Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Unfucking Believeable
So... some frigid bitch named Sara Dewitt gets her panties in a knot because her son's sex ed teacher actually taught the students sex ed, and now she's suddenly gotten a State Representative promising a bill to make such an outrage illegal.
From the article:
Puberty is a time of change, fear, awkwardness and emotionalism. It's when your children transition to adolescence while thinking they're now adults. They think they know everything, they don't trust grown ups, and they'll get away with every single thing they can.
There's two things you cannot do to people in this situation. One, you cannot trust them to their own devices on important matters. The cool students will repeat misinformation or make things up, and it will spread as gospel truth, with devastating consequences. Your child's real sex ed class would consist of such great advice as "You can't get pregnant the first time" or "You can't catch an STD from oral sex" or "You can use aspirin or Coke-a-Cola as birth control." Consequently, you get to watch teen pregnancy and STDs sky-rocket. Still, heaven forbid that middle schoolers should learn about s-e-x.
The second thing you cannot do to those middle schoolers is prohibit normal behaviors. They'll figure out that there's nothing wrong with doing it -- grown-ups do it all the time. And then they'll become determined to do it, because the grown-ups say "No." It's so true it's a cliché -- the children who grow up in the most repressed households become the biggest sluts in the universe, both male and female.
So, let's look again at the "crime" the unnamed teacher committed. She answered children's questions that, while not part of the curriculum, were part of the topic. She taught them. She educated. She did her fucking job. And a small gang of sterlized nitwits want to make that a crime.
Their argument is that the teacher went outside the approved curriculum. But -- why should any subject in school have a rigid box around it? Education is about exploring, going beyond the original lesson to find more information. An education should inspire its students to learn. What the students did in this case was no different than students in a history class on World War II asking the teacher to explain how and why the Great Depression happened. Can you imagine the ridiculousness of something like that being illegal, and landing the hapless teacher on a registered sex offender's list?
Oh yeah, that's right -- the douchebag sponsoring this whole thing wants to force teachers charged under this law to register. Just what we need. Fewer teachers for no good reason.
In context of the history argument above, do keep in mind that these same people wouldn't have a problem with outlawing any mention of Darwin in a biology class. They are limited, narrow-minded, stupid and useless. They cannot see that what they think they're doing to help their children by way of keeping them sexless and ignorant will actually push them to be sexually active -- and ignorant.
Here's an irony for them: Roe v. Wade was the direct result of exactly this Ostrich-like view of sex. After World War II, kids weren't really taught much about sex beyond basic biology; diagrams of the uterus and male genitals, explanations of what happens when Mr. Sperm meets Ms..., er. Mrs. Egg. (She'd have to be Mrs. Egg. Miss Egg was assumed to not have sex.) And that was about it. Consequence: an increase in unwed teen pregnancies, resulting in forced marriage or frantic trips to back alley abortionists. Girls died. Lives were ruined. Finally, one woman openly defied her state's abortion law, took it all the way to the Supreme Court and won. That anonymous woman, Jane Roe, fought back for all the tragedy caused by a close-minded attitude. The result was that logic and natural rights won out. On another front, the attitude also inspired the invention of Birth Control, another way to free young couples from the tyranny of unintended fertilization.
Again, this anti-sex attitude created the Gay Rights movement and led directly to the near to successful clamor for legal same-sex marriage. If, all along, society's attitude had been "Oh, we know there are gay people, they can go do what they want and as long as they don't force it on us we don't care", then there may never have been a need for any such movement or effort to create a unique identity. Indeed, at times where the gay issue really wasn't a major social concern because other problems were bigger (see the 1930s) there wasn't really anything resembling a gay community outside of Broadway Theatre. It wasn't because they were marginalized, it's because they were ignored. Watch movies made during the Depression some time; you'll find thinly veiled gay references everywhere, not as moral judgement, but just as part of society as a whole. It was during this era, after all, that Cary Grant became the first actor to ever use the word "gay" in its modern context on film. Contrast, twenty some-odd years later, Lucy Ball used the word "gay" in its old sense of "happy and delightful" on television. And, by this point post-war paranoia and McCarthyism had equated being gay with being a communist subversive, intent on destroying the American way. It had actually begun at the end of World War II, when lots of men in lots of units far and wide realized they preferred their own sex. When they sailed back to America, instead of going home they created new homes wherever they landed, which is why the big port towns -- San Francisco, Long Beach, New York, Miami -- became the nuclei of the first gay communities, which were secretly thriving by the 50s. This created the sense of gay community at the same time that gays were being openly persecuted for the first time in a long time. By 1969, they refused to take it anymore and rebelled. The Stonewall Riots, born of the sexless, close-minded attitude, exploded into the gay rights movement that has made their community a permanent part of the American community. Don't want your kids' teacher to talk about homosexuality? Don't worry. Your kids already know all about it and, chances are, they do not view it as the enormous evil that you do; they view it as just another facet of human personality, something they're either into or not, and something they don't feel a particular need to judge other people for.
Don't feel that need, that is, if they manage to grow up without their head up their ass, as the parents in this case seem to have done. The tiny slivers of mitigation are this: the school in question is in Utah, which is naturally quaranteened from infecting the rest of the country; and the Rep considering the bill said he would sponsor it in January. I hope this translates into: "By the time January rolls around, these rubes won't remember what they're so pissed about, because the next big scandal will happen, so I can conveniently grandstand now and do nothing later."
One can hope that he's crazy like a fox. And not just flat-out religiously insane, like the parents in this case, who should never have been allowed to breed in the first place.
From the article:
Wimmer said he decided to act after hearing this week from parents about an incident at Fort Herriman Middle School. The Jordan School District is investigating allegations that a seventh- and eighth-grade health teacher violated the sex education statute by responding to questions from students about topics beyond the core curriculum, including homosexual sex, oral sex and masturbation. [emphasis added]Oh, heaven forbid. Seventh and eight graders are around thirteen and fourteen years old. I know all the adults seem to have forgotten, but that's around the time (and earlier, nowadays) that the beast of puberty rears its ugly head. Suddenly, little Timmy is growing hair in weird places and having tingly feelings "down there" while Mr. Peepee suddenly starts to get big at inopportune times. Little Sally might start to not be so little anymore, or so fresh, and will suddenly start bleeding in her special garden one day. All of them will also suffer zits galore, awkward growth spurts, weird changes to parts of their body, and the rage of the rampant hormones. Girls will suddenly really start to enjoy riding a bicycle, and boys will start waking up feeling happy and sticky. Like it or not, most of the little boys will figure out how to masturbate, and once the first little girl in your kid's school figures out orgasms, all the other little girls will at least hear of them. They will fantasize about sex, and the secret objects of their desire will be whichever gender to which they're attracted. Yes, little gay and lesbian middle schoolers fantasize about the same sex, just like straight ones do about the opposite sex.
Puberty is a time of change, fear, awkwardness and emotionalism. It's when your children transition to adolescence while thinking they're now adults. They think they know everything, they don't trust grown ups, and they'll get away with every single thing they can.
There's two things you cannot do to people in this situation. One, you cannot trust them to their own devices on important matters. The cool students will repeat misinformation or make things up, and it will spread as gospel truth, with devastating consequences. Your child's real sex ed class would consist of such great advice as "You can't get pregnant the first time" or "You can't catch an STD from oral sex" or "You can use aspirin or Coke-a-Cola as birth control." Consequently, you get to watch teen pregnancy and STDs sky-rocket. Still, heaven forbid that middle schoolers should learn about s-e-x.
The second thing you cannot do to those middle schoolers is prohibit normal behaviors. They'll figure out that there's nothing wrong with doing it -- grown-ups do it all the time. And then they'll become determined to do it, because the grown-ups say "No." It's so true it's a cliché -- the children who grow up in the most repressed households become the biggest sluts in the universe, both male and female.
So, let's look again at the "crime" the unnamed teacher committed. She answered children's questions that, while not part of the curriculum, were part of the topic. She taught them. She educated. She did her fucking job. And a small gang of sterlized nitwits want to make that a crime.
Their argument is that the teacher went outside the approved curriculum. But -- why should any subject in school have a rigid box around it? Education is about exploring, going beyond the original lesson to find more information. An education should inspire its students to learn. What the students did in this case was no different than students in a history class on World War II asking the teacher to explain how and why the Great Depression happened. Can you imagine the ridiculousness of something like that being illegal, and landing the hapless teacher on a registered sex offender's list?
Oh yeah, that's right -- the douchebag sponsoring this whole thing wants to force teachers charged under this law to register. Just what we need. Fewer teachers for no good reason.
In context of the history argument above, do keep in mind that these same people wouldn't have a problem with outlawing any mention of Darwin in a biology class. They are limited, narrow-minded, stupid and useless. They cannot see that what they think they're doing to help their children by way of keeping them sexless and ignorant will actually push them to be sexually active -- and ignorant.
Here's an irony for them: Roe v. Wade was the direct result of exactly this Ostrich-like view of sex. After World War II, kids weren't really taught much about sex beyond basic biology; diagrams of the uterus and male genitals, explanations of what happens when Mr. Sperm meets Ms..., er. Mrs. Egg. (She'd have to be Mrs. Egg. Miss Egg was assumed to not have sex.) And that was about it. Consequence: an increase in unwed teen pregnancies, resulting in forced marriage or frantic trips to back alley abortionists. Girls died. Lives were ruined. Finally, one woman openly defied her state's abortion law, took it all the way to the Supreme Court and won. That anonymous woman, Jane Roe, fought back for all the tragedy caused by a close-minded attitude. The result was that logic and natural rights won out. On another front, the attitude also inspired the invention of Birth Control, another way to free young couples from the tyranny of unintended fertilization.
Again, this anti-sex attitude created the Gay Rights movement and led directly to the near to successful clamor for legal same-sex marriage. If, all along, society's attitude had been "Oh, we know there are gay people, they can go do what they want and as long as they don't force it on us we don't care", then there may never have been a need for any such movement or effort to create a unique identity. Indeed, at times where the gay issue really wasn't a major social concern because other problems were bigger (see the 1930s) there wasn't really anything resembling a gay community outside of Broadway Theatre. It wasn't because they were marginalized, it's because they were ignored. Watch movies made during the Depression some time; you'll find thinly veiled gay references everywhere, not as moral judgement, but just as part of society as a whole. It was during this era, after all, that Cary Grant became the first actor to ever use the word "gay" in its modern context on film. Contrast, twenty some-odd years later, Lucy Ball used the word "gay" in its old sense of "happy and delightful" on television. And, by this point post-war paranoia and McCarthyism had equated being gay with being a communist subversive, intent on destroying the American way. It had actually begun at the end of World War II, when lots of men in lots of units far and wide realized they preferred their own sex. When they sailed back to America, instead of going home they created new homes wherever they landed, which is why the big port towns -- San Francisco, Long Beach, New York, Miami -- became the nuclei of the first gay communities, which were secretly thriving by the 50s. This created the sense of gay community at the same time that gays were being openly persecuted for the first time in a long time. By 1969, they refused to take it anymore and rebelled. The Stonewall Riots, born of the sexless, close-minded attitude, exploded into the gay rights movement that has made their community a permanent part of the American community. Don't want your kids' teacher to talk about homosexuality? Don't worry. Your kids already know all about it and, chances are, they do not view it as the enormous evil that you do; they view it as just another facet of human personality, something they're either into or not, and something they don't feel a particular need to judge other people for.
Don't feel that need, that is, if they manage to grow up without their head up their ass, as the parents in this case seem to have done. The tiny slivers of mitigation are this: the school in question is in Utah, which is naturally quaranteened from infecting the rest of the country; and the Rep considering the bill said he would sponsor it in January. I hope this translates into: "By the time January rolls around, these rubes won't remember what they're so pissed about, because the next big scandal will happen, so I can conveniently grandstand now and do nothing later."
One can hope that he's crazy like a fox. And not just flat-out religiously insane, like the parents in this case, who should never have been allowed to breed in the first place.
Comments:
THANK YOU!!! You deserve a standing round of applause for everything that you said. I like your thinking
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# posted by 
: 12/6/08 11:06
: 12/6/08 11:06
