REVIEW: Sex Ed Show vs Porn (part 2)

[Continued from Part 1]

In the second show of the series, shown on Tuesday night, the Sex Education Show vs Pornography discussed male anatomy.

It started with (among other statistics, some of them repeated from show #1) the statement that 27% of male teens worry about the size and shape of their penis, the clear implication intended throughout this programme is that this is caused by the widespread availability of porn through the internet. However, it is sufficiently common an idea that 20 years ago I read about Adrian Mole constantly fretting about his "thing" and its length, measuring it almost daily to see if it had grown. Yes, that's fictional, but it was fiction intended to capture the spirit and turmoil and troubles of being a young teenager in the early 1980s. That's at least a decade before the World Wide Web was used much outside geeky cultures or selling porn (show #1 told us that the WWW as we know it started in 1991 - I'd like some more accurate/corroborating data from my readers on that if possible!)

So again, it doesn't seem fair to blame this insecurity entirely on porn.

In terms of male anatomy, there were two sections, one that dealt with the penis and one that dealt with puberty. In the puberty section, the presenter and her assistant (a doctor of medicine) listed the changes that happen to boys during puberty - voice breaking, pubes growing, balls dropping, facial hair growing and all that stuff. It was revealed as nothing to worry about (obviously) but other than that not really explained as such. I did learn one new thing of which I had been previously unaware: male breast tissue expands during puberty. Logically, it makes sense that it would based on biological similarities between men and women, but I just hadn't thought about it before. The presenter was quick to say that this doesn't mean we all get man boobs from puberty. As someone with man boobs, and very happy with them thanks, I did feel a little bit "othered" by that comment, which sounded as if man boobs are automatically something unwelcome or to be ashamed of.

Talking about the penis, they started again with 5 nude live models to display the variety that there is in male anatomy (not just genitalia). In general, this seemed to be window-dressing since the models weren't used to demonstrate anything much that I could tell - certainly anything they did point out using the live models were covered elsewhere in greater detail.

This session did reveal just how shockingly lacking the boys were in awareness of their own genitalia and how they function. This was also covered in more detail later, when both boys and girls were given instruction using a plastic model to demonstrate. Once again, I was struck at just how poor sex education is in this country. I am sure that at my (state-run, I hasten to note) school, the basics of these issues were covered as young as 12. I definitely knew everything covered in this show by the time I was 15 (with the exception of that breast tissue point!)

The instructor explained about the mechanics of an erection, but not really why it happens. The way in which hormones prompt the rush of blood to the cock was explained fully, but the things that prompt that to happen were not covered. That is, the emotional, visual and tactile stimuli were not discussed at all. Given that in sex education classes (I think aged 15) it was explained why teens especially get erections on a bus from the diesel engine's vibrations, and given that erections are usually embarrassing if we get them in public, I felt that this was quite a major omission. And, having noted that, I now realise that when discussing the female genitals on Monday's show, there was almost no discussion of what happens when a woman gets aroused sexually either. In passing it was mentioned that the clitoris expands and swells with blood (just as the penis does), and that the nipples become erect and the breasts increase in size. But there was no mention, for example, of vaginal self-lubrication, and there was no discussion of why that happens or when (and in particular, no mention of the fact that it happens whether you want to have sex or not, and that it can be a protection response to prevent unwanted penetration from causing unnecessary damage). It may be that these issues will be covered in later shows, but it seems to me that if you're discussing "normal" versus "porn" presentations of people's bodies, vaginal self-lubrication ought to be something covered in great detail - which didn't happen on Monday's show about female anatomy.

The main "teaching point" was the amount of ejaculate that is average/normal. Most teenagers measured out btween 5 and 10 times as much as is actually normal. Again, this isn't a new problem and while it may be directly related to porn, it's easy to see a solution in better sex education.

Another "teaching point" was when the presenter asked the boys especially, "where have you seen men ejaculate in porn?" and the boys answered with all the usual porn cumshots - face, breasts, belly, etc. After some prompting, they inally added "vagina". But it's rare to see a vaginal cumshot, simply because it's porn and you can't see the actual ejaculation if it happens inside her! The implication was supposed to be "the boys think this is where you cum with a woman" but there was no actual indication of that in what was actually displayed.

The session ended with the boys being advised "Ask her where she likes it" which is indeed good advice. However, so far that seems to be the ONLY reference to negotiated consent and activity in the series This is, needless to say, a major lacking.

As with Monday's show, Tuesday's show had a picture gallery - this time of male genitalia in their flaccid state. Boys correctly picked out a penis of average size, but when asked which one they'd want to have, they all went for the biggest. They said this was because a bigger penis is better, and it's "something you can boast about" (when asked to whom, they answered both boys and girls). Nothing was really said to challenge this perception. In particular, at no point did anyone explain that size when flaccid is a very poor indicator of size when erect. For example, my own "male member", "The Little Professor", starts off at a size that is probably smaller than the range displayed in show #2 (making it outside the "normal" range); but when erect, my girth is best described as very ample, and my length is bang on the average. Some people with a 5" flaccid penis have a 5" erect cock too. So it was absolutely appalling that there was no mention of this in the show.

Interestingly, it was revealed that many of the boys trim or shave their pubes, and admitted that it's because they do it in porn, "because it makes it look bigger".

The show ended with a quick lesson in penis hygiene, explaining what smegma is and why it's important to clean it away fairly frequently. This much at least was stuff I didn't really learn in sex ed classes, but should be standard.

Part 3 will be coming soon-ish, dealing with the anti-porn memes repeated by the show and the presenter's judgemental attitude towards sexuality.