Learning to Live

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Excerpt from Learning to Live (1964) - courtesy of the BFI

STOP LOOK LISTEN The Magazine's sex education film festival

Each day this week, the Magazine is charting how attitudes to sex education have changed by featuring a classic public information film of its time. The third excerpt in our series on sex education films is from 1964's Learning to Live.

This film is neither one thing nor the other.

It is not completely consistent with the simple moralising of earlier films, but at the same time it never really recognises the approaching age of sexual liberation.

Learning to Live combines both footage of teenagers socialising with animations explaining the biology of reproduction.

STOP LOOK LISTEN The Magazine's sex ed film festivalFive excerpts from films from the BFI's DVD The Joy of Sex Education - one a day for a week. The films so far: Whatsoever a Man Soweth (1917) The People at No 19 (1949)

It's clear that the makers wanted to take a reasonably modern stance, with the narrator insisting that a moral tone is not the aim.

But this is contradicted by a number of assertions in the script.

"We must recognise that our society accepts the married state as right and regards sexual intercourse outside marriage as irresponsible and possibly disastrous," says the narrator.

The film is also full of lines that may cause raised eyebrows among the modern viewer, particularly in its description of the effects of puberty.

"She will find that a well developed bosom becomes a part of her charms