SUBJECT A: UTAH SEX EDUCATION PROMPTS AN EDITORIAL

Friday evening, 16 March 2012 10:00 p.m.

News reports indicate that Governor Gary Herbert of Utah vetoed HB 363, a controversial bill dealing with Utah’s sexual education law.

Whenever one assesses the possibilities of sexual activity with another person, one should always gauge that person’s attitude about sexuality in general. Does that person think it is good, that it is necessary, that it is necessary but disgusting, that it is just disgusting. One gets the impression, listening to Utah’s Republican legislators and to the Republican presidential candidates that they prefer that the unwashed masses of people should not engage in Subject A.


PART ONE

Dr. Andrew Weil in his landmark book on natural health entitled Natural Health Natural Medicine observed in his chapter on sexual addictions that despite its central place in human culture and our obsessing about it, sex remains fairly mysterious. Science still knows remarkably little about its psychological workings. Whether our sexual advisors are married or not, single or coupled, the chances are high that most information we get about sex is misguided or wrong.

A major problem in public school sexual education results from teaching the subject like health. Instruct students how to be healthy, teachers think, and they will act in healthy ways. We know how misguided that attitude can be among the foibles of the human animals. Teaching health that way does not work well; teaching Subject A in such a way does not seem any much wiser.

I find it grimly amusing many Utah conservatives will have teachers instruct their kids how to use guns without contemplating or worrying that the kids will go out and kill. Yet, they will not teach kids about sexual methods and birth control technology for fear that they will become sexual active and use them. One way or another, most of our kids will eventually become sexually active -- whether we want them to or not.

I have monitored my politically active neighbor-friends for 40 years: I sometimes wonder how many parents actually know enough about sex to teach the subject to their progeny.


THE CALLS TO ACTION:

The kids deserve to at least hear about technological advancements to prevent unmarried unwanted pregnancy and to prevent sexual transmitted diseases.

Abstinence-only sex education might work if we accompanied it with a thorough regime of medications to remove the teenage male sex drive from the teenage males.


PART TWO

An article in the Salt Lake Tribune quoted Senator Reid of Ogden:

“To replace the parent in the school setting, among people who we have no idea what their morals are, we have no ideas what their values are, yet we turn our children over to them to instruct them in the most sensitive sexual activities in their lives, I think is wrongheaded.”

This assumes that parents know what they are talking about on Subject A.

Some legislator could have said:

It is also wrongheaded for the legislature to replace the school setting with parents – people whom the legislature has no clue about their values and knowledge. Yet the legislature gives our children over to parents for instruction about health and the most sensitive sexual activities in their lives.

Legislators should understand that the above point is just as valid.

The Tribune quoted Dalane England, Utah Eagle Forum vice president of issues as saying,
“I think that our children are so important and we cannot afford to tell them anything but the truth…and the truth is the only way to protect yourself physically and emotionally is to abstain from sex until you are married and to be faithful in a relationship. When you have the truth and the whole truth, you don’t need anything else.”

KUER Radio news also quoted Senator Dayton as saying something along the same lines.

Ms England is quite wrong on this particular point. Abstinence and fidelity might be the best way. [though I have my doubts] – drs. It is certainly not the only way.

It would also be interesting to know the exact number of marriages that were ruined by introducing sex into the institution.

Obviously, teenage kids should not be having sex, though in 19th and 20th century Utah, kids as young as 14 and 16 could have sex if they were legally married.

Teenage kids should not be having sex. However, I have monitored my parent - neighbors for 40 years, especially the political activist neighbors: I sometimes wonder if they know enough about sex to teach it to their kids.

Teenage kids should be beaten by their parents or anyone else.

Teenage kids should not drink alcohol – not even a little, not to excess. {Neither should the parents for that matter.}

Teenage kids should not smoke cigarettes. [Neither should their parents for that matter.]

Teenage kids should not smoke marijuana. [Neither should their parents for that matter.]

Teenage kids should not get addicted to cocaine or crack or meth. [Unfortunately, I once lived across the street from drug-addicted parents. They were not exactly the best teachers on that subject.]

We know just what parents can and will do and their levels of hypocrisy.

Parents should teach their kids, but they can use all the reenforcement assistance they can get. The schools have their place in teaching about health and tools.

The truth on this subject appeared in a Salt Lake Tribune letter the other day. Since we are all adults about this, I reprint it for you in full:

Sex also awesome

Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
Letter to the editor
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/53615080-82/sex-marriage-awesome-front.html.csp
Published: March 4, 2012 11:25PM
Updated: March 4, 2012 11:25PM

Of sex education in Utah, Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden, recently said: “Why don’t we just be honest with them up front that sex outside marriage is devastating?”

Well, if we’re going to be totally up front, Bill, we’ll have to tell kids that sex outside marriage is also sometimes awesome. If I were a teacher, and had to “just be honest,” I would have to tell kids that sex outside marriage — for me — has been fun, moving, steamy, spiritual and completely disease-free (also child-free!). I’d also have to tell kids that sometimes it’s been boring, a blow to my ego and less good than masturbating.

I’m flummoxed by Wright’s sense of “honest” and “up front.” Clearly, his understanding of those words doesn’t include the experiences of his constituents. Sex inside of marriage can also be devastating. It depends how you’re doing it. A few married people I know are currently devastated by their sex lives, and a few are overwhelmed by the results of sex without a condom.

Sex with multiple partners can be dangerous, yes. Herpes? Never awesome. Or so I hear. I never got it, which I owe, in part, to my eighth-grade sex education class.

Matthew Ivan Bennett
Midvale

© 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune


IN CONCLUSION –

Leaders give people what the people need. Politicians give people what the people want. This may account for why on any given election year the number of politicians to leaders is about 10 politicians to 1 leader – on a good day.

Yes, parents should not leave education to the professionals. However, professionals with knowledge can be useful, especially with technological knowledge on the subjects of health, sex, and sexual health.