Premature Education?

(Originally published July 26, 2007 by Jewcy.com)

Last week Democratic Senator Barack Obama made headlines by suggesting that public schools teach “age-appropriate," "science-based” sexuality lessons to kindergarteners. He later clarified that "age-appropriate" means teaching children how to avoid predators, not how to unroll condoms. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney tried to sensationalize Obama’s position—formerly Romney’s own position, but what isn’t?—saying, “We should be working to clean up the filthy waters our kids are swimming in.” <!--[endif]-->

There are few statistics for how many of America’s young people are hooking up in filthy water, although as a teenager I did manage to get laid in a bathtub once, which led to more pulled neck muscles than orgasms. However, plenty of data suggests that Republican educational polices are a complete failure when it comes to horny teenagers.

A decade-long study on the efficacy of billion-dollar pro-abstinence programs, ushered in during the era of the Republican Congress, revealed that the money was completely wasted: there is “no evidence” that communities with anti-sex education have lower rates of teen pregnancy or STD transmission. However, the Journal of Adolescent Health found that teenagers “who received comprehensive sex education were fifty percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received abstinence-only education.”

Curricula in twenty-five states erroneously claimed that “half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus,” fingering a female “can result in pregnancy,” a six-week-old fetus is a “thinking person,” “AIDS can be spread via sweat and tears,” and “[c]ondoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as thirty-one percent of the time…” Never mind that condoms, when used properly, reduce the transmission of HIV by nearly a hundred percent, and fingering a female can only result in a urinary tract infection. And possibly sex, if you’re dexterous enough!
 
Federal curricula further informed teenagers:

“We actively seek to eliminate terrorism from our land; please help us actively seek to eliminate this corruptive terrorism that is stealing our children’s future.” (Weapons of Mass Dick-Suction?)

“While a man needs little or no preparation for sex, a woman often needs hours of emotional and mental preparation.” (Before sex? No. Before dinner? Yes.)

“Sexual relationships often lower the self-respect of both partners—one feeling used, the other feeling like the user. …This depression may lead to attempted, or successful, suicide.” (Hey, I wanted to kill myself in high school because I couldn’t get laid.)

Even in the God-fearing states, a zippered approach to sex education has proved useless: the Texas Board of Education rejected textbooks for mentioning condoms and breast cancer—the Jesus Freaks don’t want their daughters to screen themselves for fucking cancer!—opting instead to inform students that the best way to avoid STDs is to “get plenty of rest,” “respect yourself,” and “go out as a group.” (Group sex never leads to herpes!)
 
Incidentally Texas has one of the five highest teenage birthrates in America, twice as many per capita as Heathen Massachusetts. In 2007 the U.S. government’s “leading advocate of abstinence-only programs” resigned after reporters discovered his name was on the client list at a D.C. escort service.
 
The sex education debate isn't the sole province of religious reactionaries: there are zealous leftwing liberationists who would have kindergarteners savvy in the ways of the flesh, for example the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, a powerful curriculum designing organization that wants five-year-olds to learn:

“Both boys and girls have body parts that feel good when touched.”

“Vaginal intercourse occurs when a man and a woman place the penis inside the vagina.” (Anal intercourse is when the woman wants something expensive.)

“Touching and rubbing one’s own genitals to feel good is called masturbation … Some boys and girls masturbate and others do not.” This is something that “should be done in a private place.”

Older students would learn: “Some sexual fantasies involve mysterious or forbidden things.” (Like masturbating in public?)

SIECUS suggests that nine-year-olds learn: “Couples have different ways to share sexual pleasure with each other,” “Being sexual with another person usually involves more than sexual intercourse,” “Homosexual love relationships can be as fulfilling as heterosexual relationships,” and “legal abortion is very safe.”
 
Not so extreme? According to Floyd M. Martinson, author of The Sexual Life of Children: “In Scandinavia, where child sexual capacity is more widely recognized, preschool teachers [educate] children in better masturbatory techniques.”Ninety-three percent of Swedish seven-year-olds can explain the specifics of sexual intercourse, as opposed to less than a fifth of American nine-year-olds. Seventeen percent of Sweden’s five-year-olds and sixty-seven percent of its nine-year-olds know the specifics of abortion. Who needs the alphabet or coloring books?
 
In 1994 the U.S. Surgeon General was fired for daring to suggest that masturbation is normal, which is pretty obvious considering that the average American male masturbates five times per week. Our prudishness is ridiculous, but the really creepy thing is that Swedish “premature education” works far better than American “immature education”: Sweden has five times fewer teenage pregnancies than the U.S., six hundred times fewer gonorrhea transmissions, and two-thirds less sexual abuse of children. (Or is it simply that Sweden had two-thirds fewer Catholic priests?)
 
The conservative philosophy “if you don’t teach it, they’ll never learn” is clearly dangerous and unrealistic. However, the liberationist curriculums for toddlers are unsettling even if effective. Puberty, not pre-school, seems like an appropriate time to discuss pubescent sexuality.
 
Whatever students learn in the classroom, no human being is predictable or programmable, especially when gallons of hormones enter the equation. Making our own mistakes is often the only way to learn the hardest lessons. That’s both a play on words and a fact of life.