Sex Education in Our Schools
…Or teaching kids how to have sex.
When I was in the 6th grade - just a few years before the “sexual revolution” of the late 1960’s - Sr. Lillian, CSJ took it upon herself to instruct our class about sex. Her first lessons sent us all to the dictionary to look up copulation, after she became concerned when we all laughed that, “Abraham saddled his ass” and when we read that Lot’s daughters slept with their dad. (The “progressive” Sr. Lillian was later ostracized from her community because she refused to give up the old habit and was a huge Fatima and Padre Pio devotee - which tells you something about just how liberal she really was.)
So anyway, when the sex education started, she supplied us with non-illustrated pamphlets on our bodies. Blossoming pervert that I was, I took copious notes, writing out terms and definitions such as “gonads” and “testicles” and “penis”. My friends and I would read the definitions to one another from these notes and booklets and the dictionary, laughing nervously, anxiously discussing when we would get our pubic hair. My parents found my sex notes and accused me of things I didn’t even know the meaning of, which in turn, sent me to Confession, and more confusion about what “complete self-abuse” meant. The thing is, all I learned about from Sister concerned our bodies, and that mine was different from a girl’s body. (See - she really just didn’t want us laughing because “Abraham saddled his ass.”) Yet for me - and my friends - this was too much information too soon - and I never figured out what ’self-abuse’ meant until 9th grade.
Do not awaken sex before its time.
I adapted that verse from the Song of Songs, “Do not awaken love before its time.” In other words, in 6th, 7th, even 8th grade, I really didn’t have a clue about sexuality. Sr. Lillian may have been instrumental in piquing our interest, but that was the extent of it. I know things are different today, kids in 4th grade probably know as much about sex as I do now. Sex is all over media - kids know it is not just kissing.
Rudimentary sex education in ‘health class’ does not seem inappropriate to me - especially if kids can discus these things with parents. Nevertheless, I’m convinced that detailed sex education belongs to the parents first and foremost, and what children are taught in schools must be monitored by parents. Sr. Lillian never checked with the parents if it was okay to teach us about our bodies - and when I took my homework home, my parents freaked, thinking I was this little sex maniac in the making.
The “new” sex education - or indoctrination?
Today, the New York Times has a piece, “Lesson on Homosexuality Move Into the Classroom” - here’s a snippet:
“After five years, one legal defeat and a challenge on the way, Montgomery County, Md., is at the frontier of sex education in the United States. This fall, barring last-minute court action, the county will offer lessons on homosexuality in its 8th- and 10th-grade health education courses.
To school officials, the lessons are a natural outgrowth of sex education and of teachings on tolerance and diversity. They consist of two heavily scripted, 45-minute lessons for each grade and a video demonstrating how to put on a condom. The lessons’ central message is respect and acceptance of the many permutations of sexual identity, both in others and in one’s self.” - New York Times
Needless to say, I can’t think of anything more innapropriate. No matter how much a kid knows about his/her body and sex, or how much they see it on TV or in the movies, they surely do not have to be trained that homosexuality is an option. Especially at the age of sexual awakening, that time when there is a lot of confusion, and in many cases, experimentation.
As sexually sophisticated as we believe contemporary kids are, they are still just kids. If a kid “thinks” he’s gay because he has an innocent “boy/man crush” on someone - that doesn’t mean he is dyed in the wool gay. If he isn’t yet interested in girls, or he happens to be fascinated with the adult male physique; again, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the kid is gay. (My crazy mother thought my athletic brother was gay because he used to buy body-builder magazines - he just wanted to be Mr. Atlas!) Adolescence is a time of great upheaval, emotionally, physically, psychologically, and to be sure - sexually. Answer kid’s questions, but it is wrong to do the “TMI” (too much information) thing before they are ready.
The Agenda
Sr. Lillian, God rest her soul, also told us that Communism would infiltrate our schools and universities, convents and rectories, every institution, sacred or civil. She said that the aim would be to gradually, covertly indoctrinate people with socialist principles. She said the first assault would occur in the breakdown of morality, that moral principles would be altered and confused, permitting the decline of good order. (I thought she was nuts and wasn’t sure what the heck she was talking about.)
I’m not saying this is one big Communist plot, like Hilary Clinton does when she insists there is a massive ‘right wing conspiracy’ against she and her husband - but there are earmarks of an agenda perpetrated by some one or some organization. It seems more than obvious to me that this type of sex education in our schools is not only an attempt to normalize the homosexual lifestyle, but also can become (intentionally or unitentionally) a form of indoctrination into the lifestyle for the undecided. Even when it is veiled under the title of Creating Safe Environments for LGBT students - A Catholic School Perspective, and in the establishment of LGBT clubs in our Catholic high schools, such as Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul, Minnesota has done.
I know - I’m going to get nailed for this one, but it seems to me it is just common sense. To those who object to my views, I hope you can step away from your passions, your personal experiences, and your political agenda, and just look at this objectively.
That’s all.
[Cartoon stolen from: Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex blog.]
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