Brittany Voie Commentary: Knowledge Is Power When it Comes to Sex Education

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When I was in middle school here in Lewis County, a serious situation came up in a neighboring school district. It had been discovered that a group of high school boys had been manipulating middle school girls in their school district into performing oral sex on them. They had convinced these young girls to do this by telling them that genital contact outside of vaginal penetration was not, in fact, sexual contact. In essence that it “didn’t count” as sex — not in the eyes of society, nor in the eyes of God.

The number of young girls that had been convinced to do these acts to these older boys was shocking. So much so, that many local school districts and parents responded by having some very specific conversations with their young students. Because of this false information, these girls had unknowingly exposed themselves to sexually-transmitted diseases and potential health risks that they weren’t aware of.

These issues aren’t necessarily new — heck, our community experienced its own issues with sexual harassment and naive teenagers just a few years ago in the W.F. West “sextortion” issue that was uncovered. That’s just one more local example of how, when students don’t have solid information about sex, boundaries, and relationships, they can inadvertently end up in an otherwise avoidable situation. Knowledge is power.

There is no doubt in my mind that inclusive, appropriate, practical sexual education of some sort should be taught in schools. I mean, I think back to my own “puberty talk” in the fifth grade … I mean, sure, it was awkward — “Can anyone say ‘fallopian tube?” No. No, we cannot, school nurse lady — but I’m also really grateful because it wasn’t really a topic my own parents covered from a real factual perspective and I know grown men (and women, in some cases) with daughters in my own life who don’t know the difference between vulva and vagina.

I don’t think having a second source of sexual anatomy and basic info is a bad thing at all. Misconceptions about sex and healthy relationships abound.

And, the legislators who proposed the original Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) bill are responding to some very real data: The Healthy Youth Survey (HYS). If you haven’t seen the bi-annual data from self-reporting students, if you are a parent, you owe it to yourself to review this info. Students are reporting bullying, depression, and suicidal ideation at alarming rates. P.S. HYS data is public record — ask your school district for a copy of district-specific data to see what your child and their peers are reporting.

When I started hearing opposition to the CSE bill, the concerns I mostly heard were those that schools would be teaching children to be transgender or teaching children to be gay. “Sexual indoctrination,” was the battle cry. After reading the actual text of the bill, I think those concerns are catastrophizing the proposed legislation a bit — after all, none of those things are even mentioned in the text of SB 5395. “Transgender. Gay. Homosexual.” None of it is in the text of the actual bill.

The word “inclusive” is used. I think that’s where very conservative commentators are hanging their hat.

To me, inclusive sexual education doesn’t mean that anyone is teaching children to be any specific way — only that they understand that sexual contact, is sexual contact, is sexual contact. No matter what combination of genitals and body parts are involved. If we are only teaching children that heteronormative sexual contact is bad, we are failing to protect them from predators that would otherwise exploit their ignorance.

But that is not the same thing as teaching children to change their sexuality.



I think part of the problem is that “sex ed” is a very overbroad term, too. Sex ed in primary education as proposed is more about boundaries and consent (listening to words) than sex.

That said, I do worry about introducing some of these topics and concepts too soon. While I do think that sex ed in schools, overall, at an age-appropriate time and age-appropriate manner is a great thing, I worry that talking about these topics too soon will have unintended consequences.

I grew up a “tomboy.” I wore boy clothes until at least the 6th grade. I played football and hung out with boys at recess on the soccer field. My hair was fairly short off and on. Would a bill like SB 5395 have other students labeling me as “trans” simply because of the early conversations? Would that have been more confusing to me as a young student instead of letting me just be a kid?

Should some form of sex ed be required? I think so. Should parents be able to sit in and or opt-out of this education? Sure, I guess. This is America. Should sex ed start in kindergarten? Probably not. But talking about healthy relationships and preventing abuse, sexual or otherwise, should always be a forefront conversation with our kids. But this bill — SB 5395 — might need more work to return a little local control before additional common ground can be shared.

 

 

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Brittany Voie is a columnist for The Chronicle. She lives south of Chehalis with her husband and two young sons. She welcomes correspondence from the community at voiedevelopment@comcast.net.