is at crisis proportions, the impetus for our work on the visual representations of youth, gender and AIDS comes out of a recognition of the increasing risk of youth to sexually transmitted infections, HIV and AIDS, and within that the particular vulnerability, worldwide, of young women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 30 years academic discussion of pornography has been largely confined to questions about its social and psychological effects. The debate has been caste in black and white terms; partly because the stakes were political, as in the debate over porn amongst feminists, and partly because social scientists have sought to produce a hard, definitive conclusion as to the harmfulness or otherwise of porn. Recently, however, these disputes have died down. This new climate provides the opportunity for a calmer and more considered evaluation of the part that pornography plays in the formation of sexual identities, practices and experiences. We need to view pornography as one more significant factor in the life-long sexual socialization of individuals in modern society. Drawing on previous qualitative research this paper seeks to illustrate ways in which the social and personal impact of reading pornography can be treated in terms of three aspects: how the act of reading fits into personal biography; how the reader or viewer negotiates the meanings about sexuality and gender contained in porn; and the processes of identification and interpretation involved in the use of such material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linking schools with sexual health clinics facilitates clinic access by young people. This paper documents the process of developing one such link and its impact on clinic use. Multiple data collection strategies were used to document a developing school/clinic relationship and constant comparative analysis was used to develop hypotheses from the data as follows: •A few teachers have a good knowledge of local sexual health services and extensive experience of referring to them. •Most tutors (despite their pastoral role) have little knowledge of local sexual health services and no experience of referring to them. •Organising work in the school is difficult because teachers have little non-teaching time and a variable commitment to sex and relationship education. •The link between the clinic and the school has facilitated access to the clinic by school pupils. •Outreach work is more effective when young people meet the outreach worker repeatedly in different settings. Each hypothesis is presented with its supporting data. This information is consistent with what is known about the benefits of school/clinic links and adds to what is known about the process of developing and maintaining such links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore the notion of gendered 'investments' in particular forms of physical activity; what is at stake when people choose one way of using their body rather than others? First, I present data from a life history interview with, Ralph, an Australian professional male dancer. In this interview, Ralph talks about the way he has experienced dance throughout his life and how his investments in being a particular kind of male (straight identifying, 'cool') have shaped these experiences. That is, rather than experience being a shaper of identity, I suggest the reverse. Second, I relate the contextually specific nature and constructedness of these investments to physical education. Why does physical education take the form it does and why, given its often-stated goal to expand the movement repertoires of children, is it so closely identified with sport? I conclude by critiquing the view of mainstream physical educators which sees sport as a 'natural' pleasure, as an expression of 'normal' child development and as the 'common sense' subject matter for physical education. I argue that these appeals to the 'natural' obscure physical education's location within heteronormative regimes of bodily practice. Instead, sport and dance can justifiably be seen as politically 'erotic'. In short, I argue that physical education is one site amongst many others in which the bodily and sexual conformity of citizens is pursued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the reliance of American school-based sexuality education (SBSE) programs on a moralistic agenda and several presuppositions of adolescent sexuality, resulting in a biased and inadequate approach to sexuality education. Furthermore, by virtue of its authoritative position, SBSE serves as an influential force in the construction of 'normal' adolescent sexuality and in the production of a particular kind of sexual teen. A multidisciplinary collection of comments and criticisms of SBSE are organized into a three-pronged critique: (1) SBSE attends exclusively to the dangers and risks associated with teen sex; (2) SBSE reifies narrow definitions of normal teen sex as heterosexual and coital; (3) SBSE fails to address the interplay among gender, race, class and sexuality, while simultaneously propagating sexist, racist, and classist notions of sexuality. Through these presumptions and stereotypes, SBSE (mis)informs teens, projecting a particular message and vision of who and how teens are and should be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the preferences of boys regarding the characteristics of teachers of sex education. Sex education in English schools is delivered as a compulsory part of National Curriculum Science and in most schools is further explored in time given over to personal, social and health education. Research was carried out in a variety of schools from both the state and private sectors, by the use of focus group interviews and questionnaires. Due to the existing law in England and Wales regarding parents' right of withdrawal from classes, only boys of 16 or over were used in this research. Boys want teachers to be empathetic, non-judgmental and able to create a 'safe environment' in order to facilitate the discussion of difficult subjects. Most boys believed that the age and sex of the teacher had little bearing on whether they could deliver the subject well; more important was their ability to generate trust, keep control of classes and use relaxed and informal methods of delivery. Unanimously the boys believed that history and English teachers were more able to fulfil these requirements whereas science and mathematics teachers were considered to be unable to adapt to the relaxed styles required. There was a general belief that teachers should be specially trained in this area of the curriculum. Disagreement was found in areas such as the use of outsiders to deliver sex education. The implications of this research for teacher educators, teachers in training and schools are considerable. Unless boys work with teachers they respect and trust they will continue to have little time for this area of the curriculum, to the detriment of their future relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical education (PE) lessons are an important arena for the construction and consolidation of dominant and subordinate masculinities and femininities within schools. The gym, sports hall, playing field and associated areas such as changing rooms and showers function as sites both for the gendered display of hegemonic forms of heterosexual masculinity and for the subordination of alternatives. Femininities of different sorts are also played out through the acceptance and refusal of different forms of school PE and out-of-school exercise activities. This paper considers how different forms of physical education and sports in schools contribute to the construction and perpetuation of different forms of heterosexual masculinities and femininities. In it I attempt to map Frank's (1991, 1995) ideal types of bodily usage against activities in the male and female traditions of school PE. I look at the gender marking of Frank's ideal types and the corresponding PE, sports and fitness activities and at how the different bodily usages encouraged by different forms of secondary school PE permit and encourage the development of particular masculinities and femininities while discouraging others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes findings from a recent UNAIDS-funded study of how education systems in selected countries in East Asia, South East Asia and the Pacific are responding to HIV/AIDS-related education. Data were collected by means of postal questionnaire and key informant interviews in Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam. Sources of information varied but included ministries, non-governmental organisations and other interested bodies. Findings suggest that the education provided is largely information-based, but with a developing emphasis on life-skills such as assertiveness and negotiation. Specific sexual practices are rarely discussed in the region's schools, except in a somewhat mechanistic way, focusing mainly on human reproduction and anatomy. However, those countries most affected by the epidemic are beginning to re-think their approaches. An increasing openness about sexual and drug injecting practices, and how to communicate these issues with young people, is beginning to become apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexuality education in African contexts is riddled with socio-cultural complexity, tension and taboo. Such tensions are compounded when the focus of intervention is primary school children who are presumed ‘innocent’. However, sub-Saharan Africa remains the region of the world most severely impacted upon by the human immunodeficiency virus and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, thus heightening the need to talk to children about sex and sexuality. This paper explores the role of consulting pupils, participation and dialogue as methodological innovations that have the potential to enable new ways of thinking about sex and sexuality and the transcendence of ‘dead end debates’ about what should and should not be taught. The paper is based on data from an action research project in Kenya, Ghana and Swaziland. The data show that the desire to create a space characterised by consultation, listening and dialogue in which adults and children could participate ‘as if’ they were social equals was inevitably not straightforward or ever fully realised. Nevertheless, pupils were able to make their voices heard at many points in these spaces and powerful moments of dialogue did exist with some of the adults undergoing significant changes of opinion throughout the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal common sense sees the absence of conversations about abortion in schools as the consequence of a taboo that leaves teenage girls uninformed and silenced. From this perspective, the solution is to systematically introduce the subject of abortion in sex education curricula in order to provide information, resources and discussion on the schools' terms. Using post-structuralist theory, I argue that what might be needed instead is a certain ‘side-spreading’, rather than an official understanding, of the subject of abortion in schools. I aim to de-naturalise dominant liberal discourse by making transparent the links between sex education and ‘populational reasoning’, considering powers of production, questioning the position of schools as official holders and spreaders of approved knowledge about sex, and inviting possibilities to ‘de-territorialise’ and ‘re-territorialise’ the subject of abortion in unpredictable ways. This paper is composed of personal reflections, poems and theoretical explorations that challenge the predetermined nature of sex education curricula. Arguments for loosening the subject of abortion through multiple discourses and modes of expression are mirrored by the fragmented, genre-crossing form this paper takes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines a comprehensive sexuality education programme, Health Education for Youth (HEY), which incorporates anonymous questions about sex and sexuality that participating youth generate into the curriculum. HEY utilises a social ecology framework, decolonising perspectives and feminist methods to inform the programme, its facilitation and the incorporation of participant questions into the curriculum. This paper describes the theoretical and methodological frameworks; curriculum content and use of anonymous questions; programme and participant characteristics; and types and content of questions asked by youth. Findings indicate that young people utilise their agency to ask important sexuality questions and are concerned about similar types and content of questions regardless of programme setting. The benefits of using a social ecology framework, decolonising perspectives and feminist methods to guide curriculum content and session facilitation are discussed along with the value of incorporating anonymous questions about sex to create sexuality education that is youth driven and youth relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the im/possibilities and conundrums of researching sexuality education queerly within schooling contexts, and draws on theory to explore the potential of two approaches to analytical ‘messiness’ that may provoke ways of thinking about researching sexuality education and which hold possibilities for more queerly knowing the unexpected. While acknowledging the challenges of researching queerly in schools, it is argued that methodological conundrums that emerge in school-based sexuality education research can push ethnographers' working queerly to develop capacities to think the unthought more fully. Drawing on data from two ethnographic case studies, this paper uses affect theory and the notion of aporias to more fully understand and begin to re-imagine the im/possibilities of researching queerly in schools. It is suggested that in foregrounding analytical conundrums, ethnographers need to cultivate an ongoing uncomfortable reflexivity that can recognise and draw on the generative potential of paradox, uncertainty and ambiguity when researching in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the author moves to think through the practice of barebacking to investigate the ways in which sex education fashions subjects and vice versa. Using recent scholarship and the emergence of barebacking, the author thinksthroughthe discourses on this sexual culture and how doing so might allow sex education to move beyond merely thinkingaboutsex to a more risky version of sex education. The author's intentions are to counter-intuitively use the figure of the ‘barebacker’ as a lifestyle for thinking through sex education in the twenty-first century to explore potential pedagogical insights where pedagogy is viewed not simply as methods of teaching or the art of teaching but as the process of fashioning the self through relationships with knowledge, the self and other. The phenomenon of the barebacker allows for an exploration of possible ways of coming into presence. This task requires grappling with the risks inherent in sex education to engage how subjects emerge in relationship to other subjects and how sex education edits out particular types of sexual subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper outlines the ways in which media and cultural studies methodologies have been engaged with in order to conduct an investigation into the interplay between media and sexual learning in an Australian context. It brings ‘media practice’, ‘listening’ theory and ‘reparative reading’ together with interviews with Australian sexuality educators in order to consider how theoretical understandings of media's role in sexual learning might be productively reframed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As growing numbers of children from lesbian mother families enter the Australian education system, there comes with this an injunction to better include such families. The first step towards such inclusion should be to ensure that teachers are provided with knowledge about lesbian mother families that moves beyond simply refuting stereotypes, and towards acknowledgement of the specific experiences and needs of this family form. However, it is important that educators, when attempting to include lesbian mothers and their children, do not instantiate new norms when attempting to challenge old stereotypes. This paper reports on the development and application of a workshop aimed at providing education students at one South Australian university with a framework for understanding lesbian mother families that is critical of norms in all their forms, including amongst those who research lesbian mother families. It is suggested that the positive findings from the workshop may reflect the utility of challenging both heteronormativity and homonormativity in conjunction with one another so as to present students with a broadly critical approach to sexuality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data from two focus groups with US urban high school students and utilising the theoretical lens of the Affective Turn, this paper seeks to explore the role of erotica noir, a genre of erotic fiction depicting predominantly African American female protagonists, as an unofficial form of sex education circulating in and outside of school. With an intent focus on health, the medicalisation of the body and risk, particularly in relation to minority and queer students, the majority of sexualities education in the USA has denied the complex affects circulating within and around learning about sex and sexualities. This absence is perhaps even more acutely felt in the intensely affect-laden work of sexualities education. Looking away from the dominant ways of teaching and researching sex education and instead attending to affective intensities – excitement, disgust, shame and pleasure – I argue that students' use of erotica activates the double imperative that inheres in affect – to be affected and to affect – opening up a space for them to push back on official sexualities curricula. Attention to affect may also offer promising potential for those who seek to push methodological boundaries in sexualities education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a call for papers on political and other obstacles to effective sex education in different countries, the results of which will be documented in a special issue.