Religion and Sex Education

There is an interesting story coming out of Canada today about the sexual education curriculum in Catholic schools. In the United States, the sexual education curriculum of public schools is enough of a problem, but in Canada they are taking it a step further. Public and Catholic schools will now be teaching the same sex ed material (the material is, however, subject to parent approval of when it is "appropriate" to be taught).

There are two important restrictive factors in this dynamic, one actual and one potential. First, the Catholic school board: "The Catholic school boards were not prepared to begin teaching children in Grade 1 the proper names for their genitals, nor were they prepared to tackle the issues of sexual orientation and gender identity in Grade 3." Interesting enough, this is the mainstream position in America. It honestly surprised me that a country would already be proposing to teach genitals at grade one, a step which I think could potentially be positive. The most commonly recognizes problem with restrictive sexual education is early pregnancy and STDs. However, there is another potential function of sexual education: understanding and acceptance.

Everyone encounters genitals, even in early life (though many people prefer to deny this). It is natural to want to know what they are and why they are there. Children have that natural curiosity. They are also not as heavily subject to moral "disgust," the sense that something should be repressed. They should be taught to challenge repression and to understand why repression occurs. Everyone has genitals, of one form or another. Teaching younger children makes them more aware of their body and prevents more awkward introductions to sexual education that occur later in life.

Sexual identity is an even tougher subject when it comes to schools. Sexual functions, organs, and identities all eventually become stigmatized. It is important to catch children before this occurs. Sexual organs make an individual aware of themselves. Learning about sexual identities makes children more aware of their peers, and more accepting of difference. Derogatory terms relating to sex become staples in the upper-elementary grades and onwards. Why should something so natural, something that people deal with every day in the real world, be allowed to mutate into something so stigmatized and strange? This question refers back to (some) religions and religious beliefs. This mutation occurs because of fear and silence. Difference is suppressed, silenced, and ignored. Reality is skewed, and children are prevented from learning simple concepts that are only stigmatized by external constructs.

This goes back to parents, as well. The article emphasizes the centrality of parents in the sexual education debate. Liberals, fortunately, want to include both Catholic and public school parents, a justified strategy. I am particularly glad that parents aren't able to designate the sex ed material, but merely the ages. I've always been perplexed by why it's believed that sexual education should be relegated to parents. Biology itself isn't relegated to parents, so why sexual education? Sexual education is, for some reason, treated like religion, an ethos that varies between households. However, the realities of sex and sexual activity do not vary between context.

Procreation is a constant, and the most central fact of life. Gender and identity stem organically from procreation, from the most miniscule fibers of who you are. Why repress? Why ignore? There is so much more to this topic, and even answers to these questions, but I've already gone a bit away from the article, and I should leave it here: We learn the senses, why we have eyes, and hands, and ears, from an early age. What is another body part or three?