Yet another recent column

ALL WORKED UP ABOUT KIDS AND SEX
By J.T. Benjamin
Copr. 2007

I’ve got a brother-in-law, Charlie, with whom I don’t get along very well. It’s not just because I’m doing The Nasty with his baby sister, either. See, Charlie’s what I call a “Holy Terror,” one of those ultra-right-wing Fundamentalist Christians who think this country’s a whole lot better off now that God’s Chosen One, George W. Bush, is President, and that we all need to toe the rigid, anal-retentive holier-than-thou line of Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, et. al. if we want to get this country back on track.

Normally, I get along just fine with Holy-Terror types as people. Really, I do. After all, they can’t help being wrong about everything, and I understand that. However, Charlie’s a different matter.

See, Charlie feels that by virtue of his status not only as my Lovely Wife’s brother but also as one of the ones who know The Truth about the way the world operates, he’s entitled to sit in judgment of me and the way I raise my kids. It’s not enough that since she met me, my Lovely Wife has enjoyed the occasional glass of wine or coffee, read scandalous novels, associated with known homosexuals, or even that she’s even (shudder) voted for Democrats on several occasions.

Oh, no. It’s not enough, indeed.

What makes it worse is my pernicious influence has trickled down to my own children, his nieces and nephew as well. The horror. Charlie finds it intolerable that my kids listen to music of which he doesn’t approve, watch movies and TV of which he doesn’t approve, talk about things of which he doesn’t approve, and otherwise act nothing like the way he thinks kids should act.

Under most circumstances, when I encounter someone with that sort of attitude towards MY kids, I adopt my usual “Mind Your Own Business” mantra and say, “Go fuck yourself.” However, in the interest of family harmony, when Charlie shoots off his mouth about my parenting skills, I just nod my head, ask someone to pass the sweet potatoes, and I then deftly change the subject.

Now, I’m about to disclose some confidential information. If Charlie or my in-laws ever found this out, they’d just shit bricks, so keep it under your collective hats, okay? I’m not worried about their finding out on this website, because ERWA isn’t really their cup of tea. I’m just concerned that sometime, somewhere, somebody might bump into my brother-in-law and casually say, “Hey, I read something very interesting by that ‘All Worked Up’ guy.”

Anyway, here’s the secret. My fifteen-year-old daughter has made a request of my Lovely Wife and me. She wants a vibrator.

And my Lovely Wife and I are thrilled.

Now, acceding to that request could possibly be construed as contributing to the delinquency of a minor and/or sexual exploitation of a child by certain narrow-minded anal-retentive assholes in the Federal and state governments. Naturally, my Lovely Wife and I have NO intention of breaking the law. You hear that, F.B.I., Homeland Security, and Attorney General Gonzales? We have NO intention of breaking the law.

Still, my Lovely Wife and I are tickled to death.

Why? Because our daughter, acting like any normal teenager, is curious about sex and she wants to experiment with and discover her sexual identity. However, our daughter is acting very UN-like most other normal teenagers when it comes to that experimentation.

You see, she came to us.

Her parents.

Specifically, she came to my Lovely Wife with this request. My daughter’s not comfortable bringing this sort of thing up with Dear Old Dad just yet, and I understand that. I also understand that like any other fifteen-year old, she’d die, just DIE of embarrassment if she found out not only that Daddy knows about what she wants, but also that Daddy blabbed about this on the internet, so now that I think about it, there are TWO secrets I’d like you to keep, okay?

But I digress…

In our current political climate, the Powers That Be in control of the government are of the opinion that when it comes to sex education and our children, the best course of action is an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. It’s called “Abstinence Only” sex education, or more accurately, “Ignorance Only” sex ed. The idea is that if we teach our kids about sex, they’re going to want to experiment with what they learn. If we don’t let them gain any useful information, they’ll spend their remaining childhood days in blissful ignorance. Don’t teach our kids birth control, don’t teach them about their bodies, don’t teach them about issues such as sexually transmitted diseases, avoiding pregnancy, masturbation, homosexuality, or even kinks and turn-ons, and instead teach them not to discuss or even think about sex until their wedding nights, when hopefully all the necessary information will somehow be absorbed through osmosis.

Naturally, this “ignorance only” sex ed has the same spectacular rate of success as does everything else the Bush Administration does. That is, it’s a complete failure.

A recent report by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. analyzed four abstinence only sex-ed programs and concluded that “the programs had no effect on the sexual abstinence of youth.” That’s right. Your tax dollars are hard at work having no impact at all on keeping kids from having sex or getting pregnant.

Not only that, but your tax dollars are being used to lie to kids about sex. In December of 2004, Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman of California issued a report documenting how many abstinence-only sex ed programs not only attempt to keep teens ignorant about sex, but they mislead them, as well.

The sordid details are here. http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20041201102153-50247.pdf

To summarize:

Abstinence-only sex ed programs have “educated” teenagers that:

Condoms have little to no effect in preventing pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, or other sexually transmitted diseases. (Bullshit. When properly used, condoms have a success rate of greater than 97%).

Abortions render one woman in ten sterile and increase the risk of fetal birth defects in subsequent pregnancies. (More bullshit. The most common abortion procedures have no impact at all on subsequent pregnancies).

The HIV/AIDS virus can be spread through human sweat and tears. (Unbelievably outrageous bullshit, here. There’s never been a documented case of HIV/AIDS contracted through tears or sweat.)

One program stated that “twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create” a new individual. The correct number is twenty-THREE chromosomes, Dr. Science. Even Wikipedia got this one right. This same program also proclaimed that “boys produce both male and female sperm,” which should be news to biologists and physicians the world over.

And the abstinence-only programs aren’t just perpetuating scientific myths, either. They’re telling our teenagers that “Women gauge their happiness and judge their success through their relationships. Men’s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments.” Women are more concerned with financial support and men are more concerned with domestic support. Women are naturally weaker, more emotional, and need more protection from the world while men are naturally more aggressive and emotionally shallow.

In other words, our kids are learning that when it comes to sex, their models ought to be Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Most importantly, our kids are learning that sex is something taboo, something that’s not discussed in polite society, or among friends, schoolmates, teachers, or anyone at all. Don’t worry about what you want or need or are curious about, just keep your legs crossed until your wedding night, and then just close your eyes and think of God and Country.

Not my daughter. No, she wants to think for herself. She wants to make her own decisions about the most intimate elements of her life. She wants to do things her way, and not just swallow the dreck the Holy Terrors and the Powers That Be are trying to force-feed her and her peers. And when she feels ready to experiment and when she has questions, she’s not relying on the media or her friends or her “ignorance-only” sex-ed teacher. She’s relying on people she trusts.

I’m so proud.

And what does all this have to do with my brother-in-law, Charlie? The guy who’s outraged that I let my kids occasionally watch Gwen Stefani videos?

Charlie has a problem. It seems his seventeen-year old son Adam got his fifteen-year old girlfriend pregnant. She was stuck in a bad situation at home and they decided the best way out of it was for her to get knocked up so they’d have to get married and she could move out of her house and into Charlie’s house. Adam wanted to talk to his dad about the whole situation before the rabbit died, but Adam and his dad have a hard time discussing S-E-X with each other.

I’m not saying that I’ll NEVER have those sorts of problems as my kids, all four of them, grow up and mature into sexual beings, but I feel better about their being able to make the right sorts of decisions about sex than Charlie’s kids have demonstrated so far.

I’m also not saying that I’m gloating over the misfortunes of my fellow human beings, especially those of family. However, if I WERE to gloat, I’d be doing the “I’m-not-going-to-be-a-grandfather-anytime-soon” dance right about now.

I’m not dancing.

Really, I’m not.