Sex ed means giving over our children to theories oozed out of the warped minds of pedophiles and child molesters.
That’s the accusation made recently in the pages of Public Discourse by Miriam Grossman.
It’s no secret that conservatives have long opposed sex ed. As historians such as Jeffrey Moran and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela have explored, sex and children have always been a touchy combination for Americans.
It’s not surprising. Sex is a touchy subject for anyone. Talking about sex with young people has always been fraught with awkwardness, at best. Even more so when the decisions about what to say and how to say it have become political footballs in educational culture wars.
Grossman’s essay pulls no punches. She identifies the roots of sex ed in the perverted sexuality of early leaders of the movement.
She calls Alfred Kinsey, for instance, “afflicted at his core. . . . a depraved human being.”
John Money, according to Grossman, formed part of the “incest lobby.” His career followed a path dictated by the fact that he was “troubled, and he molested young boys.”
What can we expect, Grossman argues, from a field pioneered by such sexual deviants and predatory perverts? It is no surprise, she says, that sex ed has become a moral horror show.
Talk of using sex ed, or “health” education, to fight disease and reduce teen pregnancy, Grossman believes, is a red herring. In fact, she insists,
Sex ed is not about preventing disease, it’s about sexual freedom, or better—sexual license. It’s about changing society, one child at a time.
For those of us hoping to understand conservative attitudes about sex education, Grossman’s essay is worth reading in its entirety. Certainly, she does not speak for all conservatives on this issue, nor does she claim to. But her vision of the roots of sex ed offers conservatives an understanding of sex ed as a sinister and malicious entity, one that must be opposed root and branch.
After all, if conservatives understand sex ed as a ploy to lure young people into the embrace of leering sexual predators, they will be are understandably reluctant to compromise on the issue.
I Love You but You're Going to Hell 
Donna
/ December 2, 2013Adam, have you heard of or read the book Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting our Children? It’s a quick read and at the end there are a couple paragraphs or so about evolution. (sorry, I don’t know how to italicize a book title on here..) After I read the book, it made me wonder where neuroscience fits into the culture war. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Adam Laats
/ December 2, 2013Donna, I don’t know the book, but I’ll put a link here to the Amazon site in case anyone else wants to check it out. I think neuroscience has an ENORMOUS role in culture-war issues. For starters, people like to argue over whether or not neuroscience is the best way to understand human thinking. Second, the findings of neuroscience have often been used to prove culture-war issues one way or another. Is homosexuality a choice or a hard-wiring? Is religious belief merely a matter of neurons + electricity?
Donna
/ December 3, 2013Thanks Adam.
There is too much information in the book to cover in a post, but here is where they mention evolution.
“More than that, as we consider all the data we have reviewed in this book, we are drawn to the conclusion that modern evolutionary theory about human sexuality is wrong. This theory can be summarized by saying that those who propose it believe that human beings are (their terms) “designed” to be promiscuous. The fundamental theory is that women have sex with various men until they find the one with the best genes. Men have sex with various women until one chooses him to father her child. What we have shown in the data we have discussed is just the opposite of this theory.”
It’s an interesting field to read about, and would be interesting to learn about different points of view.
Donna
/ December 4, 2013http://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-Neuroscience/dp/0465018777/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1386158137&sr=8-9&keywords=neuroscience
How do you properly put a link on a comment? This book looked like a good book that might have an opposing viewpoint. Maybe not specifically on the topic of sex and teens but the field of neuroscience in general.
I’ve never thought of sex ed as a way to lure kids to sexual predators. I do think hiding information from kids is a bad idea and does them a disservice. It helps to talk about age appropriate topics as they are growing up and make it a part of normal conversation. How parents approach the topic has a lot to do with how awkward (or not) it will be. IMHO.