Because I write about sex for a living—and because I maintain an online database of sex ed resources for parents and other caregivers—publicists often send me stuff that is sex- and sex ed-adjacent. You know. PMDD devices. Lazy eye lifts (?). Every CBD product known to man. (Seriously. Stop sending me CBD pitches.)
On top of all these, there are also the middle grade novels with themes around sex ed or puberty or menstruation. In the past, I’ve rarely read them, as I don’t often include fiction in the Guerrilla Sex Ed database. But as my child has hit the tween years and has started to read chapter books (I mean, primarily Warrior Cats and Wings of Fire, but still…), I’ve taken to flipping through them, screening them to see if they might be appropriate for my child.
In doing so, I’ve realized what, deep down, I already knew: fiction has a lot to teach us, and some of those middle grade novels totes count as sex ed.