This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. Ask any sane grownup in the world outside of Great Britain what would happen if you teach children about sex in school, hand them pamphlets saying they have a “right” to sex, never ever talk about abstinence or moral values, hand them condoms and send them on their way.
Well any sane grownup outside of Great Britain would say you’ll end up with a lot of pregnant teenagers. But inside Great Britain they’re stumped. Baffled even.
UK Telegraph reports:
While there are many theories as to how to tackle the apparent epidemic, interventions to date have proved bafflingly ineffective. Only last week, the Government abandoned it’s £5.9m Young People’s Development Programme, aimed at reducing the rates of teenage pregnancies, after research showed that teenagers who took part were actually more likely to fall pregnant than those who didn’t.
And there’s this:
A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a “right” to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.
And the fact that the government is not only anti-religion but also anti-values. Get this:
Parents should avoid trying to convince their teenage children of the difference between right and wrong when talking to them about sex, a new government leaflet is to advise.
Instead, any discussion of values should be kept “light” to encourage teenagers to form their own views, according to the brochure, which one critic has called “amoral”.
Talking to Your Teenager About Sex and Relationships will be distributed in pharmacies from next month as part of an initiative led by Beverley Hughes, the children’s minister.
So here’s what you got. A government that pushes sexual activity onto young people and pushes parents not to teach values to children. And what are they blaming? Britain’s prudishness and their class system.
Fr. Longenecker writes on Britain’s crass culture:
This was not my experience living in Britain. I didn’t find the British particularly prudish at all. On the contrary, by the time I left Britain I found them downright vulgar in their crude language, coarse television and film, and behavior generally. The British youths on beach holidays in Spain and Greece and France were known for the crudest kinds of public drunkenness and lewd behavior. The British tabloid newspapers featured nude pin ups every day, and the general coarse sexual behavior was taken for granted. Neither was it simply a crude lower class thing. The middle classes were just as immoral, they were just less public about it. The English middle classes simply got drunk on champagne and spirits rather than beer, and ‘had sex’ with whoever they liked behind closed doors.
Therefore both reasons for the present state of Britain are specious. The journalist never observes that the real problem of immorality is ummm, the lack of moral standards, and of course the lack of moral standards can only be sensibly maintained with a religion that teaches such things.
Now, over here in America we’re mimicking the worst in Britain’s culture. Think of how abstinence education is used mostly as a punchline by the elites in the media. And “values voters” are this strange exotic people in red states who the press must send reporters out to go verify like Jane Goodall visiting the chimps in the wild.
July 14, 2009 at 5:20 pm
It's part of a program to intensify sex education. Late last year the UK Schools Minister ordered that primary school pupils should for the first time have compulsory sex education from the age of five, ostensibly to curb increasing teenage pregnancy levels, the highest in Europe. Apparently it didn't work, so we have this. I suppose they are now considering further lowering compulsory sex ed from the age of five to two.
July 14, 2009 at 8:02 pm
It's the parents.
It's how they avoid talking about sex at all, or foisting sex ed responsibilities on schools, or teaching improperly when they do bother to teach. If parents communicated good standards through their own actions, openness to talk, and made their standards known to their kids, this would be something less of a problem.
The punchline about abstinence education? Well, we have, unfortunately, high profile cases in which young people didn't live up to it. It seems to run across the divides of religious/non-religious, rich/poor, and conservative/liberal.
July 14, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Todd,
Say her name. At least have the guts to be a man and say what you mean.
You and your ilk can't go three minutes without bringing up Sarah Palin.
Go back to the Daily Kos or whatever swamp you came from, mongrel.
July 14, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Maybe we could split the difference and have them talk about sex, but make it seem both boring and gross. Instead of "Now this is the most wonderful thing, and you'll be better the more you do it, but really think about whether you want to start or not, because it's a decision only cool, mature kids can make…"
We can just have:
"Dude! It's so gross. There's like, all these liquids, and smells, and, like, if you do it wrong everyone's going to know and laugh at you. Now let's watch 200 slides of brutal STD's."
July 14, 2009 at 10:27 pm
The US is definitely more prudish and puritanical than the UK at this point. No question or doubt here. The liberals of the UK have effictively divorced society from morality (ANY morality) over the past 20 years. Public displays of any Christian symbols are banned; even in hospitals run by church organizations. The term "partner" is officially used to mean either spouse, commonlaw spouse or same-sex relationship so as to be all inclusive. Good ridance to English culture. That is gone forever. What comes next is up for grabs.
July 14, 2009 at 11:45 pm
The only "sex ed" that primary schools need to give is of the cautionary sort: Molestation Prevention. The problem is that when children are taught about how something works, they think it's all right for them to do it.
Case in point: I learned about sex when I was 5 because an older boy wanted to "play doctor". I never told a soul. It wasn't until adulthood that I learned his parents had found out and shrugged it off as harmless experimentation by their middle-schooler.
A friend traced his gender confusion back to being raped by his female babysitter. He never told on her, but it led to shame and self-hatred. As a young adult, he attempted to confide in friends, but they thought he shouldn't complain – having sex was supposed to be every boy's dream.
July 15, 2009 at 2:15 am
"…And what are they blaming? Britain's prudishness and their class system."
Yeah, shows like "Benny Hill" exemplified that. Noted.
July 15, 2009 at 2:31 am
Todd's right! the only thing is, when parent's do try to wrest control and teach properly, in a context that allows a child to form his conscience and learn from his older and wiser parents, places like the UK ban it: it's called homeschooling.
July 15, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Homeschooling is not banned in the UK. What is happening is that the "all knowing" UN have a treaty on the rights of the child, which some jobsworth in the UK is trying to use to undermine parents rights. They want to now allow local government workers to interview a homeschooled child without their parent present. Probably to provide all the "sound" advice which their prudish parents hide from them…such as the leaflet entitled "How do I know if I have a sexually transmitted disease?".
July 15, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Rich,
that's technically true in the UK (is it banned in Germany?) What I should have said is I think the UK has a strong elements operating in the government that would like to ban it and certainly don't embrace it. Perhaps they're moving incrementally toward banning it, like you've just described.
July 15, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Arthur, keep it classy, pal. I was thinking of celebrities like Britney Spears and a few others who made a big deal of chastity pledges and professions, but who buckled under pressure later.
And as for Governor Palin, I do believe she married Todd before she had her kids.
July 16, 2009 at 8:12 pm
You have to love the expression "happen to FALL pregnant"….what? 1984 word police at work.