Did you realise that I am a “force for evil”? I didn’t, but luckily that has been rectified. I got an email recently, which informed me of this. My cor-
respondent, who signed his name as Sean, objected to my last column in support of marriage equality, the Sexed Up column in general, and me personally as a human being.
Sean doesn’t like me, which is his prerogative. However, that he felt the need to hunt down my email address to let me know is a bit odd and suggests a troublingly deep-seated commitment to his dislike. Yes, there are media people I disagree with all the time — some of them have even written in the hallowed pages of this very publication — but I doubt I would be bothered to send them an email outlining all the ways they had failed as a person. I’m lazy like that.
Now, I am not so optimistic as to think that everyone should like me. My closest friends would admit that I can be a pain in the arse and that I talk too much, too loudly, and have an annoying tendency to think I’m right. You could say I was passionate about certain subjects if you were being generous; or opinionated if you were not. Even my dog has been known to snort disdainfully in my direction on occasion — those occasions being weekend mornings when I don’t fancy getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to give her breakfast and belly rubs. But despite this, and many other flaws, I would not have considered myself as someone who “promotes sinfulness, immorality and the destruction of the family.”
Over the years I have had various reactions to this column, mostly positive. But of course, some have been negative. The objections have ranged from unkind remarks about my looks to complaints that I am responsible for child sex abuse and rape, which is obviously untrue and defamatory. But to be honest, I don’t particularly care that some random person dislikes me, or what I have written. I do, however, care about the fact that we still live in a world where sex is equated with sin, and that discussing sex and sexuality is seen as problematic in itself.
Sex, discussed in the abstract, whether in the pages of a magazine, on television, on a YouTube channel, or in the classroom has real world effects because conversations about sex help shape people’s opinions and actions. Any individual writer’s influence is necessarily limited, no matter how powerful the platform; but I also see myself as part of a broader movement promoting progressive views about sex and sexuality. In that sense I suppose Sean is right to complain that I promote “sinfulness”, since I don’t believe in sin, only ethics.
There are ethical ways to approach sex, and unethical ones — such as knowingly spreading sexually transmitted infections or coercing unwilling partners — but, in my mind at least, there is no such thing as sin.
There are also ethical and unethical ways to teach young people about sex — and unfortunately there are plenty of schools and organisations which are failing to live up to the standards we, as a civil society, are entitled to expect.
Last year a report by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at NUI Galway found that there were significant gaps in the way sex education is taught in Irish schools. Among the criticisms offered were that the use of formal language discouraged young people from asking questions; and that there was considerable inconsistency between how sex education was taught at various schools. Far worse, however, was that there was evidence of “serious instances of misinformation.”
These findings were not surprising. A November 2013 report by the Department of Education and Skills examined sex education in 63 schools and found “evident weaknesses” in 39 of them. While some students were given information on contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, LGBT issues and crisis pregnancy, others were taught abstinence or given no information at all, despite the fact that Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) is a mandatory subject.
One of the most troubling aspects is that some schools use external agencies to teach the RSE programme; and the quality of the teachers, and the information they give students, can vary widely. Some of these external agencies include groups such as Love for Life or Pure in Heart, which promote abstinence.
Some schools also use the book On Track: Direction in Your Life, which claims that condoms have a high rate of failure. On Track was written by Susan Scanlan, Linda Gorman and Carolyn O’Meara, who have links to Youth Defence, a group which not only opposes abortion, but also contraception. On Track, unsurprisingly, promotes abstinence and teaches that, “Casual sex, or sex outside the bonds of marriage, speaks a lie as we are removing sex from its appropriate context.”
I actually don’t have a problem with abstinence per se. It is a valid choice for some and one which (obviously) does indeed prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. However, it is certainly not the only choice. More importantly, teaching impressionable young people that safe sex does not work is a recipe for disaster. Let’s be clear: abstinence-only sex education has been linked to higher rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases in parts of the United States. To take one example, data from Mississippi, an abstinence-only State, found that teenagers began having sex earlier. This State has the second highest rate of teen pregnancies, the second highest rates of gonorrhoea and chlamydia infections, and the seventh highest rate of HIV infections. While abstinence is a choice, the fact of the matter is, most people don’t choose it. Even in Missisippi.
Several studies from around the world have found that young people who receive comprehensive sex education wait longer to have sex and are more likely to use contraceptives.
Despite this proven fact, some people believe that if we don’t talk about sex, teenagers — crazed hormones notwithstanding — will not be curious about it.
Just recently, parents in Toronto who objected to Ontario’s new sex education curriculum kept their children out of school in protest. Some schools reported that more than 90 percent of children were absent. The objections centred around aspects of the curriculum that clashed with religious beliefs; the contentious topics included gender identity, sexual orientation and masturbation.
You can’t turn someone gay by teaching them that some people are attracted to members of the same sex; you can, however, teach children that there is nothing wrong with same sex attraction, and therein lies the problem for many people. And while I suppose it is just about faintly theoretically possible that some teenagers don’t know about masturbation, by far the majority will have discovered it independently without necessarily knowing what it is called. Besides which, masturbation is completely safe and healthy. If anything, schools should be encouraging it!
As we have seen in recent months, the conservative and reactionary forces in our society have not gone away. Despite their claims of being bullied and silenced, religious groups and organisations have had plenty of access to our airwaves and broad- sheets and have played a significant part in shaping Irish public debate. And you know what: any group that promotes the idea that sex is sinful, that certain kinds of sexual relationships are inherently wrong, or that condoms don’t work is a force for evil.
I, on the other hand, am just an opinionated slapper with a keyboard. You can ignore me if you like, but you really shouldn’t ignore them.