Want to explore the wide world of sex videos that aren’t porn? One deep, rich site opens the door to more than 600 that are entertaining, authoritative, and provocative—SexSmart Films founded by one of the world’s most creative sex educators, Mark Schoen, Ph.D.
Founder Mark Schoen is the king of sexuality education video
As a child of the 1950s in Queens, New York, Schoen loved hockey and dreamed of playing for the New York Rangers. In college, he spent a lot of time on the ice, majoring in Physical Education and Health. He came close to playing professionally but had to find another way to make a living. In 1970, Schoen took a job as a health educator at a middle school in eastern Long Island—and coached the district’s high school hockey team.
In 1972, New York required health classes to teach prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). While presenting the material, Schoen realized that his students, age 12 to 13, knew little about sex, so the STI curriculum put the cart before the horse. Schoen told his principal, “We need a sex education program.” The principal invited Schoen to develop one.
The class Schoen introduced used a textbook, but he also saw a great need for visual aids. “The films available back then didn’t work for me, so I decided to make my own.” There was just one problem. Schoen had no idea how to make movies. He took a filmmaking course at night at nearby SUNY Stony Brook, and eventually got help from a childhood friend who became a Hollywood cinematographer.
Schoen left teaching for NYU’s PhD program in sex education. In 1977, his advisor sent him to a Greenwich Village nightclub to see actor Logan Carter’s groundbreaking, gender-bending, performance of the French crooner Charles Aznavour’s sultry song “What Makes a Man?” Soon after, Schoen filmed Carter. It was his first movie, Gender—and more than 40 years later, the six-minute piece still holds up as a powerful personal exploration of gender roles and identity.
In 1979, Schoen launched SexSmartFilms. It has become the Netflix of sex education, offering more than 600 films from around the world. Schoen produced and/or directed 54 of them, including the documentaries Game Face (2014), about LGBT athletes (available on Netflix), and Trans (2012), which has won nine Best Documentary awards at major film festivals (Amazon Prime).
Here’s a brief sampling of what yours truly considers some of the best SexSmartFilms:
- Becoming Orgasmic. In my opinion, this Schoen production is the best sex education film ever made. A companion to the classic self-help book, Becoming Orgasmic: A Sexual and Personal Growth Program for Women by sex therapists Julia Heiman PhD and Joseph LoPiccolo, PhD, the video follows an anxious, uncertain couple through the book’s self-help program as the woman learns how to work up to orgasms, with her husband supporting her through the process to a mutually happy ending.
- The Better Sex Video Series. During the early 1990s, sex educators at the Sinclair Institute produced this popular series of lovemaking-enrichment videos. As the millennium loomed, Sinclair hired Schoen to rejuvenate the series, and expand it to include programs aimed specifically at Black couples and older adults. Schoen’s updates are timely, sensitive, and hot.
- The Sensate Focus Series. “Sensate focus” is sexological jargon for the gentle, playful, extended, mutual whole-body massage that’s the foundation of great partner lovemaking. This outstanding series of informative and arousing videos includes programs specifically targeted at heterosexuals, gay men, and lesbian women.
- You Can Last Longer. This video shares effective self-help suggestions for men’s #1 sexual complaint—premature ejaculation.
- Le Clitoris, An Animated Documentary. In French with English subtitles, this delightful cartoon discusses the special gift evolution has granted women, the only organ solely devoted to pleasure. If you think the clitoris is just the little nub nestled beneath the top junction of the vaginal lips, think again. This movie shows that the clit is much more than that.
- Orgasmic Women: 13 Self-Loving Divas. Many women feel embarrassed about self-pleasuring, unaware that it’s the foundation of sexual function and orgasm. And many men aren’t sure if they can recognize women’s orgasms (often because the women they’ve been with have not had them). This video addresses both these issues. It shows 13 everyday white, Black, and Asian women—none of them porn stars—talking about their sexuality and showing explicitly how they self-sex to earthquake orgasms. And it shows men 13 women having real orgasms that are impossible to miss.
- Enjoying Guilty Pleasures and Erotic Power Play. A leading sex-killer is boredom, doing the same old thing the same old way. Many lovers have fantasies of new moves, but feel reluctant to experiment with sex toys, blindfolds, restraints, anal play, erotic domination and submission, and other elements of kink. This marvelous video shows that all these variations are normal, popular, and if you’re into them, tons of fun.
- Trans. In this powerful, award-winning documentary, Schoen presents intimate interviews with two dozen transgender men and women, and provides insights into the joys and challenges of transitioning into a transgender life.
In its section on Advertising Sexuality, SexSmartFilms presents more than 250 TV public service announcements (PSAs) and condom commercials from around the world, showing how 50 countries present information about STIs, HIV/AIDS, contraceptives, sexual orientation, and prevention of teen pregnancy. Many of the offerings from countries including Argentina, Australia, and Thailand are smarter and more creative than anything available on American TV.
The huge SexSmartFilms library can be accessed in two ways—pay per view or by subscription. The pay-per-view option offers Schoen’s catalog for $0.99 to $1.99 per title. Individuals may also subscribe—12 months of unlimited viewing costs $59.99. Schools may also subscribe—prices vary based on the anticipated number of viewers.
Schoen played hockey recreationally until age 50, when injuries forced him off the ice. When not managing SexSmartFilms’ 50,000 views a month, he still roots for the Rangers, and has taught his four grandchildren to skate. As for their sex education, Grandpa Mark has that more than covered.
“When I was 12, my father told me, ‘I don’t care what you do for a living, as long as you love it.’ I took his advice. When people tell me how my films have helped them, I know I’ve made a difference.”
More great, useful sex information from Michael Castleman, the world’s most popular sexuality writer.