I remember binge-watching Sex Education in my dorm room freshman year, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw that season three was recently released. I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. finishing the last episode, and I can’t wait for more people to watch it. There are so many important storylines in this season that teach valuable lessons about exploring your sexuality and expressing yourself. If you haven’t seen the first two seasons there might be spoilers ahead, so go watch those seasons and come back when you finish!
This season revolves around the school’s new administration trying to change their public image after the events of the last season. The new headmistress, Hope, wants to instill order and discipline back into Moordale’s halls and does so by increasing more oppressive measures as the season progresses. Students are required to wear uniforms and their sex education is changed from a comprehensive and progressive curriculum to one that preaches abstinence and uses scare tactics. The students of Moordale must deal with these changes while navigating their own social and personal lives outside of school.
We get to see characters we know and love grow in important ways while being introduced to new characters such as Cal, a non-binary student who just transferred to Moordale. Cal’s status as non-binary isn’t seen as unusual or out of the ordinary, but you do get to see them struggle with a school system that is unforgiving in it’s adherence to the gender binary through it’s school uniforms and gender-divided classes on sexual health. This season shows that strict traditionalism often isolates and negatively impacts queer students to a much higher degree than their straight counterparts, but also stresses that queerness is normal and no one should be ashamed about their identity or sexual orientation.
Another important storyline this season revolves around Eric and Adam’s relationship. They show the importance of communication in a relationship, and how complicated communication can be. Eric has struggled with being told to hide his queerness his whole life, and is finally ready to be loud and proud about who he is while Adam is only starting to discover who he is and what he really wants. There’s a lot of conflict in their relationship, but it’s so realistic to how it is growing up and having a boyfriend for the first time.
That’s my favorite thing about this show. While at times it can be over the top and dramatic, at its core it portrays how messy life is and doesn’t glamorize any of the characters problems or sex in general. This show takes care to show sex and the conversations around sex as something you shouldn’t be ashamed of but also something that is often awkward and inherently “unsexy”. It’s so important to see this portrayal in popular culture because a combination of uninformative sex ed in school and exposure to porn at a young age has created a culture of unrealistic expectations when it comes to sex.
Overall I loved this season of Sex Education and am so happy that the show got renewed for a fourth season! I’m so glad that shows like this exist to de-stigmatize sex and queer identities. If you haven’t watched this show I hope this convinces you to give it a chance because it honestly is so entertaining while also being informative and helpful.