‘Something serious’: biopedagogies of young people, sex and drugs in Australian drug education

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite being ostensibly focussed on alcohol and other drugs, drug education often directly addresses sex – a focus subject to scant analysis. This article examines how the relationship between young people, sex and alcohol and other drugs is addressed in a dataset of 23 ‘evidence-based’ drug education texts currently recommended for use in Australian secondary schools. Approaching drug education as a ‘biopedagogy’, I argue that drug education operates as a form of governance that seeks to constitute young subjects with specific orientations not only to alcohol and other drugs but sex and health more broadly. First, I argue that drug education constitutes appropriate sex as sober, planned and with a regular romantic partner. Second, I argue that in lessons about sexual violence, drug education works with an account of consent that constitutes the targets of violence as responsible for addressing it. My analysis suggests that drug education operates as a biopolitical strategy that constitutes sex in the context of alcohol and other drug consumption as not only dangerous but wrong. Overall, this approach struggles to offer understandings and skills that may contribute to ethical sexual conduct where alcohol and other drugs are involved.