film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

John Oliver Sex Ed.jpg

How Many Ways Can Sex Educators Insult Your Vagina? 'Last Week Tonight' Investigates

By Emily Cutler | Videos | August 10, 2015 |

By Emily Cutler | Videos | August 10, 2015 |


Having John Oliver and Last Week Tonight investigate the terrible standards of the U.S. sex education policy is kind of like having Picasso paint your living room walls. Their expertise far outmatches the skill level required. And given the fact that almost 10 million teenagers and young adults were diagnosed with an STD in 2013, I’m pretty sure a small child with some finger paints could highlight a dozen or so problems in our written sex-ed policy. Or they would be able to if we as a nation had a regulated, written, national sex-ed policy.

Did you guys know that we don’t have any standards for sex education in the U.S.? Or that only 13 states require that it be “medically accurate”? Or that in May of this year Congress voted to increase funding for abstinence only sex education?

Yeah, and it only gets better.

Mike Ehrmantraut aside, that might be the most depressing segment I’ve ever watched on Last Week Tonight. I’d heard the “(female) non-virgins are like chewed up gum” one before, but those other ones were new. Tape? A woman’s ability and desire to express herself sexually is the same as a used piece of tape? Or having sex turns your vagina into the most disgusting pair of sneakers anyone has ever owned? (By the way dude, you’re totally in the right to be upset that your bride is putting those shoes on her feet/ in your home/ anywhere near you. Those shoes are gross. Boning is not.)

And that video actually highlights maybe the biggest problem with the current state of sex-ed. It’s a significant, sometimes deadly problem that teenagers aren’t being given crucial, accurate information about how to engage in sex in a way that is both physically and emotionally safe. But those dumbass teenagers eventually grow into dumbass adults. A teenager who doesn’t know how to talk to his girlfriend about his sexual desires and their shared sex life is a comic cliche. A husband and wife who wait until their wedding night in order to have any discussion about the sexual pasts, preferences and compatibility? Hello, annulment.

Of course abstinence only educators could argue that if only that bride had remained pure and virginal, her husband wouldn’t be unhappy with her. That if she hadn’t let the football team put their be-socked feet into her theoretically women sized running shoes (did anyone even think through this analogy?), she and her husband would have lived happily ever after. Provided that they had exactly the same sexual tastes, sex drives, or attitudes about sexual experimentation.

Just so long as you don’t discuss those things with teenagers. That might give them the idea that sex is an important, but fun, pleasurable way for two people to bong and show their affection. And no one wants that.