THE DUEL
Teens should be educated instead of titillated 0
By Kathryn Marshall, The Duel
From the Put On Something Sexy Condom Flipbook. (CATIE.CA SCREEN SHOT)
Columnists Laila Yuile and Kathryn Marshall battle over the issues of the day. Winner of the last duel on the B.C. budget was Laila Yuile with 82%.
This week’s topic:
Are graphic flipbooks going too far in sex education classes?
While Laila does a good job describing the content of this controversial little booklet that has at least one set of parents up in arms, I recommend checking it out online to get the full picture of how truly inappropriate it is for children.
Except don’t look at it at work, because it definitely isn’t safe for work.
And if it isn’t safe for work, it surely isn’t safe for school.
This isn’t an educational brochure we are talking about. It’s not the type of pamphlet you’d get at our local walk-in clinic either. It’s a graphic book that, when you quickly flip through the pages, shows a cartoon man and woman getting it on. If a student were to bring something like this from home to school, the school would have confiscated it in a flash, with the kid landing in the hot seat at the principal’s office.
It begs the question: why on earth is this sort of sexually explicit, adult material being distributed to children in schools? Let’s keep in mind a 13-year-old was given this flipbook as a prize in his Grade 8 sexual health class. Porn for a prize!
The school has said that from now on they will do a better job of screening materials that are distributed by third parties to students. And to their credit, officials did manage to ensure some oral sex pamphlets didn’t make their way into the hands of these 13-year-olds.
The group that produces these booklets defended them for their educational purposes, and says the material is “straightforward” information.
Maybe the banana demonstration seems a little old fashioned, but this flipbook crosses a line. Kids should be educated about sex in school, not titillated with it.
Parents often have diverging views on what are the best ways to teach sexual education in schools. Let’s face it, with the Internet at their fingertips, we’re in a day and age when kids are exposed to far too much, too soon. But this doesn’t mean that schools should hop on the X-rated bandwagon and start handing out increasingly explicit materials to young teens.
Materials that are given to students at school to teach them about safe sex should be informative, age-appropriate and educational. They should aim to teach, not tantalize and glamourize sex.
Kathryn Marshall is a columnist, blogger and political commentator. Read her blog at kathrynmarshall.ca.
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