It seems that once we reach a certain age—around 20—our sex education tools and resources (if you had any in the first place) mellow out. Websites go from brightly colored stories and games to serious-toned, professional articles, perpetuating the severe seriousness our society holds towards sex. When searching for “sex education tools,” it’s clear the target audience is children (and their parents) and teenagers. This is, by no means, a bad thing—it’s fantastic! But what about us adults? We don’t stop learning even though we’re out of school and with the rapid rate of change and growth in the sexuality community, we could all benefit from the opportunity to re-learn or continue learning.
Sex is play, so shouldn’t learning about it be too? The resources below all promote the importance of playfulness in sex education as a tool to relieve pressure and allow for smoother, productive conversations.
ONLINE RESOURCES
Beducated
Beducated is a global sexual education platform offered to adults across all stages of life and lovers. Beducated’s mission since conception in 2018 has been to offer a “tasteful, contemporary learning experience that lights up bedrooms across the globe.” Indeed, they have students tuning into their online courses in over 110 countries. Beducated’s courses range from the fan-favorite Female Orgasm Online Course to Pegging Online Course, as well as emotional lessons such as Wheel of Consent Online Course. To Beducated, sexual happiness is trainable and anyone can experience that transformation. They say that “sexuality is the last frontier of personal development,” to which their approach is the professional, non-sleazy, beautiful and yes, definitely soul-touching, educational tools.
AMAZE
AMAZE is a global sexual education platform loaded with videos, narratives, downloadable content, and more. Through digital media they provide medically accurate, age-appropriate, affirming, and honest sex education” that can be accessed directly online, regardless of where the user lives. While AMAZE is designed with young adolescents in mind, they supply parents and educators with resources as well. For the parents and adults, you’ll find guides on having productive conversations on subjects like porn or having “the talk.” For the educators, AMAZE supplies toolkits for different topics. One example is the Sexuality & Tech toolkit. Within it is a lesson plan (“Is Sexting OK?”) with a follow-up story before going into the presentation “Talking without Speaking: Texting in Relationships.” It wraps up with an instructional video on how to stay safe online along with documents to download and other similar resources.
Scarleteen
Again, oriented towards teens, but Scarleteen is worth the mention. Scarleteen is a global collective with the mission to get accurate sexual education into teens’ hands. Scarleteen went live in 1998, about a year after the first abstinence-only mandates began. Witnessing the educational drought, Scarleteen saw the desperate need for up-to-date, medically accurate information that’s easily accessible. They created Scarelteen with the mission in mind to provide inclusive, comprehensive, supported sexuality and relationships information for teens and emerging adults. Their site provides online static content, interactive services, even professional referrals. The “interactive services” are superior: Scarleteen has a message board, runs a live chat, and has SMS/text features (please note the live chat function is currently being updated with hopes to return in August).
TANGIBLE TOOLS
Sex Talk
Sex Talk is the top pick from this list as a whole. Sex Talk is a card game created by Mickie Woods as a tool to spark conversation and increase intimacy. Designed for “couples and lovers at any stage,” the 69 cards are split into three categories and are played in numerical order. Starting at the basics with easy, foundational questions, the couple then moves onto more emotional and expressive questions. The couple ends the game by exploring the sexual tension created by the shared pleasurable experience. Please check out a previous Nymphomedia blog post specifically about Mickie Wood’s revolutionary game
I Heart Guts Plushies
Wendy Bryan Lazar, a self-proclaimed anatomically obsessed illustrator, loves the internal organs and created I Heart Guts with the intention of being used by child patients as a way to comfort and uplift. In their “Meet the Guts,” there are 58 “guts” listed, covering just about everything一the list includes caricatures of certain bones (pelvic bone) and bodily fluids (blood, sweat, saliva) among others. Not shying away from any organ, Lazar also created the vulva+vagina plushie (which includes gynecological information) and the esteemed penis plushie neck pillow, designed with travel in mind with a convenient foreskin pocket for your phone, some cash, whatever! There are also plushies of the prostate and the uterus. Lazar has found the ultimate way to combine the playfulness of other sexual education resources usually geared towards teens, while still appealing to adults. The I Heart Guts toys are hilarious conversation-starters that help to remove the bias that guts are gross.
by Shelby Lueders