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  • - Hey guys, I'm here with my good friend Ani Easton Baker,

  • former educator turned documentary filmmaker.

  • You made a documentary called

  • "Who's Your Teacher?"

  • that you've been working on for quite a bit.

  • - I did.

  • (both laughing)

  • - I honestly really love this doc!

  • So you showed a cut to me

  • asking me for some notes and stuff

  • and I just thought it was so important and so needed,

  • you know, a documentary about the lack of Sex Education

  • in the school system right now.

  • I mean, I can definitely speak from experience.

  • I thought getting pregnant meant,

  • like, putting your nipples on somebody else's nipples.

  • The first time I masturbated I used a banana

  • 'cause that's what I saw on TV and in film,

  • but I used a condom,

  • so I felt like I was having safe sex.

  • - I was gonna ask.

  • - Ani is also doing an entire series after this

  • about Sex Education.

  • I really loved this documentary

  • and honestly, I thought that you guys would love it as well.

  • So without further ado: WHO'S YOUR TEACHER?

  • - Okay.

  • So.

  • This is a compilation

  • of some questions that some 5th graders

  • in a Sex Ed class

  • wrote down and put into the question box

  • that their teacher set up for them.

  • I'm just gonna read some of them out loud because they are

  • both frightening and extremely entertaining.

  • "Is it danger to have a big breast

  • and the other small?"

  • Good question, the answer is no.

  • "What's pussy?"

  • "Where do the boys have to put their peanuts

  • when they do sex?"

  • "Why do the boys peanuts gets up?"

  • "Sex is sucking penis."

  • This one is written in all caps,

  • "SEX IS SUCKING PENIS.

  • WHY DO GIRLS HATE THIS."

  • Period.

  • "OUR YOU PREGNANT"

  • (upbeat music)

  • "Why is your pubic hair curly?"

  • "Can a dog have sex with a human girl?"

  • "Why is sex important?"

  • "If a girl has her period and she has sex

  • what happens to her?"

  • "What happens if you see a condom..."

  • "Why do boys get more power to do the sex?"

  • (questions overlapping)

  • "Is sex the most dangerous thing in life?"

  • That's my favorite one.

  • (upbeat music)

  • I would like to envision a world in the future

  • where there is a mandatory class in every grade level

  • that just teaches people how to be people.

  • And I don't think we should call it Sex Ed.

  • In 2016, after years of frustration

  • with the public school system,

  • I gave up my teaching position to explore the ways

  • that our nation's Sex Education is lacking.

  • Heavy on my mind was a question

  • about how a lack of comprehensive Sex Education,

  • combined with full access to information online,

  • was shaping our nation's youth.

  • Everyone's afraid of the word "sex,"

  • take it out of the equation

  • and call it Human Relations and start it in Kindergarten.

  • Because as a teacher,

  • I

  • saw firsthand

  • how there is literally absolutely no education

  • for people on how to be people.

  • And what they can and can't do

  • with all of their like,

  • raging feelings and anxiety

  • and fear and insecurity and hormones. All of that stuff,

  • how we relate to each other, later on becomes sexuality, it

  • definitely doesn't start as sexuality.

  • Why would you not want

  • your children or our nation's children to be more informed

  • about what to do and what not to do with their bodies?

  • Because the feelings are natural

  • and they're going to happen

  • whether we educate them or not.

  • Teachers and parents

  • are no longer the primary source of information,

  • as it goes right now.

  • Kids are just using the internet to find out

  • about their curiosity about sex.

  • Interestingly enough, I started this project

  • like a year before the #MeToo movement started to unfold.

  • Every single story that I saw break

  • during the #MeToo movement

  • struck me as

  • the by-product of

  • lack of education.

  • And I think the people that are afraid

  • of more education are just also victims

  • of being undereducated themselves.

  • The more information from educated professionals the better.

  • Sex Ed, or as I'm now going to refer to it from here on out:

  • Human Relations,

  • is not going to

  • create an interest inside of a person

  • that doesn't already exist.

  • Sex right now, the topic of sex is so taboo

  • and treated with such shame and fear

  • that it becomes a fear-based

  • vitriolic, ugly topic.

  • (upbeat music)

  • So, when I started working

  • on this project a couple of years ago,

  • I started, I set Google alerts for Sex Ed laws in America

  • and Sex Education

  • and started compiling some articles

  • that were pertinent to the topic

  • and just sort of reading

  • about how people felt across the nation,

  • other teachers, parents, students.

  • This conversation is

  • happening

  • everywhere.

  • There are a lot of pushes toward better Sex Ed.

  • There are a lot of pushbacks,

  • specifically by our current administration

  • who wants to go back to "abstinence only,"

  • but it's definitely a hot topic right now.

  • "Sex Education Allows Campus Betterment, Studies Show"

  • "Are We Lying In Sex Ed Class?"

  • I have found the answer to that question to be Yes.

  • Believe it or not only 24 states make Sex Ed mandatory

  • and only 13 of those states

  • require that their Sex Ed be medically accurate.

  • Beyond that, when researching whether or not

  • the current curriculum includes LGBTQ+ issues,

  • I found very disappointing results.

  • One of the articles that I came across

  • really stood out to me

  • because it was written by a French adult film star,

  • her name's Nikita Bellucci.

  • She says, she's "fed up with educating kids online"

  • and "she fumes over families lacking Sex Ed."

  • And she basically goes on to say that

  • because there's such a lack

  • of appropriate and comprehensive information,

  • she's been thrust into the role

  • of pseudo educator.

  • And she gets messages from young people all the time

  • asking her questions like,

  • "I want to do this, how do I go about it?"

  • Or, "This is happening to my body,

  • can you give me information about that?"

  • Because she's not afraid to talk about sex

  • and people in the school system

  • who are supposed to educate are afraid.

  • There is a profound lack of information across the nation.

  • Young people are educating themselves about sex by Googling.

  • And since porn comes up when you Google sex questions,

  • adult film stars are becoming educators

  • whether they choose to or not.

  • So I reached out to six adult film stars directly

  • about the types of internet messages they receive

  • from undereducated young people.

  • We also talked about what their own Sex Education was like

  • and about what they think

  • about the state of Sex Ed in America right now.

  • (keyboard clattering)

  • - A lot of people reach out to me

  • for information because I work in the sex industry.

  • I've had people that I've gone to school with,

  • I've had fans,

  • I've had

  • a lot of different people just ask me for information.

  • Sometimes I get things that are a little bit more personal

  • and have to do with

  • their mental state and their emotional state and

  • different things about their sexuality

  • whereas other times I have people

  • coming and asking me for advice on sex

  • like what positions are best,

  • what type of lube to use,

  • how to have anal sex safely,

  • you know, just different things.

  • I get asked a lot.

  • I actually am very surprised

  • by some of the questions that I get.

  • I've had people questioning their sexuality,

  • like, I have a friend who has a girlfriend

  • and he's also interested in males,

  • but he was asking me, he was like, "Does this make me gay?"

  • - [Ani] Right.

  • - I'm like, no, I mean, if you like both,

  • that makes you Bi that doesn't make you gay and

  • for me, I feel like that's a little bit like, cut and dry.

  • It's pretty out there,

  • it's very straight forward,

  • but a lot of people don't understand that

  • because those things don't get discussed.

  • - People have

  • reached out to me via DM or email

  • asking me personal questions about,

  • well, "What do you think about this?"

  • And like, a sexual preference thing

  • and at first I'm looking at this question

  • from this grown-ass man and I'm like,

  • who the fuck cares about what I think about pegging?

  • Why are you asking me this?

  • And then I realize,

  • beyond not being educated, not everybody is

  • as curious or has access to the things that I did

  • and maybe I'm someone that they feel comfortable

  • with just even asking,

  • so I kind of took it back to that and, "Okay,

  • I can answer some of these questions."

  • (keyboard clattering)

  • Honestly, I remember at the age of 5,

  • stumbling across my dad's Playboys in his office

  • and I was like enthralled, I was fascinated.

  • I couldn't stop going into that room

  • and looking at those women.

  • I connected with them.

  • Like, I wanted to see them,

  • I wanted to be them.

  • I kept wanting to be around them.

  • I just, I couldn't get enough of them.

  • - I actually learned about sex

  • at an extremely young age by mistake.

  • So one day my dad was napping

  • and I knew how to work the VHS player

  • and I couldn't read yet.

  • I accidentally put a porno in because he didn't put it away.

  • He had a movie just sitting on top,

  • no box or anything.

  • I thought it was one of my Disney movies.

  • Yeah.

  • - It wasn't for a while 'til I-

  • 'cause we didn't have internet at my house-

  • this is still before, you know,

  • all you kids, you have internet on your phones,

  • we didn't have that.

  • So this was before I could go fucking fact check this shit

  • and I remember like thinking of that for a long time until

  • I saw a porno and

  • then I got more information from

  • what, at least a female body looked like, from porn.

  • - It was probably about age 12.

  • Curiosity and desire and

  • sort of

  • seeking

  • like a reciprocal

  • attraction

  • with my friend who lived across the street.

  • And so she and I like,

  • we didn't talk about it like a sex thing,

  • it was just a game that we were playing,

  • but it was totally like we both like knew.

  • And so we kind of messed around a little bit.

  • - Well, I suppose it would start at,

  • you know, probably the kind of cliché age like,

  • sexual awakening probably around like 10.

  • You know, first you just feel the butterflies in your tummy.

  • So I guess maybe that was a little bit younger

  • maybe 8 or 9,

  • but then at 11, you know,

  • you start figuring out

  • what to do with those feelings.

  • (upbeat music)

  • - I remember the class in 5th grade.

  • I remember the class in 5th grade

  • because none of us were taking it seriously.

  • We were all like, we were split between boys and girls,

  • so the boys' group and then the girls' group.

  • And

  • like everybody was just laughing

  • and giggling and telling jokes

  • when the diagram came on

  • with the like, floppy dick cut in half

  • and we were just like (giggling)

  • and like, none of us were taking it seriously.

  • We were just like, oh, this is so fun.

  • Let's fuck around and play in the hallways

  • and go to the bathroom

  • and share what we're learning.

  • "Learning." Not really.

  • And it was just silly.

  • There were only

  • biological health classes after that.

  • Never did it ever go back to sexuality.

  • - Even in high school, I did health class

  • and I remember what I learned from that was,

  • I saw a video of a woman giving birth

  • and also:

  • "You have sex, unprotected,

  • you'll get AIDs and die."

  • - Porn is fantasy,

  • for adults.

  • We don't look at any other

  • form of fantasy media,

  • whether it's action movies or horror movies or whatever,

  • we don't turn to that to teach us life skills.

  • We don't ask The Fast And The Furious

  • to teach kids Driver's Ed, right?

  • It's a really common example

  • that we love to give in porn, but it's true.

  • Like we don't place those demands

  • on any other form of media but somehow with porn,

  • we expect it to be instructional.

  • And that's not the point of most porn.

  • There certainly is some porn

  • that exists to teach people about sex

  • and it, I think it does a really good job.

  • But

  • when it comes down to it,

  • this is a problem that society has created

  • and it's a problem that society

  • is going to have to come up with a solution to.

  • (keyboard clattering)

  • I didn't have an adult that I spoke to.

  • There wasn't really a grown up.

  • It was just my friends.

  • That was sort of where I got

  • a little bit more of my sexual understanding.

  • Like I would talk to my friends about sex

  • because they'd already had sex and they were my age

  • and I trusted them.

  • And so that's where I got,

  • I would say most of my actual information.

  • They were not very reliable people,

  • either. I mean, they were teenagers.

  • - Ideally it would always help if you had someone older

  • who would give you the information

  • and that you could actually bounce things off of like,

  • "I feel a little weird

  • because I get boners in P.E.

  • and I'm trying to figure out do with my shorts.

  • My shorts make it feel good

  • 'cause they're made out of that basketball material,

  • and so I don't know what to do."

  • "Are the girl's gonna laugh at me?"

  • "Is my dick too small?" You ask him.

  • Or for girls, you ask her.

  • So.

  • (keyboard clattering)

  • - I'd have to say the biggest downside

  • to young people using porn

  • to learn things would probably be

  • the fact that

  • they just don't learn about the personal side of it.

  • I feel like porn is

  • very separate with emotions.

  • It's not as emotional, it's not as much about love.

  • It's more about just fucking, having fun.

  • You know,

  • I feel like it could fuck you over relationship-wise

  • in your personal life if you

  • just expect it to be an in and out type of deal

  • instead of having the love

  • and the passion and the feelings behind it.

  • And a lot of the times in porn,

  • it's all about the lust and about random hookups.

  • It's not about creating an actual bond

  • and exploring each other sexually

  • on a romantic or sensual level.

  • (upbeat music)

  • - It depends on how you look at it.

  • I would say it's not fully instructional,

  • but I would say that it can teach people a lot of things.

  • - There's very few sites

  • or very few places you would wanna go to porn

  • and think that's reality.

  • That's what you get most time from porn,

  • at least the way,

  • looking from, me young, before I got into it,

  • I would look at this and be like,

  • okay, I need to go as fast as possible

  • and as hard as possible 'cause that's what makes girls cum.

  • It's not.

  • (keyboard clattering)

  • - People are growing up not knowing themselves,

  • finding themselves in porn

  • because that's the only area they see a transgender person

  • or that's the only area they see

  • gender-fluid people having sex.

  • Like if they feel gender-fluid,

  • there's unique porn and stuff out there like that,

  • but there's no like, regular TV shows

  • or images where people are interacting,

  • going to coffee together, being like, "Hey, what's up?"

  • Calling each other They,

  • so they understand this is regular behavior.

  • That's part of

  • bad education too.

  • - Maybe they're never gonna think about Mark Twain again,

  • but they're definitely going to live in their bodies

  • and be just bombarded

  • by sexual imagery for the rest of their lives.

  • They're almost certainly gonna have sex

  • a lot more than they're gonna think

  • about Mark Twain going forward in their lives.

  • There's just so, it's so much more impactful,

  • it's such a big part of their identity

  • that to just gloss over it and pretend it doesn't exist,

  • it's harmful to kids

  • and it's doing them a huge disservice.

  • (upbeat music)

  • - [Ani] Nina Hartley is a legendary adult film star

  • who has been imbuing her films with education

  • since the start of her career in the 1980s.

  • Her unique perspective and her desire to educate

  • solidified her

  • as an individual, with a powerful voice.

  • She is also an author and an activist

  • and she has an Honorary Doctorate

  • from the Institute For Advanced Study

  • Of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.

  • I am fortunate to have been able to receive her feedback

  • on sex and Sex Ed

  • and to get her take on why both subjects scare people

  • so gosh darn much.

  • - It's like putting spinach in your brownies,

  • I was always putting Sex Education in my movies.

  • I love the idea of rebranding Sex Ed

  • as Human Relations because

  • Sex Ed makes it all about genitals

  • and genitals are the least of it, they're the last of it.

  • All the things we can do with in the bedroom

  • are a deck of 52 cards,

  • let's take out the two most dangerous: a penis in a vagina

  • and a penis in an anus, and put those cards over here.

  • Now we have 50 cards

  • of things we can do

  • that don't result in death and babies

  • and stressing you out for finals.

  • Can we find a way to express our sexuality

  • in a way that does not also increase stress,

  • fear, worry, and All The Things?

  • There is first a social intercourse,

  • the face-time,

  • the human training.

  • How do I state my needs?

  • How can I hear your needs without being upset?

  • How can I say... The best answer

  • when someone says, "No thank you" is,

  • "Thank you for taking care of yourself."

  • That's the answer.

  • "No" is complete sentence

  • and should not have to have any pushback from that.

  • As we're becoming sexually confident people,

  • we are going to make mistakes.

  • We're gonna get our feelings hurt.

  • We're gonna be absolutely humiliated

  • and mortified and want to DIE

  • for whatever reason.

  • And know that that's part of becoming

  • a sexually literate person.

  • If you wanna remain a technical virgin

  • until you're married, fine.

  • But then in the meantime...

  • Okay, we're gonna save the penis and the vagina thing

  • for our special day, but what can we do before then

  • that helps us learn to be with each other

  • and learn to...

  • What do we dislike?

  • Is there books we can look at together?

  • Are there other ways that we can

  • develop being intimate with each other

  • without putting a penis into a vagina

  • which if you say that's special -okay-

  • but to go from nothing, nothing, nothing,

  • okay: WEDDING NIGHT. It's a recipe for disaster.

  • If you talk to a lot of people

  • who are raised in very conservative religious homes,

  • their wedding nights were horrible.

  • (keyboard clattering)

  • The most detrimental thing

  • about continuing on the path now in regards to Sex Education

  • is that it's not working.

  • It is not reducing violence.

  • It is not reducing unintended pregnancy.

  • It is not reducing STIs.

  • It is not reducing trauma.

  • It's not reducing ignorance.

  • It's not reducing isolation.

  • It's not reducing alienation.

  • It's not reducing self-loathing.

  • The mind-body split

  • goes back thousands of years.

  • The idea of: the spirit

  • is somehow clean and holy in the body's base.

  • But,

  • even though I'm not Christian,

  • I have a friend who is and she says,

  • "You know, God can make people.

  • God can make anybody he wants.

  • God can make it come out of your ear.

  • God can make come out of your nose.

  • God chose,

  • God CHOSE

  • a woman's vagina

  • to introduce his son to the world.

  • Why do we hate that body part so much?"

  • (keyboard clattering)

  • - One of the really important pieces of the puzzle to me

  • in highlighting all of the reasons why

  • we have to make Sex Ed more comprehensive,

  • is talking to people who are already doing that

  • with the power that they have.

  • So, I'm gonna go talk to a woman

  • named Lynda Nguyen

  • who in the wake of the #MeToo movement

  • founded an organization

  • called The Magic of Psalm

  • which exists to create curriculum for young people

  • to understand their bodies,

  • to understand desire,

  • to understand the concept of boundaries and consent.

  • And she's rolling it out

  • in schools right now.

  • I am really eager to talk to Lynda,

  • as a former educator myself,

  • about what it's like on the front lines,

  • educating kids in a complete way.

  • I was able to catch up with her,

  • she's in town in LA for a few days.

  • We're gonna go talk to her now,

  • let's see what she has to teach us.

  • - I've been doing this work

  • with training women and training leaders for a long time

  • to really come to terms with their own body,

  • with their own women's empowerment

  • their sexuality and everything too because

  • I didn't come into my own sexual empowerment until my 30s.

  • And it took me a long time

  • because I never had the adequate education.

  • So there was a lot of insecurity, a lot of fear

  • and a lot of like, not knowing if this body was even mine.

  • So you know, "Do I owe you something for that

  • gift that you gave me

  • or that lunch that you brought me?"

  • And so just those kinds of like really limited beliefs

  • hindered me from really

  • being in my own body,

  • really owning my sexuality and everything too.

  • And with a lot of the #MeToo movement,

  • I realized that I've been doing this work all along

  • but I've been working with

  • a lot of 40 and 50 year old women.

  • So the root of it is to really help educate the young ones.

  • And so we stepped into the high schools

  • and we decided to create a curriculum

  • that is not only comprehensive,

  • medically accurate, but also restorative

  • so that we're not judging or shaming

  • but we're just delivering this education

  • in very unbiased,

  • very clear, and like, just fact of the matter kind of way.

  • Luckily, in our generation moving forward,

  • I feel like now the teachers are speaking up.

  • They're saying like, no,

  • you go out there and you tell the boys

  • or you tell your child that that's not acceptable

  • and that you can say No.

  • And that even if they gave you a gift

  • or they bought you lunch or you went on a date,

  • you know, you don't have to have sex.

  • You don't have to go where you don't wanna go.

  • And even if you kissed them,

  • you still can step away and go,

  • "Thank you so much, I'll see you tomorrow."

  • The eight women that I work with,

  • they happen to be in my larger community

  • and the majority of them are Sex Educators,

  • Yogis,

  • counselors, coaches, professional coaches,

  • and one of my founding members,

  • she is a Principal.

  • In five years, I want to see our core curriculum,

  • the two, at least--

  • the comprehensive Sex Ed and

  • medically accurate Empowerment Training

  • to be online,

  • digitally distributed,

  • nationwide, globally if possible,

  • and also the other core curriculum too

  • which is the Sexual Harassment Communications.

  • I wanna make sure that we're funded

  • and we're supported

  • in a way that can sustain us as leaders too

  • and to bring this and to pitch it to the Districts,

  • to pitch it to the different communities

  • and networks and stuff so that we can

  • just give this away for free if we can.

  • That's the whole point of the nonprofit is that,

  • help us now,

  • so that eventually we can give this away

  • to the students and to the survivors

  • who might need to know that they're not alone.

  • What are we gonna do now?

  • Instead of just crying online,

  • we gotta go out there and make something happen.

  • I cannot see a downside of educating people

  • to understand their body.

  • I see a downside of educating them

  • that it's wrong to talk about their body.

  • We've seen it, we've witnessed it.

  • I've experienced it personally.

  • So

  • this education will empower everybody.

  • And we'll heal ourselves,

  • we'll heal our grandparents,

  • we'll heal our generations next and stuff

  • and just we need to start healing ourselves

  • both the men and the women.

  • And we need to have this conversation in a very,

  • fact of the matter, very transparent, very authentic way

  • where, "Actually I don't even know what I'm doing,

  • but I'm confused and this is what I'm feeling in my body,

  • so let's talk about it."

  • - When I was 7 years old

  • I thought I had sex with my Raggedy Ann doll

  • because I had recreated the chest-kissing

  • from the sex scene in the 1991 Ron Howard classic,

  • BACKDRAFT.

  • My dad was watching it on VHS

  • and I was so mesmerized by that sex scene

  • on top of the firetruck

  • that I reenacted it with my doll that night.

  • And the next morning I woke up

  • filled with so much shame because I had had SEX.

  • How could I have had sex?

  • Sex was for Billy Baldwin

  • and Jennifer Jason Leigh, not for me.

  • So I moped around so intensely that morning that my mom

  • finally asked me to tell her what was bothering me

  • and I burst into sobs and confessed

  • that I had, in fact, had sex... with my Raggedy Ann doll.

  • So this led to my mom openly laughing at me

  • and then explaining sex to me

  • which was just the bare minimum mechanics

  • of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.

  • You know, a penis enters a vagina,

  • ejaculation leads to a baby

  • and that's all there is to it,

  • so don't ask any more questions.

  • And that was the entirety of my Sex Education because

  • sex before marriage was a sin in my household.

  • So I was shielded from any further information about it

  • and public school taught me basically nothing else.

  • Everything I know now about my body

  • and my rights and my hormones,

  • my emotions, my sexual orientation,

  • I've had to learn the hard way.

  • And these lessons, when learned the hard way,

  • cause so much damage

  • to mental, physical, emotional and psychological health,

  • which makes life

  • a lot harder than it has to be.

  • We have the technology,

  • the information

  • and the ability to educate thoroughly.

  • So, I hold the radical belief that

  • comprehensive education about our bodies

  • should be a human right.

  • And in the meantime, while we wait for that to happen,

  • I have some ideas for how to educate better right now.

  • Who's your teacher?

  • I'm Ani Easton Baker, stay tuned.

  • "What would happen if the male has a narrow urethra

  • and he still tries to give birth?"

  • And then we're on to, "If a man fucks with a cow,

  • does the cow scream if she's a virgin."

  • Period.

  • "Do you like bing pan--ished?"

  • "Do you like being punished?" is what this question says.

  • - [off camera] Whoaaaa.

  • "If the vagina bleeds,

  • can you die?"

  • Yes.

  • Yes, you can.

  • What does

  • "tossing salad" mean?

  • Correct use of quotations. Should be mentioned.

  • "Why don't boys get monthly visits like periods?"

  • Same question.

  • Also on the back it says,

  • "Can I fuck you hardcore?"

  • (off-camera laughing)

  • (upbeat music)

- Hey guys, I'm here with my good friend Ani Easton Baker,

Subtitles and vocabulary

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