Simple Solutions to Complex Problems

Just a brief blog, on a couple of topics that concern our social structure and educational systems. Supergoober has recently made much of an "abstinence only" curriculum, and has referenced expert knowledge being transmitted in classrooms. I do want to mention a few things in reference to this, and no this will not be an nCr, though many of you might believe that it is. Currently, sex education is not necessarily being taught by "experts" with "expert knowledge". If that were the case, I would approach this topic a little bit differently, but not much. Most education in the public schools of America is, at best, done in a morally neutral tone, and at worst in a tone favorable to amorality.



Quick side note: I am not advocating that schools immediately begin teaching homosexuality is evil, promiscuity is bad, and that one should be ashamed of their sexuality - these are religious strictures and are separate from morality. True morality is independent of religion, though most religions adhere to moral as well as religious strictures (incidentally, it is hard to come up with morality without some concept of higher being, but more on that in a later blog), and disentangling the two has become so difficult, especially with Church/State issues, that the proverbial baby has been chucked out with the bathwater (please forgive the cliche', but they are cliche' for a reason - they do a good job describing the situation at hand).



I would advocate a abstinence based sexual education for several reasons, all of which are grounded in good health, good math, and psychological well-being. Before getting into the reasons, which I will detail below, I know that there is a hue-and-cry going up as you read this; "But theprofessor, hormones are raging in kids and they are going to do this whether we put prohibitions on them or not, so we need them to be safe." This is perhaps the weakest argument ever, and nothing pisses me off more than this. Just because people will engage in a certain behavior is no reason not to try and help stem the tide of behavior that is risky or dangerous. There have always been rapists and murders, so why try and stop them. An extreme example, I know, but once you say that "people will do it anyway", you can apply that logic to anything, and you will get absurd notions. The whole reason for this argument is that people are reticent to try and impose strictures on children because of the liberal nature of are society (not in the political sense, but in the sense that we value personal freedom), and they look for any excuse not to censure behavior. But children are different - they are not fully developed physically, psychologically, or morally; to expect adult behavior from them in terms of sexuality.

So here are some reasons, and I will follow with just a few musings on health and boundaries established by adults for kids.

1. With abstinence, you have a zero percent chance of getting a disease or getting pregnant. Given the risk involved with most birth control methods (even condoms) transmission of diseases is imminently possible. Couple the unreliability of birth control with the likelihood of its misuse when substances are involved, this is a legitimate argument. The major diseases like AIDS, hepatitis, and others are prevented by condoms, but warts, herpes, crabs, etc. are not stopped by condom use. The pill, a middle to upper middle class favorite, prevents pregnancy well, but nothing else.
2. Ignoring abstinence as an option ignores the psychological and emotional well-being of the kids involved. It is easy to adopt a stance of, "Just inform them and let them choose," but this actually trivializes the impact of adolescent sexuality on the development of personality and the implications of early sexual expression on later relationships. It becomes easier for the objectification of women to be confounded with sex for boys the younger they engage in sexual behavior - developmentally, their hormones are running rampant, and if they are given license it becomes easier for them to just look at women as objects. Similarly, girls can develop into a psychological state where sex is a mean to an ends. Both of these cases inhibit healthy sexual expression later in life. I am not saying that this a guarantee, I am just talking tendencies.
3. Children need the adults in their life to place boundaries on them. It is the existence of these boundaries that shows the children that someone really does care about them. Parents are primarily responsible for this, but removing the teacher from this role has a deleterious affect on the relationship between student and teacher, and the myth of remaining "morally neutral" can lead to the exact disaster that we have in schools now. There is a reason that the only statistically significant deviation from public schools for private schools occurs in schools that have a well-established mission and moral purpose. Not everyone necessarily adheres to it or agrees with it, but everyone knows that the standards of the community are in place, and those values are enforced.

Okay, now to expand on this idea a little bit. I do not suggest that we simply abandon sex education in the schools. I do believe it is the parent's responsibility as the primary educators, but the job of the school is to support that role. There are reasons that underage sex is against the law. If you are under the age of 18, you cannot legally consent to anything. This is a nod to developmental psychology, and is the reason why statutory rape laws are still in place. Teenage relationships are often experiments in power struggles as well as the first tentative movements towards self-control, self-awareness, and awareness of the value in another person. The awakening of this awareness of another persons value, of caring about someone else's well-being even if you do not benefit from it, is a vital part of adult socialization (one need only point at the high divorce rate, and the high level of self-absorption of the so-called cosmopolitan city folk to notice a correlation here). In case you didn't guess, I do not at all ascribe to the "Hobbesian" vision of human nature.

If we simply give licence to any behavior, even if it is only by tacitly approving by not putting any boundaries, we lower young people's chances of a health development. The amount of pressure that guys are capable of exerting on girls is exponentially more vast when sexual behavior is commonplace and acceptable. It virtually nullifies the concept of date rape, because the girl is actually assumed to be able to consent, when she is not. Similarly, boys are told that it is totally okay if their penises control their lives. Look at the messages that are sent if you do not believe this: if there is no prohibition against adolescent sex, and it is just a choice, then it is hard to remain credible by telling boys it is not okay to pressure a girl for sex. Even though we can still ostensibly send that message, it lacks any impact. If sexual expression is just a choice, what's wrong with persuading someone else?

And of course, I could go on, but I will just reiterate that the psychological impact of early sexuality is dramatic (supergoober, I am sure you could back me up on this, and I hope you will). The ease with which one could engage in sexual behavior can have a significant emotional impact - it could actually create a barrier to forming a healthy relationship - people will favor casual random encounters and will have little to no idea of how to build the solid foundation a real, long-term relationship needs.

And, of course, the long term implication of adolescent sexuality is the decriminalization of pedophilia. I know that this seems extreme, but we are already seeing this in isolated cases; teachers sleeping with students. If we say that kids are able to consent to sex with one another, then why can they not consent with adults. Of course this is absurd while you adhere to the idea that kids can't consent, but if you abandon that idea, then you sidestep the power issues involved in a relationship and make it a legitimate legal question. This is what I find most frightening about the logical extension of adolescent sexuality - the long term degradation of the protections that we have in place for children.

The whole issue is not nearly as simple as either side would make it, and I could go on and on and on; and I am sure that I will after receiving some negative comments, but I would like to end with one other thought.

I know that there are many cultures worldwide where people are married early, and sex for young people is totally acceptable. Many of these cultures are subsistence level - you must marry by 12 or 14 because life-expectancies are so low and infant mortality is so high that people are forced to adult responsibilities very young - not an appropriate model. A culture like Japan, however, is homogeneous and has had that tradition for a very long time and has, as a society, developed social and psychological mechanisms to cope with that (and there is a reason most people in other nations say "What the F**K is up with the Japanese!?) To expect that we could adopt those mores without repercussions is naive at best.

Well, I'm gonna go now, see you soon. I guess it wasn't that brief, and I only addressed one topic, but what the hell!