The ins and outs of bodies: sex educators’ embodied insights on official/erotic discourses

In this scholarship, I present insights from a sensory ethnographic study on novice educators' embodied experiences of learning to teach sex education. I query how educators sense-make their role as knowledgeable sex educators in relation to the official and erotic discourses of sex education, and examine the experiential divisions between these discourses. Employing an arts-based approach to data generation and interpretation, my central argument proposes that increasing the permeability of the boundaries between official and erotic discourses in sex education can expand the ways learners' bodies are understood in erotic, relational, and intimate contexts within pedagogy. By presenting these arguments, I aim to contribute to addressing the enduring challenges of the discourse of erotics 'being' in K-12 sex education and suggests ways to support educators in delivering effective pedagogical practices.