Everything You Learned In Sex Ed Was Wrong: How To Re-Educate Yourself About Pleasure
Forget everything you learned about sex and pleasure in health class.
getty What kind of sex education did you receive when you were in high school? What was going on in your life when you were blossoming into a sexually active young person?
If these two questions bring up mixed emotions and even sadness, you're not alone. Many women — and people — just didn’t receive the sex ed they needed to feel prepared to navigate a sexually active life.
I know I didn’t get the education I needed to prepare me to become a healthy sexually active woman. Did you?
What you've probably learned in your sex ed class wasn’t the most important information for you about sex.
And now that you’re an adult, you can re-educate yourself so that you can experience more pleasure in your life.
If you look at the typical sex education that a higher schooler receives, it’s a pretty sad situation.
First things first, sex ed should really be taught much earlier. Age-appropriate sex education should really be taught as young as kindergarten.
For example, having a dialogue around bodies conveying a simple understanding that little boys are anatomically different than little girls is a good start.
If the school system began sex education at an earlier age, talking about sex, one's body, and the differences between boys and girls would become normal dialogues — and that would make a world of difference.
But, instead, in so many social, educational, and familial situations, sex just isn’t talked about. And, often, it's not talked about in a supportive, normal way.
Instead, it's talked about within the context of a joke. That, alone, can make children confused.
So, when a child reaches adolescence and starts experiencing different types of feelings and bodily changes, there’s no one to talk to.
They end up going through this rite of passage all by themselves. And the result is that teenagers shut down.
When a little girl starts becoming sexy-looking due to her hips and growing breasts, she has no idea how to navigate this new energy flowing inside of her. She lacks the level of awareness and maturity that's needed.
How could she? She hasn’t been taught. And that leaves her very vulnerable.
What she does is play out what her mother or other female caregivers and educators have role-modeled to her. And those people most likely, haven’t had proper sex education, either.
And so it goes. Disempowering sexual behaviors get passed down.
What did you learn in school about sex, way back when?
I ask this because the answer is very typical. Most people learn about STDs, some anatomical differences between the male and female body, and contraceptives.
But, in the end, what was taught was the fear of sex.
"Don’t get an STD and don’t get pregnant."
Yes, teen pregnancy is an issue in our current society, but instilling the fear of pregnancy in teenagers instead of educating them on the power and responsibility of their sexuality is an unfortunate part of our education system.
In addition, though well-meaning, sex ed instructors typically have their own sexual issues and sexual shame.
From what I’ve seen, they are well educated as teachers, but haven’t done their own sexual healing to even be able to offer sex ed from a more healed and holistic point of view.
Adding to all of that, there’s pornography.
The pornography industry and exposure at an early age depict to innocent kids a skewed view of sex.
With their developing brains, they are being imprinted with disempowering sexual scenes.
It makes me sad just thinking about it.
Herein lies some of the problems. Young kids, with their hormones raging, are at best told the least important parts if not absolute wrong parts about sexuality and get off to a poor start in their sexually active lives.
What a mess! How has the sex ed — or lack of good sex ed — when you were growing up affected you?
So, what can you do to re-educate yourself about sexuality and pleasure?
First, realize that what you’ve been told probably isn’t true. At least, it’s not the whole truth.
There's so much more to your sexuality than you probably know about.
Ask yourself a few of these questions:
Do you want to experience more pleasure in the bedroom?
Do you feel sex isn’t that enjoyable?
Are you inhibited during sex?
Can you easily ask your partner for what you need?
Do you wonder if there's something wrong with you sexually?
Your answers to these questions may give you greater insight into where you can heal your sexuality. Our erotic innocence has been taken away from us and in order to reclaim it, we need to reclaim our pleasure.
Sharing your sexual energy with another and nurturing your sexual response system is important in an intimate relationship.
If you’re feeling inhibited or just don’t respond as easily as you’d like, there’s more going on than you probably realize.
Do you sometimes think that there's something wrong with your sexuality?
I’m here to say there isn’t.
You just haven’t been educated on pleasure. You see, pleasure is what’s not taught in High school or your normal sex education course. At best, it's all from a scientific and intellectual point of view.
But, sex is about intimacy and sharing a very vulnerable part of ourselves. When you have sex, you're often — not always — completely naked. That’s vulnerable!
And with the proper education, you’ll learn how to create safe sexual environments for yourself. You’ll learn how to experience heights of pleasure you’ve never had before.
Receptivity and pleasure go hand in hand.
Being receptive won’t be hard because you're operating on a deeper understanding of your sexuality.
But, were you taught about that in school? That’s a big subject and that’s the type of sex education you need now as a woman if you want to have more fulfilling intimate relationships.
Pleasure and sex are two different things.
People say sex is natural and we should know how to do it. But, that’s not really the truth.
It’s biological and as long as we can figure out the basics, we can keep our species alive.
But, if you want pleasure, that requires a whole other level of awareness and education — education you don’t get in your standard educational system when growing up.
So, yes, sex is natural and many people are doing it. But, if you want quality instead of quantity then you need to educate yourself on your sexuality, the sacredness of it, and how to heighten your pleasure response.
The deeper parts of your sexuality are yet to be discovered.
Your feminine soul wants you to discover them.
Regarding sex ed and everything else you didn’t learn, pleasure will stay hidden from you if you don’t inform yourself.
You've grown up with the least important — and even wrong — information about your sexuality and it’s up to you, now, to discover the rest.
Anna-Thea, an author and Certified Divine Feminine Educator who educates women to reclaim their bodies as sacred. If you are ready to learn about the deeper more sacred side of your sexuality make sure you check out her course “Sex Ed You Didn’t Learn From Your Mother.”