Do Christians support sexual health education for teenagers

[Victory-N-Christ]

Sexual education covers a broad range of topics including:

· An understanding of sex physically and behaviourally

· How to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

· Symptoms of STDs and services available to offer assessment and management

· Sexual trauma eg rape, sexual harassment, resource centres.

· Pregnancy
This topic doesn't just apply to western nations but also to other regions such as Africa where AIDS is at an epidemic level.

I support it 100%!

 

[Dave-W]

No matter how a school tries to approach it, one side or the other (or both) will be unhappy with the approach and want their view proselytized.

Agreed. Even it it is just factual teaching without a slant, they will want their slant included or it is not good enough.

 

[Paidiske]

I've just been doing some reading today on marriage, and the changing attitudes to different aspects of marriage by Christians over the last few centuries. I paused when I got to the bit describing how, a couple of centuries ago, it was a live issue how much sex education the clergy needed to do with a prospective marriage couple, in order to ensure they knew what they were consenting to.

You know, you can debate what should be taught at school, and what at home, and so forth; but I'm really glad we're past the days when I might need to worry about whether the bride-to-be in front of me understands how babies are made!

 

[Fantine]

Here's something about the Catholic position:

[he Catholic Church's traditional teaching about sex education, especially as formulated by Popes Pius XI and Pius XII, is that it should not be primarily a matter of giving explicit information at all, but rather it should be a matter of inculcating modesty, purity, chastity, and morality, a matter of teaching the sixth and ninth commandments. Moreover, it should also be primarily a matter for the parents to impart privately in the home, not something to be purveyed and discussed in mixed classrooms of boys and girls at impressionable ages...And in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II takes up the same theme again, stipulating that especially in the heart of their own families, young people should be aptly and seasonably instructed about the dignity, duty, and expression of married love. Trained thus in the cultivation of chastity, they will be able at a suitable age to enter a marriage of their own after an honorable courtship (emphasis added). Thus, if there is anything than can rightly be called Catholic sex education, it cannot be anything else but an education in chastity imparted by the parents or in close collaboration with and in support of the parents.

Sex Education: The Vatican's Guidelines

 

[PloverWing]

I paused when I got to the bit describing how, a couple of centuries ago, it was a live issue how much sex education the clergy needed to do with a prospective marriage couple, in order to ensure they knew what they were consenting to.

I hadn't thought of that aspect before. How can a person be giving full and free consent in their vows if they haven't had good sex education?

 

[Dave-W]

I've just been doing some reading today on marriage, and the changing attitudes to different aspects of marriage by Christians over the last few centuries. I paused when I got to the bit describing how, a couple of centuries ago, it was a live issue how much sex education the clergy needed to do with a prospective marriage couple, in order to ensure they knew what they were consenting to.

A couple of years ago I was looking thru my mother's library. I found a small volume with a rather generic title and decided to open it up to find out what it actually was about. It turned out to be a 1940s primer (written for a prospective bride) on what sex was all about. It was written by a medical doctor; and I found his comments about writing the book more interesting than the book contents. He said that a scant 10 years earlier (mid 1930s) that text could not have been published; and he would have been arrested on obscenity charges for writing it, his medical license would have been revoked and a good chance he would have spent at least some time behind bars. He could not even allow his patients to read the content from his medical texts.

So what he had been doing for a few decades (that book was published after he retired) had been to write down the basics on loose leaf paper and give it to prospective grooms and brides, and told them to burn the paper after they had read and understood what he had written.

That was only 70-80 years ago that any kind of sex ed outside a medical classroom was strictly forbidden.

 

[RDKirk]

I hadn't thought of that aspect before. How can a person be giving full and free consent in their vows if they haven't had good sex education?

If they were farm kids, they knew how babies were born.

 

[PloverWing]

If they were farm kids, they knew how babies were born.

That's a good point; in earlier eras, a higher percentage of the population lived on farms. I'd still want couples to get instruction on the intricacies of human sexuality, which is more complex than that of animals.

 

[RDKirk]

That's a good point; in earlier eras, a higher percentage of the population lived on farms. I'd still want couples to get instruction on the intricacies of human sexuality, which is more complex than that of animals.

What do you mean by "intricacies of human sexuality" that any broad band of groups can agree about?

Once you get much beyond the basic physical actions common to mammals, you're into morality.

 

[PloverWing]

What do you mean by "intricacies of human sexuality" that any broad band of groups can agree about?

Once you get much beyond the basic physical actions common to mammals, you're into morality.

I'm talking about the kind of information you'd find in a book like The Joy of Sex -- enough information to help ensure that both partners have a good time in the bedroom.

Of course it involves morality. For that reason, I'd like to see parents and perhaps the church involved in sex education. As Paidiske said, we can have debates about the relative roles of parents, schools, and churches in providing sex education, and there are multiple places that good education can happen. Wherever the education comes from, I want new brides and grooms to have thorough information about what they're entering into.

 

[RDKirk]

I'm talking about the kind of information you'd find in a book like The Joy of Sex -- enough information to help ensure that both partners have a good time in the bedroom.

Back when "Joy of Sex" was first published, my mother bought a copy and left it on the kitchen table--knowing full well I read everything that came into the house.

But really...I would not expect a pastor to teach that book to couples. Ensuring couples have a "good time in the bedroom" is not a pastoral task, beyond assuring them that God is okay with the basic concept of "good time in the bedroom." He can use "Song of Songs" as a reference for that proposition.

Wherever the education comes from, I want new brides and grooms to have thorough information about what they're entering into.

That is 'way, 'way beyond sex.

Overall, sex in marriage is overrated by today's society.

 

[Paidiske]

For that reason, I'd like to see parents and perhaps the church involved in sex education.

I'd like the church to be able to stay far, far away from sex education, please. That would be a very highly fraught area, especially if we're talking about the education of minors. I don't need or want that headache.

Ensuring couples have a "good time in the bedroom" is not a pastoral task, beyond assuring them that God is okay with the basic concept of "good time in the bedroom."

I'm not so entirely sure about that. I am not sure about the best way to handle this - this may be one area where women working with women and men with men really may be better than being gender blind in ministry - but our culture sets many people up with assumptions about sexual relationships which are frankly unloving, and it may be part of the pastoral task to help untangle that.

For example, I think it's a pastoral task to stress the mutuality of all aspects of marriage, including sex. Many Christian girls, in particular, have grown up with the message that their sexual pleasure is bad, that their role is to give themselves to their man to satisfy his needs, and the men often haven't received any message that her pleasure is important.

That's just an example, but I do think it's more complex than saying "the bedroom isn't a pastoral concern," because sometimes, it is, actually.

 

[RDKirk]

I'd like the church to be able to stay far, far away from sex education, please. That would be a very highly fraught area, especially if we're talking about the education of minors. I don't need or want that headache.



I'm not so entirely sure about that. I am not sure about the best way to handle this - this may be one area where women working with women and men with men really may be better than being gender blind in ministry - but our culture sets many people up with assumptions about sexual relationships which are frankly unloving, and it may be part of the pastoral task to help untangle that.

For example, I think it's a pastoral task to stress the mutuality of all aspects of marriage, including sex. Many Christian girls, in particular, have grown up with the message that their sexual pleasure is bad, that their role is to give themselves to their man to satisfy his needs, and the men often haven't received any message that her pleasure is important.

That's just an example, but I do think it's more complex than saying "the bedroom isn't a pastoral concern," because sometimes, it is, actually.

So why did you skip over my last couple of statements in that post?

 

[Paidiske]

So why did you skip over my last couple of statements in that post?

I didn't think they were relevant to the point I was making?

 

[RDKirk]

I didn't think they were relevant to the point I was making?

So you took part of an exposition against which you could make your own point, which was then in alignment with the point with which I finished my exposition.

I cry foul to that mode of conversation. If there were parts with which you disagreed and parts with which you agreed, then point each of them out.

Picking out a sentence to disagree with and failing to acknowledge the point of the entire post--while making the same point-- is bad conversation.

 

[Paidiske]

I'm sorry, RDKirk, I didn't mean to do that. I thought you were making a separate point, unconnected to the previous point, and I was more interested in what I saw as the first point.

I saw your first point as a discussion of what a pastor might or might not address about the goodness of sex, and the second point as a reframing; saying that in fact, sex is not so important anyway.

While I might agree with the second point, it doesn't take away from the need for a pastor to work out what is appropriate to say.

If that makes sense?

 

[Dave-W]

I would not expect a pastor to teach that book to couples. Ensuring couples have a "good time in the bedroom" is not a pastoral task,

Actually, it should be.

If there are dysfunctions there, it usually will lead to other problems in the marriage and eventually can end in separation or divorce. So then the pastor is left to sweep up pieces of shattered lives. If he/she can address it early on, a lot of heartache and tsuris can be avoided.

 

[Dave-W]

I'd like to see parents and perhaps the church involved in sex education.

I'd like the church to be able to stay far, far away from sex education, please. That would be a very highly fraught area, especially if we're talking about the education of minors. I don't need or want that headache.

While I understand the sentiment, I have to agree with PloverWing. I think the church SHOULD be involved in that.

The bible certainly pulls no punches in talking about sex; and neither did the ancient rabbis of the first century (both bc and ad).

 

[Paidiske]

While I understand the sentiment, I have to agree with PloverWing. I think the church SHOULD be involved in that.

The bible certainly pulls no punches in talking about sex; and neither did the ancient rabbis of the first century (both bc and ad).

No, I don't think you do understand the sentiment. The line between sex ed and grooming would be very difficult to establish in a pastoral situation (again, assuming we're talking about minors).

I already have regulations about what I can talk about, how I can interact with children with whom I have a pastoral relationship. There is absolutely no way I want the minefield of trying to navigate sex ed. in that context. The scope for things to be misunderstood or go wrong is far too big.

Seriously! In a world where we're reeling from the clergy sexual abuse crisis, it is not a good idea to ask clergy to teach kids about sex!

 

[Dave-W]

Many Christian girls, in particular, have grown up with the message that their sexual pleasure is bad, that their role is to give themselves to their man to satisfy his needs, and the men often haven't received any message that her pleasure is important.

All of that in the face of the "education" received by the Apostles and Our Lord growing up in late 2nd Temple era Judaism. That teaching, common to the synagogues of the day and reflected in every Ketuba (marriage contract) from that time says this: Sex is a wife's right and a husband's responsibility. (and NOT the other way around)

The ketubim all had a section outlining how often the husband was expected to pleasure his wife, and that was enforceable by law. It was based on his occupation; and if he was independently wealthy, unemployed, or a shop keeper that had no "heavy lifting" kind of work, it was DAILY.