Ohio Republicans Want To Ban Sex Ed Classes From Talking About ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’

[mickeym]

During a debate over Ohio’s budget on Tuesday afternoon, Republicans in the House tacked on an amendment that would prohibit health classes in public schools from including any instruction on “gateway sexual activity,” which encompasses all sexual contact. The budget bill relies on the same definition of “sexual contact” that also appears in the

Comments

[ellonwye]

People have sex, lots of sex, people enjoy sex and there are risks to sex so why not teach the goddamn risks and how to be safe and enjoy sex SEX SEX LET PEOPLE HAVE THEIR SEX SAFELY BECAUSE THEY WILL ALWAYS HAVE GODDAMN SEX

[beemo]

exactly!

plus sex ed is about more than just not getting pregnant/STIs... we need to be talking to kids about health, safety, identities, etc A S A P at home and at school.

[mickeym]

Because if we mention it, OMG, those crazy kids might think about doing it themselves!

*sigh*

I started my kid's sex ed early. I talked to him -- tailoring our conversations to his age and his questions -- constantly. We talked about how to be safe, what the risks were, having partners of different OR the same gender. We talked about masturbation, and porn, and how neither is the devil's tool, and on and on and on.

It's a good thing, too, because here where we are (Central Kentucky), his so-called sex ed class consisted of "don't have sex".

Yeah.

[skellington1]

tailoring our conversations to his age and his questions

First, awesome! Second: why don't more people GET this? It seems pretty simple. Kid asks question. Adult answers question. Kid now knows more than they did ten minutes ago. Since kids naturally notice stuff and asks questions, you get the whole sex-ed thing in age-appropriate doses through childhood. That's certainly how I learned it! Instead people have this idea of a monolithic Talk, which is awkward, useless, and waaay too late.

[nextdrinksonme]

Yep, all of this. This is how my mom approached it, too. I asked questions (or made comments--my first Talk came from a friend of mine and I saying we were "going to have sex" with a boy in our class in the first grade, prompting my mom to ask if we knew what sex was--we both thought it was holding hands or something--which prompted her sit down and explain the basics to me after we dropped my friend off), and she answered them.

Though I do think there should be a preemptive Talk about puberty and such before questions are asked, because some kids just won't, but that could also just be a running dialogue as the kid grows up.

[mickeym]

We've had a running dialogue in this house (which is just me and my son *g*) from the get-go, and oh, puberty. So much fun. (My son is on the autism spectrum, so it was easier just to make it a constant thing.) But I've never NOT answered any question he had, even if it was horrifically embarrassing for me. Because I knew that if he didn't get the answers from me, he'd get them from his peers at school, and at least if he was getting the info from me I could know it was right.