Think of the children: what will happen if they learn sex exists?

Photo courtesy cbc.ca

News item: Ontario sex ed: Protesters disrupt school meeting

Protesters turned out in force at a Scarborough school Thursday night, disrupting efforts by two local MPPs to discuss Ontario's new sex ed curriculum. 

The information session at Agincourt Collegiate Institute was cut short when demonstrators moved inside — chanting "We say no" at MPPs Soo Wong and Bas Balkissoon. 

The new curriculum has drawn criticism from some parents and religious groups who say it is too explicit for young children. 

A group of loud parents protested against the new Ontario health and physical education curriculum at a public meeting in Toronto this past week. They carried signs that bore phrases like:

“Too early, too soon”  

“Our children, our choice”

The ruckus drew media attention, of course. One of the protesting parents asked: "Can you justify to me why a Grade Six needs to know about masturbation? Can you answer that?"

Today on a newsstand near you

Some of the cover headlines on the current edition of Cosmopolitan:

63 Secrets to Better Orgams—Get Over the Edge!I Like High-End Sex Parties—and I’m Not a Weirdo.

Last issue: 

Cover lines: 

How I solved our sex issueHow to touch a naked man: 16 Naughty Strokes That Will Send Him Over the Edge.

Apparently, an orgasm is like falling off a cliff at Cosmopolitan.

From the current issue of Women’s Health magazine: 

“The positions men prefer most”—a how-to guide.

Unlike porn magazines, which are, at least where I live, out of reach and sight of children, these magazines are all the most popular, biggest-selling women’s magazines. Most are regularly displayed in racks beside the check-outs of grocery and drugstores.

Kids see them all the time, and whether or not they ask Mom “What’s an orgasm?” they’re going to wonder.

And they’re going to get the information somewhere.

The connected generation

Kids today get most of their information today not from parents or school, but from the Internet, and they’re accessing it through mobile devices.

Cover line: "The best hour for
amazing sex"

In other words, when they have questions, they go for answers to the Internet first. And they probably won’t look up Cosmo or Women’s Health. They’re more likely to get misinformation from irresponsible like soft porn sites or, worse, the Centre for Canadian Values.

It’s the same argument that led to sex ed in schools in the 70s: kids are getting bad information about sex from uninformed sources—the “kids in the schoolyard” argument. That’s why it’s important to give children correct information based on facts before they hear misinformation and outright lies.

The big lie succeeds

The Big Lie technique is simple: if you want a large number of people to believe something that’s not true, make it as big, as ridiculous as you can, and keep repeating it. Political opponents of the Ontario government are using it in the pointless sex-ed debate have floated the phrase that under the new Health and Physical Education curriculum, Grade 6 students will the “taught masturbation.”

That’s the phrase used by a former reporter from the defunct Sun News TV channel on an online rant against the curriculum. “Taught masturbation.” Not “taught about masturbation” or “taught the definition of masturbation.”

Phrasing it this way is clearly meant to evoke the idea of a teacher showing students how to masturbate. But the curriculum says that among the physical and health education concepts Grade 6 students will learn, is:

“Things like wet dreams or vaginal lubrication are normal and happen as a result of physical changes with puberty. Exploring one’s body by touching or masturbating is something that many people do and find pleasurable. It is common and is not harmful and is one way of learning about your body.”

Why should a Grade 6 student learn that?

News item:

Woman, 33, watching 50 Shades of Grey arrested for masturbating at movie theater in Mexico during S&M-filled drama

Because the word comes up in mass media, in social media and in the schoolyard. Because in a year, that 12-year-old will be 13 and masturbation will move from a word on a screen to reality.

Cover line: "Is Everyone Sexting
Without Me?

If schools cannot teach facts that children will need in their life, then where will they learn it?

(Mis)Information is everywhere

A lot of parents, understandably, want to control the information their children get. The trouble is, that's a futile effort. Kids are getting more information than ever before, all the time. The only thing we as parents can do is make sure that we give them correct information about the most important things in their lives.

What do you think about this? What do you think about teaching children about sex—not how to do it, but that it exists. 

And I would be interested to hear from those who oppose the sex education parts of the health and physical education curriculum: what do you think will happen if a young child learns about sex?

The anti-sex brigade lies again, hurrah, hurrah — the Ontario sex ed curriculum

Last week, the Ontario government published its revised health and physical education curriculum, which includes updated sexual education content.

Image courtesy energeticcity.ca

The update is actually titled The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Health and Physical Education. There is a separate curriculum for high school, grades 9 to 12. It covers much more than sex, in fact, all forms of health, including safety, physical activity and hygiene. 

The sexual component elicited opposition from the usual groups. The most prominent groups in this opposition use the Big Lie strategy to get more attention and rope uninformed people into joining their side.

For example, Charles McVety of the Institute for Canadian Values call the curriculum “nothing more than an indoctrination vehicle to teach children a new way of thinking about gender.”

Campaign Life—whose main goal is to stop abortion—is worried about teaching grade 1 students the proper names of body parts. This is what it says on its website as a problem with the curriculum, which is not all that different from the draft brought out in 2010:

“Below are some shocking excerpts from the 2010 curriculum that the Education Ministry had posted online…Graphic lesson on sexual body parts including ‘penis’, ‘testicles’, ‘vagina’, ‘vulva’ and more.”

This is what the curriculum actually says: 

Specific expectationsC1. Understanding Health ConceptsBy the end of Grade 1, students will: …Human Development and Sexual HealthC1.3 identify body parts, including genitalia (e.g., penis, testicles, vagina, vulva), using correct terminology [PS]Teacher prompt: “We talk about all body parts with respect. Why is it important to know about your own body, and use correct names for the parts of your body?”Student: “All parts of my body are a part of me, and I need to know how to take care of and talk about my own body. If I’m urt or need help, and I know the right words, other people will know what I’m talking about.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a problem with that. And “penis” and “vagina” are words we can hear regularly on prime-time TV today.

Campaign Life are also concerned that the curriculum 

“Will normalize homosexual family structures and homosexual ‘marriage’ in the minds of 8-year-olds, without regard for the religious/moral beliefs of families.”

This is what the curriculum actually says about homosexual relationships for grade 3 students, who are 8 or 9 years old:

By the end of Grade 3, students will: …C1.3 identify the characteristics of health relationships (e.g. accepting differences, being inclusive, communicating openly, listening, showing mutual respect and caring, being honest) and describe ways of overcoming challenges (e.g. bullying, exclusion, peer pressure, abuse) in a relationship [IS] Teacher prompt: “Consider different types of relationships — with friends, siblings, parents, other adults — and think about the kinds of behavior that help to make those relationships healthier. What can you do if you are having problems with a relationship?”

Importantly, in Grade 1, the curriculum also aims to teach kids this concept:

demonstrate the ability to recognize caring behaviours (e.g., listening with respect, giving positive reinforcement, being helpful) and exploitive behaviours (e.g., inappropriate touching, verbal or physical abuse, bullying), and describe the feelings associated with each [IS]

Let’s look at the curriculum:

C3.3 describe how visible differences (e.g., skin, hair, and eye colour, facial features, body size and shape, physical aids or different physical abilities, clothing, possessions) and invisible differences (e.g., learning abilities, skills and talents, personal or cultural values and beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, family background, personal preferences, allergies and sensitivities) make each person unique, and identify ways of showing respect for differences in others [PS, IS]

Campaign Life says that part of the curriculum means Ontario schools 

will teach the disputed theory of ‘gender identity’ as if it were fact. This is the notion that whether you're a boy or a girl does not necessarily relate to your physical anatomy. It is merely a ‘social construct’. Gender is ‘fluid’ according to this theory, and any little boy can decide that he is actually a girl, if that's the way he feels in his mind, or vice-versa.  

Note: The potential for causing serious sexual confusion in the minds of children is very real with this teaching.”

Of course, Campaign Life does not point out that there is no evidence for the theory that teaching children the theory of fluid gender identity harms them in any way.

Another thing that this organizations do not point out in their protests against the curriculum is their own agenda. They’re very conservative, stridently anti-gay and against any sexual content in any education. In fact, reading their material, I get the strong sense they’d be happier if no one ever talked about sex, ever.

Another big lie: no parents were consulted on the development of the new curriculum. In fact, consultations with parents, students, teachers, faculties of education, universities, colleges and other groups started in 2007. Granted, most of that was prior to the 2010 draft, but there isn’t much difference. And there have been consultations since.

Parents have had a lot of opportunity to weigh in on the issue. And in the meantime, the world has moved on and become even more sexually explicit.

Here’s another big lie: Brian Lilley of the conservative website TheRebel says that “in grade 6, they want to start teaching masturbation.” Those were Lilley’s words: “they want to start teaching masturbation.” Not “about masturbation.”

Lie.

Lilley deliberately constructed his sentence that way. He is trying to create an image in his audience’s minds of a teacher teaching grade 6 students, 11- and 12-year-olds, how to masturbate.

Don’t worry. They already know how. And so do you, Lilley.

The concept of masturbation occurs once in the curriculum. This is what the Grade 6 curriculum says about it:

“Things like wet dreams or vaginal lubrication are normal and happen as a result of physical changes with puberty. Exploring one’s body by touching or masturbating is something that many people do and find pleasurable. It is common and is not harmful and is one way of learning about your body.”

Have a problem with that, Lilley?

Big lies. Expect the anti-sex brigade to keep repeating them, because we all know the Big Lie strategy works.

Even in this sexually explicit age, we’re still squeamish about sex.

“I know sex is either boring or dirty.”

— I’m An Adult Now, The Pursuit of Happiness, 1986

Sex’s dirtiness and the shame imposed on my generation around sex — and earlier generations, too — fuels the titillation, fascination and explicitness over sex. Despite the sexual revolution of decades past, we’re still squeamish about it. Especially religious communities, who cannot get away from telling people about the kind of sex they should have.

By the way, as a parent, I really resent groups like the Institute of Canadian Values presuming to dictate to my kids whom they can marry. As far as values go, I think these are Canadian values: accepting differences, being inclusive, communicating openly, listening, showing mutual respect and caring, being honest. Where did I see those? Oh, yes — in the Ontario Health and Physical Education Curriculum for Grade 1.

What age is appropriate?

With every other topic, we teach people information before they start the activity, so they know what to expect and can take the right steps to protect themselves against inadvertent harm. We teach kids safe behavior near water before we teach them to swim. We teach teens the rules of the road in a classroom before we let them get behind the wheel of a car. So why should we not teach facts about sex before they’re of an age to be sexually active?

I remember when my kids came home from their first sex-education classes, in grade 3 or 4 — I can’t remember, offhand, which it was. Their reaction? “Gross!”

No danger that they were going to indulge in premature sexual activity in school.

The biggest lie is that, without sexual education in school, parents can “protect” their children against harm by keeping ideas and expressions about sex away from them. The reality is that our society is awash in sexual messages. The biggest movie is Fifty Shades of Gray, based on the book that broke all kinds of sales records of its own. Every time I go to the grocery store, the magazines at the check-outs invariably bear at least one headline about having “mind-blowing sex.”

And kids in school have all sorts of wrong ideas about sex, ideas that can be harmful. Many high school-age people believe that by having only oral and anal sex, they’ll remain virgins. Some believe that oral sex cannot expose you to sexually transmitted diseases. We owe our kids clear, correct information about health, which, despite anyone’s squeamishness, includes sex.

I don’t think children are harmed by facts.

They’re harmed when facts are hidden from them. For centuries, abusers have gotten away with sexually exploiting children partly because the shame that their victims felt prevented them from talking about it, from reporting it.

If we can talk openly and honestly about sex, without shame, the same way we talk about any other health topic — the way we talk about healthy food, for example — then maybe the next generation will have fewer sexual problems and healthier lives.

Denying facts won’t help that.

What do you think?