Teaching young people about sexuality and health should be serious business. But you wouldn’t know that from the materials used in many Texas classrooms…
Get a sneak peek at a video previewing the release of a new Texas Freedom Network Education Fund report on sexuality education in Texas public schools. (The scene in the video is pulled directly from materials actually used in Texas public school classrooms. We wish we were kidding.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeB8USf8tzw]
We will release the report at 11 a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 24, at the Texas Capitol in Austin. You are welcome to join us on the North Steps of the Capitol for the press conference.
The full report – as well as two more videos – will also be available tomorrow on the Web site. So be sure to check back to www.JustSayDontKnow.org tomorrow after 11 a.m.
(Media Inquiries: Contact Dan Quinn at [email protected], or 512-322-0545.)
You lost me. I watched the video and did not understand it. How does asking someone to marry you turn into an impromptu lecture about…probable genital herpes, cervical cancer, etc. Let me guess. Anyone who knows how to use the word “impromptu” would never have a clue as to what this video means—so how would some dumb kid know what it means. Is that the point?
Have I got a true-life sex education story for you!!! See the next post.
Okay. I understand it now. How goofus can you get?
Back in the 1980s, I worked as an adult leader in a summer youth program. One of my colleagues was the guidance counselor at the local county high school. The subject of sex education came up one day, and he told us a bizarre but true story that had actually occurred at his high school.
My colleague was sitting in his office one day, and a female student came in crying. She was the girlfriend of one of the players on the football team. After talking a little bit, the guidance counselor was able to understand that the girl had just received a positive pregnancy test. The football player was the obvious dad because there were no other young men in her life. My colleague pointed out to her the fact that sexual relations are often a quite straight route to pregnancy—and didn’t she know that?
Her boyfriend had received a major broken bone during one of the high school football games and was in the process of recovery. He wanted to have sex, but she was reluctant to do so for fear of getting pregnant. However, her boyfriend had reassured her over and over that it was physically impossible for her to get pregnant if they had sex. The reason why? He told her it was a well-known medical fact that a boy with a broken long bone could not get a girl pregnant. She believed him, they had sex, and she got pregnant from that one time.
She apparently knew that she could get pregnant, but she did not have a full battery of sexual knowledge that would have helped greatly in preventing it. In two words, she was ignorant and gullible. Her boyfriend was either just as ignorant or was very clever at seducing ignorant young girls into sexual encounters.
I bring up this true-life story just as a way of pointing out that our kids are often hopelessly uninformed about sex and sexuality—not to mention the predatory sexual behavior of some teenage boys. Correction. All teenage boys.
Some fundamentalist parents, who are often too ashamed to talk about sex with their own kids, are also unwilling to let a qualified health professional do it in a school health class. They do not want their children to become knowledgeable about sex and sexuality. In addition, they do not want their children to learn “nasty words” such as penis, smegma, vulva, coitus, and testicle. Never mind that GOD invented sex, sexuality, penises, smegma, vulvas, coitus, and testicles!!! You would think that anyone who claims to be a Christian would like their children to know everything there is to know about God’s creation. After all, he said it was good. How can sex be bad to know if God said it was good? Genital herpes? Hey, God created thoses viruses too. And, hey again. Yes, people misuse sex and people get hurt. The Bible lays out all kinds of hurtful things that it would be wise for people to avoid. Why not try to do just as well as the Bible and let our kids know all about the issues involved in sexuality and how to protect themselves and build happy sexual lives? Have these Texas fundies of yours gone totally testicles?
I don’t know about this. I know there’s some truth in there (nothing would surprise me, actually), but I can’t help feeling like I’m watching Oliver Stone’s JFK. After a while I started doubting whether JFK’s middle name was in fact “Fitzgerald”. I’m sure the materials are probably revolting enough just on their own without the dramatization.