Retrospective: Pedophilia and Sex Education

"These filmstrips were not designed to be exploitive," insisted the Rev. Roberta Nelson, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Concord, Massachusetts, on Public Eye (10/08/97). "They were not designed to be erotic. They were designed to answer young people's questions." Young people (ages 12 and 13) who did not have questions, or urges, before seeing Rev. Roberta's films were likely to have them afterward, for the material included graphic depictions of gay and lesbian lovemaking, auto-erotic techniques and transvestitism.

As CBS host Bryant Gumbel noted, Rev. Nelson "has been involved with church sex education for some time," for 25 years, in fact. "I've trained teachers, I've taught kids," she said, "and the overwhelming response in our churches has been one of gratitude and appreciation for the open, honest conversation we allow." In the 1990s, intercourse and conversation have regained their explicitly sexual connotation, in the name of educating and protecting children, in public schools and churches alike.

"Sex happens," said one single mother who indicated she supported the "conversation" in principle, though not all the details. When does it happen? "Usually two, three months before they go to high school," commented another soccer mom giving her view of youth sex today. One wonders what is taught, and not taught, in such homes, and how much of the "teaching" is delegated to TV. "We're giving them information so they don't get themselves in trouble," say parents supportive of the sex ed curriculum, seeming to assume that footage of adolescent cross dressing and sodomy will keep them out of trouble. Church leader Eric Van Loon stated, "I think this program has brought tremendous good for a huge number of kids."

Parents were invited to enter their adolescents in the AYS ("About Your Sexuality") program by signing of on a permission slip that blandly stated, "the kids will see contemporary media images." "What would you make of that!" demanded one parent, outraged after the fact, a day late and more than a dollar short. This single mother and psychologist, the quintessential modern person, has become another "liberal who had been mugged by reality." But what of the urges and fears bequeathed to the children? Their lives will become the stuff of daily horror films that rot unseen in the sewer this culture has become.  (more...)

Retrospective: Pedophilia and Sex Education