Professor X vs. Magneto: Which X-Men is the better sex ed teacher?

X-MenComics have a lot of epic rivalries and long-running battles. There’s Wolverine and Sabretooth, fighting their way across generations; Wolverine and Cyclops at odds over the future of the mutant nation; Wolverine and — look, Wolverine gets in a lot of fights.

But since the X-Men’s first panel, one rivalry has loomed large: Charles Xavier and his boyfrenemy Magnus Erik Lehnsherr Max Eisenhardt Magneto.

Finally, let’s address their conflict and find out who wins in the war to prove safe condom use while eating bananas.

Magneto or Xavier is the better candidate to teach sex ed.

It might appear that this question is absurd. These men are all educators who have dedicated their lives to peaceful cooperation between humans and mutants. Who better than a Telepath to discuss human dynamics? The other is a supervillain who literally named his gang the “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” and did his last serious dating in, like, the 1940s. But crack the surface, and the answer’s less intuitive than you might think.

While it might seem like a good idea to have a telepath in the classroom — after all, how many teenagers are actually going to Ask the questions burning through their developing brains — that perspective assumes a telepath with good boundaries. Charles Xavier? But not much. Yes, he’ll know the students’ questions before they ask them; but he’ll also address them in enough detail that everyone else in class will know This is exactly whom they’re about, and he’ll do it over their equally vehement mental protests.

Image: Jonathan Hickman/Marvel Comics

The disregard of boundaries can also cause problems in other directions. Xavier can be viewed as egotistical enough that he looks at his personal life for examples. If you’re a 13-year-old mutant, do you really want to think about how your teacher knows which sex positions are considered heretical for nobles of the intergalactic avian Shi’ar empire? No. No, you do not.

Ultimately, you don’t want Charles Xavier teaching sex ed. Really, you don’t want Charles Xavier responsible for adolescents in any capacity; but you Particularly don’t want him teaching them about enthusiastic consent, because the father of the X-Men is a massive, massive creep. His personal romantic history includes a lot of dubious consent or completely absent, unequal power dynamics, intergalactic coups, and his own romantic history. His relationships with the teenagers he teaches range from conscripting them into battle against adult supervillains to — if you count the X-Men’s questionably canonical crossover with MicronautsYes, it is, and we should! — outright sexual abuse.

Can the Master in Magnetism make it as Master of Menstruation too? Let’s take a look.

Image by Jonathan Hickman/Leinil Francis Yu/Marvel Comics

For all his supervillainous bluster, Magneto’s actually got a decent educational CV: He took over the Xavier School for a chunk of the 1980s while Xavier himself was gallivanting around space with aliens. He not only collaborated closely with the X-Men but also took responsibility for the New Mutants teenagers. Although his tenure was not perfect, his commitment to the students’ best interests while also looking after their safety and acknowledging that they are growing independent was more complex than Xavier has. It’s amazing what Xavier School director did. hasn’tDid at least one student perish while they were watching?

On a practical level, Magneto’s fierce ideological dedication to mutant diversity means his sex ed classes will be both comprehensive and inclusive. He’ll talk seriously about how to navigate consent when you can read minds, and what safer sex means when your skin secretes corrosives. He’ll be matter-of-fact about the weird stuff in ways that circumvent squeamishness, and he’ll teach students to challenge human taboos without getting prurient or personal.

In the end, Magneto’s best qualification for the gig might be his detachment. Magneto is the grumpy dad to Xavier’s overenthusiastic creepy uncle. Magneto wants to hear about the teenage sexualities of your teenagers even more than you would like to share them with him. Magneto will ensure you have condoms, without you having to ask him. The threat of his disapproval is enough to convince you to use them.

And if you’re more about following the Krakoan Era command to make more mutants? I’m not saying he’ll help, per se; but he probably won’t get in your way.