liberal sex ed [the modern era sickens me volume 1]

[Z-Row]

call me new fangled, but im not ignorant enough to think that when i have kids, i can force their opinions and beliefs about sex to be the same as mine. i never thought of this as a big deal until i heard sean hannity complain about it on the radio tonight:teaching about condoms and contraceptives during sex ed at school. he called it "undermining family values" but i think thats a bunch of crap! when i was taught about sex at school, i already had my own views and opinions on it, and there was no way in hell i would even be in the same room as my parents when they tried to talk to me about it.

personally, i think sex ed should be as liberally taught as possible. abstinence only programs are absolute foolishness! we cant let old people tell young people what to believe and do about sex because there is too much a paradigm difference. as we come out of the conservative 80's of our parents, and into our own world, we have our own ways, as will our children.

i know my kid's gonna have sex way before i think he/she should, but im not ignorant enough to think he/she wont. am i the only one that doesnt have a problem with liberal sex ed? because it seems to be an unpopular way to go about it.

 

[Volrath]

Statistics agree with what you say. They've shown time and time again that states which favor these abstinence programs instead of a more honest look at sex ed usually have more underage pregnancies. Why? Because teens never learn about birth control.

Hannity and those other morons say those kind of things because it sounds good to that extremist Christian crowd, people who have long had an aversion to actual facts. Though we would like teens to behave themselves until they're mature adults, the truth is they won't. It's just their nature to test boundaries and get involved in risky stuff like that. It would seem best to try and at least make sure they fully understand the dangers and most importantly, the options available for preventing things like pregnancy and the spreading of STDs. "Abstinence is smart....BUT there are these options for birth control." I don't think there's anything especially "liberal" about that either.

 

[arcthemonkey]

Because kids who don't get liberal sex ed don't know what condoms are?

Do they seriously have to teach kids what condoms are? Are kids really that ignorant?

Everyone I knew was well apprised of contraceptive methods in early Jr. High, so I dunno.

I'm abstinate, and agree with the philosophy, but if people are really so sheltered that they don't learn about condoms from their school-yard buddies or raunchy uncles, then by all means, liberalize it.

 

[Volrath]

I'm abstinate, and agree with the philosophy, but if people are really so sheltered that they don't learn about condoms from their school-yard buddies or raunchy uncles

So ideally we should be counting on bullies and raunchy uncles? Personally, I'd rather rely on a teacher.

 

[Minkoff]

Do they seriously have to teach kids what condoms are? Are kids really that ignorant?

You have far too much faith in teenagers. Seriously, they are fucking dumb.. They might know what a condom is and that they're supposed to use one, but they really often don't understand what will happen if they don't.

 

[lunarhiro2002]

Eh, I think that its the parents right to try to raise their kid according to their values. If the parents are cool with it then why not? But I think that a school shouldn't over step its boundaries if there are (a) student(s) who's parents don't want them learning about contraceptives.

Personally if I wasn't taught about sex in school I would have never known what sex was, I never knew what porn was till I learned about it at school lol...which brings up my point, if you want to teach kids that using contraceptives stops pregnancy then fine, but it basically means that their gonna go do it anyway. And I think what needs to be done is for more parents to kick their kids butts and start raising them rather then relying on a stupid school to tell them about morals and values and life choices.

We need more parental leadership in order for teens to recognize parent authority. I really don't believe that most teens don't listen to their parents because the only refrenses to that type of action are American/Industrialized kids.

In rural societies kids live their lives almost to their parents deathbed because the family has to pull together to survive.

so...ya

in closing, parents need to raise their kids and...it is possible for kids to listen to their parents.

 

[FoxDemonSoavi]

I agree that its the parents responcibility to raise kids and teahc them values. But that also means its the parents fault if the kid catches or spreads STDS or gets pregnant or causes someone else to get pregnant.

 

[Lene]

My mother and father would be considered pretty conservative (well not politically anyways) and I knew about sex around 4th-5th grade-ish. Then again my mother works as an epidemiologist for the state, so it's something that she didn't feel uncomfortable about telling me. (And showing me horrible books of diseased genitals...)

I think parents should talk to their kids about sex as well as have the education in school. I don't see the benefits of not knowing...

 

[Anonymous]

as we come out of the conservative 80's of our parents, and into our own world, we have our own ways, as will our children.

Conservative 80's? Excuse me while I snicker uncontrollably. The political atmosphere now is considerably more conservative than then. Sex ed in public schools included discussions of contraceptives and their respective effectiveness and STDs and how they are spread. No one was pushing for abstinence training instead.

While it is first and foremost the parent's responsibility to teach this sort of thing, history has shown there is and always will be parents who fail, either completely or partially, to give their children all the facts. This might be because they themselves don't know them - I doubt my mother knew whether an IUD or the patch is a more effective form of birth control, although she could recite the risks and side effects by rote, being a pharmacist.

Thus a thorough backup in the form of sex ed in schools is our moral responsibility as a society. Everyone deserves to be informed of all the facts and considerations before making any sort of potentially life changing decision. If they have all the data and still make a stupid decision (or just get caught by probability, after all, there is no 100% sure method of preventing STDs or pregnancy except abstinence), then that is neither the parent's nor the school's fault, but the child's.

 

[Roman Candle]

Parents have no right to ask for their child to be ignorant of anything. A parent does not have the right to stop their child learning about evolution. They have every right for the child not to be told that evolution is true, or that it is without holes. But that means teaching them the theory, and then the holes in the theory, not teaching them nothing. In the same way, parents do not have the right for their child to be ignorant of birth control. Apart from being immoral on their part, it's detrimental to the society as a whole. What they do have the right to do is to let their child learn about contraception, and at the same time teach them their own values at home. The two do not conflict.

 

[Z-Row]

Conservative 80's? Excuse me while I snicker uncontrollably. The political atmosphere now is considerably more conservative than then. Sex ed in public schools included discussions of contraceptives and their respective effectiveness and STDs and how they are spread. No one was pushing for abstinence training instead.

i just get that from watching old horror movies where people were portrayed as being really really uptight cold war era kids who grew up paranoid, and afraid of communism, churchgoing, and really really overly authoratative.

and i agree that you cant push your values on your kids, because by the time theyre old enough to even understand what the hell youre doing, theyve already got their own.

 

[Volrath]

Well what's interesting about the 80s is that it doesn't seem very conservative to us in today's age. But it does seem conservative when compared to the 70s. You mentioned horror movies, if The Exorcist (1973) was made in today's era, it would get slapped with a NC-17 so hard little Regan's head would spin faster than it already does.

However, this emphasis on abstince-only education seems to be a new development for this decade. I attribute that to the influence the opponents of birth control now have within the government. If we see a bill being proposed which mandates that even married couples can't use birth control if they're trying to avoid having a child, dont' say I didn't warn you.

 

[arcthemonkey]

Abstinance focused Sex-Ed teaches about STDs and pregnancy, it's just that they teach the only "safe" sex is no sex.

I believe that they actually do talk about contraceptives, but usually only to point out how ineffective they can be.

Just in case there was any misconceptions.

They don't exactly stand at a podium and say, "SEX BAD. URRRR"

Well, not any programs that are reasonably well designed anyway. (There's a bad apple in every barrel, right?)

 

[sandgolem]

Abstinance focused Sex-Ed teaches about STDs and pregnancy,

Mine didn't. Honestly, it was a lot like your podium comment. We even had people go up there for a school presentation saying how sex was horrible and if you had it, you should become a reborn virgin or whatever that's called. Hopefully mine was far below average for the pro-abstinence education though.

 

[arcthemonkey]

That sounds like a religious outreach program visited your school, and didn't do a very good job.

Remember the bad apples :D

 

[Anonymous]

Abstinence-Only Programs Are Dangerous, Ineffective, and Inaccurate.

The Society for Adolescent Medicine recently declared that “abstinence-only programs threaten fundamental human rights to health, information, and life.â€Â

 

[arcthemonkey]

I can admit it seems I was wrong and they were crappier than I though they were, although I take all statistics with a grain of salt. I don't see where you get your 80% either...

I still think that even if they are poorly implemented, the philosophy is sound.

The articles also focused more on the virginity pledge programs, and although I can't comment on how typical they are, I can vouch that those specifically are pretty sad.

Where's the data on how many non abstinance based programs have false information? Planned parenthood told my highschool class that at so many weeks humans are little fish and not human at all.

 

[FlippyD]

At least TV can still teach America's growing youth the importance of sex.

 

[Z-Row]

They don't exactly stand at a podium and say, "SEX BAD. URRRR"

are you kidding? thats EXACTLY how the sex part of my health class in my sophmore year of highschool went.

Sandgolem-they did that at my middle school, while i was in 8th grade. they gave everybody little abstinence pledges to keep in our wallets or purses. an hour later, they were all over the floor outside the classroom, and i had sex a year later. plus your avatar reminds me of goatse and that is ruining my eye's virginity! now explain to me how i am supposed to keep my eyes virgin until marriage now!?!

and i love how ccoa's second article says virginity pledgers have delayed pubertal development. hell, if i was 15 and hadnt ehit puberty yet, i wouldnt want a girl to see either.

 

[Roman Candle]

Pledgers were as likely as non-pledgers to have had oral or anal sex.

I'm a liberal bisexual boy, son of a single teenage mother. I'm 'saving myself' as/more diligently than most of the people I know. Take that statistics!

arc: The education system is crammed full of misinterpretted science. For instance, at the primary school where my mum teaches, in a staff meeting one of the other teachers brought up the fact that baet competancy at a young age is a strong indicator of IQ and global development later on, including a high reading age. So, she said, they should be implementing these exercises she'd found which were designed, (not shown), to improve a child's sense of rhythm. So they'd be able to read better :p