The Joy of Sex Education

Part 4 · Sep 17, 1931

The Mystery of Marriage

The courtship rituals of animals and plants are compared to those of contemporary society, with educational and frequently humorous results.

Part 5 · Feb 8, 1936

Trial for Marriage

A man feels so much guilt over being infected by venereal disease that he conjures up a personal trial over his own behaviour.

Part 6 · Sep 5, 1937

A Test for Love

In this dramatized warning to young women of the risks of venereal disease, Betty, a shop girl, pays a severe price for just one 'slip'.

Part 7 · Nov 13, 1938

The Road of Health

The lecturer shows a microcinematographic sequence of spirochaetes and drawings of the gonoccus (the bacteria responsible for syphilis and gonorrhea). He then turns to an easel and begins to draw 'the road of health'; the cartoon takes this up in magic drawing, in a style that is highly reminiscent of the 'Giro the Germ' series made for the Health and Cleanliness Council a few years before.

Part 8 · Nov 13, 1940

Love on Leave

George and Katherine plan to marry but war breaks out. When he returns on two weeks leave, but has his marriage proposal put down by Katherine, George enters a relationship with another woman.

Part 9 · Nov 15, 1945

6 Little Jungle Boys

A short animated War Office commissioned health education film, showing the fate of each of the 6 jungle soldiers.

Part 10 · Nov 15, 1949

The People at No. 19

Reported cases of sexually transmitted disease took a sharp rise during and after World War II, but as this film testifies, sexual license amongst soldiers on the frontline wasn't the sole cause. Back on the home front, for many women, like Joan from No. 19, loneliness or newfound independence acted as an incentive to extramarital promiscuity.

Part 11 · Nov 15, 1949

Growing Girls

After several farmyard analogies featuring chicks and calves, the well-spoken narrator and director of the film, Winifred Holmes, considers the subject of girls and how they reach adulthood and readiness for the 'important job of motherhood.

Part 12 · Nov 8, 1964

Learning to Live

A basic sex education film designed for young engaged couples.

Part 13 · Sep 25, 1967

Her Name Was Ellie, His Name Was Lyle

In New York City, a relationship is threatened when a young man discovers he's caught syphilis from a tryst with a waitress named Ellie. This threatens his relationship with a new girl. Film critic Amy Taubin co-stars as the new girl who gets the bad news. The director is apparently the same man who edited Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

Part 14 · Jan 2, 1971

Growing Up

Freedom of expression and sexual liberation might have defined the 1960s but by 1971 the British education system was far from ready for Dr Cole's explicit series A New Approach to Sex Education. Made as a teaching aid for use in schools an universities, the Growing Up was unprecedented in its depictions of erect penises, un-simulated masturbation and intercourse to describe the development of the human body and sexuality to students.

Part 15 · May 27, 1973

Don't Be Like Brenda

The brutally entitled Don't Be Like Brenda (1973) is an eight-minute lecture to young women, telling them not to be sexually promiscuous like the film's hapless heroine – although heaven knows, the promiscuity hinted at here is tragically modest. Poor Brenda goes all the way with a boy who does not marry her. The film is stunningly without any useful educational content on contraception and makes it entirely clear that the woman, not the man, is to blame. The film even makes her poor unwanted child suffer from a heart defect, so that no one wants to adopt the poor little thing – just to hammer the point home. (from: http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/feb/11/sex-education-films)

Part 16 · May 27, 1973

'Ave You Got a Male Assistant Please Miss?

A production of Oxford Polytechnic for sponsor the Family Planning Association, this is an unreservedly hairy promotion of the prophylactic in avoiding unwanted pregnancies. A wave of period details situate the film in both time and milieu. The culture of its audience, 1970s students, is evoked and displayed via a mattress on the floor, an ethnic rug, the kilim bedpsread, homebrew jars, denim clothes and by hair: long hair, facial hair - beards. The main actors are dead ringers for the infamous cover stars of Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex, published the year before.