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As for safe sex with gay/lesbian people, I'm not so sure it needs to be a specific or different lesson. Most of the safe sex messages are the same for gays and lesbians as they are for straights- wear a rubber, use plenty of lube, don't share toys without washing them first and remember you can get STDs from oral sex as well as from vaginal and anal sex. The mechanics don't change much and discussing how to have safe anal sex, for instance, is as important for young straight boys as it is for young gay boys, given how so many of them want to do it because the pornstars do it.
That's all fair and valid. Unfortunately the major crossover issues like sex toys, fingering/oral, anal sex, etc. are the very things that are just not talked about in any context.
I don't think it needs to be a separate lesson, just encouraging teachers to actually mention it every now and again when it's relevant in context.
It's quite hard to go from teaching about money or citizenship or biology or RE to teaching about daisychaining.
It'a shame we can't be more honest about what happens. I was reading a little while ago about a book that came out in Germany in the mid 70s with photos of kids and teenagers naked, just to show kids what naked peers look like. Some of the photos were a bit explicit, showing erect teenage boys and the like, so needless to say the book was banned in the US and UK, even though the models for the explicit stuff were of age. I don't want to see images of child sex abuse peddled as educational material, but the current situation of pretending that kids aren't out exploring their bodies clearly isn't working and is just catering to the 'barely legal' monstrosity in the porn industry.
Exactly. If you ever leave your job, you should go into education policy! Why don't the users of TheSite lead a revolution and overthrow the govt?!
sex education might be poor as it stands, it was barely existant from what I can remember late 90s/turn of the decade we had only two classes, one at the end of primary and the other mid way through high school, but this is ridiculous. sex ed should be scheduled to coincide with early pubescence and be more comprehensive than it is, that's the obvious solution - lessons in anal sex for 6 y/o kids not required.
I can put my hand on my heart and say that I'd have no problem with my daughter being told at six or seven what her vagina is, what it does, and that the little boys in her class have a penis instead. I firmly believe that teaching kids the proper names for things and being open and honest gives kids the freedom to understand the world. They understand that everyone has a naked body and it isn't something to be ashamed of.
Don't pretend that kids at that age aren't interested in the differences between boys and girls. I can remember at six or seven that a game of doctors and nurses always seemed to end up with our clothes being taken off, because it was interesting that boys and girls were different. There was nothing sexual about it at all, it was childish curiosity, and it's best to understand that curiosity and satisfy kids' curiosity in a managed and age-appropriate way. They want to know, so teach them what they want to know. I'd rather they learned about breasts in school than from Page Three's "news in briefs".
I find it bizarre that people are happy to accept naked women on the front page of daily newspapers in this country but they get all in a moral outrage when schools try and educate them about the birds and the bees in a mature and age-appropriate way. It's no wonder that our kids have such a fucked-up attitude to sex, with the way it is sold as a commodity in newspapers and on television. Girls are encouraged to have it all hanging out yet they're not allowed to be taught about the implications of having it all hanging out. I find the whole thing absolutely ridiculous.
Make sex a secretive and "adult" thing and kids will consider it to be a dirty secret- making abuse more likely, not less- and kids will consider it to be a way of rebelling at 13 or 14. It should be neither. If a kid knows what sex is it is less likely to tolerate abuse from Great Uncle Paedophile, because Great Uncle can't make it into a dirty secret to hide from mummy. If a teenager knows that sex is something fun, but that there's no rush to join in, then they're likely to lose their virginity later and take fewer risks.
How could that become sexual when the person playing the doctor has to turn up late and then be abusive to everyone and the one playing the nurse has to sit on the desk, drink tea and talk about this week's X-Factor?
Thanks for sharing!
I thought of a question then. But I don't think I really want to know the answer.
I'm all for teaching human biology at a young age but not comprehensive sexual education, which is what this article is suggesting. Regardless of the source or its bias, it's not uncommon for these ideas to be pushed around.