You're Teaching My Child What? (2 page)

Take a look at Planned Parenthood's revolting “Take Care Down There,” and “How Babies are Made.”
⁸
Check out
gURL.com
, a site recommended to teens by SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, and similar groups that claims to be “the largest community of teenage girls on the web.” Their “experts” want your daughter to know about sadomasochism—“being tortured, bound, tickled or having hot wax poured on the body.” “Though it may seem painful,” your daughter will learn, “those involved find the pleasure outweighs the pain.”
⁹
gURL.com
's best selling book for teens,
Deal With It!
, lauded as “a superb reference for young women” by a former president of Planned Parenthood, provides your daughter with instructions on “giving a blow job,” “going down on a girl,” and features stick figure illustrations of “the three most popular positions” for intercourse.
¹⁰
Are you troubled by your teen's language? I direct you to
www.positive.org
, recommended by both SIECUS and AFY. You'll be horrified. This offensive material is foisted on our kids under the pretence of safeguarding their health and well-being.

When I think of someone exposing my kids to this smut, my eyes narrow and the claws come out. I see red. But what of the many young people who've been raised on this stuff? What effect has it had on their attitudes and behavior? As a physician and a mother, I weep for them.

Objections to today's sex education are hardly new. Some parents have been active in their opposition, taking legal action, even going to jail.
¹¹
But organizations such as SIECUS and Planned Parenthood claim neutrality and successfully portray the conflict as religious right versus medical facts, hicks versus Harvard.

Those hicks must be on to something, because recent discoveries in neurobiology, endocrinology, and histology indicate science is in
their
corner. I contend that it's “comprehensive sexuality education” that's animated by pseudoscience and crackpot ideology. Sexuality educators charge their opposition with censoring medically accurate, up to date science, and argue that kids need more than a “plumbing lesson.” Yet the sex ed industry is no less guilty of using science selectively and omitting facts that contradict their agendas. It's time to call foul.

SIECUS and Planned Parenthood have yet to recognize some of the most compelling research of recent years. These organizations are still animated by the philosophies of the infamous sexologist Alfred Kinsey—whose work has been debunked—the birth control and eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger, the feminist Gloria Steinem, and
Playboy
founder Hugh Hefner. These twentieth-century crusaders were passionate about social change, not health. Their goal was a cultural revolution, not the eradication of disease. And the same is true for the sex ed industry. That's why their premises haven't changed in fifty years, even as journals like
Neuropsychiatry
and
The New England Journal of Medicine
have filled with research contradicting them.

While SIECUS informs kids that culture teaches what it means to be a man or a woman, neuroscientists identify distinct “male brains” or “female brains” while a child is still in the womb. According to the “experts,” a girl is a “young woman,” ready for “sex play,” but gynecologists know the question is not
whether
a sexually active “young woman” will get herpes, HPV, or Chlamydia, it's
which one
. “Respect your teens' decisions,” parents are advised; “step aside, and don't judge.” But studies show kids do best when parents convey their expectations and stand firm. Give adolescents information, they promise, provide them with condoms and pills, and they'll make smart decisions. But MRIs show that during highly charged moments, teen brains rely on gut feelings, not reason. In other words, it's not ignorance causing all those pregnancies and infections; it's the unfinished wiring between brain cells.

These findings, and more, are excluded from modern sex education. Why? Because they contradict Kinsey, Hefner, and Steinem. They testify against the anything goes, women-are-just-like-men ideology. They announce to the world: Hicks–1, Harvard–0.

Parents, if you believe that the goals of sexuality education are to prevent pregnancy and disease, you are being hoodwinked. You must understand that these curricula are rooted in an ideology that you probably don't share. This ideology values, above all—health, science, or parental authority—sexual freedom.

According to this philosophy, a successful curriculum encourages students to develop their own values, not blindly accept those of their community. It emphasizes the wisdom they'll gain through open-mindedness and tolerance. “Students . . . become more ‘wide awake' and open to multiple perspectives that make the familiar strange and the strange familiar,” according to one sex education manual.
¹²

If the subject is marine biology or entomology, you might not mind if the “strange” becomes the “familiar” to your child. But when it comes to issues of sexuality, it might be another matter entirely. Do you want instructors, whose personal values might be at odds with yours, to encourage your kids to question what they've been taught at home and at church,
¹³
and to come up with their own worldview based on taking sexual risks that endanger their health and wellbeing? It seems reasonable to question the ethics of this practice.

What these “experts” are hiding is their goal of bringing about radical social change, one child at a time. Their mission is to mold each student into what is considered “a sexually healthy” adult—as if there was universal agreement on what that is.
¹⁴
From a review of many of today's sex ed curricula and websites, it would appear that a “sexually healthy” individual is one who has been “desensitized,” who is without any sense of embarrassment or shame (what some might consider “modesty”), whose sexuality is always “positive” and “open,” who respects and accepts “diverse” lifestyles, and who practices “safer sex” with every “partner.”

This is not about health, folks. This is about indoctrination.

Don't wait until children ask questions
, parents are told by sex education “experts”; to ensure their healthy future, they need information early. Teach preschoolers that each of us is sexual, from cradle to grave, and that “sexual expression” is one of our basic human needs, like food, water, and shelter. Encourage their “positive body concept,” by expanding games such as “Simon Says” to include private parts (
Simon says point to your ear, ankle, penis
).
¹⁵
Explain intercourse to preschoolers
¹⁶
; tell them they have “body parts that feel good when touched.”
¹⁷
Inform five-year-olds that “everyone has sexual thoughts and fantasies”
and that “people experience sexual pleasure in a number of different ways.”
¹⁸
Teach kids about HIV before they know their ABCs.
¹⁹

The potential for harm is even greater a few years later when our kids must learn more, we're told, for their own good. Planned Parenthood says 3rd grade is the time to find out about wet dreams, masturbation, rape, and “sex work.”
²⁰
Nine- to twelve-year-olds should understand that male and female are not defined solely by chromosomes or genitalia; everyone has an “internal sense” of his or her identity, and that “sense” might not jibe with what they see in the mirror.

As you can imagine, sex educators believe that the “information” teens “need” to know is more explicit and disturbing. But by then, of course, if not earlier, they can go online themselves and check out the sites sexuality educators recommend, like Columbia University's “Go Ask Alice.” I urge every adult whose life includes a young person to check out this award-winning site, one that gets over two thousand questions a week, and many more hits. On “Alice,” teens find excellent information about drugs, alcohol, diet, depression, and other health issues. But they also learn how to purchase “adult products” by phone,
²¹
arrange a threesome,
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and stay “safe” during sadomasochistic “sex play.”
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Yes, madness—that's the right word.

With messages like this coming from websites recommended to our kids, it should come as no surprise that 34 percent of girls are sexually active by age fifteen. The figure goes up to nearly 80 percent four years later, with more than one-fifth of all fifteen- to nineteen-year-olds reporting two or more partners
in the past year
. Hey, they are exploring their sexuality; it's only “natural.”

But in these times, anyone “exploring” sexuality is at risk for some two dozen different bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi; and infection is likely to happen soon after sexual debut. Who suffers the most? Girls. One of the many facts withheld by “sex educators” is that teen girls are anatomically more vulnerable to sexually transmitted
diseases than boys. They also gloss over the fact that decades of sex education have taken our society from having essentially two sexually transmitted diseases to worry about (syphilis and gonorrhea) to having more than two dozen, including some incurable viruses, and one that's often fatal: HIV. They deem it vital for kids to know there are not one, but
three
types of intercourse; apparently they don't need to know that one of these is so dangerous that a surgeon general warned against it, even
with
a condom.

And this question is never, ever raised: what new bug is out there, spreading undetected, an epidemic in the making?

There are some things you need to know about condoms—what sex educators call “protection.” Most teens do not use them correctly and consistently. Even with proper use, both pregnancy and infection can occur. That's why so many health providers have given unwelcome news to young patients who insist, “
But we used a condom, every time!”

These young victims are angry, because even after following the rules, after being responsible, they're in trouble: using a condom gave them a false sense of security.
²⁴
And need I mention that latex provides no protection against the emotional distress that often follows teen sexual behavior? As many have observed, condoms do not protect the heart, in particular the female heart.
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That's another thing SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, and Columbia's “Alice” never tell your daughter.

Again, the priority of our nation's sex educators is to promote sexual freedom, not prevent infections and emotional distress. In fact, as the numbers of infections reach ever more mind-numbing levels, these educators argue for more of last century's methods. The solution to the epidemic is to teach
more
kids they are “sexual from womb to tomb,” encourage
more
teens to question their families' values, and
to send trucks with even
larger
loads of contraceptives to middle schools—to be distributed without parental knowledge. Have they lost their minds?

You might think I'm bashing sex ed because I'm on the other side of the battle. Not exactly. Abstinence education tells kids to wait for marriage, and for many that message rests on moral foundations. As an Orthodox Jew, I share those values—but you won't find me quoting Leviticus in these pages. I'll leave that to parents and pastors. I write as a physician, and my approach is anchored in hard science.

I wrote this book to tell parents they're being conned by the sex education industry. These powerful organizations present themselves as guardians of our children's health and well-being; they claim to provide kids with all the information and skills they need to make healthy choices. They assert they give your child the same message she hears at home:
you're too young—wait until you're older.
They claim their curricula are “science-based,” age-appropriate, non-judgmental, up-to-date, and medically accurate. And they believe they know better than you do what's best for your kids, so you should trust them, the “experts,” and ignore your gut feelings.

Wake up, America: this is one giant hoax. I know these groups, their values, and curricula. They are
steeped
in ideology,
permeated
with extremism. Non-judgmental? Sure, until they're challenged with scientific facts. Point to the science that discredits their beliefs, and, well, you know the names you'll be called.

They do
not
give young people the same message as parents. Children are inundated from a tender age with a “sex-positive” message; they're taught that sexuality is a life-long adventure, “who they are” from cradle to grave, and that the freedom to explore and express their sexuality is a sacred “right.” While teens are told that delaying sexual behavior is an option—and sure, it's the only 100 percent certain way
to avoid infections and pregnancy—it is not presented as the healthiest choice, the one recommended by experts. Consider the views of Debra Haffner, a recent SIECUS president who is now a minister. Pre-marital sex is so essential, the Reverend Haffner appears to believe, that she'd “refuse to marry a couple who told me that they had shared no sexual behaviors at all.”
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