YouTube is the most popular search engine on the web. In fact, there are 30+ million active users using the platform on a daily basis . Some of them – especially teenagers – are searching for answers regarding sexuality. Most likely they will stumble upon a few channels that teach sexual education – just as we do.
We took some effort to browse through all of these channels and we would like to present a short and diverse overview that may be beneficial to parents, educators, adults, teens and everyone who is interested :-).
We discovered:
- Successful YouTubers who do sexual education on their channels
- Professional sexual educators that provide information for
- Teenagers and young adults
- Adult audience
- Educators
- Parents
The “by accident” Sex Educators
Some teenagers and young people use YouTube as a communication platform to reach out to their equally young audience. It´s common that the audience – also called “followers” – is sending questions to their YouTube-star to answer them. This has led into a recent surge in published books about sexual education written by YouTubers.
Hannah Witton – British channel
Hannah Witton is a well-known Vlogger in the UK who publishes videos about sex and relationships. She studied history and wrote her thesis about the early sexologists. In 2016, she won the Cosmopolitan Influencer award. In 2017, she published the sexual education book “Doing it“, that won an award for “Book of the Year” and has since been translated into Dutch and German. Her second book, “The Hormone Diaries”, is to be published in summer 2019 and is all about periods and contraception.
Chusita Fashion Fever – Spanish channel
Chusita is a Spanish Vlogger, who talks not only about fashion, but also answers her followers’ questions in her series “Yo que tú”. In 2016, her sexual education book “Esto no es und libro de sexo” was published. Since then it has been translated into English, Italian and German. The book is for teenagers who are soon to experience their “first time.” It also debunks a lot of myths and urban legends about sex. – Chusita is also singer whos music you can find online.
Laci Green – American channel
Laci Green
Laci Green started as a YouTuber discussing various topics, but got more and
more engaged in the field of sexual education and also started to work for Planned
Parenthood. She studied law and education and is very well known for her explanatory videos. In 2018, she published a book called “Sex Plus: Learning, Loving, and Enjoying your Body.”
The professional Sex Educators
On YouTube you will also find professionals who are working in the field of sexual education. Some of them offer further information on their websites or even teacher training.
Resources for teenagers and young adults
Justin Hancock – British Channel with visual content
Justin Hancock doesn’t like to personally appear on screen, but he is fun and very good at producing accessible videos about various topics. Additionally, he set up bishuk.com for teenagers – “a guide for sex, love and you” – with great content and even manuals to download. For training courses and more teaching tools you can visit bishtraining.
#Sexedpl – Polish Channel by Influencer Anja Rubik
When it comes to Poland, a lot of people might think, that sexual education must be rather conservative. The polish model Anja Rubik just launched a campaign with celebrities and published a sex ed book with sexual education experts to get the population of Poland to talk about love. Some of the videos are also subtitled in English.
Ben – Sexual Education for Boys in German
In German speaking countries, sex educator Ben is well known by young boys for talking openly about masturbation, sexual orientation and many more topics. Usually his followers send him questions which he tries to answer in an informative but also entertaining way. On his website jungsfragen.de boys have the possibility to compare themselves with on another to answer one of the most frequent questions: Is my body normal?
Norwegian Series about Puberty
The Norwegian national TV station NRK published a series in 2015 about puberty on their program Newton. Due to its straight-forward nature, some newspapers from abroad have also talked about it. Now the videos can be found online and subtitled in English. Be aware that you may see actual people naked. 😉
Amaze – Animated Videos in various Languages
AMAZE is a collaboration between experts in the field of sex education like Advocates for Youth and Answer and Youth Tech Health that tries to create an engaging, age-appropriate, online sex education resource for 10-to 14-year-olds. As there is a network of different organizations working together, you will find even more videos on their website in South African English, Africaans, Xhosa, Korean and Spanish. They offer videos and material for teens, educators and parents.
Resources for adults
Dr. Lindsey Doe – Sexplanations from the US
Dr. Lindsey Doe is a sexologist and sex educator from the United States. She has been a Vlogger on YouTube with her channel “Sexplanations” since 2013 and offers more than 200 videos. All are structured into playlists. There is even one especially for professionals. Furthermore she offers a podcast.
Alyaa Gad – Health Care for the Arab World
Alyaa Gad is an Egyptian medical doctor who studied and worked in the Netherlands until she moved to Switzerland. She works in a general medical clinic and uploads videos in Arabic or English about Sexual Health. You can find them also on her website iUnderstand.tv.
Ann-Marlene Henning – German Insights into Sexology
Ann-Marlene Henning is a German sexologist who works as a couples’ – and sex therapist. She is well known for her sexual education book for (young) adults “Make Love”. There is also a TV series that was nominated best infotainment with the same title. You can watch “Make Love” on Netflix. On YouTube you can find her own channel “Doch
Resources for Educators
Al Vernacchio – Ted Talks about the general approach to Sexual Education
Al Vernacchio has been a human sexuality educator and consultant for 25 years and is actually not famous for sex education on YouTube. But as his Ted Talks are very special and worth to see, you shouldn’t miss him.
He has published various articles about youth and sexuality in magazines as well as the book “For goodness sex. Changing the Way We Talk to Teens About Sexuality, Values, and Health.” On his website you can easily find all his Ted Talks about this topic.
Nadine Thornhill – Canadian channel about the sex ed curriculum
Nadine Thornhill is a Canadian Sex Educator who focuses on child and adolescent sexuality and works as
Planned Parenthood – Parenting Tips
Planned Parenthood is a
Planned Parenthood is also a good resource for sex educators as they can find digitals tools on their website and videos to use in workshop settings. Even teens will find answers to their questions on Planned Parenthood’s website.
Cath Hakanson – Sex Ed Rescue from Australia
Cath
What else…
You may believe it or not: There are even more people and organizations providing sex education on YouTube. If you find a very important resource that has to be shared, please let us know immediately!
If you are interested in learning more about sexual education on YouTube in a scientific manner, researcher Nicola Döring published a paper on “Online Sexuality Education on YouTube: Analysis of Status Quo and Practical Recommendations for Sexual Pedagogy” in the German magazine for sexual research.
This blog article was contributed by
