Rod Dreher Gives Himself the Vapors, Yet Again

Oh noes!  Sex Ed in KINDERGARTEN?

The culture is doom-ed!

Yes, Rod, sex education can start in kindergarten.  My kid, when she was in public school, had sex education classes in kindergarten.  I don't know what ridiculous fantasies have your trousers in a wad, but all this means is that once a month or so, the school counselor took them all down to the resource room and they sat in a circle and they talked about Stranger Danger; or on other days about how no one had the right to touch their bodies without permission.

Okay, Maybe It's Just Me...

I've been seeing this study popping up in a lot of blogoports lately: confused Americans, who confusedly thinking that 25% of America is gaygaygay, when the actual percentage of Americans who are gayoramic is 3.5%, or thereabouts.

Explanations for confusions? Maybe people can't count. Maybe people don't know what 25% means. Maybe those gay folk are just so sassy and flamboyant, you know, and in your face, that one of them SEEMS like several of them, and SO... well, we get confused. Whereas nice quiet straight people who don't make a fuss, who notices them?

Whatever. All I know is I started counting gay, lesbian, and bisexuals I am acquainted with, and while it is true it is probably not 25% of everyone I know, it is a pile more than 3.5% of people I know.

And it's not like I live in San Francisco, either.

Is what I'm saying.

How To Talk To Your Kid About Gay Sex

(Or anything else, really, but let's stick to gay sex.)

• First, wait until she asks.  The kid knows when the kid is ready to talk about the issue.  So don't cleverly bring up the point -- "Sweetie, see those two guys over there?  Guess what they do when they're alone?"  No, no, no.  A time will come, probably when you're watching Dr. Who or Will & Grace together, when she will say, "What?  What did he just say? What did that mean?"  Right then.  Now she wants to know.
  
• Tell her only as much as she actually asks about.  No, really, don't get into issues of position and tools and I will not go on.  My kid was, I think, five, when she first asked. I believe her first question was something on the order of, "What is a lesbian, exactly?"  (This had to do with the fact that at her charming public school kindergarten the five year old girls were calling each other lesbians at the drop of a hat -- like if one little girl held hands with another, ooo, LESBIAN!) I said, very easily, that, well, you know how mama loves daddy?  Well, some women love men and some women love women, and that some men love men.  Lesbians love women, and gay men love men.  That was all I told her then.
• When she asks for more, tell her more.  Tell her where she can get more information if she needs it.  Provide links and books and warnings.  (I tell the kid not to open any link that says over 18; I tell her why, too -- here's what might be beyond those links, here's what could happen if you do.  Don't be mysterious.  Give them the facts.  Bear in mind they'll be on their own a lot, and linked up a lot, too, when you aren't there.)
• Tell her what her friends get taught, and why.  This is where I haul out my patriarchy lectures.  Why are her friends using gay as a bad word?  Why aren't her Pentecostal friends being taught anything about sex at all?  (They can't even use the word!) Why doesn't anyone in her class know anything about birth control yet?  (Most of them aren't even really certain where babies come from, or how it happens -- or at least they weren't, until my kid led a seminar behind the oak trees one recess.)
• Wait until more questions come up, and answer those too.  Act calm, even if you're panicked inside.  The way you treat sex is the way she'll treat sex.  Everything you say she takes to heart.  

Update: Oh, wait, I forgot one really important bit: actual examples.  As when my kid said to me, how come we don't know any gay people?  And I said, well, yes, sweetie, we do. (Here I gave examples.) It's only that gay people are not really very different from straight people, so you haven't thought of them any differently. 

Then I'm afraid I taught her the term gaydar (because she asked, how, if straight people and gay people weren't very different, one could tell them apart), which cracked her up.

We Don't Need No Sex Education

Okay, well:

Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin's five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign...

I just seriously don't even know what to say about this.

The problem obviously isn't her having the kid -- I'm pro-choice.  She's a woman, even if she's 17, and I'm hoping the decision was left up to her (I'll keep my doubts on that score to myself).

The problem is -- five months pregnant? How are we just now dealing with this?  Why is Bristol afraid to tell her parents about this before now?  What kind of family values do we have in this house?  What kind of judgment have we been teaching our kids?  Also, how's this seventeen year old not being taught about birth control? (Or is that something Ms. Sarah Feminist for Life Palin also doesn't believe in?  Was Bristol supposed to Just Say No?  Did she get the Abstinence Only Sex-Ed?)  

Also, what kind of tool is John McCain, who claims he knew about Bristol's pregnancy (yeah, I believe it too) and chose Palin anyway.

I could go on, but I'll leave further objections to the class.

Abstinence-Only Sex-Ed and The Right

Re my post on Wehner a few days back, see also this, from LG&M. It's a post on the recent small rise in teen pregnancy rate, which might well be connected to the Religious Right and its push not to allow sex education of any sort which doesn't teach kids to just say no.

Scott says:

The Heritage Foundation helpfully calls blaming abstinence only education for rising teen pregnancy rates "stupid" (they prefer to blame the women themselves). But it's not stupid. It doesn't take much to be able to see that there might - just might - be a connection between not teaching kids how to use a condom and a rising pregnancy rate.

He's got a nice chart and some links over there too.