Why Are People Frightened That Kids Will Learn About Sex?

Socialism@beehaw.org – 62 points – 1 years ago

Is it reasonable for parents to panic at cartoon nudity in school textbooks? Only if we embrace irrational taboos about bodies.

Control, mostly, at least at the meta level.

Many of the parents who freak out hold a lot of shame themselves surrounding bodies & sex, having been denied good sex ed. It is their job to ensure they don't pass that to their children, but I imagine this is easier said than done, especially if shame & ignorance are normalised within a culture.

For them, the best argument may be that children who do not know about sex are vastly more vulnerable, not only to bizarre information and unpleasant mistakes, but to sexual predators.

When I had sex ed in the late 90's, I was shown videos with real (but obviously non-sexualized) nudity. I don't remember there being any controversy about that at all, and I went to a Christian school (Anglican).

We had similar pictures in our biology books (Swiss public school), but the interesting bits were mostly covered by thick wads of hair. Maybe that's different to today's guardians of morals.

From a parent perspective, largely because of societal consequences.

Your toddler talking about sex can lead to undesirable social consequences.

Not that I agree with it, but the reasoning is valid, it's a fear of other people and their lack of understanding or nuance. And the potential for them to assume the worst and attack you over something entirely benign.

Now if we're talking about education, there really isn't any good excuse. Maybe it's an extension of the above?

This is what they don't seem to understand. The sex ed is age appropriate. No one is talking about condoms with 6 year olds. They're hearing about boundaries and bathing suit areas. It makes them less likely to be abused and more likely to report abuse.

You're... preaching to the choir. I also didn't argue against education, so I'm failing to see what you are arguing against here.

Glad were on the same page. When I saw:

Your toddler talking about sex can lead to undesirable social consequences.

something that shouldn't happen with age appropriate sex ex, it seemed like you thought toddlers were actually being taught about sex.

I can't answer much better than apis, but I can attest to the issues it causes. I'm in my 30s and have never fully recovered from being denied education on that. Still trying to break away from the shame and icky feelings. Ignorance causes so much more damage than just frakin telling us. ::: spoiler spoiler

:::

Control through guilt and shame. Humans without knowledge become emotional. Keep them stupid (emotional), easier to control. Or so the story goes…

Important to note they don’t teach emotional control either, just prayer. It’s just a shit system honestly.

It's probably about control I would guess. The capitalists need people to do work for them so if the population doesn't know much about their own bodies I would guess it's more likely they'll have children who will grow up to be workers.

So what you're saying is we should explain to children the capital value of your body when used for hard labor

Because it is a kind of social control. People really need to read more Foucault.

Short version: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/#HistModeSexu On Foucault’s account, modern control of sexuality parallels modern control of criminality by making sex (like crime) an object of allegedly scientific disciplines, which simultaneously offer knowledge and domination of their objects. However, it becomes apparent that there is a further dimension in the power associated with the sciences of sexuality. Not only is there control exercised via other people’s knowledge of individuals such as doctors’ knowledge, for example; there is also control via individuals’ knowledge of themselves. Individuals internalize the norms laid down by the sciences of sexuality and monitor themselves in an effort to conform to these norms. Thus, they are controlled not only as objects of disciplines but also as self-scrutinizing and self-forming subjects.

Sex researchers are pretty universally the most sex positive people around. So you should probably elaborate on what you mean by "allegedly scientific disciplines for control"

Because sex researchers are not the one who decide on our education curriculum and more importantly, our cultural attitude towards sex in general.

Occasionally they are. But sure, so it could be phrased as power projection via the hijacking of mass education systems. That doesn't exactly track super well with the examples given in the text, but it would be more applicable.

I don't think the language used originally works well in a modern context, since the text is referencing the same sort of pseudoscience as phrenology and deviancy research, when how you're using it is to refer to dishonest educational takeover. While one can be used by the other, like Florida's use of prageru, it might be important to discussion to elaborate your points relevance to the modern context.

It's always baffled me why violence is such a seemingly acceptable subject in comparison, what with gangster shows galore, gun nuts, etc., yet god forbid a naked breast is seen on national TV for 5 milliseconds and people lose their freakin' minds - let alone bring up the subject of sex education in schools. I apologize if I offend by saying this, but it's just I didn't grow up here and it's frankly always bugged me how hung up about sex people are in the US vs anywhere else I have lived.

The US was founded by some crazy cult members who had extreme views about sex. The Mormons came out of such a cult, but were pushed out of the country. Most of those old cults are still around to this day.

The religious views from these cults lingers on in our social conscience, probably most notable in our sexual repression and sexual censorship. Those old cult views instilled the idea that sex was depraved and not something to cherish and enjoy. So we still, at least subconsciously, hide sexuality out of a sense of righteousness and politeness.

Here's a short summary of the linked article

::: spoiler Click to expand

The document discusses conservative efforts to ban books that teach children about sex and anatomy. It notes that as a child, the author learned about sex from a book but did not understand it at the time. While some parents may be shocked by explicit illustrations in books like "It's Perfectly Normal," the author argues these images serve educational purposes and there is no reason to make sex a taboo topic. The repressive cultural stigma around topics like menstruation and masturbation does more harm than good.

Overall, the author believes it is past time to interrogate society's strange discomfort with nudity and sexuality, as these are normal human realities and children will learn about such topics one way or another. :::

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Read Freud and take that early year development theory seriously. Gender and sexuality. Develop early in human life. Just like everything else about humans.