AN 323 - Sex Education & Culture

Min Units: 3
Max Units: 3
How do people learn about sex, pregnancy, menstruation, gender roles, sexual orientation, risk, and pleasure, and why is this process so contentious? In this class, we will investigate the various shapes that sex education takes in different cultures, time periods, and regions of the U.S. and of the world, with an eye toward competing value systems. We will focus not only on WHAT people learn about sex, gender, and sexuality, but HOW they learn it. One major distinction will be between informal learning modes (from friends, family, school peers, folklore, and the media) and formal learning modes (sex education at schools, from health professionals and researchers, and the government). We will explore the values and beliefs that accompany sex education, whether explicitly stated or not, in an effort to understand how sex education is above all a social undertaking. (U) Occasionally