sex education

Of birds, bees and captive audiences

July 22, 2009 by Véronique Bergeron 1 Comment

In my family, all the best discussions happen in the car. My son asked recently, as my husband and I were discussing the purchase of our house: “Why do you always talk about important stuff while we are driving to Grandma’s?” We laughed. It seems that the car is the only place where we can actually finish a sentence. Maybe even two. In a row.

Today I was driving the six kids and my oldest daughter was reading a parenting magazine article discussing pregnancy after 40. She asked me: “Mom, would you have a baby at 40?” “Not on purpose,” I answered. A snicker came from the back seat where my smart-alec of a son was sitting. “You mean you can have a baby by accident?” he asked cynically. That guy knows about the birds and the bees, you see. Without thinking I said “Yes, of course.” “How can you have a baby by accident?” He’s laughing even harder at this point. Obviously, our promiscuous sex-without-consequence worldview hasn’t got a hold of him yet: the guy knows where babies come from. I specify: “What I mean is that you can have sexual intercourse thinking you won’t get pregnant but you get pregnant anyway.”

So we drive a few blocks in thoughtful silence before he says: “So it means that every sexual relation doesn’t end up in pregnancy.” At this point, I am getting increasingly concerned about my oldest daughter’s eyes, who are about to roll all the way back into her shoulder blades. Nevertheless, she feels up to giving her brother a little bit about the birds and the bees. With a “duh” in her voice she says: “A woman can only get pregnant for three to five days every month.” My son got very quiet for a moment and asked: “So you can have intercourse knowing you won’t get pregnant?”

Silence.

“Did it ever happen to you?”

At this point, I was fervently hoping for a large pothole to swallow the truck, or maybe a bus to hit us. That’s when I reconsidered my pledge to never fib to my children about the facts of life. Relief came from my daughter — who had resumed breathing after turning purple — and hissed: “Dude, NEVER ask a lady that!”

His wife will thank her someday.

Sex, marriage and Meatloaf

July 12, 2009 by Andrea Mrozek 15 Comments

At first I saw this headline (“Why do pro-life activists oppose sex education?”) and thought–here we go: Another tirade on how pro-lifers are repressed and want to repress others.

But here the author actually spoke to Jill Stanek in attempting to answer this question. (BTW, I didn’t realize pro-lifers oppose sex education. But that’s a different post.) He doesn’t agree, but he reports. Groundbreaking.

After a discussion of sex, sin and how to decrease the number of abortions, the author asks pro-lifers this:

Question for my pro-life readers. Let’s posit that that more sex education leads to more premarital sex. Let’s assume for the moment that it also led to fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions. Would you accept more premarital sex if it meant fewer abortions?

That’s one heck of a mammoth and unsubstantiated “if”–but I’ll make the leap and say this. Yes, I would accept more premarital sex if it meant fewer abortions. There is a connection between sex and pregnancy, and if you are aware of this and willing to take on the responsibilities that come with sex, then be my guest. (Er, not literal.) If this sex-pregnancy link were firmly established in our culture it would inevitably lead to a whole lot less premarital sex anyway.

Very tangentially–I am reminded of Meatloaf. Yes, Meatloaf. When I spent summers up north Paradise by the Dashboard Light was played weekly at The Friday Night Dance. Funny song. Girl makes boy promise he will love her forever, even make her his wife (“wife”–what’s that?) before they “go all the way tonight (tonight)”. In the end he swears on his mother’s grave he’ll love her to “the end of time.” (And then starts “praying for the end of time so he can end his time with her,” but I digress.)

So I’ll end this post with another thought experiment–would we have as much casual sex if girls made guys promise they would marry them and love them til the end of time (“I’ll never break my promise or forget my vow” sings the boy in the song…) beforehand?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0ns8t9iQck]

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Brigitte adds: Strikes me as a big IF as well, but OK, let’s play along. This particular anti-abortion activist wants fewer abortions, and that’s pretty much it. I believe too much uncommitted sex is bad for young women, but otherwise I don’t really have a reason to meddle with what consenting adults do. If we could demonstrate that more premarital sex leads to fewer abortions, I’d be in favour of it. Mind you, if we could demonstrate that less sex leads to fewer abortions, I’d be in favour of that, too.

Health class

October 21, 2008 by Véronique Bergeron Leave a Comment

My husband has been away for the last couple of days and hoo boy, the guy sure pulls his weight around here. I didn’t look at the blog yesterday — in fact, I missed turning on my lap top altogether — and there has been some highly interesting posts and comments. I was thinking of elevating the discussion but I don’t think I have the mental capacity at this point. So here is a highly educating account of a discussion I had with my two oldest while washing dishes:

Oldest daughter (grade 7): We had Health class today.

Me: Oh yeah? What do you learn in Health class?

Oldest son (grade 6), interrupting: We learn about sanitary diapers in Health class.

Me: Aren’t boys and girls separated for Health class?

Oldest son, shaking head in consternation: no

Me: Can you tell me why grade 6 boys need to learn about sanitary napkins?

Oldest son: Uh… So they’ll know what to buy their wives once they’re married? Say mom, does dad ever buy you the wrong kind?

Me: I buy my own, thank you very much. What about you, oldest daughter, are boys and girls separated for Health class?

Oldest daughter: Yes, thank God. The girls talked about puberty but the boys were too immature to talk about puberty so they got the talk on nutrition and the Canadian food guide…

Me: Great. Can you bring back any hand-outs you receive in that class? I want to make sure they teach you the right things about sex.

Oldest daughter: Yes, my homeroom teacher said she wanted us to use the right vocabulary when talking about sex.

Me: I’m not so concerned about how they teach you to talk about private parts. I’m concerned about how they teach you to use them.

Oldest daughter: Mom, what’s herpes?

Me: Herpes is a sexually transmitted disease. I don’t remember it’s symptoms but you can avoid it by not having sex.

Oldest daughter: It can be transmitted to babies…

Oldest son, interrupting again: Why would babies have sex???

See, I had this plan about keeping my kids no older than 6 years of age. But I keep feeding them and they keep growing. The task of raising kids healthy in mind and body sure seems overwhelming at times.

“I didn’t know”

May 8, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Ok, so one blogger links to another and so it goes. Blaise drew my attention to Feministing, who both in turn drew my attention to Pam Stenzel.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ezYNWIDB0]

Now Feministing can say she’s lying and dangerous as much as she wants–but young girls are going to like her. Why? Because she can relate to them. A while ago, I admitted that as a teen or even university student, I’d have rather been dead than pregnant. First time now, I’m hearing an experienced counsellor say she sees this mentality all the time. But she doesn’t go on to say what I might: That it’s not the end of the world to be pregnant, let’s gain some long term perspective and help each other out… She says for a girl that age, unmarried, not done school, the options once pregnant are bad, worse and terrible. What she’s doing is conveying the notion that there is no “undo” button, something our friends at the condom companies understand, but our feminist friends do not.

Pam Stenzel will do well because she’s telling the truth. And Feministing can’t change that, even if she doesn’t like it.

P.S. Stenzel is bang on about the cause of poverty in America–and Canada–today.

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Tanya adds: This is absolutely a video every woman (mother or not) should watch the whole hour through. (YouTube provides it in 10 minute segments.)

Is abstinence politically incorrect?

May 2, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski 7 Comments

There’s something to be said for a well-phrased question, like the one posed by U.S. congresswoman, Virginia Foxx.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGMJsyN92kk]

“If you lead the people with correctness, who will dare not be correct?” ~ Confucius

Sex is a sacrament and not a commodity?

March 23, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Woah. Must be some deeply religious news source—perhaps a newspaper from the Vatican—making this recommendation:

Re-instituting the traditional Christian message on sex – it is a sacrament and not a commodity – would be a good place to start.

Not quite. The same paper reports high teen abortion rates: One in 23 teens in some areas have had an abortion. I must be jaded, because that doesn’t sound that high to me. It’s worth looking into the stats and figuring out very precisely how many women have had abortions. In Canada, 70 per cent of abortions happen before age 29. But how many are repeat abortions, which would change the number of women who have had one, and the rate. This is very important. Why? For accuracy alone, which is a good reason all by itself. The other reason why it’s important is that pro-abortion activists would like to “mainstream” abortion. It’s just so normal, why look! One in three women will have one before the age of 45. I highly doubt this statistic as cited by Planned Parenthood in the U.S. And as with so many of these finer points, it is critical to know the exact and correct number.As for sex education and abortion: I’m not convinced calling sex a sacrament will help (far too many don’t know what a sacrament is). But that it is not a commodity, not to be taken lightly, and to be avoided entirely as a teen: Why, oh why, is this so controversial in the public square?

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Just stumbled across this: This item suggests some women have repeat abortions. Up to five, in spite of sex education. Interesting.

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