sex education

Relationship Lessons from Sex Education Season Two

Relationship Lessons from Sex Education Season Two

Written by Vera Fleischer, MA, MFT

I’m a psychotherapist who has been working with numerous individuals and relationships for over six years. I watch a lot of TV shows about relationships, and I find many of them inspiring as a person and as a therapist. I saw Sex Education Season 1 and thought it was great. This article will entirely focus on Sex Education Season 2 though because while I enjoyed Season 1, it didn’t take my breath away like Season 2 did. There were some real gems in Season 2, and I am going to distill them into a few relationship lessons that I thought might be helpful for those of us who are connected to others in some way. I’m sure I’m skipping over some important lessons from the show but these are the ones that stood out to me.

In my own words: Sex Education is a British Netflix show about a group of teenagers in secondary school in a small English town. The show is centered around presumably straight Otis played by Asa Butterfield (who I am convinced is one of my soulmates, btw - Asa, not Otis), who attends the local school, and some of the most important people in his life, including his divorced sex therapist mom Jean played by Gillian Anderson, and his gay best friend Eric played by Ncuti Gatwa. A few teachers and other high school students of varying social and sexual identities play supporting roles, including a jock, a nerd, a bully, etc. as well as some of Otis’, Jean’s and Eric’s love interests, and the whole show basically revolves around how all of these people navigate their sexuality.

Spoiler alert:

  • This article may give away some of the events and outcomes of Sex Education Season 2.

Trigger warning:

  • Some graphic sex talk

  • Some details of sexual assault