WITH the increasing cases of sexual abuse, unintended pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among teenagers, the Department of Education (DepEd) wants sex education for high school and elementary students to complement sex instruction from parents.
But the DepEd’s Lesson Guides on Reproductive Health: A Population Education Concept may only fan the fire of the loins by instructing students the multiple ways to “safer sex,” such as “non-penetrative” sex and condom use. Instructions are even more suggestive in modules already in place for grades five and up in certain public schools. Children are asked to bring eggplants, cucumbers, or bananas, resembling the penis, so they could practice wearing condoms.
The DepEd must be anxious of students apathetic to Science, Social Studies, Health, English, Filipino, and Technology and Livelihood Education that it wants to spice these subjects with sultry pointers. Students will have to get less of basic education for a PhD in sexology. For sure, bombarding the young teens with the sex techniques will break their inhibitions, which serve as natural barriers to premature and perverse sexual activity.
The thrust of the sex education program for “reproductive health” should be questioned. International lobbyists coined the term to mean contraceptive and abortion “services,” which are never reproductively healthy, especially to teenagers. The fact that contraceptive grant chasers like the United Nations Population Fund and TRIDEV Specialists Foundation have prepared the sex-ed modules is very suspicious, to say the least. How can the modules speak of teen reproductive health when artificial contraception and abortion interfere with the healthy functions of the reproductive system?
The lesson guides promote condoms and alternative sex for young teens with empty phrases such as “self-determination” and freedom of choice “without moralizing.” If adolescents with their raging hormones are assumed to be self-directive and morally autonomous, why even presume they need guidelines? The authors do really seem to have purported “values” to promote, and these are the values of population control and “safe sex.”
DepEd Acting Secretary Fe Hidalgo denies that the modules encourage teen sex. Yet it is very clear that the modules present “safer sex” or “protected sex” via condoms and non-vaginal sex as amoral choices. The modules basically ignore the moral dimensions of sex, which should be considered in making intelligent choices. What the modules uphold is sex come what may, as long as partners are “safe.”
Page 56 of the lesson guides says, “adolescents may employ the following strategies: promotion of safer sex including the use of condoms, reducing the number of partners, abstinence, and partner notification (?).”
Page 57 asks, “How does one promote safer sex?” The text answers: by “non-penetrative sexual practice, avoiding unprotected penetrative sex with someone whose sexual history is unknown, avoiding anal, vaginal or oral sex without condom.”
While it is true that “non-penetrative” oral and anal sex cannot result in pregnancy, these can still facilitate STD infection due to saliva-borne organisms, direct digestive contact, and the sensitive tissues of the gum and the rectum.
Condoms, meanwhile, do not guarantee 100 per cent protection from unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Even the US Food and Drug Administration now requires condom manufacturers to place warning labels on their products. The US allocates millions of dollars for pro-abstinence sex-ed programs after its 40-year experiment with contraceptive placebo, which yielded more abortions, illegitimate births, and STDs. The formula for disaster, it appears, is overconfidence in condoms equals more sex and multiplied risks.
Will condoms protect teens from the emotional and psychological consequences of sex? Psychologists blame boyfriend/girlfriend sexual jilts for the rise in teen suicides, depression, and low academic performance. And there’s where population-control sex education is successful: less people through “safe” techniques and casting sex as mere genital encounter with only physical consequences to avoid.
The DepEd modules could only offer high school students multiple choices but no right answers. For sure, the lessons would rate a failing mark in addressing the problems of teen sex. The misguided pointers on sex are too naughty, they deserve a classroom spank
