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PM_ur_Rump t1_ix4ou97 wrote

I generally agree, with all of this, though still think it's funny how squicky people get about discussing sex with kids in general. Like, yes, nobody is teaching kindergarteners about safe sex or sex toys or positions or anything explicit about the act. But kids from a pretty young age are completely capable of learning about the fact that it's a thing, it's (usually) how they came to be, and that it's a very personal subject that they themselves have control over regarding their own bodies. The more educated kids are about sex, the less likely they are to make risky decisions or allow someone to "groom" or otherwise take advantage of them. Actual "groomers" love it when young people are uneducated in the matter. And as for the whole "why would an unrelated adult want to talk to kids about sex, that's the parent's job" argument, most sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by family members, not teachers. The teachers are more likely to stop it than family is.

It's weird how there is this major, almost ubiquitous, often risky factor in life that we often attempt to completely hide from children until they stumble through it themselves unprepared. All because people are either so afraid of being seen as the "creep" or "groomer" or so afraid of the idea that their children will be doing it themselves someday, which ironically, is something they also pray for in the form of grandchildren.

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Insight42 t1_ix6e0px wrote

In fact - we used to. Not in great detail, but we used to; it's pretty much what you said. I grew up in the 80s, which was this time everyone seems to look back on with crazy nostalgia. And some of the other similarly old people out there might remember this whole thing we had back then called an AIDS epidemic.

We had assemblies at school to talk about it. Videos in the classroom. All sorts of stories all over the media explaining that if you have sex, you have to be safe. Songs on the radio. Famous athletes, musicians - hell, your favorite cartoon characters were out there telling you about it. This led to a huge bump in sex ed all through the 90s (at least in blue states) which were well thought out and highly regarded. This was replaced during Dubya's reign in most places for abstinence only, but it very much existed prior to the backlash.

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