This exploratory study examines student interpretations of pleasure and danger messages about sex in sexuality lesson plans. Scripting theory suggests that students do not simply hear and enact sexual scripts presented to them in sexuality education, but instead actively interpret, revise, weigh and attach meaning to these messages. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of student essays that responded to four sexuality education lesson plans. Our data show that, regardless of the content of the lessons, the interpretations of the pleasure and danger messages vary widely, with some students interpreting a lesson as completely danger-focused, others interpreting it as completely pleasure-focused and still others arguing its objectivity. We discuss several themes evident in the data that suggest reasons for this variation. We conclude that understanding the complex process of interpreting sex education messages is important to understanding how to make sex education maximally effective. (Contains 2 tables and 2 notes.)