Good Girls Don't

Nadine Dorries MP has introduced a Bill proposing that girls between 13 and 16 get extra sex education. Specifically, that they are taught to practice abstinence. Chris Bryant MP adeptly took her argument apart but she won the vote by 67 to 61.

She started the debate by blaming the 60s, which is a sure guide that someone doesn't know what they're talking about. She then said that her Bill is about 'empowering girls'.

How does she propose to do this? Firstly, by misusing statistics as evidence that sex education isn't working. She says quite rightly that Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. She doesn't say that this has begun to fall. The latest data from the Office for National Statistics show teenage pregnancies are at their lowest rate since the early 1980s with the rate among under 18 year olds falling by 13.3% since 1999.

Then she switches to the tabloid-style tactic of seven year olds being taught to put condoms on bananas. Most seven years olds I know would eat the banana before the teacher had even got the condoms out. If that was actually happening, of course.

As the Sex Education Forum say: 'For children aged 3-6 years teaching is centred around issues like, ‘where do babies come from’ ‘why are girls’ and boys’ bodies different’ and ‘which parts of my body are private’. Learning about friendships, families, and changing bodies are also central to primary SRE'.

Dorries, like her friends in the tabloid press, conveniently ignores the 'and relationships' part of Sex and Relationships Education (SRE)

Instead, her Bright Idea is to teach teenage girls about the joys of abstinence - despite the fact that all the evidence shows abstinence teaching doesn't work and in some cases makes things worse as it leaves teenagers unprepared when they do inevitably have sex - as I've written about before.

Dorries has close ties with the group Christian Concern for Our Nation and her politics are highly influenced by her hard-line Christian beliefs. I looked at the latest round of religious propaganda about SRE here. Not surprisingly, organisations like the Christian Legal Centre and Christian Concern support her Bill.

Her Bright Idea applies only to young women. Not only are they the 'victims' of a sexualised society, they must now be the gatekeepers of teenage boys' sexual appetites. Just because this Bill was introduced by a woman doesn't mean that it isn't sexist.

Of course plenty of Christians are not misogynistic but the hardliners' idea of empowering women is to make sure that they walk up the aisle a pure virgin and even then only have sex to make more good little Christians.

It's not only sexist, the implication is that boys are little animals who can't control themselves and shouldn't even be expected to try. This is not a million miles away from the thinking that makes women cover their entire bodies so that men aren't distracted by lust.The more resourceful boys will just come up with a list of things to do with girls that 'don't count'.

It also denies young women the opportunity to explore and enjoy their sexuality fully equipped with the information they need to make safe choices. Because nice girls shouldn't even be thinking about sex. Sex is demonized as a dark and dangerous thing, trying to scare young women away from it. Dorries ignores the fact that some girls might be lesbians or bi. How will abstinence teaching work when they can't be scared off with the Big Bogey Man of pregnancy?

Today's news that 59% of parents don't want young children taught about sex isn't surprising given the amount of misinformation in the media and people like Dorries. When parents were asked at what age it was appropriate to teach sex education to children in schools, by far the largest number of parents (48%) said 13 or older.

The Sex Education Forum points out that 'there is strong evidence that young people who have sex education that starts early and covers a broad range of topics are less likely to have sex at a young age, have fewer partners and are more likely to use contraception or condoms'. Holland, France and Germany have much lower rates of teenage pregnancy. They also start sex education earlier than we do. Education is not the only factor in reducing pregnancy rates but this fact does seriously undermine Dorries' argument.

It's true that sex education in the UK is patchy. The law currently requires only that young people are taught the biological basics, schools are allowed to teach according to their (religious) 'ethos' and parents can opt their children out. There's a long way to go but hopefully when Dorries' Bill gets its next reading, more MPs will bother to turn out to vote it down. It is, as Chris Bryant said, 'the daftest piece of legislation that I have seen'. You can see which 67 MPs thought this Bill would be a good idea here.

Sex Education For Scouts

The Scouting Movement is going to teach its members about sexual health to try and combat the high rates of teenage pregnancy and STIs in the UK. The guidelines for leaders set out what's appropriate for them to teach and when they should get professionals in, as well as providing resources to help them.

The Scouts still insist that new members make a Promise to do their duty to God/Allah/My dharma and so on with no non-religious alternative. But the guidelines lay down that any teaching about sex and sexuality must be strictly factual and secular, whatever the beliefs of the Scout leaders.

The guidelines state that ‘As adults in Scouting, it is important that, regardless of our own faith and values, we offer appropriate guidance to young people. All young people are entitled to information and advice to allow them to make informed choices’ and ‘Whilst some Scout Groups are sponsored by religious bodies this should not be a barrier to providing appropriate advice, information and guidance to young people in line with Scout Association Policies’.

The Scouting Movement is sensitive to the beliefs of young people (and their parents) but its website pragmatically comments ‘Throughout history religion has provided society with a great deal of information about sexuality. Many of these societies subsequently used this information to create laws regulating sex. However, it is important that these laws are seen in their historical context’.

In other words, times change and the Scout Movement is taking responsibility for seeing that its members are not kept in the Dark Ages. It recognises the role of faith but it values and promotes the role of facts. It’s promising to see that their motto ‘Be Prepared’ now applies to preparing young people for this aspect of adult life along with the more traditional scouting activities. It's not indicated if they will get badge for it, though.

The factsheets can be downloaded here.

What is Love?

In July last year I wrote about a guide for parents by the Family Education Trust(aka Family & Youth Concern) about Sex and Relationships Education (SRE). Not content with trying to cause fear and loathing in parents, now they have written a leaflet for teenagers called What is Love?

The leaflet would be easily dismissed as the work of yet another small but vocal Christian group trying to impose their moralistic values on young people were it not being sent to all secondary schools.

For anyone unfamiliar with the FET, run by Norman Wells, it's a Christian organisation with a certain not entirely unexpected agenda. There is no mention of faith in the leaflet, however. Is that because the FET has realised young people don't like being preached at and is trying to be covert?

So what is love? In a nutshell, love is just saying no to the ugly sex until you are safely up the aisle. Or terrible, terrible things will fall upon you.

The leaflet is full of super advice. Here's a selection of it:

'First of all, we need to recognise that not all love is true. There is such a thing as false love and many people confuse it for the real thing'.

Because young people respond so well to being patronised... With any luck, most of them will stop reading at this point.

What is this false love? It's 'physical attraction, infatuation or lust'.

Just in case you've never heard of lust, there's a helpful definition: 'Lust is the longing to use another person for the fulfilment of your own selfish desires... You will never find love through sexual encounters based on lust. Lust will leave you empty, frustrated and unfulfilled every time'.

Just in case we can't understand that, there's a case study about Tom and Jen who spend a lot of time chatting online and texting and 'who find in each other the fulfilment of their sexual desires'. Call me cynical but I strongly suspect they are Made Up. It sounds to me like they're having a pretty good time. But no, their relationship is doomed to fail because they are being Selfish.

Poor Tom and Jen don't know that true love 'will last a lifetime', it is 'more powerful than the strongest feelings and emotions'. Huh? Love is not a feeling or emotion?

So what should they do? 'When you truly love someone, you will keep yourself exclusively for them. This is one of the reasons why sexual intimacy belongs in marriage'.

Here we go. The abstinence message. Once more, with feeling: all the evidence says abstinence teaching doesn't work.

The Government has been consulting on guidelines for SRE. The second reading of the Bill is on 11 February 2011. The consultation document clearly states that 'research evidence does not support the use of an approach to sex and relationships education that only teaches abstinence' and 'that schools should use a range of evidence-based teaching methods'. Has the FET squeaked in under the wire before the Government guidelines are finalised in case abstinence-only teaching is banned and no school would be allowed to use or distribute this leaflet?

SRE is not just about sex, it covers all kinds of relationships and how to negotiate them, how to cope with bullying, how to be a responsible adult and so on.

In the document for parents about sex education, the FET mixes propaganda with what I shall charitably call factual inaccuracies, such as: there is no good evidence against abstinence, that teenage pregnancies are rising therefore sex education doesn't work and should be abandoned, that there are moral absolutes, that homosexuality is not a 'normal and natural lifestyle'. The FET believes that 'young people do not need to learn about a wide range of 'sexualities' and sexual behaviours; they do not need detailed information about the full range of contraceptive methods and they do not need to be presented with a menu of sexual options from which they can make 'informed choices' when they feel they are 'ready' to become sexually active'. He adds that 'there are some sexual practices that it may be better not to know anything about at all, at any age'.

The FET policy is to treat young people like mushrooms - keep them in the dark and throw horseshit at them.

The parents' guide also states that: 'Modern sex education is characterised by a lack of honesty...'

That's an interesting definition of 'honesty' from an organisation that has a rather malleable relationship with the truth and evidence.

What's more, saying that sex belongs only in marriage and is only for reproduction isn't going to play too well with the very many children of single parents.

Research (as opposed to made-up stuff) shows that young people want honest, complete, fact-based sex education from people they trust, as Dr Petra Boynton has written about.

The message that postponing sex until you're ready is a good one but for most people, that won't be after they're married. Far better to teach young people how to negotiate sex so that it is pleasurable and safe rather than just telling them not to do it, which leaves them utterly unprepared when it does happen.

Not surprisingly, there is no mention of love between people of the same sex in the leaflet.

But what happens if we ignore you, oh wise ones?

'Where a sexual relationship is pursued to express passing feelings and emotions, it is ugly and destructive and will lead to misery and regret'. And of course you will get an STI.

This is starting to sound like a 70s teen slasher movie, the sort where a bunch of teenagers get together and anyone who dares to have sex gets killed by the possibly dead guy in the mask while the virgins survive. Maybe starring Jamie Lee Curtis.

Why do we need such sage words now?

'Young people today often expect to have a series of short-term relationships before they finally settle down with someone for life. Such casual relationships frequently prove to be a training ground for divorce rather than for happy and fulfilling marriages. But it hasn't always been like that, and it doesn't have to remain like that'.

Where is the evidence to back up these statements? It really isn't hard to look things up these days and get some statistics to back up your arguments. Except when they don't exist.

In what time and place were young people all chaste? In the Victorian era when the orphanages were bursting at the seams with illegitimate babies and an estimated 10% of the urban population had syphillis which, in one part of London, also killed 57% of infants? In Mediaeval times which needed legislation like the Special Bastardy Act of 1235? After the war when we were celebrating the survival of British Values? Compare the rates in 1945 with before and after here. Or maybe the FET is thinking about some other lost time and place, like Narnia.

Finally, there are some handy tips for finding true love. One of them is:

'It's a good test to ask yourself 'How does he treat his mum?' or 'How does she treat her dad?' It is quite likely that they will treat you the same way'.

This is deeply deeply creepy in many ways.

So hey kids - Don't do the ugly sex. Don't think about sex. Don't learn about sex. Sex is only ever to make babies after you get married. And don't enjoy it too much even then - which you probably won't if you've never learnt anything about it.

With any luck, the leaflets will get no further than the bins of schools around the country.

Balls to sex education

The government's plans for better sex education in all schools has been watered down by an amendment to the Children, Schools and Families Bill allowing faith schools to 'reflect [their] religious character' in the way PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) is taught.

The amendment comes after what the Catholic Education Service described as a period of 'extensive lobbying'.

The Schools Secretary Ed Balls is insisting that the amendment is not a watering down but teaching unions and the National Secular Society have condemned the move, saying that it betrays children in faith schools. These children are often the most in need of accurate, impartial information as devoutly religious parents are unlikely to give it to them.

In a letter to The Guardian, Balls writes that the legislation 'will not allow the teaching of homophobia'. Schools will have to 'teach the full programme of study. This includes promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of diversity. (...) what they cannot do is suggest that their views are the only ones. (...) The bottom line is that all young people should receive accurate and balanced information and discrimination is prevented in all schools'.

I've written before about what some hard-core religious groups think about sex education and while not all schools will be this extreme, it's hard to see how a school with a strong religious ethos will be able to fulfill both the legal requirement to teach the full programme and get its religious message across without these two aims coming into conflict. They may not 'suggest that their views are the only ones' but there are ways of presenting alternative views without giving them equal weight, making it perfectly clear what you think about them.

Teenage pregnancy rates have started to fall. Stats from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2008 pregnancy in under 18s fell by 3.9% and in under 16s by 7.6%. While that's good news, this is not the time to start introducing amendments that could risk them going back up again. And they are still some of the worst in Western Europe. Hard-core religionists are particularly keen on denying women the power to understand and control their own bodies. When it comes to sex education, knowledge is power. Young women should know, for example, how to avoid needing an abortion and, if they do need one, how to get it - without any judgemental moral overtone.

The Government pledged to halve teen pregnancies by 2010. Ed Balls admitted that "It was a really ambitious target - it was a 50% fall. I think it was right to set an ambitious target and it is going to be really hard to make that amount of fall. But it is not enough. I'm still worried about it and there is a lot more to do."

The current amendment doesn't look like it's going to help achieve this target, whatever he says.

Teaching teenagers about sex is hard enough as it is, as an excellent article on Scarlateen points out. Allowing religious schools to mix facts with faith will make it even harder for young people to get the impartial information they need to protect themselves and to explore their sexuality.

It may be problematic for teachers who are not used to talking about contraception, pre-marital sex, homosexuality and relationships to present the information well - even if their intentions are good. How will children be taught to use condoms if the school's stance is that contraception is a sin? At best, there will be a mixed message leaving them confused. A school may teach that homosexuals are equal under the law in this country but that, according to their God, it's a sin, against natural law. Which message will be stronger?

Some religious leaders are campaigning hard for schools' right to discriminate against gay people in employment, for the right to opt out of equality law - what message does this send to pupils?

Giving equal or greater weight to abstinence won't work either.

Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain called on the Government to withdraw the amendment, saying, “Children at faith schools have just as much right to information that could help them avoid an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection" but many religious leaders disagree with him.

PSHE is not just about contraception and STIs. Children and teenagers often have no idea how relationships work, when to have sex, whether to have sex, what kind of sex to have, how to talk about feelings, what to do about sexual abuse and so on. Many will just muddle along and be fine but many will not. Most teens worry at some point about being 'normal' and need reassurance.

The aim of PSHE is to teach more than just the mechanics of sex but there's a difference between teaching young people that they must be responsible, that acts have consequences, and loading them with moral judgements, fear, guilt, insecurities, doubt and prejudice.

We've already seen how the Catholic Church tried to prevent teenage girls having the HPV vaccine that could save their lives because, they said, it would encourage them to have sex. After protests they reluctantly allowed the vaccine as long as no sex ed accompanied it, thus leaving girls vulnerable to every other kind of infection, along with pregnancy. This does not bode well.

Are Catholic nuns going to be happy showing teenagers how to put on a condom?

Of course, it's not just Catholic schools that may be a problem and of course some faith schools will provide good quality PSHE but in some cases, while the head teacher and the school governors may be in favour of impartial teaching, individual teachers of strong belief may find ways to subvert that.

The Tories' position on the Bill is no better. Proposed Conservative amendments would strike the requirement that PSHE should 'endeavour to promote equality', 'encourage the acceptance of diversity' and 'emphasise the importance of both rights and responsibilities'. They would mean that schools would not be required to teach PSHE and also allow parents to withdraw pupils of any age from SRE (sex and relationship education).

Balls may think he has set up enough safeguards to protect young people and to ensure that they all receive an adequate preparation for adult life, but unless schools are closely and constantly monitored, how will he ensure that all children are being well served? If a teacher oversteps the mark, unless a pupil reports them, no one will know. Teenagers won't be able to judge the quality of the information they get, they may not know they are being sold short until they fall pregnant or get an STI - and may not recognise that they have one until they've passed it on.

And let's not forget that what are often described as 'Christian children' or 'Muslim children' (etc) are more realistically described as the children of Christian (etc) parents who have chosen what school to send them to. On the other hand, many (mostly middle class) parents send their children to faith schools thinking they will get a better education there. They may have liberal values and be keen on full sex education but the children won't be getting it. It's unlikely that many children will feel comfortable discussing sex ed with parents, who may therefore not find out what is being taught them. All privileges have losers and, in allowing religious schools this leeway, it can only be the children who lose out.

Finally, even in non-religious schools, the maximum age for parents to keep children out of sex ed classes has been dropped from 19 to 15. But by that age, many teens are already experimenting. The Bill is a step in the right direction but falls far short of making sure that all young people are fully equipped to understand and enjoy their sexuality.

Mark Steel has commented on the story here.

Too Much Too Soon - Fear and Loathing in Sex Education

Norman Wells of the Family Education Trust has written a guidance document for parents about the Government's proposed plans for sex education - now called PSHE - and has whipped up a predictable reaction in The Telegraph, The Mail and The Express.

The FET's website makes no overt mention of religion, it promotes 'family values'. But reading between the lines, it is clear where these values come from. Wells writes that sex is not intended to be just about the joining of two bodies together, but the joining of two lives. In the context of faithful, lifelong marriage, sexual intimacy expresses the total self-giving of a husband and wife to each other.

If sex is intended to be anything, who is doing the intending? Once the hand of God becomes clear, what follows is pretty inevitable.

Alongside the propaganda, there are a lot of factual inaccuracies, many of which appear to have been directly copied from the Christian Medical Forum's submission to BCAP that I wrote about recently (and also here). They both claim, for example, that there is no good evidence against abstinence, that condoms are not 100% effective and therefore should not be promoted at all, and that STIs and teen pregnancy are rising therefore sex education doesn't work. One of the FET trustees is Stammers - who wrote one of the papers the CMF cited in its submission.

It is true that STIs and teen pregnancy are a serious problem (although pregnancy is not as much of a problem as certain groups make out, as I mentioned in the previous link). It's also true that sex education is far from what it could be and that parents need to be much more involved and supported. This is hardly a new issue - anyone remember The Specials' Too Much Too Young? 

However. And it's a big however.

Wells' guidance is dangerously misleading. Its main target is not just the Government's plans for PSHE, it is sex itself. The usual mix of fear and loathing that has infected hard-line Christians since St Paul is in full flow here. Early on he says that behind plausible-sounding arguments and innocuous-sounding words there is a specific agenda at work to undermine the role of parents and to tear down traditional moral standards. Sex education is an ideological battlefield on which a war is being waged for the hearts and minds of our children.

This emotionally over-wrought opening sets the tone for the whole guidance. As if he doesn't have his own agenda. Frequent use of the word 'children' rather than 'teenagers' ups the emotional ante too.

Wells' three main points are:

1. Parents should teach children about sex
2. Sex should only ever happen within marriage
3. Anyone who suggests otherwise (including the Government) is destroying the moral fabric of society.

His concern is that making PSHE statutory in the curriculum would inevitably reduce the influence of parents over what is taught. His modus operandi is to scare parents that the Government (who let's face it, most Telegraph, Express and Mail readers did not vote for) is going to turn their children into rabbits - pregnant, infected rabbits merrily having abortions with the schools colluding to keep parents in ignorance until society comes crashing down around us. I am not exaggerating.

It is a parent's right, he maintains, to teach children about sex in accordance with their religious beliefs. That's the parent's beliefs, not the child's. They should have the right to take children out of PSHE classes.

Parents should speak about sexual matters with modesty and restraint.  If the child's entire education consists of the parent saying 'no sex before marriage' then that is all they will learn. Any misinformation the parent gives, knowingly or not, will be all the child has to go on. Presumably there will be some additional information on the wedding night about what goes where.

There is no need even to teach children the correct names for body parts because all parents talk to their children about their bodies when they wash and dress them from their earliest days and are well able to decide whether to use the proper biological terms or other names for their private parts. So it's fine for a child to grow up thinking it has a woo-woo? Or that 'down there' is something no nice child ever talks about, let alone looks at or - heaven forfend - touches?

Many parents do not feel confident or comfortable talking about sex and schools need to give them full support. However, the religious position is that this support comes from faith, not the classroom - unless schools are free to peddle the religious line too. Wells' main reason for wanting sex education to come from God (via the parent) is that this will instil morality, not facts. He rails against the Government outlines: there is no recognition of moral absolutes and... young people are not to be given any clear moral direction... there is no such thing as objective right and wrong. 

Well, that's because there isn't. Only the most religious believe that there are divinely handed-down moral absolutes. And what are these moral values? Homophobia is quite clearly one of them; it is casually strewn throughout the guidance as PSHE will, he claims, equate marriage with same-sex civil partnerships and ... assume that both types of relationships are of equal benefit and stability... it is almost certain that homosexuality will be presented as a normal and natural lifestyle choice.

So what should young people be taught?

Wells does not want them given any information they could use because it is not informed choices we should be aiming for, but wise, moral and lawful choices.  It's the old argument that if you tell them about it, they will rush out and do it. Even mentioning the word 'gay' will of course instantly turn a child from the straight and narrow.

Wells is so anti-choice it's not funny. Contrary to the prevalent view among sex educators, young people do not need to learn about a wide range of 'sexualities' and sexual behaviours; they do not need detailed information about the full range of contraceptive methods; and they do not need to be presented with a menu of sexual options from which they can make 'informed choices' when they feel they are 'ready' to become sexually active. Modern sex education is characterised by a lack of honesty, a lack of modesty, a lack of any moral framework worthy of the name, and a lack of respect for marriage as the proper context for sexual expression.

A lack of honesty? Is keeping young people in ignorance honest? Not only does it risk their health, it also means that they are likely to pick up what sex knowledge they do get in the playground or through experimentation.

He continues: Teenagers need to be taught that reproduction is one of the primary functions of sexual intercourse and sex should therefore be set in the context of a faithful, lifelong relationship (ie marriage), which provides the most stable environment in which to raise children. 

Wells believes that if parents teach about sex in a (Christian) moral, modest and respectful way, this will prompt young people to save themselves until marriage (that word 'saved' again). Abstinence is the only way. This stance is woefully ignorant of human nature and teenage nature in particular. A bit of a moral lecture, maybe some praying and some vague information about the mechanics of sex (if they're lucky) is hardly going to quench teenage hormones. And is terrifying them with the wrath of God really going to produce mature, healthy and responsible adults?

My particular favourite part of the guidance is there are some sexual practices that it may be better not to know anything about at all, at any age. Sadly, he does not go into any further details.

There is much more to say about this pernicious document. The excellent Dr Petra Boynton will be analysing it in her blog.