The second season of Netflix’s break-out hit, Sex Education, is here to prove that sex sells, just not the sexy kind.
Confused? Well, you’re not alone. For decades film and TV have sold us the lie that sex, in all its forms, is an erotic, titillating act with no room for bad angles or awkward mishaps. We’ve watched as beautiful people simulated suggestive positions drenched in flattering mood lighting, sporting lace, leather, and oiled up six-packs. In the world of cinema, condoms — their employ and messy removal — don’t exist, nor do strange noises or periods, impotence or fake orgasms.
Sex should be sexy, Hollywood says, but season two of Sex Education is about to splooge all over that nonsense because intercourse — coitus, shagging, the horizontal mambo, whatever you choose to call it — is a humiliating, thrilling, exhausting exercise that none of us have completely mastered, especially the teenagers of Moordale Secondary school. These kids have no problem airing their dirty, mood-killing fluff for us to find joy in and for that, we salute them.
Here for you now, the unsexiest recap of Sex Education season two’s most cringe-worthy sex acts.
The Masturbation Montage
Plenty of the teens on this show get busy by their lonesomes, but Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield), a kid who struggled to get it up in season one, takes perfecting the art of masturbation to an entirely new level when season two begins. After a make-out session with his girlfriend Ola puts his libido into overdrive, Otis finds even the most mundane aspects of his life arousing. A suggestive shampoo bottle, biking in corduroy pants, sci-fi films, jogging, they’re all catnip for his d*ck, and they give rise to uncontrollable boners at the most inopportune times. But perhaps the most embarrassing jerk-off session happens at the end of this montage — set to the heavenly cover of “I Touch Myself” by the Divinyls — when Otis, while waiting for his mother Jean (Gillian Anderson) to finish grocery shopping decides to yank one out in a crowded parking lot while watching a pomeranian nuzzle its owner’s mammae. The disturbingly public act ends with Otis jizzing on the car window right as his mom returns because she forgot her wallet.
The “Why’s It Not Working” Scene
Poor Otis, now that he’s flowered into a sexually curious young man he’s realizing that the act of pleasuring yourself is far simpler than say, getting your girlfriend off. Ola and Otis spend their free period getting busy at his house. The two have yet to go all the way but while they’re warming up, their game of “hide the sausage” is interrupted when Ola can’t find said sausage. She feels around, and at one point peeks inside his boxers to wonder why his penis isn’t “working” before Otis ends the awkward encounter by stumbling down the stairs, pants around ankles, only to discover his mom and Ola’s father Jakob, are doing the nasty on the couch.
The Dirty Talk Disaster
Look, it’s not just youths who struggle in the bedroom. The staff at Moordale also enjoy some hilarious hangups relating to their sex lives. Case in point: Mr. Hendricks, who’s first seen getting it on with Miss Sands in season two. Two unfulfilled, middle-aged teachers boinking is rarely stimulating but even less so when the woman demands dirty talk, and the man bumbles his way through a series of increasingly face-palm-worthy commentary. At one point, Miss Sands requests to be called a “dirty b*tch” to which Mr. Hendricks argues she’s a “lovely little female dog.” He eventually gets the hang of things after consulting one of his students but their followup romp is even more strange as he gets her hot by naming kitchen appliances and chanting Baba Ganoush during their shared climax. Whatever works, we suppose.
The Ghost Fetish
Olivia, a popular student at Moordale, enjoys some afternoon delight with her non-Indian boyfriend, who pops by her place under the pretense of helping her practice for a ceremonial dance while Olivia’s mom listens happily downstairs. In reality, Olivia and her beau are getting jiggy with each other’s genitals on her twin bed. While she’s performing some aggressive cowgirl moves on the lad, she rather abruptly stuffs a pillow over her face so she can’t see her unsightly “O” face which causes him to believe she may want to bang a ghost. Suffocation and undead kinks are no one’s idea of a good time.
A Douching Mess
One of the highlights of Sex Education’s second season is its fearlessness when tackling taboo sex topics, like the preparation and planning involved in some queer sex acts. Take for instance Anwar, another popular kid bumping uglies this season who has a bit of a rude awakening just as he’s readying to go all the way with his older boyfriend. The pair decides to have sex, and Anwar excitedly assumes a doggy position with his bare rump exposed for all of us to see when his boyfriend questions whether’s he’s douched before or if he minds things getting messy. Anwar, who’s had no experience with anal sex before, rushes to the bathroom to “wash his hands” before orchestrating an “emergency” call from Olivia that gives him a way out of this awkward encounter. Later, we’re treated to an Anal Douching 101 by the show, and Anwar owns up to his inexperience with the whole process to his understanding boyfriend who offers to show him how to do it. Dare we say, it’s almost sweet?
The 1920s Telephone
Otis and Ola continue to have problems rounding the bases as Sex Education gets deeper into its second season, but their sexual frustrations come to a head when Otis joins the ranks of his fallen male comrades who failed to find that mythic feminine jewel: the clitoris. Otis ascribes to the untested, unsupported Clock Technique when fingering Ola, working his hand in a clockwise rotation as he counts the time aloud, and Ola lays with an increasingly baffled look on her face. Eventually, she decides to fake an orgasm to end the painful jabbing and uneven swirling of her boyfriend’s digits, describing Otis’ actions to her friend as something akin to dialing a 1920s telephone, perhaps the worst burn a millennial can suffer when it comes to their sexual prowess.
Canines And Climaxes
Adam Groff is a polarizing character on Sex Education. A former school bully who enjoyed a passionate hookup with proudly-queer Eric in season one, Adam is left struggling to discern his own sexuality in season two of the series. He’s aroused by both men and women, which leads him to believe he’s bisexual, which is why we catch him masturbating to a ’70s-style movie poster that looks like a Fast & Furious knock-off featuring a hunky male racer and a scantily clad woman. Is it Tommy Tester or Ava Speed that gets Adam’s juices flowing? We really can’t care because as soon as he climaxes, his dog trots in to gaze at him in a suspiciously judgemental manner.
Netflix’s second ‘Sex Education’ season began streaming on January 17.
