I really envy kids growing up today—not for inheriting what will surely be an unlivable planet in the prime of their lifetime, or having to endure the ramifications of a post-Trump/post-MAGA world, or for an unshakable addiction to screens that will irreversibly hinder their generation’s capacity for interpersonal communication. I mean, yikes, right? But I do envy the sweeping amount of positive queer representation at their fingertips. The latest, and one of the best, being Netflix’s Sex Education.

Starring Gillian Anderson, a stunning Gillian Anderson wig, and a bevy of beautiful and incredibly talented young U.K. actors, the show offers an explicit take on the painfully awkward sex lives of high school kids that feels, despite being from the other side of the pond, as American as, well, American Pie. Just a hell of a lot smarter, sexier, and funnier. Oh, and gayer. It’s super gay.

Sex Education follows 16-year-old Otis Wilburn (Asa Butterfield), the sexually frustrated son of a sex therapist (Anderson/wig) who nevertheless displays a knack for doling out coital advice to his clueless schoolmates at the prestigious Moordale Secondary School, netting a nifty profit in the process thanks to the enterprising ambition of brilliant girl-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks, Maeve (Emma Mackey).

While Otis and Maeve navigate a complicated partnership cum friendship cum budding relationship, his best friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) tries, and fails, to stay out of the crosshairs of school bully Adam (Connor Swindells), the underachieving, infamously hung (we’ll get to that shortly) son of Moordale’s headmaster.

If you don’t like spoilers, I suggest you stop reading…now. You ready? Because you’ve been warned.

Okay, so Adam’s got a giant dick. Honestly, this really doesn’t have much to do with anything, I just thought I’d share. ‘Cause it’s huge. You only get to see it from the back, but in a world of gratuitous female nudity, I’m always front and center, with binoculars, for some reverse exploitation.

Anyhoo, real spoiler alert: Eric goes through it in season one. He has a crush on the only other openly gay boy in his grade, Anwar (Chaneil Kular), who, because he is also the leader of Moordale’s mean girl clique “The Untouchables,” treats him like openly gay garbage. What’s worse, he gets gay bashed on his birthday.

I really hated the gay bashing scene. Because it seems that it always happens with a gay character. The entire season of Pose I sat with fists clenched hoping none of the kids would get attacked and beaten up or worse—only to be reassured when the season ended in triumph and not tragedy.

So I hated the gay bashing, I hated that Eric had to go through that, and I hated that we as the audience had to go through it with him, but Eric’s storyline, much like Eric himself, is not so basic. He comes from a conservative, religious, African immigrant family in which he is loved. His father, though not completely accepting of him, is more concerned for him than anything. During an argument, Eric accuses Adam of being afraid of his father, the headmaster, telling Adam, “I can’t imagine ever being afraid of my own father.”

A tale of two dads, part 1

That was an incredibly important moment and revealed so much about Eric as a character. He’s been supported his entire life, if not understood, so of course he has the courage to be himself because he was never taught that there was anything wrong with who he is—even in the church, he is welcomed with open arms. The gay bashing is hard to watch but because Eric is such a well-rounded character, it doesn’t feel gratuitous. They even fake us out at first when Eric, in full Hedwig drag, is approached by two ruffian-looking dudes who end up telling him how fabulous he looks, because, well, facts are facts, and it’s 2019.

But also—it’s 2019.

Whereas Pose avoided introducing violence into the lives of its characters, most of them transgender women of color, as a sort of mission statement, Sex Education exists in a world where Eric is the exception not the rule, so his storyline has to carry the weight of an entire community. Pose, with a majority queer cast, has the space and the luxury to tell other stories.

Not that his attack takes anything away from Eric’s storyline; after Eric comes home, his face bruised and spirit broken, his father advises him, “If you’re going to live like this…you have to toughen up.” This was how the show had him “toughen up,” and unfortunately, violence or bullying is how a lot of queer kids have to “toughen up.” But what of the emotional cost? And what of the emotional cost to the bully?

Adam and Eric are essentially opposite sides of the same coin.

Adam seeks Otis’s advice because he can’t seem to cum when having sex with his girlfriend—though he doesn’t seem to be that interested in sex with her in the first place. He regularly torments Eric for being so loudly and proudly himself, but like most bullies, and as we learn later in the season, Adam’s just lashing out about his own insecurities. He has a difficult relationship with his headmaster father, made even moreso when Adam decides to confirm the rumors of his impressively large member…in front of the whole school.

A tale of two dads, part 2

When Adam and Eric end up having to spend an afternoon in detention together, the subtext of their tension wonderfully becomes text. Adam, who has been spiraling out of control up to this point, begins to harass Eric, but Eric, emboldened by his journey of self-discovery, fights back.

Is there anything sexier than spitting in someone’s face? How about getting spit on right back?

To quote one of the finest poets of our time, Janet Jackson—that’s the way love goes.

There, in the quiet of the band room, Adam and Eric find a safety and familiarity in each other that was evident from their earliest encounters in the season.

Adam feels imprisoned—by his father, his father’s expectations, even his own body.

He is therefore threatened, even envious, of Eric’s relative freedom and confidence In himself—but he’s also drawn to it.

It’s been nearly 20 years since I first entered high school—a fact that I…literally just realized and one I am…completely fine with…

—but this show instantly transported me back…two decades. Back to being a quirky queer black kid with a flair for fashion and a head full of insecurities; back to feeling awkward and alone as one of the few gay kids in my school, though I was only really out to my friends; all the while I had my own tall, white boy who bore a striking resemblance to Adam and delighted daily in taunting me. He was one of my first crushes and one of my most consistent tormentors.

After their impromptu jam session in the band room, Adam, predictably, threatens Eric about telling anyone, but there’s a glimmer of hope. A glimmer that caught me unexpected and like a shot in the dark got me right in the feels.

The ménage-a-detention was hot and all but this subtle pinky dance is so romantic and so heartbreaking that I could cry if suddenly realizing how old I am didn’t dry up whatever was left of my tears.

Adam is basically crawling to get out of his skin and Eric is just letting him know that it’s okay. It’s a beautiful scene, but it also gave me something in the way of wish fulfillment—a wish fulfilled. I was never able to make amends with my bully, sexual or otherwise—and I didn't have a show like Sex Education or a character like Eric, or even the possibility—so seeing this moment of tender affection, a confirmation of feeling, was...it was perfect.

However, Adric (Erdam?), like their pas de pinky, might have been brief and all too fleeting as Adam is shipped off to military school in the season finale, leaving their future up in the air. But thanks to an enthusiastic response to Sex Education’s first season, there’s bound to be a second. According to series creator Olivia Nunn, she and her team have already started working on season two and “have some ideas”—hopefully including one that solves a problem like Erdam (it’s definitely Erdam).

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