One Utah

It seems that the good folks of Herriman have their panties in a bunch over a teacher answering students’ questions. The teacher is apparently facing all kinds of consequences and Carl Wimmer (Republican of course) is drafting a bill to have criminal consequences for teachers who don’t lie to their students about sexuality as state law requires.

We’ll get to Carl Wimmer in a minute.

In the meantime, consider the Trib’s article, which says:

The Jordan School District is investigating allegations that a seventh- and eighth-grade health teacher violated the sex education statute by responding to questions from students about topics beyond the core curriculum, including homosexual sex, oral sex and masturbation.

Typically, the students involved are showing a great deal more maturity and common sense than the adults:

Thursday morning, students put up signs at the school supporting the teacher that read, “We were the ones asking her questions.”

At the risk of sounding like some sort of sexuality educator, those are normal topics to cover in an effective sexuality education class and adolescents are filled with questions about them. They are also filled with misinformation and misconceptions. And when adolescents find someone who is willing to talk openly with them about sexuality, they often act like drowning people thrown a rope.

I’ve heard adolescents proclaim with all seriousness that oral sex means talking dirty. The boring, clinical explanation about oral sex - that it is when one person uses their mouth to stimulate another persons genitals - leads to other questions. Not answering those questions is a disservice to the students.

Many students have picked up bad information about masturbation. I don’t know that people still teach that it makes you go blind or get hair on your palms or get acne. But many students have never heard discussion of masturbation that places it in the context of healthy human sexual behavior. Few students probably hear that masturbation is a safe, healthy outlet for sexuality for persons who are not in relationships and that mutual masturbation can be a safe, sexy part of relationships. Many young people masturbate but have learned and fully absorbed societal lessons about body shame and the idea that sexuality at all is shameful. They believe that touching or thinking about their genitals is shameful and possibly sinful. Young people need the lesson that masturbation can be a very healthy experession of their sexuality.

Especially in Utah, there seems to be a great deal of ignorance about sexual orientation among both young and old. Teaching the basics - that being attracted to persons of the other gender, the same gender and both genders are all within the realm of normal, healthy human sexuality. To teach what every mainstream medical and mental health organization says about sexual orientation is actually illegal in Utah but students need to hear that message. Hearing that differing sexual orientations are healthy and good and normal, that sexual orientation is inborn, and that you shoudl learn to lead a life in which you express your orientation in a healthy way rather than try to change it can save so much needless suffering. Of course that message isn’t a nice neat and tidy bundle of moralizing so it of course offends the majority of Utah state legislators, people like Carl Wimmer, who is apparently a rather dim bulb.

Wimmer’s proposal to create criminal consequences is an absurd, overreaction typical of Utah legislators who believe they and only they know best:

Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, opened a bill file this week and said he will introduce legislation in January that would enforce criminal penalties on teachers who deviate from state law governing sex education, which requires that it focus on physical and emotional development of adolescents, healthy relationships and the threat and prevention of diseases. The law prohibits promoting or encouraging sexual behavior. His bill also would create a registry to record the names of teachers who violate the law.

“Right now what a teacher is allowed to teach regarding sex education is very clearly defined in statute. The problem is that if a teacher violates that law or if an administrator allows that law to be violated, the only repercussion is administrative,” Wimmer said.

Trusting the administrative professionals?! Anything but that. The Trib’s article puts a really positive spin Utah law, which is in fact a restrictive, retrograde law that denies young people the information they need to be sexually healthy. Current Utah law requires teachers to essentially tell students, “State law requires that I not your questions.” Wimmer’s proposed law is a nightmare waiting to happen.

The Herriman parents who are up in arms are engaging in their very own special moral panic. No doubt, they felt left out back in January when parents in Salt Lake got to be upset about the Blue Boutique. Consider this quote:

“I’m really angry right now. I want someone to apologize to those kids and say ‘I’m sorry this is not part of the curriculum,’ ” said Sara Dewitt, a parent who said she first heard about the teacher’s comments from her child last Friday.

There’s two ways to read this particular quote: I’m sorry this is not part of the curriculum but it should be. I’m pretty sure Ms Dewitt doesn’t mean it that way. She is angry because a teacher answered students questions about sexuality; her anger is misplaced. She should be angry with the state of Utah for writing laws that make it difficult for teachers to give students the facts about sexuality.

At least a little bit, I’m sympathetic with parents. Adult fears about adolescent sexuality can be paralyzing. Questions about what information to give at what time are at best perplexing, at worst a morass of confusion and uncertainty. Parents who had premarital sex can’t really tell their their kids to not have premarital sex. Other parents believe they must protect their children from the perils of sexuality - and do so by keeping them “innocent.” What they mean by “innocent” is they never utter a word about sexuality any where in their children’s hearing. The unfortunate effect is that children are ignorant, not innocent. As I said, I feel some sympathy for the parents, but more frustration with them. There’s nothing wrong with feeling fearful, but you need to act like an adult and deal with the issue in a mature and effective fashion.

For all I know, the teacher involved gave the students incredibly bad information. She may have told them all sorts of things that are bizarre, inaccurate, imaginary and wrong. If so, that’s a failing of a system that doesn’t provide comprehensive sexuality education and a curriculum for teaching it. But, given the information available, I’m willing to bet that the teacher involved probably gave pretty good answers to the students questions. After all, if she’d simply given answers that reinforce the parents stereotypes and beliefs, she’d have been within the state guidelines. Its the accurate information that violates Utah state law.

This entry was posted Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), Religious Fundamentalism, Sex, Society, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.