Brain Damage for Wisconsin Students...

I've not written anything for a little while due to having a six year old running around like a madman, but he's gone back to his mother's house, so I'm back. I also have a Wisconsin induced headache.

Recently a state law was introduced to ensure that Wisconsin teens can receive age-appropriate sex education and information on how to not get infected with sexually transmitted infections. You'd think that it'd be pretty cut and dried, right?

Nope.

It appears that the education has come too late for somebody as Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth has already caught stupid. Now I don't want to sound harsh, (Oh hell, yes I do. This schmuck has it coming) but this chump is effectively trying to sabotage the efforts of the schooling system, who are trying to ensure that the school isn't full of knocked up teenage girls.

The chump in question

The gist of this guy's argument is that the new law apparently promotes "sexualization and sexual assault" of minors, which many people (myself obviously included) are loudly calling bullshit on. There is already plenty out there that is sexualizing children, but the schooling system isn't on that list.

This new law dictates that sex education shouldn't only teach children about birth control, but also how to use it. If I'm reading this correctly, previously it was okay to teach high schoolers about the Pill as long as you didn't point out "You swallow it." Apparently, this is akin to "teaching children about alcohol use, then instructing them on how to make mixed alcoholic drinks."

This is why people are calling bullshit.

I hate to break it to ol' Scotty, but abstinence based programs haven't worked. Hell, the only study that has shown any evidence of abstinence only programs working showed that students that underwent abstinence-only sex education had sex one to two years later than expected, which you'd think is a success until you look at the details:

1. Given to 12 year old African Americans
2. Held on a Saturday
3. Delivers the message of "abstinence until ready," as opposed to the government-funded and woefully ineffective "abstinence until marriage"

VIRGIN!!!

Sorry, but I've gotta say that if you're willing to go to school on a Saturday voluntarily, I'm not sure of your chances of getting laid in the first place. Also bear in mind that the control group was TWELVE! Apparently, because a bunch of kids waited until they were fourteen to bone, this study was seen as a success.

So... getting back to ol' Scotty.... He's also claimed that the new sex ed removes parents and teachers from the decision making process of what's best for their children. The thing that a lot of people seem to ignore is that sex is EVERYWHERE.

And I DO mean everywhere

What this means is that the kiddlywinks are going to catch glimpses of it all over the place, but without the proper education, their explorations are going to be a lot more dangerous and probably end with more teen pregnancies and high schools rife with STIs. While I agree that parents should have more of a hand in their children's education, the sad truth is that the result of this is often one of three results:

1. Little, as the parents assume that their kids're gonna learn this stuff at school...
2. None, as the kids are gonna be told "Jesus doesn't want you to do that..."
3. None, as parents are going to assume that the kids are gonna learn from somewhere else any way, so why bother?

Very few parents give their kids the "Birds and the Bees" talk anymore and the result is that schools are taking over. Now I could see some of ol' Scotty's points, although a lot of them I disagree with, but when he claims that adopting these mandates will make his job as a District attorney more difficult by "converting objective human growth and development programming into a radical program that sexualises our children as early as kindergarten" I have to say that this guy is not trying to protect children but push his own moral agenda. He uses phrases such as "high moral standards" and appears to be claiming that anybody that wants their child to undergo a comprehensive sex ed class apparently doesn't have the same "high moral standards" as he and other evangelical folks.

Look, one way or another, teens are gonna find out about sex and hiding information about how to protect themselves from STI's and pregnancy is NOT going to stop them from getting down and dirty. All you can do is educate your kids and hope to hell that you raised them to be smart enough to know when they're ready.

Or introduce them to World of Warcraft.