When "Sex Education" debuted nearly four years ago, the world was in a different place. For one, we hadn't an inkling of the imminent COVID pandemic, the U.S. was still under the tyrannical reign of He Who Must Not Be Named, and we hadn't yet been flashed by a locker room full of penises on HBO's gritty teen drama "Euphoria." In short, we were in desperate need of something to disrupt the straight, all-white, non-disabled, buttoned-up status quo. Cue the British teen comedy that did just that.
The trailblazing Netflix original, starring former child actor Asa Butterfield as Moordale Secondary's self-appointed sex therapist, Otis Milburn, impressively shattered our limited purview of decency and, more importantly, homogeneity on television. With its impressive racially and sexually inclusive cast of characters, the show dared to go where its predecessors had faltered. Across four seasons, Otis therapized his sexually ignorant queer, straight, Black and brown classmates on how to do it properly, safely and without kink-shaming. The inclusion only continued from there, making it clear that these characters weren't just afterthoughts but carefully considered forethoughts.
