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May 9, 2005
Much of the social history of the
Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what
worked with what sounded good.
Thomas Sowell
SIECUS is on the warpath. If it could have its way, abstinence
education would be outlawed. That’s right. While parents and
legislators are working to develop ways to restore healthy sexual
boundaries for our children, SIECUS is mustering its troops for an
all-out assault on abstinence education.
SIECUS has a better idea. As its name implies, the Sexuality
Information and Education Council of the United States is fighting to
regain control of the definition of “healthy sex” first set forth in
1964 when Mary Calderone left her position as medical director of
Planned Parenthood Federation of America to organize and lead SIECUS.
Fortunately for all of us, SIECUS has had forty years to spell out
what it wants our children to learn. At its initial press conference
on January 9, 1965, Mary Calderone set out their plan. SIECUS would
“perhaps take positions on problems of sexuality in America.”
On the surface, SIECUS assures the public it wants children to develop
a healthy respect for their sexuality. It even suggests that SIECUS
is “for abstinence,” too. But the devil is in the details. And we
can be grateful that its long-time executive director Debra Haffner
took time to spell out her ideas for raising teens.
A
passage from Debra Haffner’s article “Safe Sex and Teens” in the
September-October 1989 SIECUS Report is quite open about what
it wants for our children. “Colleagues and I have fantasized about a
national ‘petting project’ for teenagers….A partial list of safe sex
practices for teens could include: Talking, Flirting, Dancing,
Hugging, Kissing, Necking, Massaging, Caressing, Undressing each
other, Masturbation alone, Masturbation in front of a partner, Mutual
masturbation. Teens could surely come up with their own list of
activities.”
Based on magazine ads, movies and television…yes…teens “could surely
come up with” quite a list of sexual activities. But is that what we
want our children to do? Indulge in sexual promiscuity?
Even more amazing than the list of extracurricular sex suggestions
from Haffner’s article is the general premise of SIECUS that these
activities are a form of abstinence from sex. In fact, some creative
educators actually coined a special word for this brand of abstinence…outercourse…as
opposed to intercourse.
In the old days, before enlightenment by the likes of SIECUS and
Planned Parenthood, these “outercourse” activities were just the types
of activities that led many a teen into intercourse. If avoiding
intercourse is their true goal, one has to wonder why Haffner and her
colleagues felt that empowering teens to explore highly charged
eroticism is preferable to abstinence.
The history of SIECUS provides endless examples of this type of sexual
conundrum…having more sex to avoid having sex. In 1977, Time
began its article, “Cradle-to-Grave Intimacy,” quoting Mary Calderone
saying that a child has a fundamental right “to know about sexuality
and to be sexual”.
“Cultivating” the sexuality of children was of prime importance to
Calderone and others. Adopting a Kinseyan philosophy that children
are sexual from birth, few in this circle of “sexperts” saw any need
to restrict the sexual behaviors of people…and children. Their
concerns actually focused on repelling any attempts to limit or
restrain sex, seeing these as repressive and counter to human design.
In 1981, Calderone co-authored The Family Book about Sexuality
that asserted, “The major effects of such incidents [molestation] are
caused not by the event itself but by the outraged, angry fearful, and
shocked reactions of the adults who learn of it….It is these
immoderate reactions which may cause whatever psychological damage
occurs.”
Today, SIECUS guidelines for sex education are 112 pages long. Read
carefully. You will find Calderone’s and Haffner’s same philosophy on
sex underlying the core ideas of SIECUS and the activities they
recommend for children.
Is it any wonder that SIECUS would take offense at abstinence
education? Programs that encourage teens not to engage in sex and
that present information demonstrating abstinence until marriage is
the healthiest and happiest choice…SIECUS never has been fond of
limiting sex.
Knowing SIECUS is the surest way to understand the reasons for their
attacks on abstinence. And know this…it is also the surest way to
understand the value of restoring the natural definition of human
behavior.
Sex is a magical gift of bonding and procreation between a husband and
wife. Until then? For our teens? Abstinence is a choice that
protects and empowers.
Copyright © 2005 Jane Jimenez
May 2, 2005
Who Is SIECUS?
November 19, 2004 KINSEY: Brave New
World?
Reisman, Judith A., PhD.
Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences, 2nd. Ed. Crestwood, KY: The
Institute for Media Education, Inc. Available at
www.amazon.com
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