Note: The following article contains discussion of sexual misconduct.
Sex Education season 4 spoilers follow.
Aimee's jeans dropping to the floor with a soft thud will, for me, be the thing that sticks out most in Sex Education's final series.
Those hateful jeans she wore the day she was physically assaulted on the bus announced their presence casually, catching her off guard while she rummaged through her wardrobe.
This intrusion into an otherwise mundane task is among the many examples of how the show has handled Aimee's sexual assault narrative with commendable skill and nuance.
Her visual unease over the jeans encapsulates so much: her vulnerability, her fear, her distress. Yet when those jeans (those hateful jeans) fell to the floor, I didn't once question why she had kept something that was connected to so much of her pain. Instead, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
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I too had a pair of jeans just like Aimee's. Except for me, it wasn't a pair of jeans, it was a flippy, black skater skirt. Velour, the kind of fluid material that would kick up and swish as you walked. It was fun, flirty and sexy and felt like me.
Just like Aimee (Aimee Lou Wood) and her jeans, it was my favourite skirt and just like Aimee, I'd kept it. Even after he ruined it.
For so long afterwards, I wondered if I was weird for doing so, if me keeping it meant something ugly and shameful. Like, if I kept it, maybe my experience wasn't so bad after all, because if I kept it, it obviously didn't cause me so much pain. And if it wasn't so bad, then maybe I was seeking attention in some way.
I held on to those thoughts – the ones that told me I was being overly dramatic – even though I hadn't been the one to make the call to the police that day. I didn't want to make a fuss.
Like Aimee, I had my very own Maeve (Emma Mackey) at the time urging me to speak up, to realise that I had been violated, that it was a very big deal and not something I could rationalise into normal behaviour.
I held on to those thoughts, even though I could never bring myself to wear that skirt again.
For a while, it sat in the evidence bag, untouched, until it made its way to the back of my wardrobe in a way that mirrored Aimee's set up, buried by new favourite things.
So much of my experience is an echo of Aimee's, but it wasn't until those jeans made themselves known again that I really began to appreciate how similar they were, all the way down to the point of acknowledging that 'I am not okay', even after all this time.
The writers in the writers room and the people that came together to make this raw and painful storyline feel so real will never know what this scene did for me.
Something that lasted a minute at best changed my whole relationship to how I felt about what I did with that skirt.
It wasn't weird, or shameful or an admission of fault: it was processing. I was processing. I'm still processing and that's okay.
It reaffirmed what I often need reaffirming, which is that everything short of rape is not 'a little thing' – something I had told myself, but oddly would never feel about anyone else's sexual assault.
That moment in my life, short as it was (long as it felt), made me question everything including my tendency to be nice. In the previous season, Aimee had blamed her friendliness for the reason she was assaulted that day, and that thought process is true for too many of us.
I have wondered more than once if I had been too generous in offering the cleaner some free bread that day. Was my geniality the reason I was touched without consent? Was my being nice dangerous?
The logical part of my brain knows this is not the case, that I am not to blame, but even now I still feel misplaced guilt and disappointment and shame that I know have no business living in my consciousness, because as Jean told Aimee (and, by proxy, me): "What that man did to you on the bus has nothing to do with your smile or your personality and is only about him."
Her words don't heal Aimee instantly, but they resonate with her and take on a new shape within her, giving her strength in season four.
Watching Aimee find a way to confront her experience using the same jeans that serve as a physical reminder of her pain was somewhat curative.
I'm a big believer in TV's ability to help heal us. When done right, it can give you new perspective. It can force you to confront things you didn't even know needed confronting.
Just by seeing aspects of your experiences reflected back at you, it can reveal parts of yourself that desperately need to be seen.
I didn't know I wasn't okay. In fact, I rarely ever thought about that moment, or the two that preceded it, and when I did, I'd shove those feelings so far down until they barely registered, but Sex Education has laid me bare and that's okay. I might finally be ready to deal with them all.
I did eventually get rid of that skirt – and the replica I bought when I couldn't bear to have the first touching me – I could never shake the memory from both.
I thought I would feel something empowering or positive, like Aimee did when she photographed her jeans for a project and then burned them.
I didn't. I felt confused and the resentment didn't go away, but unlike Aimee, I'd skipped a step: the part where you are meant to sit with your feelings, acknowledge them and try to find a way to live with them.
Maybe now, because of Sex Education, I will.
If you've been affected by the issues raised in this story, you can access more information from Rape Crisis England and Wales, who work towards the elimination of all forms of sexual violence and sexual misconduct, on their website or by calling the National Rape Crisis Helpline on 0808 802 9999. Rape Crisis Scotland’s helpline number is 08088 01 03 02.
Readers in the US are encouraged to contact RAINN, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800-656-4673.
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
