Which is worse? Hearing about sex from your church, your parents, or your gym teacher?
[poll id=”368″]
Discuss.
Agency, Education, Faith, Freedom, Morality, Mormon, Mormon Belief, Mormon Culture, Uncategorized, weekend poll
Sex Ed (Weekend Poll)
Agency, Education, Faith, Freedom, Morality, Mormon, Mormon Belief, Mormon Culture, Uncategorized, weekend poll
Which is worse? Hearing about sex from your church, your parents, or your gym teacher?
[poll id=”368″]
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
My only addition to this is that when teaching the biology and consequences, it should also be explained that different cultures and religious traditions have varying opinions on the morality of sex. Teachers should encourage students to talk to their parents and religious leaders about sexual morality to complete their educations. It might not be a bad idea to have a requirement that students have a conversation with their parents about sexual morality.
If your kids don’t know what sex is by age 9 . . . I have some words for you. They must know facts before they are too embarrassed to ask. After that you’ve lost all ability at being an authority on the subject – and they’ll find out other ways (most likely the internet, good luck with that). Sorry, I’m just really passionate about this subject.
So, I voted for the free condoms with one assumption, and then one thought. The assumption was that this would be for high school age students, cuz that was the time for me that sex became an issue. And my thought was, I remember Bengt Washburn wondering what was more expensive, the cost of a condom or an unwanted pregnancy!
Given how sex-obsessed most of the churches that teach “sexual morality” are, I don’t think public school teachers need to worry that kids won’t find out what their parents want them to think about sex.
I’m also much, much less concerned about the parents’ delicate feelings than I am those of their children, who may be growing up learning to hate themselves and fear their bodies and not even know what they do. It should be a basic right to grow up not being ashamed of your body and how it works, and not wanting to kill it or cut off parts of it because they don’t fit into your parents’ and church leaders’ ideal world.
I say this as someone who was deprived of that right, thanks to a Mormon father and a series of Mormon bishops who terrorized me, yelled at me, shamed me, and threatened me with church discipline for masturbating. Even though in one ward that we lived in, a Boy Scout leader was molesting the kids.
The sex education programes we have in schools here spend most of their time on self esteem, power imballances, defining assault, what constitutes sexual assault, legally, and morally, respect for others wishes, and only one lesson on the biology of sex, and birth control.
They are taught to mixed classes.
The rate of teenage pregnancy here is about 30%the rate in Utah.
On a slightly related note, I’ve just noticed an announcement on LDS.org that LDS Social services will no longer be involved in adoptions.
I wondered if it might be in preparation for legalisation of Gay marriage, and not wanting to have to explain why they wouldn’t?
Geoff, that’s the basic assumption. The official spokesperson has stated it’s because there are not as many pregnant teens as there were and people are opting to keep their kids rather than place them.
I don’t see anything wrong with children having access to condoms and knowing what sex is. Part of the problem of child abuse is not having the words to voice what is happening. Teenage pregnancy aside, there is a bigger picture.
Didn’t we already do this poll recently?
So, at my kids schools that had varying degrees of sex-ed appropriate to their age in year 2 (that’s 6-7 yrs old), in year 5 (that’s 9-10 yrs old), in year 7 (11-12) and in year 9 (13-14). So the youngest basically learn the external biology, proper naming of parts, and personal safety. Year 5, introduction to puberty and future development, more personal safety. Year 7 builds on year 5, discusses consent. Year 9 goes over the same ground and also contraception, STDs etc. My youngest only this week completed the year 9 sessions, and told me of the various hilarious happenings as students attempted to fit condoms on anatomical models – one student got theirs inside out, whilst another managed to ‘explode’ theirs.
In any case, we had and have spoken to our children ourselves also, and they seems happy to approach me on the subject.
Geoff-A: Rumor has it that the church’s decision to discontinue the adoption stuff was purely due to cost. Take it for what it’s worth. That’s just what people from within that arm of the church were saying.
Teen pregnancy is actually on the wane lately, mostly due to texting it would seem. It peaked in the 1990s and has dropped 51% since then. Between 2008 and 2010, it dropped another 15%. 2010 was the lowest rate to date at 54.7 births per every 1000. (Peak was 116.9 in 1990).
Hawk–
I guess I’m just dense. Teen pregnancy is on the wane due to texting? I must not be doing it right.
Well, there is an r^2 correlation of better than .9 between parents who communicate well with their kids and kids who don’t have sex while still in high school. Makes much of the other discussion irrelevant.
Roger: fewer teens are having sexual relationships than ever, partly because they are avoiding intimate relationships entirely and relying more heavily on superficial things like texting. Or so some studies surmise.
or if you watch how often netflix trends on twitter, I think all kids to is watch netflix from what I can tell 🙂 binge watching was never in my vocabulary, I think it’s definitely changed how they spend their time. My husband works in Events at BYUI and the event participation in activities has dropped to an all time low at time we have an all time high of students. Weekly country dances or top 40 dances that would draw a few thousand now barely get a few hundred if they’re lucky. I talked to some of my old interns who are studying overseas and they all said how grateful they are they have time to study and get good grades because they didn’t have access to netflix anymore.
FYI
I have long contended that the public schools have no business teaching “sex ed” or bypassing parental perrogative in handing out contraceptives or engaging in family planning. Any arguments about “condoms being cheaper than child support”, though valid in their own right, are moot as the issue is the overreaching of a Government agency (e.g., public schools) into the private affairs of a family, w/o probable cause (e.g, abuse or other serious dysfunction that would reasonable warrant intervention and/or possible law enforcement action).