On the menstruation thread I mentioned the sexual education provided by Bravo magazine to generations of German teenagers.
It really was excellent, especially in the eras when many adults were still too embarrassed to talk about sex.
Bravo was extremely open, with regular pictures of nudes. In my formative years, The "Aufklärung" (as sexual education is called in German) in Bravo was conducted under the names Dr Alexander Korff and Dr Jürgen Sommer. Behind both were teams of people under the leadership of a doctor, psychotherapist and religion teacher called Martin Goldstein.
Korff's column was the 4-page sex-ed feature which would deal with everything, from how the body changes during puberty, to why teenagers masturbate, to how to deal with molesting uncles to why we have sexual urges and how to handle these, to what kind of birth control to use. Usually these would be framed around plausible case scenarios.
The refrain was always on sexual responsibility and personal sexual autonomy. It was non-judgmental -- want to have sex, okay; don't want, also okay. Korff would let the religions have their say as well, to give teenagers a full range of informed sexual choices.
I've re-read some of them recently, and thought that they were pitch-perfect.
Dr Sommer was the agony aunt, dispensing advice on all matter of stuff (from "I'm ginger, why does everybody hate me" to "My druggie boyfriend is trying to get me to shoot up"). Lots of questions were sexual: Do I have to put out? Why can't I get an erection? Am I gay because I looked at a friend's penis? and so on.
Sommer's team gave good advice; the level of empathy they showed was impressive. They were brutally honest too. Sometimes they'd shit on a correspondent from a dizzy height.
Upshot is, I cannot think of a better sex ed curriculum than what Bravo provided.
At school it was all very technical. Though in an experimental way, my Grade 1 class got some sex ed: we were taught the correct name for penis and vagina and how these interact to produce a baby. No surprise, our teacher did not teach at the school the following year. And we still thought that babies can be conceived by kissing...
It really was excellent, especially in the eras when many adults were still too embarrassed to talk about sex.
Bravo was extremely open, with regular pictures of nudes. In my formative years, The "Aufklärung" (as sexual education is called in German) in Bravo was conducted under the names Dr Alexander Korff and Dr Jürgen Sommer. Behind both were teams of people under the leadership of a doctor, psychotherapist and religion teacher called Martin Goldstein.
Korff's column was the 4-page sex-ed feature which would deal with everything, from how the body changes during puberty, to why teenagers masturbate, to how to deal with molesting uncles to why we have sexual urges and how to handle these, to what kind of birth control to use. Usually these would be framed around plausible case scenarios.
The refrain was always on sexual responsibility and personal sexual autonomy. It was non-judgmental -- want to have sex, okay; don't want, also okay. Korff would let the religions have their say as well, to give teenagers a full range of informed sexual choices.
I've re-read some of them recently, and thought that they were pitch-perfect.
Dr Sommer was the agony aunt, dispensing advice on all matter of stuff (from "I'm ginger, why does everybody hate me" to "My druggie boyfriend is trying to get me to shoot up"). Lots of questions were sexual: Do I have to put out? Why can't I get an erection? Am I gay because I looked at a friend's penis? and so on.
Sommer's team gave good advice; the level of empathy they showed was impressive. They were brutally honest too. Sometimes they'd shit on a correspondent from a dizzy height.
Upshot is, I cannot think of a better sex ed curriculum than what Bravo provided.
At school it was all very technical. Though in an experimental way, my Grade 1 class got some sex ed: we were taught the correct name for penis and vagina and how these interact to produce a baby. No surprise, our teacher did not teach at the school the following year. And we still thought that babies can be conceived by kissing...
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