ABSTRACT
In Spring 1994 Britain witnessed a heated controversy around the sexual knowledge and practice of the nation’s youth. The controversy was multiply determined by, among other things, the aftermath of the Conservative ‘Back to Basics’ campaign, spearheaded by Prime Minister John Major; government concern over teenage pregnancy; concern on the part of schools; the Health Minister’s censorship of official Health Education Authority publications on the topic of youth, sexuality and HIV; and by media-driven debates over the use of images of sexuality in advertising the government, parents and teachers over formal sex education in (see, for example, ‘Flakey and Juicy’, Today, 14 March 1994:20-1).
