(Maybe NSFW, but I hope not!) Do you think a male, or a female, would make a better sex ed teacher?

In grade 5 we had male teachers for the boys and female for the girls. Some times we had the home room teacher teach sex ed what turned into a fiasco. After asking about testicles all of the boys asked to go to the washroom to count everything to make sure the parts were all their.

I don;t think it is a matter of male better/worse at teaching sex ed.

A male professor of psychology taught Human Sexuality at the University I went to, he was excellent. A woman (a mom) led us in discussions about sex when I was in 8th grade religion classes. She was almost scarring.

And my seventh grade PE teacher was downright nervous, almost homophobic, about talking about erections with a class full of boys.

All that matters is how comfortable the person is in discussing sexuality.

And really the basic mechanics of sex take about 15 minutes to discuss. What is really needed in education is things like consent and mutual pleasure and birth control and responsibility.

You will need 2 of each for practical demonstrations.

@zenvelo What does “She was almost scarring.” mean?

In 6th grade the girls were called to the gym for a video. It started out with “Now you are 12 years old. Soon a few drops of blood will appear….” I don’t remember the rest of the movie just the opening line. Apparently several of the boys were eavesdropping. One of them was my next door neighbor. He teased me relentlessly for weeks after that, on the bus ride home. From the back of the bus would come this sing song, “Now you are 12 years old. Soon a few drops of blood will appear…”
And when it did happen, about a year later, I wass totally confused because it looked more like poop than blood. It was black and it scared me. Mom had to tell me what it was. Well, it was a hell of a lot more than a “few drops.” Mom showed me how to use a Kotex. I had to learn about Tampex, and how they work, from a friend. A so the 40 year hassle began.

In high school, there were two classes where they separated boys from girls.

One was gym (and in particular swimming) where we had to swim naked.

The other was sex ed. Boys were taught by a male teacher; girls were taught by a female teacher.

This in a high school where the senior class was about 1300 kids, in a liberal suburb of a large industrial city in the midwest.

You had to swim naked? What does that have to do with sex ed???

Swimming naked was the school district policy – I think they didn’t want to deal with washing 700 swim suits every day, or making kids haul wet swim suits home. You would have to ask the school superintendent why that was policy in the late 1960s.

It has nothing to do with sex ed. I was making the point that my high school was totally coeducational with the exceptions of gym class and sex ed.

Guys could sign up for Home Ec (very few did) and girls could sign up for shop (several did).

I don’t think that it was their gender so much as the times. Your mother was farm-raised and thus used to all the workings of and had viewed sex. It is also “the duty” of a parent to explain sex to a child.

And by reference, did you mean to Dragnet? Yes, I am that old.

That is insane. We were in charge of our own swim wear. And athletic gear. Not the school. @elbanditoroso. Are you sure the school district knew about that? Who told you it was policy? That sounds very suspicious to me.

I was strongly discouraged from signing up for shop. >_<

Oh yes. That’s one of the reason she was so matter of fact about it @marinelife. And if it was a parent’s duty, well, my father sure as hell wasn’t going to tell me.
There was so much dangerous mis-information floating around in those days.

I took both shop and home ec. When ever the teacher walked away I would drink a free glass of milk from the fridge. In shop most of the time I did drafting as a punishment and It had to be perfect before I got to do the fun stuff.

Dragnet! “This is the, city Los Angeles, California. My name is Friday, I carry a badge”. Gotcha. Now gimme my due and lawful bonus points…

@Dutchess_III It was almost scarring because the woman showed she was absolutely frightened of sex and that for her sex was missionary position and no movement by the woman. She views sex as a woman’s duty to her husband, no sense of joy for anyone. To her, that was illicit.

Oh, more on topic. My dad took a very non chalant and casual approach to teaching me the facts of life. He came home from work one day and handed me a book, “For Boys Only”. Told me to read it in the priivacy of my room and to take him aside privatley if I had questions. But the book covered everything. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that between me and the girl next door, we had figured it out on our own. ( She had come over one day when I was alone, and between giving me a Playboy of her Dads to peruse and her very tight shorts, pretty feet, and painted toenails she enticed me into doing the boom boom with her.Thank goodness she didn’t get preggers. We were both about 12 or 13. And I know we were naive and innocent but there was no sex education on those days. And thats my sad tale of losing my innocence.

On edit: the whole sordid incident descibed above, took place in a nook between my parents bed and the wall. One more reason I figured it would be better not tell him.At least shen helped me clean up the mess. I though t I had hurt bad with all that gunk. Lol. She ntold me “Im fine that was supposed to happen. You’re good and you’re good looking too. Not you’re not too smart though are ya? Lol Cold blooded girl, telling me that shit.

I actually would have the feeling that females should educate the females, and vice versa. Neither can relate to being the other gender. Students would have many questions. Some may be reluctant to ask these questions, or the teacher may not be able to provide as good an answer to a student of the opposite sex.

I was taught sex ed by a female. I don’t know if she was a bad teacher, but I was far more confused after class than before. I think part of the problem was that she couldn’t relate/ I couldn’t relate to her, or was even reluctant to talk about such things.

The best sex ed teacher is whoever can talk about the biology, health, psychological effects, cultural issues and misconceptions surrounding this topic without blushing or stuttering. It should be someone the kids feel comfortable with, and if there’s the option of asking anonymous questions that’s even better. I think it can be helpful to give the kids an email address or phone number so they have a safe place to ask more questions or seek help without being in the company of their peers. Nobody should be forced into being a sex ed teacher – that can be damaging for both the adult and the kids.

Sidenote: One thing I wish we learned in those classes is that there’s no typical man or typical woman.

@zenvelo well, “scarring” means to form or be marked with a scar.

I figured you meant some form of “scared,” which you confirmed. You’re saying she was obviously scared? And are you saying that it made her students scared, too?
Sounds like she’d had some really negative sexual experiences in her life. Many women have.

@Dutchess_III Please don’t try to re-interpret what I say. I am very careful about my use of words. I said “almost scarring” because it almost caused scars on kids’ psyche. It is a mentor like that who can ruin a child’s future enjoyment of sex.

Sorry. I know you are and I wondered it that was what you meant too. “Mentally scarring” would have been a little clearer to me.