Sex Education YouTuber Shiori-nu propelling Japan to address youth needs

Shiori Onuki is working on a life plan—actually, on more than 136,000 of them. That’s roughly how many people regularly watch her YouTube channel on sex education, which she started with the aim of giving Japanese youth the information they need to plan their lives.

It’s information that Japanese schools don’t provide. The national curriculum for junior high schools, which teach students ages 13 to 15, doesn’t include content like sexual intercourse, specific contraception methods, or what to do when faced with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.

“It’s a big problem that [youngsters] are still facing these troubles that they couldn’t prevent because they didn’t know enough,” Onuki says.

Such cases are what set Onuki on the path to teaching sex education. While working as a midwife, she met women who—only after experiencing pregnancy and childbirth—realized how little they understood about their own bodies.

“Those women should be gaining accurate knowledge about sex and the mechanism of their own bodies before they experience pregnancy and such. And, based on that, choose the life plan that they desire,” Onuki says. “I think it is extremely important to create an environment in which sex education can be learned during puberty.”

Creating a space to talk openly about sex

Onuki started her YouTube channel in February 2019 under the nickname Shiori-nu. The channel’s motto is “talking about sex more freely and openly.” Teenagers and university students make up more than half of her audience.

It took her less than two years to become a professional YouTuber. She thinks the secret of her success is that she provides young people with the information they want. “In Japan, there are still very few adults who will teach the specifics of sexuality education,” she says.

Her videos include discussion of key points for sexual consent, the correct application of a condom, how to use an over-the-counter pregnancy test, masturbation, and even her divorce from her first husband. The videos include links to related resources, like public advisory services and other videos of hers that explain basics such as the mechanism of periods and pregnancy.

Discussion of sex is taboo, let alone sex education

Like many countries, Japan still has not come to terms with the idea of teaching sexuality education in schools. Parents’ views are split, Onuki says. Although many understand the need to teach it, many others have trouble with the idea. “For a very long time in Japan, the discussion of sex has been considered taboo, so although many understand that it is important, they have resistance to it,” she says.

Onuki says that although the thinking is similarly split among politicians, the government’s predominant view is still one that fears that teaching sex education to kids will encourage them to try sex earlier than if they had not been taught. However, evidence has proved that the teaching of comprehensive sex education in line with the UNESCO International technical guidance on sexuality education actually delays sexual debut. It leads young people to take safe, less risky actions, Onuki says.

Japan’s reluctance to engage with the issues that its young people are struggling with is damaging its own future. Japan’s population fell for nine straight years through to 2019. It also saw the largest drop ever, falling 0.22%, or about 276,000 people from the year before. That’s about the scale of one mid-sized city, Nikkei Asia reported.

“Accurately learning about the mechanism of pregnancy is, of course, important for contraception when you don’t want to become pregnant. But when you do want to become pregnant, it is also vital to know methods to achieve pregnancy easily.” Onuki feels that this gap in knowledge about their fertility is causing many Japanese women, who had wanted children, to miss their chance to conceive.

“Sex education is human rights education”

There are other hard conversations that Japan is avoiding. Many of them are linked to gender and equality issues, which are addressed by the type of modern comprehensive sexuality education that UNESCO recommends.

“In Japan, sex education tends to be thought of as the study of the mechanisms of the body, but creating healthy partnerships and human relations issues, like sexual consent, for example, are also extremely important (elements of) sex education. It’s essential for children to learn to respect each other’s human rights as they live together in society, so I really feel that sex education is human rights education. But in Japan, that point of view is still lacking,” Onuki explains.

“It is rare in Japanese society that children are taught about their rights. Rather, it is often the case that they feel they have to do as adults tell them or as their partners tell them. But actually, your body is yours, and it’s OK for you to decide what to do with your body. That is what I want children to understand and to tell them.”

Gender inequality gap is still huge in Japan

Discrimination toward women is still prevalent, Onuki says. She sees it as one of the issues that links sexuality education to sustainability. Since comprehensive sex education teaches about rights and relationships, it would likely increase understanding among men about the inequalities women face and, consequently, improve social conditions for women. “The problem of not being treated gender equal is still huge in Japan.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020, Japan ranks 121st out of 153 countries in gender parity. That’s the largest gap among advanced economies and a decline of 11 places compared to its ranking in 2019. It ranks Japan among the worst ten performers in political empowerment for women.

To reduce the violence toward women that results from that inequality, Onuki made a video called #ActiveBystander. It’s an online public service announcement that aims to change society to one in which it is difficult for sexual violence against women to occur. It shows a man helping victims or intervening to prevent some of the everyday incidents of violence that women face in Japan. [Find out more about the #ActiveBystander PSA here.]

Updating Japan’s thinking

Changing Japanese society is part of Onuki’s life plan. The reason behind that is a clear view that Japan will not change if it is not pushed to do so. She cites the very high age of the nation’s politicians and the low number of women among them as reasons for that. “In both the upper and lower houses of the Diet, only about 10% are women, so it’s a very difficult system to update to a way of thinking that meets our current needs,” she says.

That also hampers the outlook for updating the school curriculum on sexuality education. “If you think that we have to get politicians to change their way of thinking, it’s surely going to take a really long time.”

First, she says, change needs to come from the private sector—through social media, books, and with the help of cooperative companies. “Along with that, ultimately, to change the political world and the education system, we need to make our voices be heard clearly. The voting rate of young people in Japan is extremely low. So we need the young generation to take an interest in politics and participate in elections,” Onuki says.

“As part of my work, I want to steadily do what I can to make Japanese society easier for young people to live in,” she says. That is not just in terms of sex ed. “The disparity of poverty is also vast. Due to that, educational advancement is limited and a huge gap divides kids who can go to university and those who can’t. I think there are still many issues in society that cause kids to grow up without a sense of security. I want to be interested in those issues and do what I can for them.”

In the plan for her private life, 29-year-old Onuki is keen to put her knowledge into practice and, after remarrying last year, experience pregnancy and childbirth for herself this time.

In December, Onuki released her first book. Written in Japanese, it is filled with information on sexuality education. She called it ‘CHOICE,’ as a message to young people to choose the course of their own lives.

Visit Shiori-nu’s channel here