Last Friday, all Juniors and Lowers attended presentations led by Youth Educators for Sex Positivity (YES+), as part of Andover’s programming for “Love Better Week.” The presentation, entitled “Masturbation and Erogenous Zones,” explored students’ ideas of sexual pleasure, porn, consent, and healthy relationships.
Lily Williamson ’25
I thought that it was interesting that it was student-led because most talks I’ve been to have been led by adults. It felt more comfortable having it be more of a peer-to-peer talk than if it was a talk with an adult. I appreciated how they emphasized the importance of consent and being of age within the talk.
Kevin Niu ’25
The YES+ meeting was honest and educational, but I think it should be for at least Lowers and not Juniors. A better option would be for the meeting to not be a required talk and to be optional for those who want to listen. Education in sex is important but explicit talks like [what] YES+ [delivered] might not always be the best way to learn about sensitive topics.
Adz Morales ’25
I thought it was quite loud, and the student section was obnoxious. I think they [YES+ presenters] were comfortable with the topic, which made their presentation better. I liked how they used candy as an incentive to have people answer questions in a more fun way.
Josh Lee ’24
Well, we did it last year, so it was repetitive, but I felt like it was kind of enhanced by the in person experience. And I think the people who presented it were very well spoken. And so overall, it was a good presentation, but I didn’t learn very much because we did it last year.
Anna Ohm ’24
I thought it was good. We [the Lowers] were really immature, which isn’t too surprising, so I hope the presenters weren’t surprised by it either. Mostly, the presentation was very repetitive—it was the exact same slides and presentation as last year.
Emily Turnbull ’24
I thought the presentation was decent, although it was the same presentation from last year. However, to the credit of YES+, it’s difficult to give a presentation about sex to a big group of tenth graders, so they did the best with what they had.
Sonia Appen ’24
I appreciate that YES+ exists on campus and that they are trying to educate the student body about sex because it’s an important topic. However, I feel like the talks are getting a little repetitive at this point and that returning students should not be obligated to go to these presentations. Last year in [Biology], we had the same discussion with almost the exact same slideshow. I don’t think it’s productive to force students to repeatedly go to the same presentation. I think mandatory attendance at this presentation should only have been for those who hadn’t been at Andover last year or were in a non-[Junior] science class. Additionally, the talk was even less meaningful because so many participating students weren’t focusing, which could stem, in part, from the repetitive nature of the presentation.
