With parental consent, we got the basic mechanics taught to us in grade 7. The very first thing was the teacher asked us what words we knew for genitalia (dick etc), wrote them all on the board, and then banned us from using them in the class. We were only to use the proper words.

Then in grade 10, without parental consent, we started getting weekly classes during our homeroom class. There were about five classes in total. It was conducted by someone from outside the school (from a group like planned parenthood I guess), but our teacher was present.

There were many discussions, different forms of contraception were introduced, and literally passed around for us to look at. The pill, dental dams, condoms, female condoms, (I’m probably forgetting some). We practiced putting condoms onto plastic bananas, and were all given one (some?) to take home.

There was an anonymous question box which the instructor answered. Sex for pleasure, including masturbation was discussed. I don’t remember anything about LGBT as it was a different time then. After high school, though many classmates came out.

I do remember one of these lessons was about STDs, and the instructor was going to show those horrific pictures as others have described. But our (cool) teacher stopped them. Overall, it was a great experience for us.

I remember in elementary school we had a lesson on sex organs. When I turned in my test paper, I curiously asked my teacher, “If the sperm is in the male, and the egg is in the female, how does the sperm transfer over?”

All she said was, “Well, what do you think?” To which I replied, “I don’t know.” Then I quietly returned to my desk. Later I discussed it with my friend and we concluded that a male must pee into a female. Because at the time, pee was the only thing we knew came out of the penis.

I know its a cliché but honestly I got my early sex ed from porn magazines I found in the woods, fortunately playboy at the time did have articles that were educational.

Christian teachers showing us pictures of STI infections that had been left alone for probably years before the patient went to/was able to go to a doctor in an effort to scare us into celibacy. Generally a scarring experience that didn’t really teach us anything other than to practice safe sex.

*This was in the early 2000s IIRC.

Reading through the comments I remembered about a really great sex-positive TV show I would always watch late at night at around the same time my public education failed in teaching me about sex. The hosts were a really attractive Asian-looking guy with flowy hair and always wore a silk shirt with the top 2-3 buttons undone and a really attractive white girl that always wore a lot of tight clothes. They went over a lot of topics regarding attraction, safe-sex, how to deal with STIs; however, I don’t think there were any specific segments on anything LGBTQ+, but IIRC they didn’t need to because they way they presented things were easily applied to any sexual orientation. As in they talked about anal sex and how to do it safely and whatnot without specifically saying gex. I would love to read more about it, so if you know what it was called please lmk.