Sunday, March 15, 2015

Government Sexuality Ideology

SIECUS [Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States] argues that hurt feelings provide a further reason not to teach about sex within marriage as the preferred social standard.  It claims that the idea that sex is only appropriate in marriage "may prove particularly harmful to young people who are or have been sexually abused," because "it requires telling these students that the behaviors in which they have involuntarily participated go against society's 'expected standard.'  Such statements are likely to produce additional feelings of guilt and shame."  That's right: according to SIECUS, schools should not teach about reserving sex for marriage because it might make the victims of incest and molestation think that the sexual acts they were coerced into were somehow illegitimate.  What does SIECUS believe schools should do instead?  Assure victims of sexual abuse that they shouldn't feel bad because the acts perpetrated against them were simply the expression of a different set of values?  SIECUS's complaint is eerily reminiscent of claims by an earlier generation of SIECUS officials that the most traumatic part of molestation was that society disapproved of it.

John G. West, "Darwin Day in America: How our politics and culture have been dehumanized in the name of science," p.320

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