What's the health of your child in the face of archaic religious beliefs?

[greenie_breizh]

So, despite every single professional body in the field having concluded that abstinence-only education does not prevent unwanted, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, the United States of America is still proud to have morons like this gentleman

Comments

[greenie_breizh]

I've never seen that clip, no. And parents are necessarily inexperienced if it's their second kid and they do have valid first-hand experience which researchers don't. I think it's important just because the counterpoint of dissing "elitist" researchers is dismissing personal experience and neither is a good solution. But parents do have is a very biased version of reality and that's why social sciences are necessary.

Like I said to Terra - I don't expect sex ed to bring up the notion of pleasure, even though I believe they should because then we'd have a way into promoting a much more healthy version of sex where men's and women's pleasure could be considered equally. Not to mention we'd also have a natural space to talk about different desires, too. But I do believe the fear of admitting sex is fun and sex is enjoyable (and that's partly why kids do it) is at the roots of religious/moral conservatives and their refusal to have more comprehensive sex ed. (Well, that and a belief is the moral superiority of a unique monogamous relationship.)

And ah! No clue where I got the idea sex was fun, either. I suspect Joss Whedon. :p

[lounalune]

Strange, both of you thinking you discovering that sex was supposed to be fun through fiction. I don't remember ever not believing that sex was supposed to be fun (and I didn't watch much tv as a kid). Just like I don't remember ever believing that babies were flown in by any kind of long legged animals. I guess it was never a taboo subject in my family.

As for sex-ed, I do remember pleasure being mentioned. It must have been in quatrième or troisième (senior in junior high or freshman in high school), and was by an outside intervenant who was talking about HIV and other STD prevention with large gender homogene groups. But then again, what sense does it make to tell kids that sex is only about reproduction and that they should use condoms, that usually avoid just that (in addition to a few nasty viruses and bacterias)?

However, in both these cases (the education I recieved through my parents and at school), the focus was only on heterosexual sex (though not necessarily only about penetration - I remember being really embarassed when I was fifteen and my father drew a penis to explain my sister and I how to do a blow job). As for the clitoris, I only learned more about its anatomy and how it works through diverse associations, not really long ago.