Science or Sex: Which Does the Right Hate More?
The latest RW outrage of the day involves a teacher defining anal sex and parents likening that to rape. Then the populist pundits chime in, and try to angle the attack at Planned Parenthood.
The definition came in response to a child’s question, but it’s being portrayed as the teacher offering graphic demonstrations. If you are teaching about HIV and don’t mention it’s key method of transmission, how are children going to protect themselves? Notice also how the RW noise machine is already trying to pin this on Planned Parenthood, when the course was state developed and created.
This small-town story has garnered national attention — and, of course, lit up conservative sites like Glenn Beck’s the Blaze and anti-choice outlets like LifeNews.com — because the backlash isn’t just about these kids or their hyperbolic parents; it’s really about a larger culture war, as well as fundamental, bipartisan fears about kids and sex. It’s a case study on the parental terror, ignorance and sometimes willful blindness that often accompanies the fight against comprehensive sex education.
The curriculum Gray was using, the Family Life and Sexual Health (FLASH) program, was developed in the state — despite conservatives’ claims that it was the result of Planned Parenthood’s “puppet-mastery.” The lesson plan for the HIV portion of the fifth- and sixth-grade classes explains, “We use the term ‘sexual intercourse’ as an umbrella expression to represent all three risky sexual behaviors: oral, anal and vaginal intercourse,” it says. “These will be spelled out in later grades.” But here’s the important part: “That’s not to say that you can’t define them simply if students ask about them.” That’s exactly what Gray did: A student asked about oral and anal sex, and she responded with a straightforward description.
Many, if not most, parents would like to believe that that their fifth-graders don’t have a compelling need to understand the concept of a blow job or anal sex. But Monica Rodriguez, president and CEO of Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), says, “If a fifth-grader is asking questions about oral or anal sex, they’ve obviously had some exposure at least to those words, and they have a right to know what those things are. Young people have a right to information.” The key is delivering that information in an age- and developmentally appropriate way. Similarly, Carole Miller, chief learning officer at Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, says, “Information is not damaging to young people.” In fact, she points to the fact that some of the children went home and told their parents about what they had learned as a healthy thing.
Also, remember, these kids were learning about HIV. A definition of anal sex, the highest-risk behavior for transmission, seems … somewhat relevant.