When a non-crazy parent — Alice Dreger — sits in on her son’s sex-ed class, taught by someone who thinks sex is, well…
Read it and weep. A taste:
The lesson Jerry wanted to impart? This: “You’ll find a good girl. If you find one who says ‘no,’ that’s the one you want.”
He actually said that. If a girl says no, “that’s the one you want.”
Silly me! I have been teaching my son that if a girl says no, you exit politely and get the hell out of her space.
Oh hell, one more morsel:
Ms. Thomas’s dire warnings continued: “It takes only one sperm to fertilize an egg. It takes only one act of sex to get pregnant.”
I wanted to raise my hand and blurt out, “Not if it’s anal or oral!”
[Very slightly NSFW art below the jump]
You get the drift. Dreger’s twitter feed for the last day or so is a hoot and a half too…or would be if it weren’t so damn depressing.
Dreger’s problem — or the East Lansing High School’s — is that the school has contracted at least part of its sex ed curriculum to the usual suspects:
The abstinence class is part of the district’s overall sex education unit. According to Fletcher, it is called SMART for Sexually Mature Aware Responsible Teens. It’s provided by an independent contractor working with Pregnancy Services of Greater Lansing, a group that counsels pregnant women to avoid abortion.
Lori Bolan, the administrator of SMART, said East Lansing has been using the program for 22 years to cover abstinence. She said it is fact-based using Centers for Disease Control statistics.
“We are trying to give them an option,” she said. “We’re just one portion of what the school provides.”
And yet, inevitably:
Bolan declined to provide the PowerPoint used in the class and the instructor’s name
This last report is from the local paper, which also seems to think the problem isn’t the crap material, but Dreger’s impertinence in giving it a public ridiculing, writing that her choice to live tweet was a shonde:
unfortunately for East Lansing schools, she found a spot with wifi.
In the end, this is yet anothe example of the perils of privatization. “Independent contracting” of sex-ed to anti-sex, anti women’s autonomy pressure groups is analagous to handing a donor a badge and a gun, or turning convicted criminals into product for processing in private prisons…and so on. Public goods — an accurately educated school population; professionally policed streets; socially agreed and imposed punishment and rehabilitation are not “luxuries” to be doled out to high bidders or motivated donors.
Or rather they are, but not in civilized societies.
Images: Photo of bee figure skaters (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) via bugeater.
Titian, Danaë with Eros, 1544.
kc
That’s appalling. And this is in Seattle?
I shudder to think what they’re teaching the kids in South Carolina.
Amanda in the South Bay
Bu “non crazy” I assume you mean “I’m totally ignorant of Alice Dreger’s history with the trans community.”
http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2015/04/alice-dreger-and-making-evidence-fit.html
srv
We wouldn’t have to pay for any of this if there were no public schools.
Villago Delenda Est
@kc: Not Seattle (although I don’t know if this bullshit is happening there, too). East Lansing, Michigan, which of course is the home state of the vile DeVos clan.
kc
This is the WORST. Reading the article, Jerry had plenty of sex, knocked up a couple of girls, but then decided to marry himself a pure chaste virgin, cause “that’s the one you want.”
Fuck a lot of Jerry.
beltane
@kc: In our sex-ed class the teacher told us that self-respect was the best form of birth control. This was in a NYC public school in the mid-1980s. Luckily no one paid any attention to that or anything else this teacher had to say.
Hal
Sometimes I wish we had a snap shot of what some of these abstinence only educators do in their bedrooms. I’ve just always had this belief that they are projecting their massive guilt about sex on to these kids all the while they are probably doing things in private that would make Dr. Ruth blush.
More likely, and even worse, they are trying to spread their own fear, disgusts and guilt about their bodies and natural human behavior to as many other people as possible. Sort of like and STD for the mind. It’s the equivalent of being afraid of your own farts.
kc
@Villago Delenda Est:
Thanks, I missed that.
Hal
I remember watching an abstinence only special on MTV in the 90s featuring a woman who I distinctly remember telling high school kids that if they had sex, they would get aids and they would die. Even my naive teen self knew that was nonsense.
The best part of the special was this young woman ranting about masturbation and lust, and how masturbation was like adultery. That woman was of course, Christine O’Donnell. Who knows what she’s like in private.
nancydarling
@Amanda in the South Bay: It’s good to see you posting again. Hope all is well!
dr. luba
@Villago Delenda Est: No, the De Vos clan is from Grand Rapids. Lansing is a much more liberal area (the last Democratic candidate for governor was the mayor here).
No idea what this is all about.
Neddy Merrill
I read, “Very slightly NSFW art below the hump.”
JPL
All I can say is wow. Decades ago when my sons attended public schools in the Dallas area, I volunteered a lot. The sons were in first and second grade at the time. The sixth graders were given the talk. The girls were given the talk by the school nurse when I happened to be in the building. The Principal saw me and said I want you to listen so tomorrow when I get phone calls, he;d have a witness. Pretty much the nurse said baggies don’t work. She explained that condoms work but only is they are used correctly. She also told the students that sometimes there is only one part of the body that loves them so they should choose their partner wisely.
The moral of the story is what the heck.. now we are teaching condoms don’t work.
also.. did anyone think baggies worked?
Roger Moore
@Hal:
Which probably meant you ignored everything else they had to say. This kind of thing makes a lot of religiously motivated “education” self-defeating.
Mike in NC
USA Today has an article on the First 100 Days of Republican misrule. What have they accomplished? (Hint: not much at all.) But over 3000 bills and resolutions have been introduced. Let’s assume half of them deal with obsessing over Sex in America — slut shaming, banning all abortions, dismantling public school sex education, defunding Planned Parenthood, etc. Our tax dollars at work.
Hal
@Roger Moore:
The problem is that everything they had to say involved guilt over sexual thoughts, insistence that sex was only “good” if it happened between married people, and a complete misrepresentation on the failure rates of contraceptives. Abstinence only isn’t rooted in a desire to stop teen pregnancy or STDs, it’s rooted in a religious ideal of sex as an inherently sinful act.
raven
God’s Loophole
All my life I’ve been good
Do what my mom and dad and God say I should
Go to church and Bible School
To live by God’s rule
So whatever people tell me
That The Bible tells me
I will do
Mike J
If you thought that Star Wars trailer was boring, have I got something for you! Three and a half minutes of me sailing so I could test out my gopro. Whoooo!
I suppose there’s a bit of heeling in there, and certainly a lot of water splashed on the cam. Still, this is just a random 3.5 minutes out of an hourish. The smartest mount I found? Screw the camera onto a clamp.
Might take out a laser this weekend and try for more exciting footage,
raven
@Mike J: I wonder if I should try to borrow one for my ride in a Cobra? Can you put them somewhere else than on your head?
mellowjohn
“I wanted to raise my hand and blurt out, ‘Not if it’s oral or anal.'”
https://youtu.be/j8ZF_R_j0OY
raven
@mellowjohn: I just posted it above.
srv
Thank god for a Catholic Education by 70 year old nuns.
They separated the boys and girls. Not talk of condoms and all that gear. Told the boys that girls were all sluts and would do anything to get knocked up and ruin our lives. Told the girls they were all sluts and that they would burn in hell if they didn’t wait until they were married.
And you think I’m exaggerating.
Cervantes
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Thanks, I was unaware of that aspect.
The author to whom you refer appears to take issue with Dreger”s new book but makes clear she has not read it. Have you read it?
Villago Delenda Est
@dr. luba: I didn’t make the claim for East Lansing, but for the state of Michigan. Grand Rapids…Gerry Ford’s town, n’est pas?
Mike J
@raven: I’ve got a chest and a head mount (and a stick), but honestly, the attaching it to a clamp is the most flexible way to go. Anything the clamp can clamp onto works as a tripod. I used a gopro mount that will turn 90° if you want to attach to the clamp. The gopro software gives you the option to turn the video 90° or ever flip it completely if the best way to mount is upside down.
I down converted that video to 720 because I didn’t want to spend all night uploading, but it was shot in glorious 1080p, and it could have gone as high as 4k. Just a pain to pass around 4k on the net.
mellowjohn
@raven: sorry. didn’t see you’d posted a link already. (ya beat me by a couple minutes!)
great minds think alike.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hal:
Which is one of the most fucked up things about Christianity, and has precious little to do (yet again) with what Jesus was talking about.
raven
@Mike J: If you upload it to youtube it gets encoded by the site.
ps I have a a flexible thingy that my iPhone fits in and a stick for that. I don’t want to spend my short ride fooling too much with camera(s).
raven
@mellowjohn: No need to be sorry at all, I thought it was cool!
mai naem mobile
I saw this yesterday from Dan Savages twitter feed. I assumed she was in the south and then I saw the Lansing deal. Frankly I don’t see why this sheet can be taught in a factual way. This is how it works. This is how you avoid x and y. Some religions don’t believe in it. There doesn’t have to be judgment brought in. Just facts. Jeezus. Why does everything have to be made so difficult?
Little Boots
sex ed. vaguely remember it. vaguely remember not really caring. it’s a thing, but sometimes I wonder if both sides care way too much about what is said.
jl
Dreger’s twitter account of the class is hilarious and disgusting and sad.
What an ineffective, useless and dangerous lesson plan that was.
People grow up and start to have sex with each other, because, hey, surprise, they are people! And condoms are useless, so why bother? That’s what will happen. Idiots and/or hideous grifters thought up that garbage.
On some level, a jackass can argue that some of Dreger’s commentary was unfair and tendentious about saying that boys should want the girls who say ‘no’. But Dreger’s right because she is in touch with how normal people emotionally process things. The instructor was not.
The stupid lesson was dangerous. You get some idiot up there telling emotionally gripping and dramatic stories about all the damn ‘premature grown-up’ reality show adventures he had irresponsibly drinking and smoking and screwing, kids will want to irresponsibly drink and smoke and screw around. How utterly stupid and out of touch with kids those dopes are. Unbelievable.
Edit: I hope she keeps up her commentary revealing this dangerous incompetence and, maybe, fraud. School gives her problems, I hope she sues the crap out of them
srv
@Mike J: Better
Mike J
@raven:
That’s why I went with the clamp. When I’m sailing both hands and my feet are busy. Clamp it on somewhere and forget it until there’s a calm downwind leg, then you can move it to a different vantage. The gopro isn’t a shooter’s camera.There’s no viewfinder, no monitor. You just point it in vaguely the right direction and hope for the best. Practice (which you won’t have the option for) is the best way to shoot with it. Still, it’s tiny and easy to set and forget.
Little Boots
@mai naem mobile:
now religion class. oh, that has landmines all over it. would be very interesting if actually taught.
raven
@Mike J: Yea, the cockpit of a gunship may not lend itself to that.
Woodrowfan
Only if you attach them with duct tape…
jl
@Little Boots: You can compare the results of places that have decent sex education and places that don’t. You can compare the results in places that have decent driver’s ed and anti-smoking education and those that don’t.
So, if you care about the effect of what goes on in school on the probability that your kids wreck themselves in various ways, you should care a lot about it and make a fuss if the school screws up.
raven
@efgoldman: In my high school they would make the girls kneel on the floor and if their skirt didn’t touch they’d be sent home.
jl
@Woodrowfan: You put an aspirin and some coca-cola in the baggie, works every time.
Little Boots
@jl:
if the world was ever so awful as to allow me to have kids.
but good point.
Gravenstone
@Villago Delenda Est: Apparently they forgot all about that admonition to go forth, be fruitful and multiply? How do they think that happens without, ya know, sex?
jl
@Little Boots: thanks for taking my grumpy comments well. I am grumpy today for some reason.
Probably because a lull in GOPer presidential run announcements and I want something really funny to laugh at.
dr. luba
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep, sorry, noticed that after I posted. But please, don’t tar all of us with the brush of the DeVos clan. Grand Rapids, where the churches outnumber the bars. There this kind of bullshit makes sense.
But Lansing? The mind boggles. It’s not like the state doesn’t allow real sex education. WTF is going on there?
JPL
@Woodrowfan: ouch
WaterGirl
@Mike J: I loved the first half when I could see more of the water. Seeing the expanse of water and seeing the water spray up like that was really wonderful. I could feel my breathing slow and I felt calmer just “being on the water”. thanks, hope there will be lots more.
WaterGirl
@raven: I had no idea we went to the same high school!
raven
@Mike J: Ah, I missed the clamp link, nice.
Woodrowfan
@jl: ah yes, I remember the old “Coke douche” urban legend.
As a friend of mine once said, “If have sex with a condom is like taking a shower in a raincoat then I have GOT to start taking my showers wearing a raincoat!”
Woodrowfan
@Gravenstone: adoption.
Little Boots
@jl:
don’t worry. there’s still Lindsey.
oh, come on, Lindsey, come on.
raven
@Woodrowfan: The Fugs – Coca Cola Douche
jl
BTW, what are those ‘ice skating’ balloon bees in the top photo doing? That is pretty NSFW too. Looks like one bee has skated up real smooootttthhhhh like into the behind of the other.
At this rate they will be putting little pants on piano legs and every table will have to covered to the floor with a table cloth, lest the phallic hints of any elongated rigid object will give our precious youth depraved ideas. I read some Victorians actually did that stuff.
I’ll start a little side business making table cloths and piano leg pants that will take kids minds off sex. At this rate, there will be a demand from adult idiots who are in charge of normal children. (edit: that’s not a joke. Remember Ashcrroft covering up the chaste but shapely little boobs on the olde tymey statues at the Justice dept? So dumb.)
Maybe Ashcroft was jealous, he having neither chaste nor shapley moobs.
Little Boots
this place goes so quiet, so quickly. it’s kind of amazing.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: The Fugs were great.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’m sure as hell going to keep an eye on what goes on in our children’s schools after reading this. She’s right. If liberals don’t make a stink, the only people who will be making one are the conservatives.
Little Boots
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
watch out for the clinton tapes.
Cervantes
@efgoldman:
Send home? Maybe. Discourage? Frequently.
In those days girls were even advised by some particularly vigilant authorities to carry beads or small pebbles in their purses: throwing these into still puddles would create ripples, making surfaces less reflective and thus safer to step over while walking in the company of boys or men.
One might have thought that such caring and careful authorities would never engage in, or condone, abuse of any sort. One could not have been more deluded than to think so.
NotMax
Like you I once was wild.
Men shouted, “Oh you kid”
A life of shame I led
And dirty doings did.
Until one night I saw the light
And heard salvation’s call.
(mimics trumpet) Ta da da da da da da da da da…
I’m so glad I didn’t hear it
Until I’d done it all.
– Letitia Primrose’s song,”Repent” from On the 20th Century.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@mai naem mobile:
Because even a lot of otherwise liberal parents freak the fuck out at the thought of their little Brittney or Tyler having THE SEX! They would rather have their little darlings scared out of doing it than have to think about it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Looking around twitter, it seems the question of the day for GOP candidates is “Would you attend a gay wedding?” Marco Rubio would, Rick Santorum would not.
jl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Yeah, things were so ‘different’ back when they were kids, it was OK. The marijuana was weak tea, no weird sports drinks with booze and caffeine that could kill you, no social media spreading dangerous stuff, and back then having sex was different because…. well just because, that’s all.
So, people spout crap like that, and let the kids go do whatever as soon as it’s legal to let them go out by themselves and then get all shocked if shit happens after they wasted time spouting hypocritical BS instead of teaching their kids something about life.
dogwood
I taught high school for 35 years in a red county in a very red state, and I always marveled that we didn’t have these sex ed issues. Parents had the right to opt out, but the numbers opting out were very small. The course was taught by a terrific public health nurse, and it was frank. Demonstrating proper use of a condom was required. It always surprised me that there wasn’t an uproar over this stuff, but I think the professionalism of the instructors and the rapport they had with students insured that everyone was comfortable. The only right wing moral crusade we ever had was a demand that the librarian not allow students access to the swimsuit edition of SI. That made it all the way through the process to the parent advisory board who listened politely and then sided unanimously with the librarian.
Belafon
Tom, I like the description at the bee picture:
jl
@dogwood:
Glad to hear things were better back in the day. I think a lot of the reactionary fundie BS is scared bitter working and middle class white people who have been shafted economically and socially for the last 30 years, and are freaking out.
” not allow students access to the swimsuit edition of SI ”
Yeah, that was very important. I cannot imagine where else the kids could have gotten their hands on hard core adult porno like that.
And another thing: more schools had regular registered nurses who could spend a significant time at individual schools and make trouble over health education BS that they saw. Many of them are spread so thin now, or completely gone, that they have no say or impact at all.
dogwood
@Cervantes:
The first day of high school in 1969 my best friend and I were called to the principal’s office during the final class period and asked if the rumors were true that the pleated skirts we were wearing were actually culottes. We said, yes, and were sternly told never to wear them again. In was senior year, 1972, before girls were allowed to wear pant in this public school, and then only pant suits. We were all Hillary in those days.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Sigh. I’m having multiple computer problems. I can’t launch my Kickstarter until I have a web page I can put the first chapter on. I own melancholy-donkey.com and I have an account with Runbox that includes web hosting. Last Friday I tried to set something up. The How To they have said to use the Fantastico De Luxe on the main cPanel page; there was no mention of anything called Fantastico De Luxe anywhere. I managed to figure out how to get there, filled out the information to set up a WordPress install and hit “Submit Moderation Request.” I haven’t heard anything on that.
So I started figuring out how to do a WordPress install manually. I got all of the files. I uploaded them to the folder I wanted the blog to be in and then tried to run the install script. I couldn’t get to the page to do that. cPanel says I have all of the folders and permissions that I need, but I cannot connect to anything useful. I get different problems depending upon what URL I try to go to, but nonw of them work. melancholy-donkey.com gives me:
host01.runbox.net gets me a big “Sorry.”
Nothing works and it’s been 48 hours since I sent in a request for help that they haven’t responded to.
I’m also having an issue with loading web pages on my laptop. When I start Firefox, MalwareBytes says that it prevented a malicious website from loading but it can’t figure out how to get rid of whatever is causing the redirects. And every time I go to a new webpage, Firefox locks up and I get a message that some script has stopped responding. It’s really fucking annoying and I don’t know how to get rid of it. I’m installing Chrome to see if it has the same issues but I really don’t want to switch browsers.
dogwood
@jl:
“. . . back in the day”
You’re making me feel old. I retired in 2012. And the school hasn’t changed in the last 3 years.
Suzanne
When I was 12 in 1992, I lived in Mesa, AZ. We were taught that AIDS turned your skin black.
Fortunately, I had spent my earlier years on Long Island, and I knew gay people, knew the truth about AIDS, and wasn’t a fucking racist liar like my sex ed teacher.
Little Boots
no omnes?
Little Boots
no steeplejack? the hell.
lamh36
So the official full teaser trailer for Superman vs Batman is supposed to be released Monday, but ya’ll know social media don’t wait for no one…lol
This full teaser trailer has leaked to, of course, a comic book blog. Check it out if ya want to, before they take it down. The playback is dark, but still good enough to see most of it. Plus, as I understand it, Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be narrating a part of it.
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/588902077671337984
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.
roxy
I remember jr. high school in 1969 they offered sex education. They sent a permission slip home. My mom signed it and said they would be able to do a better job teaching than she would ever be able to. The teacher talked about birth control options, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual abuse. She and the curriculum was ahead of the times.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
finally.
and why aren’t you stopping that man?
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Which man?
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
that walker man
mainmata
@JPL: I grew up in Pittsburgh where baggies was an unknown term (except perhaps containers for food). What is their sexual meaning?
Omnes Omnibus
@mainmata: There is this from the classic song by The Time:
ukko
@dogwood: This would not happen to be in the same state as a giant dead lake full of salt?
If so, that was one thing back there that felt contradictory, the church ran things but the sex ed was top notch. Go figure.
JaneE
I used to think that what passed for sex ed when I was in school was short on facts and long on morality, but at least it was free of hypocrisy. And they knew that abstinence was a nice goal but not a realistic one. By the time I was in college, the standard good-bye for someone going on a date was “Be good. And if you can’t be good, be careful.” The freshman dorm was an excellent source of pretty accurate information about the various methods of contraception. Apparently now, elected representatives and professional educators are passing out the same information to students today as we discussed back then in the dorms. But back in the day, we knew their ideas as the punch lines for jokes, not anything to be confused with reality. And we wouldn’t have any man who thought that it was ok to have sex with girls, but wanted to marry a virgin.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@ukko:
I did not go to Catholic high school myself, but I was told by friends who did that the sex ed was extremely through as well. This was in the 1980s, FWIW.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): New Trier?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
New Trier is a public school. The people I knew went to Rick Santorum’s alma mater, Carmel High School.
You know Ricky’s not very bright because he didn’t go to Loyola Academy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: I know New Trier is public. I was just tying to figure if you were NT or one of the Glenbards.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Further north from junior high on, which is why I would know people from Carmel.
JDM
How do you make it last an hour?
Arclite
@Amanda in the South Bay: When I see a critique about a book, and the first paragraph contains the sentence “I have not personally read it,” I am disinclined to continue reading.
karen marie
@dr. luba: Perhaps supply and demand? The abstinence folks have their own programs packaged and ready to go. Any program that would be accurate would be fought tooth and nail by the local taliban, and would cost more because it wouldn’t be fanatics willing to work for free. It’s easier for schools – like everyone else – to take the path of least resistance, and cost.
Fred
@NotMax: Thank you for that lovely verse.
Even if we’ve learned the error of our ways, without our wayward youth we couldn’t be who we are today. It’s funny but I regret few things I did but regret so many things I didn’t do.
john carter
Maybe we could use a few “gun abstinence” classes in our schools (and churches?) in addition to quazi religious/right-wing extreme concern for the unborn – but not the already born?
“It only takes one bullet to kill.”
“It only take one clip to kill more.”
“Guns don’t kill People…”
“It only takes one irresponsible act of attempted murder to get yourself killed.”
Start one in your local school district now and avoid the sorrow.
I’m sure the NRA would love to teach that class nationwide! (/s)
Bobby Thomson
@Amanda in the South Bay: weak tea.
SG
@Mike J: Isn’t there a GoPro app that lets you use your phone as a viewfinder?
Interrobang
@Amanda in the South Bay: And this problem has precisely zip to do with trans* issues, and your source hasn’t even read her book, so I’m kind of wondering what the hell you’re complaining about.
Visceral
Poorly phrased perhaps, but the lesson that a young man should avoid “easy” women – on the assumption that she’s going to be just as easy for every other young man who shows interest in her – seems like a sound one to me. I also don’t think it’s more aggressive pursuit that’s implied behind “You want the one who says no”, but rather some old-fashioned courting if that’s the word: be her friend for longer, deepen your relationship with her first, and so on like that.
The real irony is that the actual he-man woman-haters out there would call these old-fashioned sexual mores as “unworthy” of today’s young women, and insist that a man who follows them is not going to end up with a solid marriage to a proper lady … but is instead going to spend his life in the “friend zone” while the woman he’s working so hard to get her to like him is getting plowed every night by thugs who could care less about her.
Annamal
@Visceral:
Do you think men can be easy and should be avoided if so?