There was an awkward pause before the male educator cleared his throat and replied, "I think you mean 'head job'. Does anyone know the answer?" Thankfully he wasn't stupid enough to give us any chance to respond, delving immediately instead into a basic 'penis in mouth' definition. Then came the whole birth control and diseases bit, at which point most of us decided that no matter how much our 12 yo pants were tingling, sex was a life sentence or death sentence, so fuck that idea to hell.
Nowadays the digital age allows kids of all ages to learn all about sex via simple entries into a searchie. If you think kids won't do this then you are suffering blunt trauma and forgotten the first thing you did when you got online. I figured some real research was in order on this topic so I hit Youtube and entered 'sex ed'.
Yep, one of the top results is a creepy guy in a playground seranading about which parts of your body he intends to touch. Accurate terminology is important for child molesters so as to avoid confusion in the back of the van. And a mere 20 seconds into this musical glossary of violation we get this strange snippet of a no-less-creepy dude clarifying what girls have down below.
Oh look, a cunt telling me about vaginas, how poetic.
The Problem
Sex ed is one of those things you needs to explain to kids before they're old enough to do it. Unfortunately it requires a level of explicit detail not usually associated with conditionally prohibited behaviour. When we teach kids that serial killing is wrong we don't usually throw in a biology lesson about lethal lacerations and gunshot wounds. We certainly don't let them role-play the responsibility associated with it the by giving them murdered dolls to bury under their house for a week.
But Sex Ed - being so much lamer that Murder Ed - involves a fuckton of information: biological, social, and legal at least. That's not including any religious crap thrown in too.
Eeew! Whenever you make a biological function a moral controversy you automatically generate ignorance. Hooray for this evangelist reciting the very day and minute he first fucked his wife. It's hip to shock kids with the image of you flopping clumsily atop some poor woman for 30 seconds, I'm sure. But tell me, Pastor Ainsworth, can your holy powers of eidetic recall tell us where and when you first masturbated? That's the only question I'd throw at him after his creepy boasting, because I already know that fundamentalists fucking hate that line of inquiry. They either lie outright with denial, or make some clearly insane statement about wanking without actually thinking about sex. Do you know how many healthy, 20 year old men have never masturbated? Of course you do, because 'zero' is always the easiest number to remember.
It's like parents who excuse their kids from sex ed for religious reasons. "You don't need to know about it until your wedding night." Denying sex is like denying pretty much everything else in the world: it doesn't make you a better person, just a dumber one. Sexual morality is like lying in that regard, it's not about the act itself, it's about the circumstances and motivations behind it that mess with your conscience.
The Solution
Oh, and just one simple thing: pedophilia, rape and indecent assault are not sex, they're violent crimes of power abuse - the same way that hugging someone is not the same as strangling them. Pretty much the opposite of the true act itself. Do not confuse the two. I mention this because it should be THE FIRST THING WE TEACH KIDS when talking about the social aspects of sex and sexuality. Biology does not translate into morality. Our bodily functions are all tools that we use within context, and it's the context part that should be explained as clearly as possible.
Yes, sex as a concept is scary and exciting for kids. Even when laboriously explained using charts, diagrams and dolls it's still confusing as hell, especially when you're then told by pastors and over-protective parents that it's taboo. I guess I was lucky, growing up in a rural area, because you couldn't look out the back door without seeing animals fucking each other, so the baby making process was pretty straight forward. What I didn't know is that with humans sex is employed for many reasons other than procreation. Sometimes it's for relief, sometimes for self-esteem, sometimes for loneliness, sometimes for money or other rewards. Some even do it for love-based bonding. But the fact is that the vast majority of people between puberty and decrepit age can and will have sex. Our eyes are used to see, our ears to hear, our hands to hold things, and our junk to do the nasty. That is how the world works, and has done so for a very long time.
Sex is the legally aged, consensual act of mutual, physical gratification between two humans (or more in some cases). It is not masturbation (no issue of consent), it is not violence or exploitation (non-consensual) and it is not a source of shame. Do not worry about sex ed encouraging kids to have sex. Trust me, adolescents do not need additional encouragement, it's already hardwired into their hormones. What you do instead is ensure harm minimisation and risk management. Teach them birth control if you don't want to become a grand parent right now. Teach them venereal protection if you want them to be healthy. Teach them about consent: explain what sexual and indecent assault is, describe what constitutes date-rape and the diminished capacity inherent in intoxication. If you want kids to act responsibly (and despite the media and religious scare-mongering, most kids want to be good people too) then you need to give them all the information, not just the bits that suit your agenda, because they will find out the rest from less reliable sources anyway.
Most of all, parents, teachers and similar role modelling adults need to educate themselves. Think just because you're a parent that you know it all? Bullshit, you just know how to have sex, not teach it. Learn then teach, that's the only way it works, fools.
And now I'll leave you with a classic example of what happens when you let religious morality interfere with biology. Heed the words of Dan Savage here.
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