A related article on how sex ed is taught in Sweden:

Near the end of the book, in the chapter "Politics of Sex," she addresses the issue of sex education and pleasure in a way that really resonated with my own reporting. She tells how she visited sex-education classes in Sweden — considered a kind of nirvana for people who are comprehensive sex-ed advocates — and reported on an instructor's response to the question "What is an orgasm, and why do people talk about it so much?"

"Orgasm is the moment of highest pleasure during sex," the Swedish teacher replied, "and that's why people talk about it so much."

In contrast, when Luker heard that same question posed in an American school, the teacher reviewed the phases of sexual excitement. "As the instructor covered the excitement phase, the plateau phase and the resolution phase, pretty much in those terms," Luker wrote, "I realized that this particular sex educator had done the remarkable: he had made sex boring."

She went on to say that the Swedish teacher's answer was a eureka moment for her: Luker had "never heard any American participants in the sex-ed debates, whether teachers, students or parents, mention either sexual desire or sexual pleasure, except in the most circumspect of terms."

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November 16, 2011, 3:25 pm