The New Sex Education

...describes oral sex and how it feels...

...Other issues, like abortion, are similarly presented as problems having no right answers, only opinions, which each person chooses for himself or herself...

...Among the "preferences" that people have are sadomasochism, and this " may be very acceptable to sexual partners who agree on what they want from each other...

...or "guilt and regret" caused by conflict with the "moral codes of their parents or their religion...

...Here the young reader learns that just as some people prefer "mushrooms, caviar, wines, and spinach," some choose to be homosexuals, transvestites, transsexuals, etc...

...In The Asymmetric Society, published earlier this year, the sociologist James Coleman described what he believes is a fairly drastic change that is taking place in the nature of our social structure—from one where most transactions occurred between individuals, to one where most communications occur among corporate actors...

...Their course, usually called "human sexuality," deals not only with the physical side of sex, often including explicit instruction in how to perform various maneuvers, but also with young people's feelings and values...

...Of course, human beings do lots of things that we don't approve of and we expect teachers to say so...

...On the negative side (drawing of sad young man), it might lead to unwanted pregnancy...

...Even among these textbooks, though, presentations vary...

...Kathy herself worried that Kenny might brag about it or that her parents might find out...

...Thus there is the problem of whether two 15-year-olds, Kathy and Kenny, should have intercourse on their next date...

...These books are implicitly engaged in sexual consciousness-raising...

...This comes across powerfully in a picture of an adorable girl of about four wearing a long calico dress and a bonnet...

...They recognize that in a culture saturated with sexually exploitative commercialism, it is desirable for adolescents to have scientifically valid knowledge about human reproduction...

...They may feel that for young people the question was resolved long ago, and adults just try to perpetuate the controversy...

...Because I find that I've got a whole new basis for having sex with somebody, you know, after balling gets us to talking together...

...the picture itself says nothing in particular, but the caption reads, "The sad eyes of this child dressed in poke bonnet, long skirt, and spotless pinafore seem a reflection of the spiritual and physical confinement of such symbols of femininity...

...In the chapter that deals with sexual intercourse, "mutual masturbation," oral sex, and anal sex, Kelly warns in the teacher's guide that "many young people no longer consider debating the pros or cons of premarital sex to be a reasonable pursuit...

...The corporation is composed of positions, in which individuals are interchangeable, and our society is rapidly becoming characterized by corporate, rather than individual, activities...

...A primary purpose of sex among the young, they say, is to improve communication...

...Discuss the matter in small groups...

...1 could be wrong, but 1 believe most people support sex education in the polls because they think their children are learning the old-fashioned course, "the plumbing...

...Sexual infidelity, they say, "is likely to create disturbances in a marriage, especially if it is discovered by the other partner...

...Peter Kelman and Burt Saxon's Modern Human Sexuality, for example, is restrained in its content and illustrations compared to others because it doesn't show children how to perform sex acts...

...Because the reader already knows how to avoid VD and pregnancy, the scales are heavily tilted toward the emotional and educational benefits of "sex outside marriage," so long as there is not too much conflict with the parents' moral code or religion—the happy assumption being that the student has no personal moral code other than wanting to feel good...

...to explain how to perform cunnilingus...

...The new sex educators are engaged in liberating children from the holdof their families: from their moral codes and religious beliefs, and their personal control...

...The Perrys become truly creative on the subject of "swinging," or couples exchanging sexual partners...

...It is not surprising that some parents sense this and do not like it...

...To settle the matter, the authors note that "more liberal religious spokesmen also have played down the negative aspects of extramarital sex...

...And a look at several of the textbooks now being widely used reveals that, indeed, what parents expect frequently is not what their children are getting...

...Nevertheless, studies show that sexual infidelity is widespread, and "anumber of commentators have pointed out that an affair actually may benefit a marriage...

...It is at the center of most current sex education controversies...

...and offers lots of hints on improving your techniques...

...Not to worry, assure the Perrys, "these new lifestyles...

...The text explains how to masturbate and how it feels...

...IMPLICIT VALUES The New Sex Education by diane ravitch Although some parents still adamantly oppose any kind of sex education in our schools, opinion polls have shown repeatedly that a large majority of them favor it...

...tells how to "come out" if you are gay, how to have homosexual sex, and how to meet other gay people...

...They include every imaginable kind of Diane Ravitch, adjunct associate professor of history and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, is theauthorofTheGreal School Wars: New York City, 1805-1972 and The Revisionists Revised: A Critique of the Radical Attack on the Schools...

...In the event they don't know the slang words, Kelly includes most of them in the text...

...For those who "adhere to a more traditional moral code," such practices as divorce and remarriage, group marriage and swinging may seem like "evidence that the moral strength of our culture is decaying...

...The readers are told they can help the couple make their decision...

...Yet we continue to read of communities embroiled in bitter disputes over sex education, suggesting that there may be grounds for even an intelligent, open-minded, enlightened person to have doubts about its present form...

...Education is usually thought of as a process leading someone to new knowledge or understanding...

...unexpected emotional involvement...

...shows in six easy steps how to use a condom...

...Have students give you lists of slang words they know for each of the proper terms...

...sexual activity to prove that everything is acceptable, that anything two (or more) people do to each other sexually is good as long as it feels good...

...Most parents appear to expect their children to be taught the dangers of premature sexual activity, and to be encouraged to exercise responsibility and restraint in the face of peer pressure...

...Of course, the Perrys are not altogether wrong, and they may actually be on to something important when they say that the new lifestyles are an adaptation to "the changing demands of modern life...

...Learning About Sex by Gary Kelly is such a textbook used by young adolescents, probably (to judge by its oversimplified language and condescending tone) eighth and ninth graders...

...One work that concerns family issues in detail is John and Erna Perry's Pairing and Parenthood, used by high school seniors and college students...

...The view that there is no right and wrong, normal or not normal, comes through undiluted in a chapter called "Different Strokes for Different Folks...

...Textbooks of the new sexuality have two constants: first, that where sexual practices are concerned, there is no such thing as right and wrong...

...Swinging is not "infidelity," they hold, because the people involved are honest with each other...

...venereal disease...

...There is always some shaping and directing involved on the part of those who teach...

...Its practitioners speak disparagingly of merely teaching human reproduction and providing information about venereal disease and contraception, calling this "the plumbing...

...They think their children are being taught the dangers of premature sexual activity and the importance of the family to a life of happiness and fulfillment...

...InChanging Bodies, Changing Lives Ruth Bell, a member of the Boston Women's Health Collective, nicely captures the spirit of peer pressure on behalf of her book's liberated views...

...We expect teachers to say that racism, sexism, theft, drug use, and murder are unacceptable, even though they are widespread in human experience...

...The Perrys quote a 16-year-old girl who advises, "Maybe you should ball first, then talk, then ball again...

...Frankly, it would be difficult to see how teenagers could spend a semester reading how to do it right, how good it feels when you do it, and how meaningful the experience is, without wanting to try it as soon as possible...

...While other authors occasionally cite research studies as their authority, she quotes teenagers to show how they feel and what they want to know...

...Since the focus of their book is marriage and the family, the Perrys' ideas on fidelity bear thinking about...

...These activities, they say, "are generally viewed as a means of satisfying sexual needs for diversity...

...The case for sex education rests in significant measure on the hope that it will curb certain modern problems resulting from increased sexual activity among teenagers, particularly venereal disease and pregnancies that lead to abortions, illegitimate births or unwanted marriages...

...second, that "sex roles" identified with being masculine and feminine are learned behavior, and there are probably no real differences between men and women other than in the shape of their sexual organs...

...Hans H. Neumann, medical director of the New Haven, Connecticut, Department of Health, wrote in the May 24, 1982, issue of Medical Economics that, "instead of teaching young people how to avoid an unwanted pregnancy and its consequences, we're teaching them that the joy of sex is their human birthright...

...In this emerging society, the family is an anachronism from another age, because it is made up of persons, not positions...

...Instead, the focus is on encouraging young people to think through what to do in a given situation, since what is right for one person may not be right for another...

...On the plus side (drawing of happy young woman), sexual activity outside of marriage is a way of experiencing "the pleasure of sexual sharing...

...Is it appropriate for the government to teach its citizenry how to masturbate...

...can be considered attempts to modify traditional marriage—to adapt it to the changing demands of modem life, rather than to destroy the institution...

...This is bad because "guilt doesn't help young persons to feel good about themselves...

...What they are getting, in an unknown number of districts, is a course in the new narcissism...

...feeling good about your body...

...There are other reasons to wonder about the new sex education, not the least being its setting within compulsory public education...

...Nothing is left to the imagination...

...Think of opinions for and against Kathy and Kenny going "all the way...

...Then there are the liberated textbooks...

...For while few who are not involved realize it, there is today a new, very different philosophy of sex education...

...The educators are liberating young people from the idea that marriage requires sexual fidelity, too, thus preparing them for the new society in which sexual partners can be exchanged as readily as corporate managers change jobs...

...Still others prefer sexual intercourse with animals: "There are no indications that such animal contacts are harmful, except for the obvious dangers of poor hygiene, injury by the animal or to the animal, or guilt on the part of the human...

...There has been concern as well that the new sex education encourages sexual activity...

...Like the other books, it makes a strong argument against "sex roles...

...learningabout sexual functioning...

...One former advisor to a Planned Parenthood program, Dr...

...they try to remove any sense of embarrassment or guilt about sex, and to demonstrate that once-forbidden activities are actually quite commonplace...

...We all know from Holden Caulfield and other adolescents how difficult communicating is for teenagers...

...deepening the sense of intimacy and caring...

...Students are also encouraged to share with others in the class how they feel when they touch their body all over, and how they feel when they have some "alone time" and think about their bodies, their sex organs, and their sex drive...

...The Perry book uses poll data to persuade its readers that premarital sex and extramarital sex are commonplace...

...In sex education, the new notion is to go with the flow...

...The latest report from the National Center for Education Statistics is that nearly 50 per cent of all high school seniors take a sex education course, although there is no way of knowing how many of these use the "old" or the "new" approach...

...if human beings do it, then it is natural and right...

...The only dangers lie in possible physical injury to another person or in forcing a partner into acts in which he or she does not wish to participate...

...One exercise suggested for the teacher is to write on the board such terms as "penis, vagina, intercourse, masturbation, etc...

...In fact, readers are told, one study " concluded that the institution of marriage cannot satisfy all of the needs of both spouses, and that marriage partners often are pleased that they do not have to satisfy every whim of their mates...

...and "learning about sexual responsibility...

...For the students, Kelly lists the pros and cons of "sex outside marriage...

...In their effort to demystify sex, they offer explanations of how certain activities are performed and illustrations of, say, an erect penis, or the vagina of a spread-eagled female...

...I cannot do justice to Coleman's fascinating analysis of "the asymmetric society" in this short space, but I think the implications of the new sex education for his concept are clear...

...to reassure them that infidelity is widespread...

...Some of Kathy's friends "mentioned the risk of pregnancy, venereal disease," etc., but another friend "felt that sex strengthened a relationship...