‘Pleasurable pedagogy’: young people's ideas about teaching ‘pleasure’ in sexuality education

Abstract

Numerous researchers have identified a missing discourse of desire and pleasure in sexuality education (Fine, 1988; Kehily, 2002; Rasmussen et al., 2004; Allen, 2005b). This paper builds on these findings by exploring the possibility of including such a discourse within sexuality education at school. Young people's interest and ideas about incorporating pleasure within senior sexuality programmes are examined. Drawing on data from focus group and survey methods, young people highlight some of the challenges facing this topic as a curricula component. Participants felt sexual pleasure was relevant to their lives and displayed a significant interest in receiving this information provided it was delivered in a particular format. Responses provide insights into wider social discourses about ‘sexualities’, ‘pleasures’ and ‘young people’ that inform school's treatment of student sexuality. This sexual culture of schools poses particular difficulties for the introduction of this subject.