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This paper revisits the missing discourse of female desire [Fine, M. 1988. Sexuality, schooling and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire.Harvard Educational Review58, no. 1: 29–53] in secondary schools. Instead of echoing previous studies that have documented how female desire is missing, this research starts from the premise that female desire is an everyday (unofficial) presence at school. Through photo-diaries and photo-elicitation, this paper attempts to materialise [Butler, J. 1993.Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. New York: Routledge] female desire to literally ‘see it’ through young women's own eyes. In articulation with feminist debates around young women's exercise of agency, it argues that in relation to female sexual desire, this may look different from what we expect. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari [2004.Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Trans. B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press], it explores how ruptures to normative female desire are constantly reterritorialised and subsequently more ‘frustrated’ than claims of easily perceptible change. In this way, it seeks to add to a more nuanced and complex theorisation of female desire at school, rather than only as an absence or a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Are young women and men's preferences for sexuality education content poles apart? This article explores gender differences in senior school students' suggestions for issues sexuality education should cover. Findings are analysed in relation to debate about mixed and single sex classrooms and boys' perceived disinterest in lessons. It is argued that young women and men's content preferences were largely similar on items that a majority selected for inclusion. Topics less than half of participants named revealed a greater number of gender differences. Employing theoretical insights from feminist post-structuralism, responses are also examined for how they position young people as sexual subjects and whether these conform to or deviate from perceptions of 'conventional heterosexualities'. This examination enables an understanding of how young people view themselves as sexual and whether this matches their constitution within sexuality programmes. The implications of students' content preferences and the way these position them as sexual subjects are considered for the possibilities they present for programme design and delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A tradition of predominately feminist literature has revealed that there is a 'missing discourse of desire' in many sex education programmes. Building on this work, this article explores the gendered effects of this de-eroticized and clinical form of education. It is argued that young women and men's (hetero)sexual subjectivities are differentially affected by the invisibility of desire and pleasure in this curriculum. To offer young women a sense of personal empowerment and entitlement, and young men a broader range of (hetero)sexual subjectivities, it is proposed that sex education include a discourse of erotics. This would comprise more than an acknowledgement of desire and pleasure and incorporate the embodied practicalities of these experiences. As a means of developing this discourse within sexuality programmes, empirical evidence of 17- to 19-year-olds' experiences of desire and pleasure are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]