You Know, Sex, by sex educator Cory Silverberg and cartoonist and educator Fiona Smyth (Triangle Square), follows the duo’s groundbreaking 2013 What Makes a Baby (for 3- to 7-year-olds) and their 2015 Stonewall Honor book Sex Is a Funny Word (for 7- to 10-year-olds), which were notable for their all-gender-inclusive language. Their latest offering, aimed at youth over 10 years old, is a worthy successor. It covers topics one might expect in a book about puberty, such as physical and emotional changes, but does so within a positive, empowering framework grounded in social justice and body autonomy—and that is what makes it stand out.
Ideas of respect, trust, power, choice, joy, and justice underlie discussions of bodies, gender, feelings, consent, talking about sex, stigma, relationships, reproduction, families (formed in many ways), touching, online and in-person safety, and more. Silverberg and Smyth convey better than anyone that sex ed isn’t just about facts, but also about feelings and values, which in turn are informed by a person’s family, community, and culture. “Learning about sex means learning about who you are,” they tell readers. “And no one can do that better than you.”
The book is loosely structured around the lives of four fictional youth (whom we first met in Sex Is a Funny Word), and formatted like a graphic novel, using the authors’ words and Smyth’s signature bold, colorful illustrations. The authors also weave in a bevy of other characters and experiences to ensure a wide variety of representation across racial/ethnic identities, LGBTQ identities, family types, physical abilities, and more—and through slogans on their clothing and in their rooms, the characters show their support for such causes as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and reproductive rights. These are young people who care about what’s happening in the world around them, , even as the world impacts their views on sex and sexuality.
The book includes a broad definition of what it means to have sex, but also recognizes not everyone is ready to have sex at the same time, that it may mean different things to different people, and that some people are asexual. It discusses both monogamy and polyamory in equally nonjudgmental ways. There are compassionate sections, too, on abuse, trauma, and healing. Additionally, readers learn about sex versus gender, and about different gender identities and sexual orientations, including being intersex, asexual, and two-spirit. There are LGBTQ characters and queer relationships throughout the book, in fact, not only in LGBTQ-specific topic areas, and all discussions of bodies and genitalia fully include people of all genders. The inclusion extends to the images as well as the text; for example, there is a trans man as well as cisgender women on a page about periods, and a trans girl as well as cisgender boys on a page about erections.
Some of the information is transmitted through Silverberg as a fictionalized narrator, acting as the characters’ sex-ed teacher, but much is conveyed by the characters of the young people themselves, either directly or through vignettes and dialogs that serve to highlight a certain point. This helps underscore that young people are already thinking about and grappling with many of these topics, and offers useful modeling of how readers can do so, too.
While the book conveys plenty of information, its real benefit is in the framework it provides for thinking and talking about sex and sexuality in the context of family, community, culture, and personal values. The authors don’t just provide facts; they also suggest questions for readers to ask themselves to help them better understand their values, feelings, and bodies. Readers will gain tools they can use to gather information and make the best decisions for themselves as they grow in their bodies and relationships, in a society that unfortunately values some bodies and relationships more than others. Despite the sometimes weighty topics, though, there is also a lot of humor here, with funny asides, amusing dialogs, and sometimes silly pictures. Young people (and even their adults) should find much to keep them coming back to You Know, Sex throughout puberty and beyond. Arguably the most comprehensive and inclusive book on puberty to date, it deserves to be read by every young person. If only all adults were smart enough to let that happen.
