Big Mouth Is the Sex Ed Class I Wish I Had

The Netflix series nails what it's like to go through puberty, and encourages vulnerability in the process
still from big mouth of a bunch of kids in a circle

As a result of changing middle schools, I took sex ed twice, and like the first two times I had sex, neither experience was particularly satisfying. The second class was taught by a hot Flemish guy, and the first one taught me that it was possible for people with vaginas to masturbate, as I had heretofore assumed it was an act reserved for the penises of the world. So thanks to that teacher! But otherwise, it was hopeless. A bunch of 13-year-olds, many of whom were already getting fingered at Armageddon, racing to put condoms on cucumbers while blindfolded, and not hearing a word about pleasure, consent, or the confusion we all might be feeling about what was happening to us.

This is all to say that if I had to do it over, I’d want Big Mouth to be my sex ed.

Big Mouth, the animated series starring the likes of John Mulaney, Nick Kroll, Jenny Slate, Maya Rudolph, and Jordan Peele, is back for its second season on Netflix. The show follows a group of 7th graders as they go through adolescence, and are visited by their hormone monsters and shame wizards who seem to take over their actions at any given moment.

The show is absolutely gross, but only because that’s what puberty is. Characters masturbate everywhere, pubes talk, everyone’s weirdest fantasies come to life. They come close to more serious issues like objectification and body shaming. (There’s a #MeToo-ish plotline that works pretty well!) And it’s filled with so many dumb, utterly satisfying jokes you will have to rewatch to catch them all. (My favorite being there’s a pitbull named “Ft. Ludacris.”) But it’s also unbearably sweet.

The kids, like most kids, are so excited about the things they're feeling. Dry humping feels great! Kissing is awesome! But they also don't want to grow up and become assholes. They want to treat people well, and are slowly learning that their parents, the people they thought they could rely on for stability and love, are sometimes real jerks. Jessi’s mom cheated on her stoner dad with their cantor, and Jay’s mostly-absentee dad is best known for his misogynistic TV ads for his law firm. This is who they’re supposed to emulate?

The show gets deep into how we’ve provided boys with absolutely no tools to be vulnerable. In the first episode, Missy (Slate) tells Andrew (Mulaney) about an online community she’s in called “Girls are perfect and there’s not a thing wrong with any one of them and anyone who would tell you otherwise is actually just afraid of your power.” When Andrew asks if there’s a similar one for pubescent boys, she says it’s called “society.” She’s right! But society as a whole doesn’t encourage young boys to show fear, or confusion, or gentleness. In a later episode, a trip to “Guy Town” illustrates how depressing, stupid, and outright mean most forms of masculinity are. It’s both empathetic to why young boys would want to live such an unexamined life, and makes it clear it’s nothing to aspire to.

More than anything, though, the show gets to the question at the heart of puberty, which is WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?

Do you remember what it was like to be 12? To suddenly feel like another voice was controlling you, or like that voice was another version of you, the you you’re about to become popping in and letting you know your body is going to be theirs soon? And you’re just so horny, and oily, and tired, or maybe you’re not horny enough, or you’re horny in a different way from everyone else. Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong, and you sure as hell can’t admit that you feel like you’re doing it wrong to anyone, because that would just confirm things.

In Big Mouth, every character feels like they’re doing it wrong. Nick’s penis is too small. Andrew’s growing hair too fast. Missy’s boobs aren’t big enough. Gina’s are so big she can’t avoid the sudden attention from the boys in her class. And no matter how many times they’re told it’s okay, that their bodies are beautiful just the way they are, that they can be attracted to whoever they want, that it’s okay for them to be vulnerable and not become the worst stereotypes of themselves, no one believes it.

Sex ed would have been better if someone could have just admitted that. Because it wasn’t just that our bodies were suddenly changing. It was that we were old enough to start making decisions about who we wanted to be, and that is fucking hard, and is in direct competition with those hormones that make making out a medical emergency. It’s not Big Mouth’s job to provide the answers, but at least they know what’s going on. That’s far more useful than condoms on cucumbers.