PLet’s start from the base: unfortunately, sexual education is still not a compulsory subject in schools today. Disseminating information on the topic on social media means starting from the assumption that not everyone starts from the same wealth of knowledge. I speak to girls and boys as young as 13, 14, if not younger, and the question I have to answer most often is the most banal: “How are we made?”. Or, “How does our reproductive system work?”
It has always been easier to ask questions of someone away from your everyday life, rather than with your family. Years ago letters were sent to the heart of newspapers, today doubts are resolved by writing anonymously, online and on social media. Which have pros and cons, certainly many challenges.
Sex explained on Instagram
It is not easy to deal with such complex and intimate topics in videos which must be quick and easily accessible in order to reach as many people as possible. This is the price you pay if you have the goal of making information go viral. I looked for more space in a book, S3X Talk, sexuality, orgasms and unconventional relationships, signed Medmakia cultural project founded with my colleague Veronica Bartolucci, graduated in Biological Sciences. It tells a contemporary idea of sex that I would describe to you with three adjectives: free, aware, fun.
Freedom means accepting diversity. All people are different. They can have different desires, bodies, orientations (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual; why yes, there are people who do not consider sex so important). A sexual relationship is always a relationship between people in which consent is expressed and can be withdrawn at any time. Finally, fun.
Asja Tilotta, student in Medicine, spreader on social media about sexual education (on Instagram @medmaki)
There is little talk about pleasure, more about the dangers linked to sex such as communicable diseases, unwanted pregnancies… Good, but the most important question is never answered: why do we have sex? The answer is so simple that it almost makes you smile: because we like it, because it’s fun!
Gen Z is bombarded by sexuality. On the one hand, it is gaining more openness, just think of the former taboo of female masturbation. Sex toys are cleared through customs like beauty accessories. On the other hand, the exponential influence of the pornography industry is taking hold on ever younger boys and girls and risks causing very unrealistic imprinting.
It perpetuates both the taboo of virginity as something to be freed from, and the body count, or the question: “How many people have you had sex with in your life?”. As if it were important, defining. It is not. And sexual education should also be affective education. Understood as respect, for oneself and for others.
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