Scarleteen

Hi everyone!

Recently, a friend of mine asked me: If you had to make a playlist about sex ed, what songs would be on it?

This question was a little confusing at first. Was my friend asking for “songs about intercourse”? Songs about identity? Songs about consent? Songs about the history of women’s sexual healthcare (yes, there’s a song for that!)? There’s so many ways one could go to make a “sex ed playlist,” but hey, listening to music is a way I practice self-care, so why not make a playlist!

I gave it some time and thought over the past couple weeks, and I think I wouldn’t make a single playlist, because when we talk about comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), we talk about different things like consent, safety, relationship skills, agency, resilience, self-acceptance… the list goes on! These topics interact with each other so I think there’d be some repetition too.

Here’s one song I thought about initially when thinking about consent (NO by Meghan Trainor also came up in my head immediately):

Slow Down — Alicia Keys

What songs come to mind for you, about any of these topics or about something I didn’t mention? Relatedly, what would you name your playlist if you made your own?

Hi!

I know this post has been up for a while, but I figured I might as contribute!

I really like But You’ll Do by MALINDA (https://youtu.be/MSWSy9fpcpY?si=a63Jdf4JMhW0rnvk), it talks about a lot and is hard to summarize, but I like it as what feels like a song about strong but not enmeshing love.

Playlist name — hmm… not sure.

- AQ

That song is so awesome for this!

I really appreciate when they sing “I don’t need everything from you”: this is such a good reminder in sex ed that our community is exactly that — a community of many people in many places — and not one person can do or be ~everything~ for us … and that’s okay!

Thank you for adding onto this thread, I always enjoy new songs!

I just discovered this Cyndi Lauper song about a childhood friend who died from an illegal abortion. It's a sad song, but it's an important reminder of what can happen when we don't have access to the healthcare we need.

The songs that come to mind for me are “Not a Phase” and “Coming Out” by Jessie Paege, a YouTuber and musician whose work I love. Both of the songs are about embracing and being proud of being queer <3<3

On a related "taking my time" theme as the Alicia Keyes song is Jenny by Walk the Moon. I love the implication of watching for signs of enthusiastic consent in the line "I'm not gonna take it from you, I'll let you give it to me."

In some ways a good portion of all lyrical music seems to me to have at least a whiff of the topics covered in sex education like navigating sexuality and questioning the assumptions of interpersonal relationships. I feel like music was one of the ways we did this before organised modern education, especially the relationships side.

One of my favorite examples is Hare's on the Mountain[Youtube], with this gorgeous rendition recorded by Shirley Collins in 1964, the origins of which goes back to at least 1837 when it was quoted in a novel but with other claims of it going back to the 14th century. That feels unlikely, and my guess is it probably just evolved over time, with a few prominent rewrites, but no actual start date.

It ends with "I'll leave them alone and attend to my schooling" -which is hardly sex positive but does speak to individual agency, being done with pushy men, and feels like it comes from a different place (and may a different time) compared to the mystical exploratory verses.

Like, "f the young men could sing like blackbirds and thrushes, many young girls would go beating the bushes?" We must know!