Even the average adult is somewhat curious (and perhaps appalled) by the title. But can you imagine a handout with definitions of terms like "69, bangin' and anal sex," nicely crafted and distributed to a seventh grader!? Heck, I don't even want a handout like this.
Is this what sex education has become?
My family and I were having a discussion over the holiday about my seventh-grade God sister who was given a handout as part of sexual education class called, "Fifty Nifty Sexual Terms."When you look up the phrase on the Internet, nothing educational for a seventh grader is worth mentioning. How is knowing the "69" relevant? Isn't that a different type of sexual education?
Needless to say her parents were highly upset and questioned why parents were not informed (through permission slips) of this class and why abstinence was not being encouraged along with the assumption that "they [teens] are going to do it anyway." The explanation? Something along the lines of socioeconomic conditions vs. environment vs. the need...yada yada yada.
1990s: I remember health class. Back then, sex ed was part of health class and limited to a certain number of weeks within a semester (generally after we'd learned nutrition and exercising). Sex education was about applying a condom, the reproductive organs and a place where you could ask questions that could have been too embarrassing to ask at home. Any frivolity was left in the class and to the comments made by my classmates. It was at the discretion of the instructor whether to answer such questions like, "can a girl get pregnant from pre-ejaculation?" [I had to channel a high-school, hormone raging boy for that question. Believe me, it was even more blunt.] Most times the teacher answered the questions because they knew although asked inappropriately, there was a need to know the answer. I wondered was this "keeping it real" effort what was in mind when distributing this form.
Bottom line: My God sister's parents were the only parents to remove their child from the class. They've said that they teach their child about sex but are not ready to teach her about "anal sex" or the "69." The administrator did not review the material the "instructor" was giving to the children, which is why she didn't know that these nifty terms were abound. My understanding is that the terms on the handout made some adults blush.
Perhaps the administrator needs an education on how despite what may be environmentally common, there are parents who preach and teach alternatives, with the caveat that as parents they are not all knowing.
Mickey
Wow, did that "educator" have kids? If he/she was going all out, visual aids of the physical affects of gonorrhea, chlamydia, and other stds should've also have been represented, since they were trying to "keep it real". I've got a lot of pics, don't ask why, but I remember them making me think twice about spontaneous sex. Warts on genitals, male and female alike, are horrendous, especially when they end up on the anus (anal sex repercussions), the mouth, heck wherever contact is made. Why wasn't beastiality, or f*@(ing machines, or dental dams, or group sex brought up? Did a pimp show up too? What the hell was wrong with that "educator". Socioeconomic my ass. Ah come on!
ReplyDeleteExactly Olivia!!! So true! I remember sex ed being informative and almost like a warning. I was shocked at the title. The word nifty implies handy or usefulness...I'm sure my seventh-grade God sister will not find sexual positions useful at her age. We all know that there are teens that are active way too soon, which is why we should NOT completely take on the attitude of "they are going to do it anyway." Thanks for the reply gal, xoxo.
ReplyDeleteI will play the devil's advocate here...abstinence education does not work! When the schools stopped teaching sexual education and began pushing abstinence, the number of high school pregnancies and sexual transmitted diseases in that age group began to rise exponentially.
ReplyDeleteI remember in fifth grade when my teacher sent home the permission slip for the “Girls Only Talk.” We crammed into the Classroom Library, which was an attached closet and closed the door. Inside we discussed male and female anatomy, male and female growth and development, sexual intercourse and sexually transmitted diseases. The best part, for me, was watching a movie, The Joy of Life (I think this is the title) in which we saw the actual birth of a child, and not the edited version. The entire film was viewed through the eyes of the doctor. I thought it was the most disgusting thing…watching this woman’s vagina open and a head come out. Several of us, including myself closed our eyes and tried to turn away, but my teacher, Mrs. Ruiz, stopped the tape, re-winded, and stated, “You are not allowed to turn away. You must sit, look, listen and learn.” To this day, I still remember!
Sexual Education was not mentioned again until high school where I got male and female anatomy…again, male and female growth and development…again, sexual intercourse…again, and sexually transmitted diseases…again. This time, although there was a question and answer period, there was no discussion, there were no movies, no demonstrations (i.e. how to put on a condom correctly), straight informational, and as I remember, the most boring experience.
As a teacher, I am constantly looking for ways to “hook” my students, to get them interested in the material that I am presenting. Let me be clear: I am not advocating the material this teacher distributed to students. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to make sure that the material presented is age-appropriate and culturally relevant to my students. This teacher, although I do believe that the intentions were good, made an unwise decision, there is never any reason to distribute this material. But look what he did: I am sure that the room was silent upon command. The students were obviously shocked and surprised that an adult, that their teacher would know what any of these terms meant, much less repeat them aloud; and for the rest of the lesson, he had them! Then, the students went home, excited about what they were learning, and eagerly shared the information with their parents.
Unfortunately, this is what Sex Ed has become. They are starting earlier and earlier, much earlier than you think. Just last year during a parent-teacher conference, I showed a father his 8 year old daughter’s journal in which she had been writing over the course of two weeks about the sex her and her boyfriend were having. I teach third grade! Sex is everywhere. It is on television, in video games, in books, on magazines. Let me not even start on the song lyrics, that our children are singing before they are identifying their name.
As a parent, as a teacher, in today’s society, I think that I would have allowed Miles, my son, to remain in the class, with a signed permission slip on file, of course.
Did you say third grade!? wow! Thanks for this reply Misha!! I definitely wanted the perspective of another teacher. I agree with you that the intent of that teacher may have been good...just poor judgement
ReplyDeleteBut heck...with this recent story, it sounds like some candid talks are needed (THIRD GRADE?) wow!
Candid yes, but more thorough. They need to see what could possibly happen. The age they are going to live in will be one filled with std mine fields. There is no way to know, even for us, if a person has an STD. We don't carry scarlet letters. I remember a friend in college that if he would ever catch anything that he would NOT stop having sex and would not tell anyone because he would take everyone down with him. This is one person, but it's a real person. I always think about the "booty train" concept. Once you have sex with someone, you've had sex with all of that person's partners. If one happened to be this guy, who knows?
ReplyDeleteI think this article proves that we need to be more communicative and approachable as parents and caregivers. I don't have kids, but I worked with them for about 7-8 years and worked in a nursery for 2. I was approached many times than I cared to have been about sex. Sadly sex was often misunderstood to be a replacement for love, security, trust. Remember those days? Trust me, when I saw the actual pictures of STD warts and lesions over the spectrum of the human body, I thought twice, thrice about having sex. What I'm saying is that if we say that sex has the possibility of producing a joyful surprise like a child and we show the joy of birth/life, then we should be fair in equally representing the dark side about other possibilities, like acquiring STDs/HIV/AIDS along with visual material. Let's present them with the whole picture.
I agree that a permission form should have been handed out, with the opportunity for parents to examine the material if they desired. I also question if 12 is too young for this list. On the other hand, I had classmates who were pregnant in 6th grade (age 11-12) when I was in middle school.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think the attitude of "they're going to do it anyway" is foolish. However, abstinence-only sex education vs. sex education where a variety of methods of sexual protection & birth control are also presented (as well as abstinence as a real & encouraged option) do not have an effect on the rate of sex as teenagers. In addition, the rate of getting STIs or pregnancy in abstinence-only sex education is, unsurprisingly, significantly higher. (I can locate the studies for you if you want me to.)
The other aspect about sex education now, though at least we have progressed to a point where it is discussed, is that besides the medical points (the scary STI slideshows, cold anatomies, etc.), we don't teach about sex itself. I went through sex ed not knowing what an orgasm really was or understanding why anyone would want to have one because I was not having sex. I only learned what that meant from friends. While one could argue that is the point (to not incentivize having sex at a young age), this often results in girls in particular having bad sex, because neither they nor their partner knows that putting Tab A into Slot B does not give a female person comparable pressure NEARLY as often as a male. Some women I have met who are my age do not understand other parts of the anatomy or how they can receive (or give themselves) pleasure. And isn't this kind of limiting education, then, limiting our girls from having pleasurable sex in their lives once they are adults? And doesn't it also favor men's pleasure over women's?
The final thing I have to say on this matter is that, although 69-ing, oral sex, and anal sex perhaps seem to mature for 12-year-olds, when you think about it these are in fact SAFER sexual activities than sexual intercourse. Why is sexual intercourse the main topic of discussion? Well, because it is the sexual act that gets you pregnant, is the only one condoned by some religions, and is the second-most risky activity in terms of contracting STIs. However, because it is the one that is talked about most in class, and the attention is rightly given, why are we not educating kids more thoroughly about alternative ways to be with another person? Ones that do not result in STIs nearly as frequently, that can not lead to conception of a child, and are just as, if not more, pleasurable for everyone involved?
Though not at the age of 12, by the time one graduates from high school and is (or will within a few months be) a legal, independent adult, why haven't we educated our youth on all of these options?