This Empowering Art Confronts The Awkwardness Around Sex

If you've not watched Sex Education yet, no doubt you'll have heard about it. The teen-focused sitcom starring Gillian Anderson landed on Netflix in January and quickly captured the hearts and minds of its audience. We follow Otis (Asa Butterfield) as he attempts to navigate the usual pressures of sixth form – mates, dates, bullies and deadlines – with the added pressure, knowledge and delightful adolescent awkwardness that follows from having a sex therapist for a mother (that's where Anderson comes in).

Besides being really funny and introducing us to an exciting lineup of rising stars, the series has been praised for tackling love, sex and romance in all their complicated glory. In tandem with the release, Netflix partnered with women artists whose work speaks to the themes explored in the show and asked them to create a new piece that specifically tackles the awkwardness surrounding sex. Multimedia artist Stephanie Sarley focused on genitalia; ceramicists, illustrators and identical twins Liv and Dominique Cave-Sutherland explored Sex Education's prevalent topic of virginity; and illustrator Alison Rachel (the talent behind the Recipes For Self Love Instagram account) focused on body acceptance. The pieces produced are great, obviously, and celebrate a lot of the intimate things we've all felt uncomfortable addressing before.

Click through to see the sex positive artwork that each artist already had in their arsenal, and the pieces inspired by everyone's new favourite TV series.