fox & girl (1855)
It's amazing to think that in the year 2007 we are still a rather primitive and barbaric species when it comes to certain subjects; say, our own human biology and how we chose to deal with it. Take, for example, religious views of human biology versus scientific views of human biology. Science has shown that we have chemicals in us called hormones, and all multicellular organisms (that means you and me) produce them. Science has shown that hormones do things in us like control our reproductive cycles, regulate metabolism and cause us to do things like fight, flight and/or mate. What is more these chemicals are found in everyone in the world, regardless of religious views, orientation and ethnic background. So, knowing all that, wouldn't it make sense to teach everyone about them so when strange changes happen in us we know what exactly is going on and can act accordingly so we don't screw things up?
After all, if a person knows how their body works and why it is doing things, like ovulating, then that person is free to make informed choices for themselves. Freedom of choice is one of the things that makes us human. But for the most part, especially in certain segments of this country, we don't do that. In schools we actually lie to children about their bodies and what is happening under the idea that this is somehow going to protect them. In an article by George Monbiot, America's virgin soldiers are on their way — ignoring the dangers of abstinence for teenagers he has this to say about our school's failing (or failed depending where you are) sex education programs:
In the United States in particular, sex education raises much contentious debate. Chief among controversial points is whether covering child sexuality is valuable or detrimental; the use of birth control such as condoms and hormonal contraception; and the impact of such use on pregnancy outside marriage, teenage pregnancy, and the transmission of STDs. Increasing support for abstinence-only sex education by conservative groups has been one the primary cause of this controversy. Countries with more conservative attitudes towards sex education (including the UK and the U.S.) have a higher incidence of STDs and teenage pregnancy.
This isn't earth-shattering news, granted, and yet it is hard to believe there are people who think abstinence as a practical, workable idea to teach children not only can work, but is the only solution. Mary E. Williams, in Sex: Opposing Viewpoints (Detroit: Greenhaven. 2006) writes: In a 2004 analysis of 13 abstinence-only curricula which received United States government funding found that 11 contained factual errors. The errors included: misrepresenting the failure rates of contraceptives; misrepresenting the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission; false claims that abortion increases the risk of infertility; treating stereotypes about gender roles as scientific fact. It is hard not to be cynical when I read how we are preparing our children for the real world and the blame for abstinence-only sex education falls directly on our churches and government.
All of this reminds me of earlier times in European culture when other people had similar brilliant ideas; like the Victorians and their healthy attitude towards women. Of course I can explain away bizarre, harmful and even hateful ideas by saying "those were dark times when people did not have the information to be enlightened and their crass and idiotic behavior was due to inbreeding and not just crassness and idiocy." But today? Today we do the same bizarre, backwards things the Victorians were doing 150 years ago for the same sexist reasons. The Victorians believed sexuality was sinful and dirty and so do we. The Victorians believed you could somehow purge desire from the body, even transfer it onto inanimate objects and so do we. The Victorians hated girls so much their daughters' only worth was keeping their maidenheads intact and thus abstinence was the only solution. Like the Victorians we are still a culture hating our children.
It's amazing to think, in the year 2007, we have gone to the moon, built computers to communicate all over the world, have medicines to cure so much and we yet we are still so terribly primitive and barbaric when it comes to certain subjects, say, how we view sexuality in ourselves and our children.
It was that cult of chastity. A vow.
Victorian. Families spent fortunes
to get their child a fox. All her passions
would be transfered to that beast, somehow.
Made it better, they said. Sinful to be
without a fox, proof you were no virgin.
A girl would sit for days in her garden
wishing upon her fox; wildly, madly.
Foxes, though, shouldn't really be trusted.
They have a naked hunger just like yours.
Soon word came that wicked things in the moors,
glens, heath were happening, odd and wicked.
Back then, when we placed so little value
on girls. Like we do now. Yes, we still do.