Sexual Morality vs Sexual Education
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a questions posed by Stine in a recent TBO-hosted Spout Off on age of consent laws, namely that of sexual morality vs sexual education. The question arose from discussions of who is best situated to determine the maturity of adolescents, in which I sided with parents.
Depending on how you look at it, I’m not sure there is a difference.
From the point of view of a parent, it seems like sexual education and sexual morality will go hand in hand. It seems even on some level irresponsible to equip children with knowledge without also offering up a moral framework for how to use that knowledge (you don’t have to look far beyond our struggles with issues of technology to see the potential danger of moral/ethical development lagging behind intellectual development).
Really, how could we expect parents not to rely on their own moral compasses in teaching their children about sexuality? The question seems to hinge on how we feel about the moral systems being taught, and I can’t support any dictum to parents on what they can and cannot teach their own children.
And yet, it seems to me there is a public interest in having a sexually educated public. There is a social cost for unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases and even the psychological scars than can be created in children raised in sexually-repressive environments.
This is where I think the concern arises. If the moral systems parents’ teach require an incomplete sexual education, and there is a social cost to incomplete sexual education, then is there not a public interest in comprehensive sexual education? When the moral dictates of a family require abstinence-only education, and the results of such programs are higher incident rates of unwanted pregnancy and risky sexual behavior, how do we balance public interest vs privacy rights, and indeed religious freedom (because we can’t infringe upon the religious rights of fundamentalist Christians without tacitly approving the infringement of the religious rights of every other persuasion)?
If sexual morality and sexual education go hand-in-hand for parents, is it schools that take the responsibility for comprehensive sexual education? And what will the moral element be (because I’m not particularly comfortable giving schools a blank check for moral instruction, especially given the atrocities the Right could perpetrate with such power)?
Where exactly should the line be drawn in such programs? Does a comprehensive public sexual education include descriptions of fisting? Is it, should it be limited to biology? The procreative and disease-prevention aspects? How do we justify what is included beyond such considerations? How will homosexuality be addressed? What about BDSM or fetish? Because don’t the answers to those questions also indicate a moral education? Can’t we expect students to read the text of what is included and what is not included in a sexual education program as indications of what is “normal” or “abnormal”?
I see the value in the distinction – sexual morality concentrates on what you should and should not do, leaving you ill equipped to handle your own deviations from the prescribed course. But, other than encouraging parents to allow children to make their own choices, and to equip their children with the knowledge necessary to make good choices, there isn’t much we can do. If I have the power to tell a fundamentalist that they must teach beyond their moral boundaries, what is to prevent them from telling me I have to teach within theirs? Because, really, as much as it feels like we are doing the right thing, empowering people to make their own choices, we are really just applying our own moral system to the lives of others.
This is why the question interested me so much, because I think it pushes up against the liberal paradox. You can’t fight oppression by oppressing oppressors.
Depending on how you look at it, I’m not sure there is a difference.
From the point of view of a parent, it seems like sexual education and sexual morality will go hand in hand. It seems even on some level irresponsible to equip children with knowledge without also offering up a moral framework for how to use that knowledge (you don’t have to look far beyond our struggles with issues of technology to see the potential danger of moral/ethical development lagging behind intellectual development).
Really, how could we expect parents not to rely on their own moral compasses in teaching their children about sexuality? The question seems to hinge on how we feel about the moral systems being taught, and I can’t support any dictum to parents on what they can and cannot teach their own children.
And yet, it seems to me there is a public interest in having a sexually educated public. There is a social cost for unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases and even the psychological scars than can be created in children raised in sexually-repressive environments.
This is where I think the concern arises. If the moral systems parents’ teach require an incomplete sexual education, and there is a social cost to incomplete sexual education, then is there not a public interest in comprehensive sexual education? When the moral dictates of a family require abstinence-only education, and the results of such programs are higher incident rates of unwanted pregnancy and risky sexual behavior, how do we balance public interest vs privacy rights, and indeed religious freedom (because we can’t infringe upon the religious rights of fundamentalist Christians without tacitly approving the infringement of the religious rights of every other persuasion)?
If sexual morality and sexual education go hand-in-hand for parents, is it schools that take the responsibility for comprehensive sexual education? And what will the moral element be (because I’m not particularly comfortable giving schools a blank check for moral instruction, especially given the atrocities the Right could perpetrate with such power)?
Where exactly should the line be drawn in such programs? Does a comprehensive public sexual education include descriptions of fisting? Is it, should it be limited to biology? The procreative and disease-prevention aspects? How do we justify what is included beyond such considerations? How will homosexuality be addressed? What about BDSM or fetish? Because don’t the answers to those questions also indicate a moral education? Can’t we expect students to read the text of what is included and what is not included in a sexual education program as indications of what is “normal” or “abnormal”?
I see the value in the distinction – sexual morality concentrates on what you should and should not do, leaving you ill equipped to handle your own deviations from the prescribed course. But, other than encouraging parents to allow children to make their own choices, and to equip their children with the knowledge necessary to make good choices, there isn’t much we can do. If I have the power to tell a fundamentalist that they must teach beyond their moral boundaries, what is to prevent them from telling me I have to teach within theirs? Because, really, as much as it feels like we are doing the right thing, empowering people to make their own choices, we are really just applying our own moral system to the lives of others.
This is why the question interested me so much, because I think it pushes up against the liberal paradox. You can’t fight oppression by oppressing oppressors.
posted by JJisafool at 11:25 PM
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