In this studio we were asked to create a podcast about health issues that teenagers face. We created a huge list of medical, social and emotional problems that we could focus on. Our group decided that sex ed is a huge topic that has a lot of different subcategories i.e sexting, teen pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender and consent. Under our umbrella topic (sex ed) we chose to spotlight lack of education surrounding consent, sexual orientation and gender.

Our topic inspired us to ask our peers at NuVu to talk about their sex ed experiences which were consistently awkward and rarely taught important information regarding sexual behavior. We researched sex ed statistics within the United States, and almost all 50 states do not require sex ed to be taught at all which was really alarming. It is up to the school district to decide to teach sex ed at all and specifically what is taught. After researching all about sex ed, we reached out to sex educators and principles to hear their opinions on the sexual education system. These professionals had really progressive approaches to sex ed, which aligned with our personal stance on this topic, but we wanted to hear how people could oppose sex ed. We called almost 20 organizations and people who voiced that sex ed should eradicated or only target straight and cisgender students. After many rejections and hangups, we were finally able to interview Gary Kass, president of defendchristians.org, who was very outspoken about his opinion.

Next, we had to start editing our podcast which required detailed work. We had to listen to all of our interviews, some which lasted almost 40 minutes long, in order to select the information that we needed to convey our story. The song “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt-N-Pepa was the perfect composition for this piece. Our intro was a mash of students recounting their sex ed experiences, which lead into our narrator (Sofia) asking and presenting questions for the interviewees to answer. The piece ends on a heavy note by including real statistics on preventable STD’s, trans teen suicides and how many sexual assaults occurred within the span of our podcast.

It was really interesting to cover this topic because it affects all of us, no matter how we identify. Sex and sexual health is taboo in society and this podcast allowed us to talk about this important and normal issue. “Let’s Talk About Sex Ed” is an informative podcast that hopefully will try and change the sexual education system in America.