Cognitive and cultural attitudes to sex educational content on social media in Bangladesh

This study investigated the attitudes of Bangladeshi social media users towards sex education by analysing user responses to posts on the Deutsche Welle (DW) Bangla Facebook page. Drawing from eight posts covering topics such as hymen surgery, menstruation and surrogacy, a total of 1,404 text-based comments were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. We identified seven principal themes: faith-driven resistance, moral panic, cultural resistance, sexual harassment, misogyny, conditional social support and breaking social taboos. While many users engaged positively with the social media content and expressed the desire for accurate information, others responded with resistance grounded in religious beliefs, cultural values and gender-based hostility, revealing significant barriers to inclusive public discourse. Guided by Dual-Process Theory, we found that user reactions were predominantly shaped by fast, intuitive (Type 1) processing rather than slow, reflective (Type 2) reasoning. These findings highlight how socio-cultural and cognitive factors intersect in shaping online engagement with sexual and reproductive health content and offer important insights for developing culturally responsive communication strategies in contexts like Bangladesh.