John Oliver laments the state of U.S. sex ed, creates his own star-packed sex-ed film

(Image credit: Last Week Tonight)

published 10 August 2015

On Sunday's Last Week Tonight, John Oliver tackled sex education in American middle and high schools. He started with the basics. "Parental anger over sex ed is as much a staple of the school year as square pizza and one kid coming back from summer vacation with a mustache he's way too proud of," said Oliver, who did not attend U.S. schools. But "teaching sex ed in school is really important, for obvious reasons: No parent wants to talk to their kids about sex, and no kid wants to talk about sex with their parents."

When Last Week Tonight tried to learn what kids are learning in America's schools, however, they ran into a wall: There are no standards for what to teach kids about sex, federally or sometimes even locally. Only 22 states require sex ed, Oliver noted, and only 13 require that the information be medically accurate. Viewers of this clip will get to see a lot of really bad sex-ed videos, and learn some discouraging statistics.

Sex ed, when done properly, can do so much good, Oliver said, but done poorly, it does a lot of harm. The harm he focused on deals with the question of consent, and there's a good Yale slam in there. But Oliver doesn't just gripe about America's sex ed problems, he tries to offer a solution, too: A sex-ed video for kids who aren't getting educated in school, starring actors and comedians you will almost certainly recognize. It has some frank advice and anatomically correct drawings, so not exactly safe for work. But it's online now, and students getting no or poor sex ed could do a lot worse than watching the last two and a half minutes. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.