Last year my child's elmentary school offered a parent's night before they did sex ed classes for the students. It was for all parents to let us know what they would be teaching. I don't know if his middle school will do the same thing this year, but I hope so.

Also, even before the govenor signed the recent act it was mandatory that all students in 5th grade and up receive comprehensive sex ed including honest information about aids and stds. It's nice to live in a state where I don't have to reeducate my child about such things. I feel bad for kids in abstinence only states. I see alot of unintended pregnancies and doctor visits in their futures.

I'm beginning to think that schools shouldn't teach sex ed at all.

They should teach biology and epidemiology and basic hygene.

If in the process kids figure out how their naughty bits work and how to make responsible decisions... well, that's just the risk we take when we educate children.

Because that was quite possibly the stinkiest load of crap I've ever read.

Right-wing Authoritarian...usually

All of this is predicated on the assumption that sex is "bad."

Sex is good.

We need all the information we can get about it, starting from when we first ask, "Where do babies come from?"

Sex is a wonderful topic. An emotional topic. A loving topic. It's the center of most people's lives, really. From when we're quite young, until the day we die.

Why deny education about this most important of human existence?

Why are so many of us so askeered of it?

Our schools are already over-burdened with state-mandated subject requirements and "teaching to the test" pressure...they should be concentrating on subjects in which schools traditionally have the "expertise." On the other hand, there are plenty of alternative ways for kids to learn about the "birds & bees," so to speak, in various extra-curricular programs. The schools should stick to basic hygiene, etc. just as Trudy said. (I do think, however, that "The Movie" for pre-adolescent girls should be shown in a special assembly, for obvious reasons.)

Perhaps we ought to have more sympathy for all those in America who object to sex ed. Their values, as has recently been pointed out by everyone from James Davison Hunter to Dinesh D'Souza, are in many ways closer to those of Islamism than to those of liberals. The immigrants, to some extent, at least chose to come here.

Both the immigrants and the Christian fundamentalists see their culture as under assault, as an imposition of a hegemonic "unified sexual culture." The difference, of course, is that some immigrants are willing to adapt (at least, those participating in this RWA program). The fundamentalists, by contrast, see this as an invasion, and are resisting.

Personally, I disagree with their aims. I think this imposition justified--just as I think it justified in the Middle East. We liberals must be mindful, however, to be as sensitive to their values as we are to those of immigrants.

Sex ed IS biology, epidemiology, and hygene. Teach those comprehensively. There is no need to dub it "sex education," just, you know, "education".

Is there no room for pithy on Salon's letter pages anymore? Must everything be an only vaguely relevent self-righteous rant about a) circumcision b) breast feeding c) religion=evil d) abortion or e) how oppressed men are?

I thee a lot of pithy people in the Thalon letter thection, every day.

I don't agree with the idea that all sex ed topics should be taught at home (and not at school). I remember some of the misinformation that traveled my own middle school hallways... girls who thought they could take their friend's pill for a day and be safe, someone telling stories about using a sandwich baggie as a condom, and no reliable information about STDs. If only kids with parents willing to teach them have information, there will be a LOT of misinformation travelling around.

Girls and boys need to understand how to protect themselves, how to make responsible decisions, so that when the time comes, the big head can think more rationally than the little head.

I have enough memories of my own adolescence to know that I WILL NOT BE THERE when my children will need this kind of information. I don't want to raise them to live in a box. I can't monitor each and every conversation, interaction, kiss, and who knows what else, and I don't want to. I'd like to raise my kids to think for themselves.

I see good sex education for the masses as being akin to vaccination. The real protection comes not from individual people being vaccinated, but from the "herd immunity" effect, where the disease ceases to travel because so few people have it. In the case of sex education, the more kids who have reliable, accurate, up to date information, the smaller the chance someone will try to use a sandwich baggie and end up pregnant or with AIDS.

Trudy B has a decent idea there. The Right Wing Idiots have gotten away with tons of crap by making up misleading names. Look at the "Death Tax" nonsense. By making "Sex Ed" just another biology/hygene class, it'd defuse 90% of the people that object to sex ed and it has the added bonus of not being misleading, like the monikers the Right comes up with. It is biology and epidemiology and basic hygene. Call it that and most won't object.

....to teach sex ed. It's the parents'. If parents are too freaked out to talk about sex & puberty with their kids, then they deserve to made grandparents at an early age. When you sign on to be a parent, you sign on for the whole kit and kaboodle, even the stuff you'd rather not deal with.

I totally agree – calling it sex-ed makes it sound like we’re teaching technique in the public schools. What we’re really talking about are biology and basic health courses. Our schools just can’t skip the human reproductive system because some people are uncomfortable or it becomes fine not to teach all sorts of subjects that various communities find objectionable.