Texas: We had it three times. All three times were ineffectual or outright wrong.

First was in 3rd grade (9 years old) where the boys and girls were split into different classrooms. This was mostly the “your body is going to change, your penis will sometimes get hard, you’ll get hair in new places, please for the love of god wear antiperspirant” talk. They didn’t really touch on the opposite sex at all in this one, except to vaguely say that the girls would also experience some changes of their own.

Second was in middle school, probably 7th grade (13 years old). They marched us all into the gymatorium and had us sit on the floor in front of the stage. They brought in a dude who looked and acted a lot like a church youth leader. Very much the “hey kids, I’m the cool relatable teacher” type. This was an abstinence-only sex talk. We were told that condoms don’t prevent pregnancy or STIs, (“on the microscopic level, latex looks like Swiss cheese”), and can actually increase the risk of STIs in some cases by “sealing everything in”. We were told that women’s birth control is ineffective and probably shouldn’t even be legal to sell because of the horrible side effects. We were shown lots of gory and graphic images of sex organs in various states of disease or decay. This was basically the start of the “if you have sex you’re going to catch a ton of diseases and then die” messaging. We were told that the only safe way to have sex is to wait until after marriage.

Then in high school, we had Health as a required elective. It could be taken anywhere from 9th to 12th grade (15-18 years old). The class was mostly focused on things like nutrition (using the very outdated food pyramid) and exercise (without any actual practical portions where we went to the gym). Sex ed in this class consisted of a single class session (~55 minutes) of more “if you have sex it’ll rot, and then you’ll die” messaging.

Naturally, kids had a lot of unprotected sex, because teenagers are horny. They tried sex, realized they didn’t seem to get sick, and then kept having it. And they didn’t use protection, because they were told that condoms were ineffective. IIRC we had around a dozen girls get pregnant in high school. Also, all three sex talks were entirely heteronormative, with zero mention of LGBTQ+ stuff.

Edit: My partner went to school in a neighboring town. They didn’t get the middle school talk, and Health was an optional elective for their high school. So the only one they actually got was the first talk in elementary school.

We had some diagrams about the sex organs. And an overview of birth control (IUD, condom, etc.). I had it twice. Once in Middle School, and it was a generic overview at best (mostly “for the love of God, don’t”) and then a more detailed one in high school. I believe they also showed us a woman giving birth.

Switzerland:

• We had it first when I was in 6th grade in biology. This was mostly here are your reproductive organs and here is what happens when you reproduce.

• Second time was in 8th grade, here we had once again everything we had in primary school + a little more in-deph + including a little bit genetics & sexuall illnesses.

• That year we also had a talk about consent, birth controll and struggles of teen pregnancy in houskeeping class.

• Later that year we had STD prevention week, where they explained every known STD and their symptoms including images of the sympthoms+ showed interviews with people afected and the history of the STDs and how they are treated ect. (That was scary AF, but hey we got free condoms)

• Later I moved to the Gymnasium and we had it once again but mostly focusing on genetics.

Edit: this is where I lived in Switzerland and not for the whole country as in Switzetland every Kanton has their own school ecosystem)

In the UK in the 1970s we were shown cross sections of male and family reproductive organs and copied pages out of a textbook about the essential mechanics. I can’t remember any discussion or moral guidance in the slightest. But then at that point I was well into my ‘hedge porn’ stage so that’s how I really educated myself.

My parents had bought a book on the subject to read to us kids. I got a hold of it first and read it by myself. When my dad brought me to bed, I “educated” him about where kids come from. It’s still one of my parents’ favorite stories about me as a kid.

In school, sex ed was alright. They taught us everything we need to know incl. how to prevent STDs and pregnancies. The only thing I would criticize in hindsight is that they used giant test tubes (25cm) to teach us how to put on condoms. That made a lot of boys feel inadequate.

I remember in elementary school we had a lesson on sex organs. When I turned in my test paper, I curiously asked my teacher, “If the sperm is in the male, and the egg is in the female, how does the sperm transfer over?”

All she said was, “Well, what do you think?” To which I replied, “I don’t know.” Then I quietly returned to my desk. Later I discussed it with my friend and we concluded that a male must pee into a female. Because at the time, pee was the only thing we knew came out of the penis.

The school took us on a field trip to the hospital where they told us that if we have sex we will get aids and die.

A nurse told us a horror story of a teenage mother who died and they showed us some fetuses in jars.

This was in central FL in the 90s

I was raised partially in a Unitarian Universalist church which believes in comprehensive sex education. I was still a dumbass about it but they definitely tried to inform me and I think I have a healthier sex life than most people have had.

I had an surprising one, actually: I went to a private religious school, but I had a strangely comprehensive sex education.

It started with unvarnished discussions of human anatomy and cautions about sexual abuse around age 8, and then moved on to the basics of (hetero)sexuality by the time I was a preteen. In high school that continued, though talk about birth control was postponed until the health units of later physical education courses, which not everyone took. Of course, the stress was always that sexual activity should be limited to monogamous (heterosexual) marriage, and there was no mention of anything outside of the hetero-normative.

The last wrinkle was that it was all opt-out. At every point, there was at least one person who would leave the room for the duration of the class because their parents really didn’t want them learning about naughty bits.

So it ended up actually providing a pretty good foundation. It was still incomplete and biased, but a lot better than what you would expect when you hear “private religious school.”

It was perfectly OK and uneventful enough that I’ll never understand why anyone would feel the need to discuss it.

9th grade. Public school. Teacher opens the first class with “All penises are the same size” and “I don’t answer questions. That’s what your handouts are for”. I can’t for the life of me understand how my generation had such a high teenage pregnancy rate, can you?

My sex ed was pretty thorough I feel. It was part of our health units in school from grades 5-9. In the earlier grades, the class would be split into boys and girls, but as I got older the entire class was part of the lesson.

Most sex ed classes involved: -Showing diagrams of female and male reproductive organs (we had to label each one which I hated doing) -Students being able to ask questions about sex or puberty -Learning about consent -STI and safe sex -Birth control methods

There was also a LGBT/gender portion that was added to the curriculum later on. It covered things like: -Differences between gender and sex -Sexual vs romantic attraction (also covered ace/Aro people I believe)

• What makes a person binary trans people or non binary -Defining different sexualities (gay, lesbians, bi, etc) -Differences between gender identity and gender expression

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with how all this was taught to me.

Christian teachers showing us pictures of STI infections that had been left alone for probably years before the patient went to/was able to go to a doctor in an effort to scare us into celibacy. Generally a scarring experience that didn’t really teach us anything other than to practice safe sex.

*This was in the early 2000s IIRC.

Reading through the comments I remembered about a really great sex-positive TV show I would always watch late at night at around the same time my public education failed in teaching me about sex. The hosts were a really attractive Asian-looking guy with flowy hair and always wore a silk shirt with the top 2-3 buttons undone and a really attractive white girl that always wore a lot of tight clothes. They went over a lot of topics regarding attraction, safe-sex, how to deal with STIs; however, I don’t think there were any specific segments on anything LGBTQ+, but IIRC they didn’t need to because they way they presented things were easily applied to any sexual orientation. As in they talked about anal sex and how to do it safely and whatnot without specifically saying gex. I would love to read more about it, so if you know what it was called please lmk.

Ohh, good question!

Well, in middle school, the teachers split the boys from the girls. Unfortunately, we got stuck with the security guard as our male role model. Instead of talking about how our dicks are supposed to work during puberty, he spent the hour vagely instructing a bunch of kids how to flirt with women. It was boring as shit, kind of inappropriate, and we would’ve been better off doing literally anything else. I also wasn’t taught sex ed at my high school. I have a vague memory of being gathered once in the auditorium for a talk this one time, but I don’t remember them going over anything important.

So instead, I used to frequent the local LGBT community center for years after school. And that’s where I got all my real education about so many interesting topics. The space was sex-positive, meaning you could openly discuss it educationally, share your experiences, and ask questions without judgment. They covered all the types of sexual orientations, all the types of condoms, sex toys, sexual practices, diseases, treatment options, warned about drug use during sex, gave a lot of health recommendations with the latest research, the whole nine yards. They regularly had programming for young adults during weeknights with topics relating to the community that didn’t necessarily relate to sex. It was amazing and eye-opening to have my gay life fully explained before I became an adult. I wish it were more common, if only for the experience alone, which was wonderful.

But what I love is that I’ve seen the same format again at my current LGBT community center in another country. It wouldn’t surprise me if I walked in and kindly asked for help, and they’d answer all my questions regardless of my background or orientation or whatever. Their willingness to communicate accurate medical information for your safety is incredible.

Sitting around a table in the school library and trying not to giggle while a catholic priest told us about the dangers of sex, that it was for procreation only and that abortion was evil.

This priest had left that parish a few years earlier but they brought him back to teach sex ed.

It was later learned that he had been molesting children while at the parish.