British 'Sex Education' Videos of the 1970s

[Foxbark]

Greetings Friends!

I am under the assumption that this forum is British based and primarily viewed by Britons, so my sincere apologies are due to any fellow travellers who ay find the body of this posting unintelligible - but please bear with me if you wish.
By 'sex education videos' I don't mean adult aimed pornography that uses the ruse of 'sex education' to titillate or get past censors, but the types of schools' TV programme (remember those folks?, broadcast on the BBC during daytime) and early videos shown to schoolchildren in Great Britain during the 1970s as part of the 'sex education' movement that was in vogue at that time.
Actually at the primary school I attended (Inner London rough district) we were shown these films at the tender pre-pubescent age of 10 - 11, whereupon my innocence in these matters was awoken with a jolt.Apart from tossing the word 'penis' about the playground as the ultimate insult (it surpassed 'poofter'for a few weeks) my shattered innocence was debauched by such words and concepts as 'sperm','pubic hair', ejaculation' etc.
Being a very left-wing run school, run by the very left-wing Inner London Education Authority and before the Thatcherite education reforms,our teachers (who were generally young naive none-too-bright women) taught us damn well what they liked - there was no 'national curiculum' in those days.So half the class left school not knowing how to read, write or add-up, biut our minxish, hippyish teachers sure made sure we knew what a prick and a fanny were - and how to use them!
Well, anyway, to end that little rant and on to the body of my post, as I recall to us google-eyed kids , most of the videos featured earnest, elderly Scottish doctors pontificatig sotte voce about sexual fluids and animations of the heroic journey of a spermatozoon, but occasionally a drop of the 'hard-stuff' seeped in.
One very vivid memory I have is aged 11 watching a sex education programme featuring a class of children, mixed equally of boys and girls - they were older than me but were pre-pubescent - standing stark naked around a swimming pool, jumping in, swimming and then climbing out.Even at that young age I was shocked and wondered how the kids ever volunteered or were co-erced into this scheme.When the kids stood pool-side the camera would zoom-in on the male and female genitalia and a narrator would give a little lecture on the parts and their functions.I had to admit it was a real turn-on to us 11 year old boys and undoubtedly our first taste of porn.
The funny thing is I am sure that this film was broadcast on the BBC daytime schools service.Remember that if you were home off sick or during the school holidays you would catch those programmes -I'm sure I saw the same programme at home once.
An old school friend confirms that he saw the programme too and I'm not fantasizing.
Well anyway the tape MUST be by now destroyed - the BBC would be in for some very heavy child-porn prosecution if it were ever brought to light now.

Out of curiosity, did anyone here see the film as a kid?
Do any Britons, possibly from other parts of the country, remember 'sex education' on the telly during the holidays?
Just interested in other peoples' experiences.

[hotnobrob]

I saw this on TV a fair few years back in the afternoon. I rember the kids around the pool jumping in

[Bovon]

A colour slide of two frogs - one on the other's back. That was it. We had to work out the whole theory of human procreation from that. A very lapsed Catholic!

[minister]

There was a programme made for ITV schools called 'Living And Growing' that was on during the 70s and 80s. It was made by the Grampian region ( north of Scotland ).

Between seeing that while pretending to be ill, and my older brothers jazz mags i learned a lot!

[andysmz]

Well, as a public schoolboy (which I never was) might say, "bugger me senseless".

I am actually shocked that such a film existed. Admittedly, had I seen it as a youngster my eyes would have been glued to the girlies nether regions, but what on earth were they thinking of ? I wonder how many kiddie-fiddling teachers have a private copy stashed away.

My awakening years were filled with the a sense of deprivation that our school was not one of those lucky enough to show a sex ed film called "Growing Up" made by the late Dr Martin Cole. Others around in the late 60s may recall that this cinematographic masterpiece was scandalising Daily Mail readers because it featured a 20-something teacher by the name of Mrs Jennifer Muscutt with her legs open demonstrating female masturbation.

Just the thought of this kept me busy for hours in my bedroom and gave rise to an even more exciting fantasy involving our stunning student biology teacher (where are you now, Miss Wade?) giving us a practical demonstration on the very same subject.

For years I harboured lustful thoughts towards Mrs Muscutt until I found this forum and
was able to see the object of my desires
http://www.vintage-erotica-forum.com/showthread.php?t=8366

Sadly she turned out not to be quite as stunning as Miss Wade so I don't feel so bad about not seeing the film at the time now...

[steamjon]

I remember seeing at school a BBC Horizon documentary where they filmed sperm travelling up the fallopian tube. This was in the early 80s.

It was the only interesting film we saw during the sex education lessons as all the others were 70s rubbish. This one was brand spanking new with the latest camera technology.

In fact we had watched it a week earlier on BBC 2:D

[mikeleverson]

The swimming pool sequence was from the programme 'Full Circle' in the Merry Go Round series http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/657969 . At school, I saw 'Full Circle' at least twice, and this must have been around seven years after the film was made.

Our reaction was just as Foxbark described - enjoyment, excitement but astonishment that 'the authorities' made us watch such a programme.

[27cows]

I didn't see this programme, but I do vividly remember one which showed a woman giving birth - and she was completely shaved. I seem to remember being a bit baffled :p

[peepcreep]

Here's part of a schools' sex education vid:

http://img154.imagevenue.com/loc1169/th_74815_1_123_1169lo.jpg (http://img154.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=74815_1_123_1169lo.jpg)
http://rapidshare.com/files/131445088/school_X_educ.divx

I have a couple more, if I can find them.

[JeffThrow]

Yes, I definitely recall this programme (I was off ill too !). I remember a scene with an art class where the male nude model was fully erect. The voice-over said "there's nothing funny about sex" and a child voice said "they look very serious".

someone, somewhere must have kept a copy, although in the current climate, they would be advised to keep it well out of sight.

[Foxbark]

Love the 'Jack Harper' avatar (the late, great Bob Grant), one of my all-time comic heroes.
Anyway, I watched the same 'giving birth' sequence too, as part of sex education in the late 70s, (i must have been about 11 years old).I vividy remember that a certain girl in my class (By the name of Sarah Brown), actually fainted after watching the child-birth sequence, and she was taken to the sick-room, and teacher had to write an explanatory note home to her parents!












I didn't see this programme, but I do vividly remember one which showed a woman giving birth - and she was completely shaved. I seem to remember being a bit baffled :p

[mikeleverson]

Foxbark has certainly stirred a lot of old memories from VEF posters, including me.

As he says attitudes were very different when this film was made. What was acceptable
then - even in public - seems bizarre and suspect now.

Every weekday in my next to last year at primary school I walked past a bus shelter that
featured a Milk Marketing Board poster. This consisted of a 6 foot high photo of a
cheerful boy on standing on a height measuring stand holding a glass of milk, naked
apart from a slogan in a bubble reading 'Drinka Pint of Milk'.

In the corner shop, the local shopkeeper casually mixed girlie mags and comics in the
one stand, so you had bare breasts and bottoms appearing between the Beanos and
Dandys.

In the TV Times you could see an advert for Kodak or Fotoprint that showed a pic of a
nude girl and boy taken from behind, holding hands on beach with the slogan 'We've
taken off all we can - OFF PRICES'.

With this background, it wasn't the first part of the swimming pool sequence that was
shocking to me and the rest of the class who watched the 'Full Circle' sex ed film in May
77 and 78.

It was only when the cameraman focussed in on individual swimmers standing on the
edge of the pool that all the chattering stopped and we were reduced to stunned silence.

As I remember it, they picked four of the swimmers, two girls and two boys, for the same
camerawork - a 5 second 'full frontal' by the edge of the pool then a longer zoom in to their genitals.

As I recollect, both girls appeared confident but one of the boys in particular
seemed nervous and embarrassed. I obviously stared hard at the final girl who appeared
in the closeup sequence, because I was teased for at least two weeks about 'my nude
girlfriend'. Example:'You're going down to the baths tonight - will you be seeing your nude
girlfriend??'

Oh, and maybe the nervous boy could now sue the BBC and Ministry of Education for
psychological trauma...

[Foxbark]

Yes, the 70s were a strange decade in terms of outward displays of nudity and sexuality.
One must remember that the 70s were closer to the 1930s and '40s than they are to us - and that the general level of repression in the 40s resembled Victorian times.But the in certain respects (ie the use of 'nude birds' in advertising, TV comedies etc, the 1970s were even more explicit and unabashed than today - causing attacks of apoplexy from Mrs Whitehouse & Co.).The 1960s 'sexual revoution' surely must have turned the world upside down!
-The use of nude dolly-birds, Miss World, Benny Hill etc suffered a massive backlash in the 80s due to the rise of political correctness and militant feminism, but the pendulum (or pendulous breasts) have swung back the other way.Mainstream magazines like Zoo and Nuts do little more than worship the nude female.