The facts of life haven’t changed, but sex education is entirely different now from what you likely learned in school.
Sex ed in middle school now includes graphic lessons on anal sex, oral sex and masturbation, with stick figures to illustrate body positions. Supplemental reading in middle school libraries includes “Sex, Puberty, and All That Stuff,” a book explaining foreplay and how to rub the clitoris to produce pleasure. Massachusetts’ curriculum tells seventh graders how to use cling wrap as a dental dam around their teeth for safe oral sex.
A majority of states now require sex education be labeled as “comprehensive,” thanks to aggressive lobbying by activists. Planned Parenthood, the largest producer of sex ed curriculum for public schools, argues that children are entitled to know how to “experience different forms of sexual pleasure.”
Eugene, Oregon, high schoolers were recently assigned to write a sexual fantasy featuring massage oil, flavored syrup, a candle, music, feathers or a boa. How about teaching them math and English instead?
Nationwide, these racy lessons are outraging parents. Last week, protests forced the Gwinnett County, Georgia, school board to shelve voting on a proposed sex ed curriculum. Holly Terei, a parent, explained that it’s one thing to monitor social media and the movies kids watch, and it’s another to have to worry about “our children being exposed to curriculum that teaches them how to perform sexual acts.”
Sex ed is the most controversial issue in many school board elections. Contests are nominally nonpartisan, but generally, Republicans are demanding parental controls. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is becoming the poster child for adolescent promiscuity.
Expect this to be a defining issue in next year’s national elections. In Iowa last week, former President Donald Trump warned the crowd that schools “are focused on sexualizing our children.”
Most sex ed lessons are not published by textbook companies. Instead, sex ed has been hijacked by left-wing, well-funded groups with their own agendas. These include Sex Ed for Social Change, Advocates for Youth (an LGBTQ group) and the American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that children have sexual rights. They all press for Comprehensive Sexuality Education. The word “comprehensive” is misleading. What the curriculum stresses is pleasure.
Many Massachusetts districts use Planned Parenthood’s “Get Real” curriculum. The eighth grade teacher’s manual suggests discussing a hypothetical scenario about two middle school boys who “enjoy the sexual part of their relationship.”
In Florida, the Leon County School Board tabled voting on a sex ed curriculum early this month when parents like Brandi Andrews objected. She says a cartoon video of a laughing clitoris, part of the curriculum, would encourage young girls to be promiscuous.
Advocates for CSE argue that “how-to” information about sex keeps children safer. Don’t believe it. A review of 60 studies of sex education in U.S. schools, published in the scholarly journal Issues in Law and Medicine, found that comprehensive sex education more often resulted in more harm, including more unplanned pregnancies and STDs.
Those are physical harms. Kids can also suffer emotional and spiritual harm. Educators in Fairfax County, Virginia, want to teach middle school sex ed in co-ed classes. Parents know better – a staggering 84% oppose this. What about modesty? What about embarrassment for the kids who are developing the fastest?
The backlash against extreme sex ed is exploding. Proponents insist they just want to provide information. Nonsense. When lessons include more than biology, someone’s values are being imposed.
Comprehensive sex education is an ideology or religion, stressing gender fluidity, sexual experimentation and pleasure seeking, while repudiating parents’ roles and traditional values. Some families share those views, and many don’t.
Recently, hundreds of Muslim Americans protested a Dearborn, Michigan, school board meeting, holding signs with messages such as “Keep your porno to yourself.” Christians, Jews and Muslims have all been told they must keep their religious teachings out of public schools.
Allowing CSE in school is no different from entrusting sex education to a priest or a rabbi, to the exclusion of all other views.
Parents, it’s time to take control of what our kids are being taught.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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Donald John Trump has been married 3 times, cheated numerous times on his wives, and has inappropriately touched countless women including raping some of them. He has billions of dollars and immense amounts of power and threatens to destroy the lives of anybody who dares to bring him to justice.
It is unfortunate that we go from one extreme to the other without ever considering the middle ground. But at what age and what information? I think both sides need to scale back their rhetoric. The kids need to know how to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies, STD and abuse. Don’t make this a course on how to be a prostitute or sex stud. And by all means, parents should be required to attend and sit in the back of the classroom and remove their child and leave without mouthing off if they feel it inappropriate. Otherwise they need to keep their child in check so as not to disrupt the class.
Sex Education should be taught about RESPONSIBILITY and how the human body functions and what the repercussions are.
Teaching our children how to whore themselves is NOT sex education.
Abstinence works every time it’s tried, except very few people of any political party try it. Presidents, governors, congresspeople, and other high ranking government officials are the worst of the worst along with corporate executives when it comes to having any morals whatsoever when it comes to sex.
Why has the GOP changed from a party of limited government free market capitalism to a party of hate? In the 1980s the GOP cut taxes and regulations. Today the top priority of the GOP is attacking dems and they even attack other members of the GOP for being like the GOP of the 1980s calling them RINOs.
Sex Education NEEDS to be simplified! . . . Normal, natural sexual relations is between a man AND a woman or a woman AND a man period! God made man to be with a woman and a woman to be with a man! ANYTHING ELSE IS NOT NORMAL AND IF NOT NORMAL IT’S QUEER!
“American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that children have sexual rights“. Since when do these tyrants give a dip about children’s “rights”? They only care about “rights” when it benefits them! These are the exact same people who are systemically taking 18,19 and 20 year old’s 2nd Amendment rights away by proclaiming they be 21 to own a firearm! They can serve in our nation’s military at 18 but are not mature enough to enjoy their 2nd amendment?? Now, it’s sexual smut that is perfectly fine for these kids?! These tyrants need to be locked up…PERMANTLY!!!
Excellent article! Betsy is absolutely right! Our children need to be protected from what can be harmful to them. Not things children should be taught in school! Parents need to continue the fight against this inappropriate agenda being taught to our children.
Why do the people promoting this type of sex education NEED to promote this type of sex education? This question needs to be asked by parents and politicians and answered by the promoters. I refuse to accept when they promote children need to learn this…they have a personal need and that needs to be exposed. My thoughts, their personal sex life stinks and this is their means to the end result for them, sick people.
We never needed “sex ed”. That started when I was teaching. It was ridiculous then and is more so now.
Very important article, Betsy, it is obvious that sex education is being used as part of a strategy by the leftists. The matters that will help children develop good character do not seem to be present . It sounds reasonable that instead of indoctrinating children that an alternative could be having health departments in schools that would answer sex education questions if students chose to get advice in that connection. What is needed is a new education system all together, meaning new teachers, new administrators , new education policies that respect Faith, Family, Freedom . Teaching children about love and respect, and the importance of building good character, what good citizenship is about , what having a sense of responsibility is all about , those are things that are needed.
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Human children naturally learn plenty about sex from their parents and from each other. There is no need to instruct children in sex at school. It is not the purpose of education to teach any more than the basic biological facts. Sexual pleasure and preferences are naturally occuring, not taught and learned in the classroom.