“Is it good or bad to do anal?”

Failures in queer joy and sexuality education

Bibliographic Data

ID21747109
AuthorsCasey Burkholder (0000-0003-3979-7021, Concordia University, corresponding author), Melissa Keehn (0000-0002-2308-9429, University of New Brunswick)
Year2026
Volume23
Issue1
Pages68-94
Publication date2026-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1550-5170 • E-ISSN: 2156-8154
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/15505170.2024.2427013
OpenAlexW4405108349
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited47

Where does queer joy fail in the sexuality education classroom? In this article, we work through the productive problematic of employing a queer and pleasure-centered approach to teaching sexuality education in New Brunswick, Canada. Engaging participatory visual research methods and queer joy alongside 60 sexuality education teachers in five separate art-making workshops and online interviews, we describe the conditions when teachers seemed unable to access the language of queer joy, like when they teach in a conservative space, encounter shame and sex negativity, or when they lack the resources and guidance to feel confident to teach sexuality education. We propose that queer joy is a worldmaking project in sexuality education classrooms—that is most often experienced in tandem with resistance—and offers a futurity queered toward something joyfully different, including when it fails

Homosexuality · Human sexuality · Queer · Queer theory · Sex education · Sexuality education · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology

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