Blogathon 13/20: Sex Education

Netflix is streaming a multi-season programme called Sex Education.

The programme revolves around a magnificently socially awkward high school student and, erm, sex.

Not so much his, as that of almost everyone else around him.

I have enjoyed S1, and despite a couple of flat-spots, I enjoyed S2 too.

It’s a bit of an odd show. It ‘feels’ not British (though it unquestionably is); there’s just something about the High School that is a touch… transatlantic.

I enjoy the characters (Maeve is a delightfully rebellious personality), and I love the stunning locations (largely shot in the Wye valley, and it’s good to revisit, through the lens, places I frequented when I was much younger).

I also enjoy the way the show broaches sex, sexuality, and sexual behaviour. It tackles all of these things in a matter-of-fact, non-preachy way.

But the single thing I enjoy most about it (apart from the locations – so good to see Tintern and Llandogo looking so pretty!) is the way pupil relationships at school are portrayed.

And when I say ‘relationships’, I mean that in the broadest sense of the word.

Even if someone isn’t in your crowd/gang/clique, that someone is known. And is spoken to (even if slightly disparagingly).

S/he is an actual person.

I like this because when I was at secondary school (we didn’t call it High School back then) that isn’t what happened.

We might have known the names of fellow pupils from registration, but we didn’t know them well enough to speak to.

Or maybe it wasn’t even ‘well enough’, we just didn’t want to speak to them because they were unknown?

Whatever the rationale was, we just didn’t have the same kind of ‘soft’ relationship that the pupils in Sex Education do.

I really hope the programme is accurate in this one aspect more than all of the others.

It would be good to know that today’s teens are being more adult towards each other than we managed to achieve.