Also?

I'm going to say something deeply unpopular and then demonstrate in a single sentence why it's true:

Sex ed should have to include education on kink and safe play in order to be considered comprehensive.

"Ew, you want kids to have sex!"

First of all, that's a whole different sentence, bitch. Second of all, kids are going to have sex whether I think they should or not. And third of all, here's that single sentence:

"If you were a real submissive, you wouldn't want a safeword."

Who's more likely to fall for that line--an 18-year-old who's only ever seen dubious porn they found on a shady website, or an 18-year-old whose sex ed class taught them about SSC, active ongoing consent, and the physical demands of impact play?

"It'll give them ideas--" oh I see. So the problem is you're only sex-positive if it's lights-out missionary with room for Jesus.

Kids will have sex. Kids will have kinks! I didn't know what kinks were when I was 16, but I knew there were ideas that excited me that were definitely not lights-out-missionary! I want kids to have access to accurate information that will lessen the risks of whatever it is they choose to do with consenting partners. And comprehensive sex ed studies have actually shown that kids who receive comprehensive sex ed start having sex later, with fewer partners, and with more safe methods, so au contraire to wanting kids to have sex, I'd like them to learn enough about it to go "....yeah fuck that noise I have finals" and wait awhile, and have the tools to be safe when they're done waiting.

Also, related to this… SSC is a standard that should be applied to lights-out missionary with room for Jesus, too.

It’s like…

Ok, so this metaphor is going to be a bit of a walk, but indulge me. You know how people tend to suddenly start developing back pain and repetitive strain injuries in their late 20s and early 30s? What a lot of people don’t realize is that, unless you have some sort of illness or chronic pain condition, your body doesn’t actually start breaking down at that age. Late 20s / early 30s is still pretty young. Back pain and repetitive strain injuries at that age aren’t inevitable, or even normal.

You know what does start in your late 20s and early 30s? Your bad habits start to catch up with you. When you’re a teen, people tell you “sit up straight” and “lift with your legs, not your back” and “type with good form” and “take regular breaks to reduce eye strain” and if you ignore that advice, you’re probably fine! Was that silly, overprotective advice when you were a teen? Actually, no. All those things that people told you were risking damage to your body were actually risking damage to your body, the whole time. They might even have been causing significant damage to your body. But when you’re a teen, you heal quickly, so it looks like they don’t matter. You need to finally start caring about ergonomics and the like at 30 because you should have been caring about them the whole time, but you were young and healthy and so you used to shake off abuse that you can’t, anymore.

And btw, some people don’t make it that long before their bodies stop being able to take it. If you never have to worry about your posture until you’re an adult, that’s great for you, but you actually got lucky. You couldn’t have known that your body would be this resilient to lifting wrong at age 15, when you were doing it with wild abandon. Statistically, it was pretty likely, but the only way to guarantee that you wouldn’t do permanent damage to your body was to not do things like lifting with your back in the first place. And while most people only have to learn this lesson at 30, some people learn it, tragically, much sooner.

Kink is a bit like hitting 30 for SSC.

You can still be harmed by engaging in sexual activity which is not undertaken with clearly given consent, a mutual understanding of risks, and a mindfulness of everyone’s mental health, even if that sexual activity is completely vanilla. It’s less likely to cause permanent harm, sure! If it causes any harm at all, you’re much more likely to be able to just shrug it off! But… you can’t know that you’re one of the lucky majority that can get away with terrible habits for years with no issue.

You don’t need SSC for kink because kink is a special, different thing from other types of sex. You need SSC for kink because kink has less tolerance for things that are always a problem.

We shouldn’t hold off on teaching kids to lift heavy boxes correctly on the grounds that “most young people can just shrug that sort of thing off”. Likewise, we shouldn’t hold off on teaching SSC because “unless they’re engaged in kink it probably won’t come up.” Some bad habits are bad even if you can probably get away with them. And the fact that there exists a situation where you probably can’t get away with the bad habit anymore does not mean that that’s the only situation where you should care.