Romantasy - a hybrid genre of romance and fantasy - is well known for its explicit 'spicy' content. Like romance fiction, female desire and pleasure are central to the narrative. Drawing on textual analysis from three popular romantasy series, this article examines the genre's potential to foster cultural cliteracy: or the recognition and understanding of the clitoris as a central site of sexual pleasure. It explores how depictions of clitoral stimulation, female sexual response and orgasm function as a form of public pedagogy on female sexual embodiment. Through detailed sensory description, romantasy offers rich narratives of female pleasure that contrast the often disembodied and risk-focused approaches that pervade school-based sexuality education. While the genre is not without its limitations, it is argued that romantasy provides readers imaginative, safe spaces to engage with the embodied, erotic and emotional dimensions of sex, gender and relationships. In doing so, it offers valuable counternarratives to patriarchal and phallocentric discourses that continue to constrain how female sexuality is understood and expressed.
This study examines how Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) takes place in Chilean early childhood education through a focus on the everyday experiences of educators and teaching assistants. Drawing on findings from a two-year ethnographic study, the analysis shows that CSE is sustained as a 'living right' through practitioners' emotional, relational, and embodied labour, rather than through institutional frameworks and infrastructures. Informed by a feminist ethics of care, the study demonstrates how, in the context of institutional unpreparedness, lack of training and support, pervasive moral surveillance, and high affective demands, responsibility for CSE is displaced onto a feminised workforce, which absorbs pedagogical risk, gendered expectations, and moral scrutiny, creating emotional exhaustion. The findings further show how practitioners articulate an everyday micropolitics of care not only to sustain CSE but also to sustain one another's wellbeing through pedagogical strategies and relational structures of care. Overall, the findings point to a structural paradox: although CSE is increasingly recognised as integral to care and children's rights in early childhood education, its realisation under current institutional conditions undermines practitioners' own care. Sustainable CSE in early childhood education requires recognising children's rights and care as a collective, relational, and institutionally supported responsibility.
Sex and relationship education (SRE) is a key to promoting young people's sexual health and relationship skills development, yet many programmes do not adequately meet the needs of young survivors of sexual abuse or intimate partner violence who face heightened risks of re-victimisation. Fourteen young people participated in interviews. They were recruited through sexual assault and survivor services, had each experienced child sexual abuse or intimate partner violence, and self-selected to join the study. Drawing on data from their interviews, this paper explores how SRE can be strengthened to become more survivor-aware and trauma-informed. We identify six principles for designing SRE that might better respond to the needs of survivors of child maltreatment: (1) safe and affirming learning environments; (2) relationship-based practice; (3) critical thinking and reflection; (4) empowerment and choice; (5) content grounded in real-world experiences; and (6) clear pathways to support. Drawing on our findings, we suggest that survivor-aware SRE requires an ongoing process of quality improvement based on feedback from young people, especially those with lived experience of childhood abuse and trauma, so that SRE supports the prevention of further victimisation while also enabling understanding and agency, and encouraging help-seeking and pathways to healing and recovery.
This pilot study describes the theoretical underpinnings and impact of a novel educational intervention, the Sex Communication Workshop, drawing upon ideas about sexual self-concept, critical consciousness, cultural competency and humility, and adopting a sexological worldview. The intervention took the form of a 90-minute workshop facilitated by staff members and peer educators at a US university. The study aimed to assess the impact of the programme in affecting changes in sexual assertiveness, consciousness, and self-schemata, as measured by subscales of the Multidimensional Sexual Self-Concept Questionnaire. Participants undertook a pre-test at the start of the workshop and a post-test immediately after. A sample of 558 undergraduate students, primarily in their second and third years, from a private midsized university in the northeast USA completed the programme. Statistically significant increases in sexual self-schema, t (557) = -7.25 p < .001, Cohen's d = .62; sexual assertiveness, t (557) = -2.52, p = .012, Cohen's d = .55; and sexual consciousness, t (557) = -6.90, p < .001, Cohen's d = .57 were identified. Findings suggest that the workshop brought about shifts in sexual self-concept that may potentially improve sexual communication among college students, warranting further research.
Sexual violence prevention programmes can be effective in minimising sexual harm in tertiary institutions, particularly when the programmes reflect the culture and context of their community. In this paper, we report on a qualitative evaluation of a sexual violence prevention programme developed using Indigenous Pacific epistemologies and implemented at a university in Aotearoa New Zealand. Programme participants completed pre- and post-workshop questionnaires which were analysed to assess: firstly, what they understood about and wanted from relationships with peers in their residential college; and secondly, whether their learnings aligned with the programme's learning outcomes. Overall, participants agreed that they wanted kindness, respect, trust, and inclusion from peer relationships within their residential college. Throughout the programme, participants demonstrated improved understandings of interpersonal relationships, increased knowledge of consent and sexual harm, and evidence of community building. These findings align with the intended learning outcomes of this programme. A sexual violence prevention programme founded on values of community and connection can be an impactful medium for discussing sexual topics that are tapu (sacred, forbidden) and culturally sensitive in a multi-ethnic context such as Aotearoa New Zealand.
This study examined the effect of a long-term, community-based HIV prevention programme on teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to sexuality education in rural farm schools in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Employing a cyclical longitudinal ethnographic design initiated in 2010, the research engaged Life Orientation educators through annual workshops, interviews, and observations. The findings reveal significant improvements in educators' foundational knowledge of HIV and AIDS, a positive shift in attitudes towards the importance of sexuality education, and enhanced pedagogical skills for delivering sensitive content. Teachers reported increased confidence, adopting learner-centred teaching methods, and a greater ability to identify and support vulnerable students. The study highlights the efficacy of sustained, contextually relevant professional development over one-off training sessions. However, it also identifies limitations, including challenges with staff turnover and the need for systemic support to ensure the long-term sustainability of such programmes and interventions. The study concludes that effective sexuality education requires knowledgeable and skilled educators, as well as a supportive ecosystem that includes school leadership and community engagement.
In the absence of comprehensive sexual education, most Serbian adolescents lack access to accurate sexual health information, and many resort to the internet to fill this gap. AI-driven tools including chatbots, simulations, and computerised learning models form avenues for sexual learning by circumventing socio-cultural and religious barriers. Yet how young Serbian adults use AI for sexual education purposes, and to what extent, is a novel topic that has not been studied. This paper explored these issues through the framework of the theory of planned behaviour with a focus on Serbian young people's use of AI tools as an alternative to formal sexual education. A qualitative methodology was used. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 18 participants aged 18-19, convenience sampled in Belgrade, Serbia. Results showed that young people were mostly uninterested in the use of AI for sexual education since it was perceived as too impersonal and instead preferred human intervention and interaction. Young people expressed the strong need for sexual education in schools finding it necessary for healthy development. This type of education could derive from good quality educational curricula, with qualified sexual education teachers combining in-class discussion with the use of digital AI tools.
Sex education in Iranian-Islamic society is shaped by diverse cultural values and sensitivities. Mothers, as primary educators, navigate multiple and sometimes conflicting discourses that create doubt, anxiety, and uncertainty in their parenting practices. This qualitative study aimed to explore Iranian mothers' perceptions of two contrasting narratives of sex education - the first, comprehensive and evidence-based; and the other abstinence-oriented and traditionally centred - within the Iranian context. Two 5-minute videos, each portraying one of the approaches, were presented in random order to 17 mothers from urban and rural areas with diverse educational, economic, and age backgrounds. Verbal and non-verbal responses were recorded and analysed using comparative reflexive thematic analysis to ensure interpretive depth and methodological alignment between the comparative design and data interpretation. Findings across six key themes revealed that Iranian mothers experience profound uncertainty, decision-making anxiety, fear of premature sexual curiosity, and sociocultural pressures when addressing their children's sex education since sex education in Iran is deeply intertwined with issues of cultural identity and moral values. To empower parents (particularly mothers), educators, policymakers, and religious leaders should collaboratively design culturally sensitive, incrementally implemented, and evidence-informed programmes that foster open, value-consistent communication between parents and children.
This article explores how young people and Further Education (FE) lecturers in Wales construct, negotiate, and resist Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) within a devolved and uneven policy landscape. Drawing on feminist post-structuralist theory and Foucauldian discourse analysis, the study analyses interview and visual-elicitation data from 19 FE learners and 8 FE lecturers across South-East Wales. The analysis identifies three intersecting discursive constructions: risk and regulation, vulnerability and silence, and participation and negotiated voice. Across these constructions, RSE emerged as shaped by institutional, moral, and affective logics that governed what could be said, recognised, or addressed within FE contexts. Young people described previous experiences of risk-focused and often irrelevant RSE, while calling for more dialogic and relational approaches that reflected their digital and everyday realities. Lecturers described tensions between pastoral care, institutional accountability, workload pressures, and limited training or policy direction. The findings highlight FE as a distinctive but overlooked site within Welsh RSE reform, where relational education is constrained by non-statutory provision and wider cultures of performativity. The article contributes to debates on post-16 RSE by positioning sexuality education as a relational and institutional practice shaped by power, care, and participation.
What exactly is taught about sexuality within the context of school-based religious education? While sexuality education in many Western countries initially focused on biological knowledge and health, it has since the 1970s developed into a broader, interdisciplinary educational field. Research on sexuality education has, however, primarily examined how sex and sexuality-related topics are addressed in science and social studies, while the role of religious education has received more limited scholarly attention. This article analyses how sexuality has been addressed in national curricula for religious education in Norwegian compulsory schooling from 1939 to 2020. Drawing on a content analysis of successive curricula, the article traces shifts in the subject's role - from explicit Christian moral guidance, through pluralisation and ethically oriented reflection, to a predominantly knowledge-based and descriptive framing within the current curriculum. The article highlights both continuities and ambiguities in the treatment of sexuality as part of religious education and demonstrates how religious education has functioned as a changing curricular arena for negotiating sexual norms and values. It also discusses the implications of the current curriculum for democratic education in contexts marked by religious, moral, and worldview diversity.
Parents play a fundamental role in educating their children, including younger children and teenagers, about sex and relationships. These conversations often involve complex and sensitive topics, which many parents find challenging due to limited knowledge, low confidence, or discomfort. This study investigated whether parents with higher sexual literacy - defined as the ability to seek and assess information to support sexual wellbeing and communicate confidently about sex and relationships - reported greater confidence, comfort, and satisfaction with these discussions. An Australian survey of 1,918 parents and carers of school-aged children was conducted in 2024. Linear regression models examined associations between sexual literacy and parent-child communication outcomes. Exploratory factor analysis and graded response modelling refined 14 sexual literacy measures to a unidimensional 10-factor solution. Higher sexual literacy was significantly associated with greater confidence (B = 0.522, 95% CI [0.46, 0.58]), comfort (B = 0.452, 95% CI [0.40, 0.51]), and satisfaction (B = 0.346, [0.29, 0.40]) in communicating with children about sex and relationships (all p < .001). Supporting parents to build sexual literacy and communication skills may enhance their ability to engage in open, confident conversations with their children about sex and relationships.
Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) continues to be inconsistently implemented across parts of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, even where national policies formally align with international standards. This article interprets this gap through the dual concepts of silence and noise. Silence is understood not simply as absence, but as a patterned form of omission within curricula, teacher preparation, and monitoring practices particularly in relation to gender equality, consent, and sexuality diversity. In contrast, noise reflects the complex digital environments in which young people increasingly seek information, where reliable knowledge coexists with misinformation and highly mediated representations of sexuality. Drawing on regional policy analysis, UNESCO/UNFPA SERAT data, and scholarship in health communication and digital literacy, the article focuses on Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Kosovo. These contexts demonstrate partial alignment with global frameworks alongside ongoing sociocultural contestation and strong youth engagement with digital media. The interaction between silence and noise is especially pronounced where formal education provides limited or ambiguous guidance. The article contributes by reframing silence as an active institutional process, recognising digital spaces as an informal yet influential curriculum, and advocating for the integration of sexual health, digital, and media literacy within formal education systems. This framework offers a useful lens for policy and practice in similarly complex settings.
Abstinence-only sexual health education programmes remain the predominant form of sex education in the USA despite being ineffective in delaying sexual initiation, reducing risky sexual behaviours, or preventing pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. The longer-term implications of receiving abstinence-only sex education during school-age years on adult sexual health and well-being remain poorly understood. This study addressed that gap through a thematic analysis of 413 adults' perceptions of how abstinence-only sex education influenced their sexual health and well-being. Participants reported varied experiences, resulting in three primary themes: negative implications (n = 349), neutral implications (n = 146), and positive implications (n = 185). Many participants described abstinence-only education as irrelevant to their sexual decision-making, citing personal beliefs and external sources as more influential. Others appreciated the moral or religious alignment of such programmes. However, a significant portion reported negative consequences, including inaccurate information, negative sexual health outcomes, and emotional distress. These findings highlight the inadequacy of abstinence-only sex education and its potential long-term impact beyond adolescence. Policymakers and educators should continue to advocate for comprehensive, inclusive, and evidence-based sexual health curricula in place of abstinence-only models to promote lifelong sexual well-beingo
