Sex education: a moral panic.
Earlier this year, my school informed me that we would be receiving comprehensive “sex education”. In my junior year. At this point, both I and most of my peers have either already had some kind of conversation about sex (i'll be it, a very limited conversation- I only got “the talk” on straight sex, as have most people) or we have some pretty basic knowledge from here and there. At the very least, there is infinite amounts of information about sex and completely free access to it online.
The point is, by now, we are in the know.
Now, I do understand that I shouldn’t blame my school for the lack of Sex education in quantity and in quality completely- as a matter of fact, they’re pretty much exempt from blame. Individual public schools don’t decide on laws preventing legitimate sex ed. In 2021, Arizona’s House Bill 2035 was introduced by representative Gail Griffin, requiring written parental permission for their children to participate in sex education, or broader instruction related to sexuality, in public and charter schools and prevents students in grades 1-5 from participating in sex education. There’s a lot of details to this bill, but the rundown is:
Arizona schools are not required to teach sex education or HIV education.
If a school chooses to teach sex education, it must stress abstinence.
If sex education is offered, curriculum is not required to include instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity.
If sex education is offered, curriculum is not required to include instruction on consent.
Parental opt-in policy
If sex education is offered, the curriculum must be medically accurate.
Sirens immediately went off in my brain when first reading the actual legislation. Unfortunately, this is not unique to Orwellian AZ. In fact, in many states, making sex ed medically accurate is not required. The point is, the attack on education is harming us on all fronts. It makes me wonder— do our lawmakers really care about the “safety of children,” like so many people claim?
