Best Sex Education Sites

Here's the thing about sex education on the internet: the problem isn't that there's too little of it. The problem is that when you type something vulnerable into a search bar — "is this normal," "how do I," "what does this mean" — what comes back is a mess. Clinical pages that feel like they were written by someone who's never actually had sex. Affiliate roundups recommending whatever pays the highest commission. Sponsored content dressed up as advice. And no obvious way to tell which of these sources actually knows what it's talking about.

I spent weeks reading and using every site on this list the way you probably would: looking up actual questions, comparing answers across sources, checking whether the citations led anywhere real. Medical accuracy and editorial independence mattered most, then depth, then how usable the thing actually is. None of these seven picks are perfect. All of them are better than whatever Google's first page is serving you right now.

How I picked

I started with a long list of about thirty sites — nonprofits, university programmes, paid course platforms, independent educators — and whittled it down using four things I actually care about: accuracy and credibility (about 35 percent of the score), content depth (30 percent), accessibility and UX (20 percent), and value (15 percent).

Accuracy meant I could verify a real medical or academic review process behind the content — staff clinicians, peer-reviewed research, or alignment with the National Sexuality Education Standards. Any site running heavy affiliate marketing got cut. Any site whose "experts" were anonymous got cut. Any site whose real business was flogging supplements or subscriptions got cut. Depth meant covering anatomy, contraception, STIs, consent, identity, relationships, and pleasure — not cherry-picking one. UX meant something very specific to me: can a frightened sixteen-year-old find a real answer in under a minute? Value was scored relative to what each site charges.

1. Scarleteen — Best overall, especially for teens and young adults

Scarleteen has been online since December 1998, which makes it older than most of its readers — and honestly, older than some of the people now making policy about what teenagers should be allowed to learn. Founder Heather Corinna built it as an independent, explicitly inclusive alternative to abstinence-only material, and it's now a registered 501(c)(3) reaching over five million visitors a year. Common Sense Media calls it medically accurate; an October 2025 Public Good News profile credited the site with "earning trust online for almost 30 years."

What sets Scarleteen apart is the depth. An article on contraceptive choice doesn't stop at mechanism and effectiveness — it works through cost, side effects, how to actually talk to your partner about it, and what to do if a method fails. The site also offers something the bigger institutional sites simply don't: direct human contact. Moderated message boards, a live chat staffed by trained peer educators, an SMS line, and a Reddit community. You can actually ask someone and get a considered, non-judgmental answer.

Yes, the site looks like it was designed in 2005. The navigation is text-heavy, the search is mediocre, and the front page is overwhelming. I genuinely don't care. The substance underneath is more rigorous than any of its glossier competitors, and the editorial independence — which Corinna maintains by keeping funding deliberately minimal — is rare in this space. If you can only bookmark one site, make it this one.

2. AMAZE — Best for ages 10–14 and the adults teaching them

AMAZE is a collaboration between Advocates for Youth, Answer, and Youth Tech Health, launched in 2016. The format is short, animated videos on puberty, consent, identity, and relationships — written for early adolescents and vetted by both clinicians and a panel of actual teen ambassadors. Over 300 videos, nearly 2,000 adaptations across more than 70 languages, turning up in classrooms, clinics, and YouTube feeds worldwide.

Here's what AMAZE solves that most sex education doesn't even attempt: how do you talk to a twelve-year-old about this stuff without being either preachy or incomprehensible? The videos are short (usually under three minutes), they draw clear lines between fact and value, and they're designed to be watched with a trusted adult rather than in secret on a phone under the duvet. The site bundles them with free lesson plans and parent discussion guides, which is a genuinely thoughtful touch.

The ceiling is the audience. Once you hit fifteen or sixteen, AMAZE will feel young — the catalogue doesn't stretch into the more nuanced territory around relationships, sex, or pleasure that older teens and adults need. But for its intended age band, nothing else online is as well-produced or as widely translated.

3. Planned Parenthood Learn — Best plain-language reference on bodies, contraception, and STIs

Planned Parenthood is the largest sex-education provider in the United States by volume — about 1.2 million people a year through in-person programmes, plus a significantly larger audience through the Learn section of their website. Content is reviewed by medical staff, kept up to date, and available in Spanish. Their Get Real curriculum used in middle schools is on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services list of evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programmes.

Where Scarleteen reads like a long, considered essay, Planned Parenthood reads like a well-organised clinical reference — and I mean that as a compliment. Articles are short and direct. The anatomy diagrams are standard, the contraception pages compare methods cleanly, and the STI section is the best free general reference I found anywhere. There's also solid coverage of gender, sexual orientation, and consent.

The elephant in the room is politics. Some users will hit network-level blocks at school, work, or in certain states; some will feel reluctant to visit the site for ideological reasons. Neither of those things changes the underlying medical accuracy, which is excellent. When you need a credible answer in two minutes and don't have time to read an essay about it, this is where I'd send you.

4. Bedsider — Best for choosing and managing birth control

Bedsider is run by Power to Decide, a Washington, DC nonprofit focused on sexual and reproductive well-being. It's been online since 2011 and has had more than 86 million visits. The target audience is women aged 18 to 29, though the tools work for anyone weighing contraceptive options.

Two features make Bedsider genuinely brilliant. First: a side-by-side method explorer that compares every available birth control option on cost, effort, side-effect profile, and STI protection — a comparison no ten-minute clinic appointment is ever going to give you in the same depth. Second: a clinic finder covering more than 13,000 in-person and telehealth providers in the US, with appointment scheduling built in for many of them.

Bedsider's narrowness is also its limit. Contraception coverage is excellent, STI content is decent, and there's almost nothing on pleasure or relationships. Think of it as a specialist tool, not a general resource — the page to send someone who's just been told "there are a lot of options" by a GP and has no idea where to start.

5. Go Ask Alice! — Best Q&A archive for college-aged readers

Go Ask Alice! launched on the Columbia University network in 1993 and is generally credited as the first health Q&A site on the public internet. It's run by Columbia Health Promotion, with answers researched and reviewed by a team of clinicians, public-health staff, and graduate students. A Stanford evaluation placed it first among reputable reproductive-health Q&A sites — which, given the competition, is saying something.

The Q&A format is the whole point, and it's what makes this site different from everything else on the list. Most sex-ed sites publish reference articles. Go Ask Alice! publishes actual questions submitted by actual readers, each with a researched response and real citations. That format captures the texture of what people genuinely want to know — not "what is herpes" but "my partner just told me they have herpes, what does this mean for us." The back catalogue is enormous. The site also covers mental health, substance use, fitness, and nutrition, which is useful context given that sexual-health questions are rarely just sexual-health questions.

One caveat: the archive spans three decades, so some older answers reflect older clinical guidance. The site notes update dates on most pages, but do check. I docked half a point for that — and not more, because the underlying review process is among the most rigorous in the category.

6. OMGyes — Best paid platform for adult pleasure literacy

OMGyes is the only paid pick on this list, and it's here because it does something the free sites won't. The platform is built on research conducted with Indiana University's Kinsey Institute and Yale, including a study of more than 1,000 women published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy in 2017. A separate evaluation published in 2021 found statistically significant gains in knowledge, confidence, and sexual satisfaction after a four-week intervention. So yes — the research is real, not marketing fluff.

The product is video instruction at the technique level — touch, rhythm, communication, anatomy — paired with first-person accounts. It's specific in a way that almost no general site dares to be, because general sites hesitate to publish that level of detail. And the pricing model is refreshingly honest: a one-time payment of roughly $49 to $75 per season, with lifetime access. No subscription. No auto-renewal. No "cancel before we charge you again" bollocks.

Two real limits, though. First, the content centres almost entirely on cisgender women's anatomy; partners of any gender can use it, but the framing will feel narrow to many. Second, what you're paying for is, structurally, a video library you could binge in a weekend. I think it's worth the price for the research backing alone, but that depends on whether the specificity matches what you're actually looking for.

7. Sex, Etc. — Best teen-written resource

Sex, Etc. is the youth-facing publication of Answer, a sex-education organisation based at Rutgers University's Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. The articles are written by teens, with editorial and medical review by Answer's professional staff, and the content aligns with the National Sexuality Education Standards.

The peer-written tone is what makes this one special. Articles read like a seventeen-year-old talking to a fifteen-year-old — which is a register that adult-written sites struggle to hit without sounding like they're trying too hard. Topics are wide — anatomy, safer sex, pregnancy options, sexual orientation, healthy relationships — and the editorial bar is high enough that the conversational tone never slips into inaccuracy. The site also publishes a state-by-state rights tracker, which is genuinely useful for both teens and the adults supporting them.

The library is smaller than Scarleteen's or Planned Parenthood's, and there's no live chat, message board, or SMS line. Think of it as a complement to those two, not a replacement.

What to look for

If you come across a sex-ed site that isn't on this list and you're wondering whether to trust it, four questions will sort the good from the dodgy pretty quickly.

Who reviewed the content — by name and credential? Sites with genuine medical review name the clinicians or cite the standards (AASECT, National Sexuality Education Standards, peer-reviewed studies). Sites that don't? They don't for a reason.

Is the business model independent of the content? Affiliate sites recommend whatever pays them. Subscription platforms recommend their own subscriptions. Nonprofits funded by readers and foundations have less of this pressure, which is why six of the seven picks above are nonprofits. Follow the money.

Does the site cover the full picture? Anatomy and birth control without consent, identity, and pleasure isn't comprehensive sex education — it's biology class with a pamphlet. The inverse — pleasure content with no medical grounding — isn't comprehensive either.

Does it answer the question you actually asked? A useful site has to handle "is this normal," "how do I tell my partner," and "what do I do now" — not just "define the term." Q&A archives like Go Ask Alice! and direct-service sites like Scarleteen score highest here. Clinical reference sites score lower, no matter how accurate they are.

Honourable mentions

Beducated runs an adult-focused course platform with more than 150 courses for roughly $17 to $30 a month. The breadth is real. The weakness is uneven instructor quality and a marketing strategy that leans hard on lifetime-deal promotions — which, in my experience, is a credibility signal worth paying attention to.

Emily Nagoski's site publishes free worksheets, a Substack, and supporting material from the Come As You Are author and researcher. It's narrow by design — it's an author site, not a reference — but it's excellent within its scope, particularly on the dual-control model of arousal. If that book changed how you think about desire (and for a lot of people, it did), the site is a worthwhile companion.

Crash Course Sex Ed is a 15-episode YouTube series hosted by sexologist Shan Boodram, with research summaries from the Kinsey Institute attached to each episode. It's a strong supplement, especially if you learn better from video, and it's free. I didn't rank it as a top pick because the format doesn't extend to the kind of follow-up questions a dedicated site can answer — but as a starting point, it's solid.