In another thread a right winger supported the contention that the ‘modern’ form of US sex education was "plumbing for hedonists" which I took to mean that this person thought that teaching people the physical and biological details of sex only lead to people using the information for physical gratification alone. Since this type of sex education is usually thought of as ‘liberal’ (left wing) by the US right wing, I was wondering if people here thought that the education of American children should be dictated by political ideology or knowledge?
People are going to have sex with or without knoweldge of what, why, how, etc...so its't the obvious choice knoweldge so that they can at least make informed decisions? I also think that parents need to be responsible for sex education, not the schools. It is unfortunate that schools are in the position where they need to teach this stuff. And if parents are going to let their kids watch a lot of the crap that is on TV, then they definitely need to be responsible enough to properly inform their children.
The sad part is, there are so many parents who DONT talk to there children about sex. They are either too embarrassed, or think that talking about it makes the children want to do it. Or simply say "don't have sex." I remember in college having to watch this video on STDs. I personally think that college is too late. Seeing how kids these days are having sex at younger ages, possibly jr. high would be a good place for a nice wake-up call. A picture of a herpes-infected penis might scare some sense into the kids.
I got some pretty graphic descriptions of STDs in my sex ed (they called it 'Health', it was basically drug ed, sex ed and healthy living rolled up into one semester of work) class. With pictures. Pretty nasty stuff. What did it teach me? Use a condom and don't dim the lights until AFTER you've had a good look at your partner's genetalia. Fuckin A man.
That's a good thing, IMO. Think of how many people have random unprotected sex...so many people don't even know HOW to put a condom on properly.
