holy shit literal children should not be taught abt sex and preteens that do experience sexual attraction have no privilege over their peers who might experience it later or not at all
ok but leaving the discourse behind, sex education is actually really important though??? i mean, my elementary school taught that so sex wouldn’t be a stigmatized thing for in the future
literal children are already taught about sex, i don’t understand. in my elementary school, in 4th grade we were taught about “”“male and female”“” development and “urges” we would feel. in 5th grade, we saw actual pictures of naked adult bodies, and in 6th grade we were taught about “types” of sex and protection and pregnancy.
my parents gave me a book targeted at 7-12 year olds that also taught about sex and the body and sex organs and shit like that, like. this post is objectively bad. education from a young age is good and important for the destigmatization of sex in society. i don’t understand, is there a point you hadn’t made clear that i’m misunderstanding, maybe?
let’s not show nudes to ten year olds what fucking school did you go to
learning abt puberty =/= learning about how to fuck and 110 versions of asexuality
I… wha… where the hell were you raised that you think there’s something wrong with kids knowing what a naked body looks like? What century is this?
Sex education isn’t just learning about puberty; it’s learning about sex, relationships and consent, and it’s goddamn important even for children.
I started having sexual fantasies when I was 4 years old; I just didn’t know what they were at the time, or why they made me feel strangely good. My Mum gave me my first book on sex and sexual health when I was 8, but by that time I’d already heard years’ worth of playground rumours about “sex” ranging from the improbable to the downright terrifying, and had at least one inappropriate physical encounter with another child. It’s much better for kids to be taught healthy and safe attitudes to their own sexual development – physiological and mental – than for them run off fifth-hand misconceptions they pick up from equally clueless kids.
I’m not saying we should be teaching five-year-olds about reverse cowgirl. I’m saying it’s never too early to teach kids messages like, “If she’s not having fun you have to stop.” I’m saying most kids have some awareness that sex and sexuality exist, even if they don’t fully understand what those things are. I’m saying some kids have feelings about getting physical with other people from a very early age. I was particularly precocious, but the average age people start experiencing sexual attraction is 10 years old.
And I’m saying that all of these things are why it’s crucially important to give kids the tools and information they need to contextualise and process their understanding of sex and sexuality, both in terms of their own possible sexual identities (all possible sexual identities), and of course in terms of consent and bodily autonomy.
Apart from anything else, we’ve seen proof that this makes kids safer in terms of identifying and reporting sexual abuse. The puritan myth that kids live in some magical fairyland isolated from any conception of sex or sexuality literally causes harm to children. You’re not protecting them from dangerous information, you’re depriving them of information and support they need to safely contextualise their experiences and feelings.
Teaching kids about sex is not the same thing as encouraging kids to have sex. That is literally the exact same bullshit argument that religious fundamentalists use to try to justify abstinence-only sex ed.
(Some sources nabbed from @lauralot89‘s masterpost here)
Studies show that teaching kids about sex actually delays their sexual debut as well as reduces the risk of STDs and unwanted pregnancy. The more you teach kids about sex, the less they actually have it.
Children live in a sexualised world. All 10-year-olds have already been exposed to sex in advertisements, on TV, and on the internet. If they don’t know what sex is, only that it’s this secret, shameful, dangerous thing they’re supposed to want and which will make them cool and successful people if they have it, they’ll explore their own sexuality in ignorant, harmful ways. This is why the USA have the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the developed world:
The only way to keep children safe is to empower them with the knowledge to make informed decisions about their own sexuality. No one was ever protected from something by keeping them ignorant of it! And no information is actually harmful if presented in age-appropriate ways – which, by the way, also doesn’t mean what antis and Americans think it means.
My school showed us a video of what was essentially softcore porn at age 10. I mean full on nudity, an erect penis, how to roll on a condom, a man and a woman having gentle sex, and then how to remove the condom and tie it off. It completely undid the ~mystery~ of sex and made us go ‘huh, that’s it? nah, not really interested actually.’
You can watch the sex ed video here on the Danish National TV’s web archive; it’s in Danish, but you can jump to 10:10 for the sex scene, although honestly I think you’d find the whole video fascinating even if you can’t understand what they’re saying.
Also “let’s not show nudes to kids” they’re clinical photos? About as risque as something you’d see in a fucking doctor’s office. Aside from that, you realize there are societies worldwide where it’s perfectly normal for parents and children to do stuff like bathe together, right? Nudity isn’t inherently sexual and shameful; sex ed lessons help make it so through basic understanding.
I watched the video out of curiosity, and it is FASCINATING. It’s often hard for Americans -- being a country with truly Puritan ideas about sex and sexuality -- to understand just how different attitudes about sex are in other countries. I think it would be very difficult to present sex and sexuality in the way this video does basically anywhere publicly funded in the United States, which is unfortunate because it seems to be handled very well and in a matter of fact manner.
I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t nervous as a parent about talking to my kids about sex, but that’s only because it’s really important to me to make them feel comfortable and safe. I had a good example in my mother in this regard, but she was very conservative still, and a good sex talk doesn’t end with the mechanics of the act -- I want my kids to understand safety and consent, caring for a partner, knowing and asking for what they want, non-heternormative sex, and so on. Obviously, this isn’t just one conversation, it’s a whole bunch of conversations as well as, in a way, a lifestyle. I have to set an example over time, and that’s daunting (but then most parenting stuff is).
There’s this idea that more knowledge is harmful, and I just don’t understand that. And this mindset is so out of touch, because here’s the thing: the internet exists, and children and teens have access to it. I don’t want my sons and daughters learning about sex only from porn, or from other kids who’ve only watched porn (and they do and will watch and talk about it) because oh my god is that unhealthy in so many ways. Porn certainly will play a role, but if that’s all (or the first) education they get about how to have sex? They’re in trouble.
At least I know that the information coming from me is as accurate and respectful and well-meaning. Hopefully once they start having conversations with peers, they’ll at least be able to weigh that information against what I’ve given them, and hopefully they’ll also feel comfortable talking to me when they have questions.
Anyway, if you need resources for talking to your kids about sex and sexuality, Planned Parenthood has an awesome website on this (of course they do!): https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/parents/sex-and-sexuality
