(Untitled)

[fpb]

Where sex is concerned, people's powers of logic and argument fly right out of the window, especially if they are addicted to BBC/Guardian/Independent. I just read the following two sentences - in the blog, mind you, of an academic from one of Europe's most prestigious universities: "it's simply not true that sex ed lowers the age people start to

Comments

[fpb]

It is entirely possible to have sex without knowing what you're doing. And if you are taught to regard sex as a matter of mechanics, it is absolutely certain that you will.

[mindstalk]

The data I've seen (no links) is that Dutch children get much better (from a liberal POV) sex education than British ones -- and start having sex a year later, with much lower teen pregnancy rates as well.

Sex ed might teach that sex is okay, if the teens are in a stable and loving relationship; it also teaches how to use birth control and protection to avoid the consequences of sex -- which means teaching what the consequences of sex *are*. "You can get pregnant the first time." "This is what pregnancy does to you." "Yummy STD pictures!" "Blueballs won't kill the boy, girls; you have no obligation to give in to sex with him."

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/308836
says Dutch start at the same age as Americans. Also that Americans have been having lots of teen sex since the 1950s, well before widespread sex ed.

It can be shown that every expansion of sex ed has corresponded with an expansion of underage sex practice. Can you in fact show

[fpb]

In case you had not noticed, I am Catholic. Teaching children to use contraception does not strike me as a tremendous moral advance. It is also a part of that treating sex as a matter of mechanics which strikes me as totally wrong, unimaginably dangerous, disgustingly reductionistic, and profoundly intelligence-destroying

Wondering

[carakaye]

So, just to put this all in perspective; you believe that sex ed causes underage sex, that sex is uncontrollable but that rather it is irrational, terrible, and controlling

Re: Wondering

[fpb]

This is such a display of everything I regard as completely WRONG about the current consensus that I find myself frustrated. Including the final invitation to disagree after she has horrendously misrepresented what I said. I NEVER SAID SEX WAS UNCONTROLLABLE. I do say that sex treated as you do it, as a matter of hydraulics with all the spiritual significance of a transistor, will certainly become uncontrollable. If you realize that you carry something dangerous within yourself, then you can control it. If you treat it as a matter of condoms (which break) and pills (which fail), you, one, fail to understand what it is, two, inevitably fail to control it - that is a corollary of failing to understand what it is - and, three, expose yourself to Murphy's Law. As for studies about sex education, there are plenty that contradict your views, but then you will of course criticize their methodology. The fact that you actually work with children, with this kind of presuppositions, simply terrifies me.