Why ‘Sex Education’ is (unexpectedly) the most wholesome teen show ever.

Relationships Series Part 2

One of the things this newsletter circles around is values, which is an unfortunately corporate sounding way of saying ‘knowing what we want our lives to be defined by’. Last week, I kicked off a month-long weekly series on my deepest one, Relationships, by looking at the work of The Relationships Project and Dr Iain McGilchrist. This week we’re looking at relationships in the Netflix series Sex Education. I wrote a shorter version of this post for UnHerd.

We recently released an episode of The Sacred podcast with columnist and book reviewer on The Times, James Marriott. It covered a lot of ground, including the power of poetry, why literature is sacred to him and the influence of his father’s nihilism. One throwaway line has stuck with me.

I was talking to a younger colleague, who was saying that he thought that his generation – Gen Z, I guess – were a bit more cynical, a bit more disillusioned..…He made the point that my generation, now in their 30s, but even older, entering their 40s, we kind of had illusions to lose. And we’ve kind of grown up with an idea that we’d still believe we might be rich like our parents, and the fact that environment was really doomed was kind of news to us…we had this sort of wounded idealism that expresses itself in that kind of characteristic sadness, and sincerity of Sally Rooney in his novels. I think he thought that his generation never had illusions in the first place, and they were sort of much more cynical, much more satirical, much meaner.

That sounds depressing, but plausible, I thought. I wondered what art will be made by, and for Gen Z, and if this thesis is right. These questions were therefore turning in my mind when I was watching the finale of Sex Education, which Netflix has just announced as their most watched UK release this year. 13.4 million people watched it in a single week. It is almost definitely not made by members of Gen Z, but it is certainly for them, and about them. I had started it when it came out, four years ago, but the first episode opens with lots of comedy shots of teens shagging awkwardly, and I was put off. I’m glad I went back to it though, because it might be the healthiest story currently being consumed by millions of people around the world.

It is set in and around a secondary school on the English/Welsh border (though the school has some weird Americanisms, presumably to increase the show’s appeal globally) and is purportedly about the sex lives of teenagers. I pay attention to big media hits because I believe the culture we consume is as formative on our souls as our more conscious practices (and I also watch shows on Netflix because it’s a good way to unwind, obviously). It left me thinking about the worldview that teen shows offer, and what kind of people they might be implicitly encouraging their audiences to become.

I grew up on Dawson’s Creek and My So Called Life, which were essentially girl-meets boy(s) over several series, with some background noise about being true to yourself and following your dreams. In my twenties, teen shows took a darker turn. Skins, which came out in 2007, was a litany of parties, drugs and self-harm. It’s bleak, nihilist vision of youth is echoed in Euphoria, the big teen show of recent years. For both of these “cynical and disillusioned” seemed a fair descriptor.

Then came Sex Education. The marketing attempts to draw viewers in with the promise of titillation - the round IMAX cinema by Waterloo Station is currently covered with twenty metre high pictures of the actors doing orgasm faces. All this is a bait and switch, though, because Sex Education is not, really, about sex. That’s just the hook for a show about human relationships. It centres on old fashioned virtues: honesty, kindness and loyalty to those we love even as identities shift. This is all taken from implicit to explicit in the last episode. Maeve, who started the show coded Bad Girl (black eyeliner, boots, ripped fishnet tights) writes a letter to Otis, the son of a sex therapist, who she had set up an informal sex clinic with at school. She thanks him for making her feel seen, for helping her trust people and acknowledges that those who had come to them looking for advice on sex “were really just looking for connection”. 

Delightfully, the show takes all relationships equally seriously. Philia (sibling-like affection) is as central as Eros, maybe more so. The evolving friendship between leads Otis and Eric has its own complex arc. Seeing platonic love between two teenage boys (one of whom is gay) being treated so tenderly and without embarrassment is beautiful. Unusually, the parent-child relationships are explored too. Parents are so often absent or oppressive in the stories told to children and young adults. In Sex Education they get their own tales, growing in understanding of themselves and their teens, learning patience and vulnerability and courage alongside the younger generation. 

This, of course gladdened my heart, not least because I have recently noted the weirdness of excising the most formative relationship of our lives from the stories we tell. The final montage puts more emphasis on moments of reconciliation within families than it does even on friendships healed, and certainly more than on romantic and sexual relationships. It made me sob.

Over four series, I came to realise how deeply anti-individualistic the show is, with few storylines treading the usual “follow your dreams”, self-actualisation trajectory. Perhaps the best example of this is the way it explores faith. One character wrestles with the tension between wanting to belong in his church and his awareness of his sexuality. The idea that commitment to a multi-generational community might be a valid part of personal decision making for a member of Gen Z feels quietly radical. The show is clearly normalising an inclusive position towards LGBT+ people which will be shared by the target audience, but it doesn’t play down the genuine tensions for some people of faith or demonise those who maintain a conservative position. That, again, felt radical. Perhaps most surprisingly, the standard secular frame is completely sidestepped: God appears to one character, and it is a good thing. They are not having a breakdown, but receiving a vocation. When did you last see that in a mainstream TV show?

Even the much mocked heavy emphasis on marginalised identities in the final season is more complex than it appears. Yes, any college on the Welsh borders with that many students of colour, trans, non-binary and disabled people would be a statistical outlier. You could possibly call it an overcorrection. And yes, the fact that the end of term dance is raising money for a very depressed non-binary teenager’s top surgery will be heartwarming for some viewers, horrifying for others. However, the portrayal is complex. The character expresses a desire to go back to childhood, and experiences horrible side effects on their hormones. It’s left for the viewer to decide if it’s actually the surgery that will help them, or reconnecting with their friends and reconciling with their mother. Relationships, in other words, relationships. Whether you think Sex Education gets these difficult issues right, it is never cynical, or mean. It’s hopeful.

For all these reasons I am glad so many people have watched it, been in a tiny way, formed by it. It bears repeating that we are storied selves, stitching together who we will be from the available narrative material. This is never more true than when we are teenagers. For such a huge, mainstream story to centre not the pursuit of sexual pleasure or professional success, but trusting, loyal friendships and loving familial relationships is a breath of fresh air. Social science tells us, and my faith has long taught that it is how we love that determines who we are. The quality of our relationships is the best predictor of wether we will flourish, and help others do so. It may not be “sexy” but it’s true. So a show which uses (awkward, sweet, admirably un-pornified) sex as an excuse to teach millions about these virtues can only be a good thing. 

What else I’ve been up to

• I was a guest on BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking, alongside philosophers Daniel Dennett and Phillip Goff and curator Amina Wright. We discussed conciousness, meaning and God, and I cried at one point trying to describe my encounter with divine Love, which may be a first for the show.

• I’ve been doing some work with Larger Us, where I am a Senior Advisor, on their excellent Climate Conversations project.

• My book Fully Alive, out next May, has been picked up by a US publisher, so I am beginning to think about organisations I can connect with and possible venues for US events in Spring/Summer 2024. If you’re based in the US or Canada and might be able to host something or connect me, please do get in touch! If you’ve received this via email you can just reply to it, or there is a form on my website.