Star Tribune & Sex-ed
Katherine Kersten of the Star Tribune has gone and done it again. This time, in an article entitled "Shakopee's sex-ed program is a throwback to the 1880s," Kersten attempts to criticize the way sex-ed has become too clinical and moved away from a romatic or love-focused position.
She begins by attempting to shock us all by asking: "Should 11- and 12-year-olds be placed in a mixed-sex classroom where they are shown videos featuring images of naked males and females in various stages of development, a bra and a tampon, an infra-red demonstration of an erection, and a live birth?" As if this was supposed to scare us. I remember taking 'health' in middle school where I was shown such things. It was some of the most effective birth control for me, anyways. Kersten can't believe that such things would be shown to children. She states that the boys and girls should have been taught in separately and that this clinical approach "stripped sex of its larger context of meaning and beauty." I move to question: What meaning are you referring to? Is Kersten speaking of the ability for both partners to have orgasms? Or is she referring to the beauty of knowing a partner intimately for extended periods of time? Or is she referring to abstinence until marriage where the sex probably sucks?
The remainder of the article focuses on the book "The Repeal of Reticence" by Rochelle Gurstein where Kersten tries to make the argument that sex-ed programs that continue to utilize a clinical approach are really the ones with the 'old' and 'outdated' views. She states, "Proponents of 'sex hygiene,' as it was called, started with the premise that the myriad problems related to sex -- venereal disease, prostitution, out of wedlock births, unhappy marriages -- were the result of a stuffy Victorian prudery." With this statement, I would agree that such prudish views (like those that Kersten holds) are the reason programs like abstinence-only education are so highly used and so highly ineffective.
Kersten continues: "Reformers advocated using clinical terms to speak of sex. It was a bodily function, they said, which must be treated no differently than digestion -- 'the slow churning of the stomach.'" I disagree with this analogy, however I can understand why it was utilized in that manner. She states also, "Reformers also insisted on extricating sex from old-fashioned moral concepts such as love, modesty and fidelity. Viewed merely as a means to health and happiness, they maintained, sex would bring joy and delight, not stigma and shame, says Gurstein." I maintain that sex can be removed from ideas like love, modesty and fidelity. I do not believe that women should be viewed as 'dirty' or 'immodest' because they have had sex outside of the bonds of marriage. Everyone's views and feelings about sex should be respected (I of course omit pedophiles, rapists, and the like). When sex is not idolized or made into something connected to god or parents, it becomes possible for individuals to enjoy themselves without worrying about going to hell or feeling guilty towards others. The goal of sex shouldn't be merely to procreate or solely for the pleasure of men. With such a "clinical" approach, I would argue that individuals can learn about their own bodies and how to gain pleasure during a sexual encounter. They would also learn about others' bodies and understand how others gain pleasure. That doesn't sound so bad to me.
Kersten, however, argues that by the early 1900's, "love had become 'disenchanted.'" "Joseph Wood Krutch of the Nation magazine also lambasted his former colleagues among sex reformers. Scientific descriptions of the body -- such as two lovers 'quietly sweating palm to palm' -- tend to dissolve erotic love into 'a sort of obscene joke,' he wrote in 1929. The poor modern lover knows so much about 'the world of metabolism and hormones,' added Krutch, that he has lost the ability to fall in love without feeling foolish." I am a firm believer in love. I know its out there. What Kersten seems to be suggesting here is that sex equals love and vice versa. I think anyone can agree that one can have sex without love and one can have love without sex. When love and sex come together, that can be an amazing thing, but they are most certainly not synonymous or even close to the same thing. She argues that "the clinical view of sex has...brought spiritual, emotional and psychological impoverishment. Instead of joyful, carefree, sexually emancipated young people, we have world-weary Cosmo girls...and confused, unhappy 13-year-old Brittany Spears look-alikes."She concludes by stating that "sex-ed programs have helped to trivialize sex, emptying it of mystery and romance." I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want any mystery when it comes to sex. I want to know about my partner's body, likes, dislikes, personality, everything.
Please read the article and let me know what you think! A few friends and I think she should be replaced. Here is a little reminder of the shit she writes.
Shakopee’s sex-ed program is a throwback to the 1880s
By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune
June 17, 2008
Should 11- and 12-year-olds be placed in a mixed-sex classroom where they are shown videos featuring images of naked males and females in various stages of development, a bra and a tampon, an infra-red demonstration of an erection, and a live birth?
That's what happened recently at Shakopee Middle School, some parents told the Shakopee Valley News. The parents said that their kids were embarrassed and confused. One boy pulled his shirt over his head so he didn't have to watch. A girl came home in tears.
Shakopee school authorities apparently view such explicit curricula as standard practice for sixth-grade sex education. But parents maintain that the information was too much, too soon; that boys and girls should have been taught separately; and that the school's clinical approach stripped sex of its larger context of meaning and beauty.
When arguments over sex ed arise, school authorities often dismiss objecting parents as woefully behind the times. Today's sex-ed promoters seem to view their work as cutting edge, bringing new openness to a previously taboo subject.
But could it be sex educators who are stuck in old, discredited ways of thinking?
The sex reform movement actually began in the 1880s, according to Rochelle Gurstein in her book "The Repeal of Reticence." Proponents of "sex hygiene," as it was called, started with the premise that the myriad problems related to sex -- venereal disease, prostitution, out of wedlock births, unhappy marriages -- were the result of a stuffy Victorian prudery.
To counter this, reformers embraced a radical new doctrine of "openness." They saw sex as a pure, natural act that religion and superstition had perverted, according to Gurstein. Sex would become wholesome again, they insisted, if people began to think of it in rational, scientific terms.
Reformers advocated using clinical terms to speak of sex. It was a bodily function, they said, which must be treated no differently than digestion -- "the slow churning of the stomach."
"When our thoughts and imaginations are used to the clean-cut precision of science," wrote one hopeful trailblazer, "obscenity will cease to exist among us."
Reformers also insisted on extricating sex from old-fashioned moral concepts such as love, modesty and fidelity. Viewed merely as a means to health and happiness, they maintained, sex would bring joy and delight, not stigma and shame, says Gurstein.
If extra-marital sexual relationships could be freed from restrictive social conventions, one reformer promised, they "will become candid, wholesome, and delightful."
It wasn't long before this grand vision of liberation lost its glow. By the 1920s, says Gurstein, some of the progressives who had spearheaded the new openness realized with dismay that they had opened Pandora's box.
They discovered, she writes, that love had become "disenchanted."
In 1919, the social critic H.L. Mencken, not exactly a sentimentalist himself, denounced with disgust the "deadly matter-of-factness" of the new way of thinking about sex.
Joseph Wood Krutch of the Nation magazine also lambasted his former colleagues among sex reformers. Scientific descriptions of the body -- such as two lovers "quietly sweating palm to palm" -- tend to dissolve erotic love into "a sort of obscene joke," he wrote in 1929. The poor modern lover knows so much about "the world of metabolism and hormones," added Krutch, that he has lost the ability to fall in love without feeling foolish.
Reformers' promises about the delights of emancipated love had also proven false. Walter Lippmann wrote sadly about the middle-aged men and women he knew who had been taken in by those promises. "Instead of the gladness which they were promised," he wrote, "they seem ... to have found the wasteland."
But "if you start with the belief that love is the pleasure of a moment," Lippmann added, "is it really surprising that it yields only a momentary pleasure?"
No blissful fulfillment
In 2008, the sex-reform movement has moved from Greenwich Village to our elementary schools. Sex without commitment has brought not blissful fulfillment but an epidemic of venereal disease and out-of-wedlock pregnancies.
The clinical view of sex has also brought spiritual, emotional and psychological impoverishment. Instead of joyful, carefree, sexually emancipated young people, we have world-weary Cosmo girls -- "50 Ways to Get Him to Commit" -- and confused, unhappy 13-year-old Brittany Spears look-alikes.
Sex-ed programs have helped to trivialize sex, emptying it of mystery and romance. "Openness," we've learned, has all the erotic power of a nudist camp. It's about as sexy as the co-ed bathrooms on many college campuses.
Today, many young people view sex as "no big deal." Romeo and Juliet's transcendent passion? They can't imagine it.
In the words of philosopher Allan Bloom, our young people today have "flat souls," "souls without longing." We have taught them everything except the true language of love.