Maximus - you obviously don't have daughters. Believe me you would want them to have sex education.

"then you put that bit into that bit, wiggle it around a bit, and the next thing you know - bang-bang - babies."

Well Maximus, it would be nice to think that Aussie teenagers actually know a bit more then you about sex and avoiding pregnancy :)

Given the teenage pregnancy rate and abortion rate, some in the community think that kids should actually be taught how to avoid
having babies. Knowledge empowers people, they go to school for knowledge, so why not give them knowledge? You might as well be honest and tell girls that boys tell lies to gain consent.

I don't really care about Lyn's motives. A liberal society is actually not a bad thing, it means a tolerant society, which is
required if secular democracies are to function. That's certainly
alot better then Muslim or Catholic religious tyranny!

If Aussie kids become more empowered about their lives by better education, bring it on. If I had my way, we'd throw out religion
and teach kids philosophy, ethics, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution skills etc, which would all help them in their lives and also lead to a more informed and more tolerant society.

So you keep wiggling around a bit, but don't try to deny kids the education that they deserve and which could be provided to them, for little or no extra expense, to the benefit of all.

If it helps to reduce paternity fraud, I’m all for it.

For those interested in what Janet Albrechtsen had to say about paternity fraud yesterday in The Australian:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18928924-32522,00.html

Education is better than ignorance, whatever the subject. There should be a standard curriculum throughout Australia on sex education and it should be taught to every child, in every school, without exception. It should be broad based and include such things as respect and the right to choose for oneself, without coercion, one way or the other.

I see the main problem as being the strange artificial conflicts encouraged in Australian society. Sexuality and nudity is prevalent in advertising and entertainment. This can be criticised, but it will continue. In the 1970s and 1980s nudity became commonplace in theatre, TV, films and on many Australian beaches. The beach nudity was non-sexual and most of the entertainment nudity was harmless, by almost anyone's standards. But interfering politicians and bureaucrats, egged on by religious extremists, couldn't allow this sort of thing to continue. So people were encouraged to be ashamed and embarrassed of their own bodies.

So what do we teach our children? Be ashamed of your bodies and their functions, but be comfortable about learning about sex. Be comfortable about tampon ads on TV, but be too ashamed to get changed in a locker room amongst people of your own sex. It doesn't add up, does it?

Some of the European countries don't seem to have these problems to anywhere near the same extent. And they are reported to have lower rates of unwanted pregnancies and abortion too. How about finding out what they are doing and teaching and following suit. Ah, but the Australian wowsers wouldn't approve of that, would they?

UNTUTORED MIND said...

"Step one. Remove sex guilt make the morality apply to the behaviour not the sex or belief system"

Sounds very Christian to me :) .. 'Guilt' and sex are usually only relevant when one is:

a) Being unfaithful to ones partner
b) Being unfaithful to the values one already subscribes to in ones heart.
c) Being unfaithful to your upbringing.

God, being the inventor of sex, I'm sure has the view that there is nothing wrong with it in itself. But the problem is 'us'. Due to the pleasure factor, and our natural instinct for spreading our genes, male female attractiveness etc... there will always be a tension between our agreed values and our inner desires.

I think the reasoning goes something like this:

'Yes, I know how a good healthy happy society should run, BUT.. she/he is so HOT.. and so AVAILABLE etc...

That brings us back to the 'Ethically Speaking' thread, and the idea of values frameworks and the need for 3 things.

1/ Upbringing.
2/ Teaching of ethics
3/ a Reason for obeying 1&2 above.

I think the more important aspect is the values framework of the society. It is MUCH easier to be pure when everything in the community is based on such a value. Only when we do HAVE a framework like this will such things as adultery, sex with children, sex with vulnerable older people, pre-marital sex be seen for what they are and regarded with appropriate negativity.

I would rather see a caring community which made no bones about the wrongfulness of:

-Premarital sex (but did not make guilty parties 'eternal outcastes')
-Adulterous sex (but did not throw the first stone)
-Deviate sex (but recognized that some people need a lot of help in this area)
-Gave information at schools about reproduction and STDs

Most of our permissiveness can be traced back to the Arts in collusion with our fallen and opportunistic natures. "Pushing the boundaries" in plays, novels, visual media and opinion leaders. Such things erode the 'line' between right and wrong.

There have been some freaky things said in the name of Christian moralism here, including premarital sex in the same category as child rape. Can any of the christians explain what is wrong with informed premarital sex other than insulting notions such as "buying used goods". Such a confused sexual morality is what creates confusion and guilt if taught to our young people and a major cause of self esteem problems at all ages.

And on teaching morality with sex education -
There seems to be some consensus that the so-called "formative years" , from birth til 5 or 6. is the time when the human's personality develops, as does our sense of social order and our place in it. These formative years is where we get our morality from, it starts in many cases with teething. When baby wants to bite mums tit and the first negotiated settlement of the baby's life begins. Without moral frameworks, without even language, love and bonding alone is the mechanism for teaching mutual respect for the first time. Mutual respect, taught before language. and all through a child's life is the first rule of sex education, but it is much too late to consider teaching it when puberty arrives, except in remedial and therapeutic situations. Similarly emotion, tenderness, intimacy and connectedness. These are the first things a child learns, and if maintained throughout their formative years and beyond this will be the nature of the adult.

It seems to me adolescence (a strange phenomenon of western society) is the time to encourage people to be strong in what they allready believe, follow their heart and resist peer group pressure, whether that pressure is telling them to be promiscuous or to abstain until they are married. we need to convince young adults that they allready have everything they need to exercise responsible judgement - Adolescent sex education is the time to empower young people to exercise that judgement and give them all the resources they need to make the best judgements and more importantly, do the right thing by those judgements.