More common sense than all the elected members of the Republican and Democratic parties combined.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
More common sense than all the elected members of the Republican and Democratic parties combined.
Kids we would like a word with you about sex. The word is NO!
Yesss, a thousand times yes! Sex should not be stigmatized, it’s going to happen anyway so why not do it in a way that’s safe, consensual, and full of respect for each others’ wishes!
Of course, what am I thinking, because me actually knowing about sex will immediately lead to having it! The horror!
More seriously, the sex ed I got was extremely minimal. like “only describe anatomy of your assigned gender” minimal. So I got about as much information is I did reading a biology textbook at age 4.
Yes, people will have sex. (Otherwise, why would it be called sex drive?) That’s why we need to keep it safe. Secondly, gender & sexuality do need to be addressed (as the vlogger said, raising a few interesting tangential points along the way). Because it’s fooking Complicated, and not always amenable to binaristic division.
And now, due to societal pressures, I’m too afraid to find info on sex and/or gender variance in general, so there’s that. Count me as another victim.
Ditto, PZ; with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders and Al Franken.
The obsession that seems to permeate American society in regards to contraception, abortion and, basically, all topics of even a remotely related nature leaves me flabbergasted. But so does “second amendment rights”, opposition to Gay marriage and Gay rights in general, climate change denial-ism, etc.
I approve of this message.
I know I had some kind of sex-education in 1970mumble but damned if I remember what it was.
Dear machineintelligence
We would like to have TWO words with YOU. The words are “GET REAL”.
The idea that sex education inevitably leads to sex is as old as the hills. Study after study shows that the countries that have the worst record for underage pregnancy are the ones with the worst sex education programs. Good sex education produces teenagers who are educated, have accurate knowledge and can make confident choices. Teenagers who do not have sex education are completely in the dark and cannot make choices. In the worst case, they don’t even know what it is they are supposed not to do. So how can they know what it is they are not supposed to do.
Sex is a natural thing and every human has the right to be educated to know how they want to deal with it. When it comes down to it, it is each and every persons choices and therefore each and every persons responsibility. They NEED the education to make the choice and take the responsibility.
P.S. sorry about the repetition.
Uh-oh, he said “common sense”.
With positive connotations…
Deep Rifts!
The only thing wrong with “common sense” is that it is not very common among certain people.
I got three levels of sex ed growing up; the basic “boys have a penis, girls have a vagina” talk in 4th grade with a little bit about menstruation; the middle school one where we talked about puberty and teen pregnancy in depth; and the high school one in a Catholic school. In that Catholic school we learned about contraception, masturbation, abortions, erections, homosexuality, how terrible pregnancy is when you’re not prepared, etc., we also just got taught it was all dirty and evil unless it was straight sex with your husband/wife (opposite sex of course) and that certain things were always evil. The teacher was incredibly uncomfortable with it if I remember correctly and the class was broken up by rude/hilarious comments from the students. I learned nothing from my parents and got a little bit from a medical text we had on hand which actually taught me more about achieving orgasm than anything else. It’s pretty fucking sad when the Catholics are probably doling out more information on how to safely have sex than the average American PUBLIC school.
In my public school education, I got exactly as much sex ed as I got education about evolution: NADA. Not one word.
I LOVED that young lady. She reminded me of some of the teens that I knew when I was teaching.
I was the teacher/mentor of the GSA group in a huge Texas high school. The president of the group realized that many of the younger members had no idea how to prevent AIDS, or anything else about safe sex, thanks to the abstinence programs in Texas.
I wasn’t allowed to teach them anything at the meetings, all I could do was supervise. The group president, with the help of her VP and partner (They are now life-partners – I keep in touch), decided to do something about it. They did the research and presented a great power point at a GSA meeting.
You could see the light bulbs lighting up in the eyes of the younger members.
I think that it is disgraceful that teens are kept so ignorant about facts that could save their lives.
Wow!
I think I actually had a good sex education. We had it in 6th, 8th, and 9th grade. We covered common types of contraception (birth control pills and condoms, and also abstinence), pregnancy, STIs, and commonly believed myths.
I don’t get the comments about teachers being uncomfortable about talking about sex. If they’re uncomfortable, they could invite others to give the talk. Planned Parenthood and Kaiser did this for my school district. Most of my friends were in Peer Health Educators while in high school. This was a program put on by Kaiser Permanente that taught middle schoolers about sex education. Peer Health Educators (the high schoolers) would write and perform some really corny skits for the middle schoolers to teach them about what to do in common scenarios (if you think you’re pregnant, should you have sex). In 8th grade, we even had a program (CryBabies I think) that provide robotic babies for students to keep over the weekend to experience being a teen parent.
As a result, (as far as I know) no one in my graduating class got pregnant. I don’t think the class before or after (the classes I’m most familiar with) had any teen pregnancies either. (Though there was only one girl in high school I knew that was pregnant. She was a junior when I was a freshman.) I’m pretty sure some of my classmates were having sex. From what I could tell though, it was mostly oral sex and they knew to use protection.
This is in Oakland, part of the liberal Bay Area, so as I keep learning, we are not typical of the rest of the U.S.
I also meant to include that this was all in CA public schools.
Even back in the day, though, there were libraries and people’s parents’s bookshelves and closets. For the knowledge-motivated suburban kid, at least, it wasn’t really that difficult to track down even several different versions of the real deal. As always, you make your own education.
Twice a semester in high school, rather than gym, we had two weeks of “health class”. This class was mandatory, and was graded for marks. One session focused on drugs (what they are, what they do, the effects of long term use, etc). The other was focused on sex ed, including STI’s, pregancy, contraceptives, etc. We sometimes did little experiments, like simulating the spread of STIs by placing glitter on the teachers hand, and then everyone giving each other handshakes for about 5 minutes. In the end, about a third of us also had glitter on our hands.
We also had health class during grade school (grade 1-8). It also covered sex ed, pregnancy, contraceptives (and accurate statistics on their effectiveness) I’m not entirely sure when sex ed started. I think it was 5th grade, but it may have been earlier. To my 6th grade teachers credit, when she realized that our health class teacher was rather uncomfortable with the topic, she commandeered a math session one day. She had us give her anonymous questions, written on pieces of paper placed in a hat (yes, a hat), about sex and reproduction, the answers to which we discussed as a group.
There was no rampant sex (to the dismay of some of us).
Same with me, PZ. No sex ed in my school days (mid-60s). When I was 16 or so, my parents left a rather clinical book about sex on my desk but never said a word about it to me. As a teen my feelings about sex were terribly awkward. I was ignorant and religious to boot. On the other hand, many of my peers in school were having plenty of sex, so the veil of secrecy wasn’t stopping most people.
Is it just me? Or are the right wing denizens of Fox Nation prudish, ignorant and bigoted?
They really seem to hate all education and teachers specifically. Is this just me? Am I imagining this trend?
My sex ed here in The Netherlands happened in the 80’s, at Catholic schools no less, and partially from a teacher who was openly gay. It was quite complete and included contraception, protection and STDs, where to get them or to get rid of them and where to get help. It started at pre-school at an age around 13.
We have the lowest count of teen pregnancies of the Western world.
Hormones happen ergo sex happens. Either kids know how to deal with it, or they get pregnant.
Here in Texas sex education is so awful that the only chance kids have to get real information is from Planned Parenthood and similar groups. They try their best and they do an excellent job with the kids they can reach, but they simply don’t have the audience that public schools do.
The Texan version of Sex Education is a combination of lies (condoms don’t work, birth control doesn’t work, birth control will give you cancer), misogyny (women are like chewing gum or candy you don’t want one after another man has had it), and illegally inserted religion (one course literally told kids to “pretend Jesus is your date” to avoid sexy thoughts).
Not surprisingly, Texas has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STI’s in the USA.
Partially it’s religion, they say that Southern Baptists don’t screw standing up because they’re afraid that God might think they’re dancing. Partially it’s just plain old crusty conservatism. Partially it’s straight up misogyny (sex ed means sluts getting away with having sex after all).
The good news is that contrary to popular mythology, Hispanic voters are not a solidly socially conservative bloc. In fact, a majority of Hispanic voters favor gay rights, contraception and sex ed. So as whites become a minority Texas might have a chance to achieve a decent sex education program.
TWELVE?
You’re allowed to make a public school curriculum on ANYTHING that doesn’t require that the information be ACCURATE?
EPISTEMOLOGICAL RAAAAGGE!
Fundie christian school here; as I’ve mentioned previously, we got no sex ed at all, not even in biology as far as I can remember. I taught myself the basic functionality from medical texts and books from the local bike-friendly library (that’s another one for the librarians). Knowledge of contraception, masturbation, and the spectrum of sexual orientations and practices came from a local Planned Parenthood during my teenage years… I just walked into one and started asking questions and reading the brochures.
During Christian middle school, we got one ‘special’ lecture from a guest speaker who basically said sex is when a married man and woman put their genitals together and start a pregnancy. I knew more than that from How Babies Are Made in the library. When she said women had the God-given privilege of dying in childbirth, I walked out.
When I was in fourth grade, Raymond Malo told a bunch of us how sex works during recess one day:
“Okay, so you stick it in—”
“Stick what in where?”
“Shut up. So you stick in and leave there for a while.”
“How long?”
“Shut … UP. Anyway, after a while, you can take it out. Then this little shell comes out, kinda like a turtle shell only all rainbow colored. If the girl eats the shell, she gets pregnant.”
In retrospect, as hilariously wrong as Raymond was, the education he provided was far less damaging than what most schools in the U.S. offer.
The young woman in the video is my new hero.
My sex ed class told us that if a birth control method was 99% effective, that meant that if we had sex 100 times, we would get pregnant once during those 100 times. So, if we had sex sex using this birth control method 100 times in a year, we would be pregnant by the time the year ended.
Such fun.
Growing up in the UK in the sixties, the amount of sex ed was nil. The thing is that as a science teacher I hear exactly the same nonsense about sex from the kids that was doing the rounds fifty years ago. It doesn’t change.
The thing about teachers being uncomfortable with sex ed I can relate to. The problem has been that so many schools think they can get any old teacher to teach this stuff. It requires special training the same as any other school subject. The best programs I have seen have been in schools where dedicated teachers have volunteered, formed a team and have been trained to deliver the program.
I must say I love the way this video was put together with such a clear and precise message. This should be compulsory viewing at any political gathering which wants to consider education.
Please, folks, don’t forget this is a very delicate subject. I think we can all agree that sex education can be improved. But we should not be disrespectful and therefore avoid the p-word and the v-word under all circumstances.
You can have my Parasaurolophus and Velociraptors when you take them out of my cold dead dictionary.
Reasons why this person shouldn’t be in charge of America’s sex-ed program:
1. She doesn’t sound American
2. She watches foreign TV shows like Torchwood
3. She’s been to school.
4. She uses big words.
5. She understands those big words.
6. She could use the proper terms for the boy parts and girl parts correctly in sentences.
7. She’s a girl.
I wish I’d got there before you, Chris Clarke, though I couldn’t have beaten that!
One of the problems we are seeing as historical child abuse is – finally! – being investigated is that not knowing the words for the bits which were groped and not being confident that your family’s baby-language will be understood are major deterrents to children reporting and police / teachers / social workers grasping what they are trying to say.
This confusion, this mystery about sexuality, this imaginary protection of children from rude words are exploited like mad by the abusers and their apologists. Perhaps a full and correct vocabulary might be the first weapon in the war against abusers. Who knows?
You could aviod the v-word by pronouncing vagina in Spanish. The p-word you can use pene and people will think you are talking about pasta.
(I hope this came over as sarcasm)
Count me among the folks who got accurate and reasonable sex ed in Catholic high school. Remarkable how many of us there are, really. But that was the 80s. Has anyone gotten decent sex ed in a Catholic school since 1990?
you I got to thinking a bad thing I know but I got to thinking about the fact that the anti sex ed people are the same ones that are anti abortion
.So they are against having a choice they would prefer people to get married first so they say but the result of what they are advocating is a higher birth rate in both instances. They also do not seem to be very approving or supportive of “un-wed mothers” would they be in favor of forced adoption to “good christian homes” of the “bastards”?
uncle frogy
That’s actually mentioned back in 1997 in Journey into Darkness (about criminal profiling) in the section about making very young kids harder targets for abusers.
I’d like to believe that it’s just coincidence that right-wing, religious objections and shame about sex make it easier for child abusers to get away with their crimes. I’d like to believe that.
sotonohito:
Come on, who wouldn’t want to have sex with Jesus? You know he’s got to be amazing!
In the 1950s, the entirety of my sex education, in public elementary and junior high schools, in Canada, and Christian high school in Seattle, consisted of reading and re-re-reading Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Secretly, in the middle of the night, so my reading wouldn’t be censored.
Mom did take me aside when I was 11 to explain, as briefly as she could, about menstruation. That done, the topic was never raised again.
One of my classmates in Grade 12 confided in me that she was worried: she had kissed a guy on a date, and thought that she might have gotten pregnant from the kiss.
In college, a Christian college, of course, I got a brief lesson: don’t drink, because you might end up having sex,and your kids will be defective. That’s it. Oh, and a brief, confusing physiological explanation of male orgasm, I don’t know why; there was no context.
This is relevant, only because so many of our legislators are older, PZ’s age and up, and were educated themselves in similar environments.
Yeah. I’m with PZ. We got nothing. Nada. Zip. Bupkis.
Except in 7th grade, all the boys were separated from the girls for a “special assembly”. The boys got a film about taking showers and shaving. I have no idea what girls got a film about.
Ah, the 60s. Such fun.
@ Moggie 36: He took 3 days to rise again, sounds a bit disappointing to me.
In the Catholic all boys high school I was sent to in the 80’s the full extent of our sex education (outside of religion class where the message was just say no) was being shown a film of a woman giving birth. The high regard they had for the subject was reinforced by the teacher referring to the film as “The Vertical Smile” and admonishing all students to keep their hands on top of the desk for the duration.
Pteryxx said:
I didn’t know I could still be shocked.
Hell, I was born in 1990 and didn’t get shit for sex education in a rural MI public school. There was the separate class for boys and girls about puberty but that was worthless. I had already gotten my period way before then so I knew about that and they didn’t talk about sex AT ALL. It’s was fucking pathetic. Just told ‘Ask your parents’. Yeah, right. What 5th grader wants to have that conversation with their parents? That idea was especially repulsive because the town was so religious and sex shaming.
This resulted in 6th and 7th graders having unprotected sex in locker rooms.
I transferred schools in the 8th grade to AZ and there was nothing, nadda, about sex ed. Not in high school either. Which is probably the big reason one of my college classes (I forget which I think it was… Psychology? Uhhh..) had Planned Parenthood come in to talk about sex ed. I was 17 but the youngest person. Mostly 19-28 year olds in my class because it was a community college. The facts those older people didn’t know is amazing and downright sad. I mean it’s sad enough how ignorant I was at 17 (while pregnant ) there were others older than me with children already who knew less than I did. Holyshitballs that’s fucked up. Our systems is failing hard and it’s engineered that way on purpose.
Having a high school class on sex eduation about the facts of birth control and some helpful information like ‘When your boyfriend says you’re cheating because you’re on birth control, he’s emotionally blackmailing you and probably wants you pregnant to abuse you more’ would’ve fucking helped SO much. I didn’t find that handy fact out til college too. No wonder that abusive fuckface didn’t want me to go. My mother tried and was the one to get me on birth control but by then I was so ashamed and brainwashed it was too late.
My 5 year old knows the correct terms and some basic things because she asks and I answer. Those came quick because I’m a single mom and there was no way I could leave my 2 year old roaming the house while I went to the bathroom or took a shower. I’ve already gotten evil glares and ‘talkings to’ because other parents don’t like how knowledgeable my Little One is. They get pissed because “Oh thanks a lot! Now I have to talk to them about it!” A lot of ”Your child is damage and it’s your doing” blaming going on. Well, for example, it was your son who talked about his ‘wee wee’ and my daughter corrected him that it’s his penis. And I’m some how the bad parent? Yeah, my daughter laughed because she’d never heard ‘wee wee’ before and it sounds rediculous.
My daughter asked why they called it ‘wee wee’ and why they acted like it was bad to say penis. (Thanks other parents for spreading the shaming around!) I told her because people say “weeeeeeee’ when they have fun and penis can be fun so they gave it that nickname. This reasoning also works for the calling all woman parts “woo-hoo”. It’s the best I can do that didn’t sound like she did something wrong (because she totally didn’t) and kept out the shaming of body parts.
The trick about the (lack of) sex ed in the republican scenario is that they get more victims (= women) to punish and the Lard knows how much they like punishing women.
Well you can’t teach kids about their genitals, because then they’ll have sex.
And if you don’t teach them about their lungs, then they won’t breathe either.
@Moggie, I dunno. They keep talking about how great it is when he comes, but you’ve got to figure that the parts before that are more important….
Exactly. Unfortunately, too many of the people that I would want to reach with this would be quick to mention the “furrin” accent
If you want your kids to get a decent sex education and your school doesn’t provide one, join a UU church and get your kids into and OWL program.
http://www.uua.org/re/owl/
If you want your kids to get a decent sex education…
EDUCATE THEM YOURSELF
chigau: I’m sorry, that sounds an awful lot like what the regressives want. For the sexual heath of every kid out there to be at the mercy of their parents.
Kudos to this young lady. She has it together.
My sex ed was in the ’80’s and taught by a football coach, just a small part of health class. Lots of gnarly films about STDs. Nothing about contraception, consent (ha!), sexuality (ha ha!). Very “here’s a flower, this is the pistil, this is the stamen. Figure it out.”
Needless to say, a lot of classmates had babies. I graduated with one girl who was pregnant with her third.
How long do I need to wait before I can elect her as my representative? :)
chigau:
A lot of parents were themselves given little to no sex education. How would they teach their kids things they no little sbout?
That was excellent. I’m all for better sexual education (or one at all, for starters), as pointed out in some other thread. I’m glad that I got a one. Our teacher even made it so that boys and girls had a some time separated from each other so that we could ask questions without feeling ashamed.
In ostensibly “Cahtolic” France condoms have been distributed in school to junior and senior high school students for free for years. Now the government has decided to also make the pill, sterilet, the morning after pill, other forms of birth control free to young people between 15 and 18. Of course there is real sex ed in the schools. French Catholics don’t even bother to contest these decisions anymore. Anyway, only 5% of them go to mass. The stated goal is to encourage the teenagers to become responsible for their lives. Yet France is one of the few EU countries that has a birthrate that is above the population replacement level.
Wow. I wish I had been half as articulate and intelligent when I was 17…
kids these days, they’re… kinda amazing.
I agree with 99.9% of what she is saying. The only thing I have a problem with is the word “enthusiastic”.
What’s wrong with “enthusiastic”?
Wow. Thorough, articulate, and completely on the mark. I could add a few things to her list of stuff that needs to be covered, but I’m sure she’d agree with most of them. One does have to keep things short and sweet to deal with the short attention spans people have these days. But she’s certainly more RIGHT about this than any politician in the US, and probably more so than many in my country. I think this young woman is going to go far, and I hope she does. I teach in a university and have developed a nose for raw smarts, and this one has them in abundance.
I note that she has a British accent, yet she’s talking about the US as if she’s living there. Assuming that she is indeed living there, I hope she can use her superior oratorial skills to educate some of the right wing dumbfucks that she’ll encounter in the US.
It’s been more than two decades since I read it, but I kind of think sex ed should be handled somewhat along the lines of the way it was discussed in Aldous Huxley’s “Island” (with updates for the modern stuff in birth control, STIs, etc.). If I re-read it now, I’m sure there are things I’d want to add or change (hence the vague language in the opening sentence), but as I recall, it was pretty “healthy” in its approach to teaching teens about their sexuality. And it was good for other reasons. Must read it again sometime.
I sometimes think that I’d like to write a document about sex education. My own upbringing was so woefully lacking in any kind of useful or valuable information, and my learning as I stumbled through life (like most people) has taught me that it’s nuts to send kids into the fray effectively blindfolded when you could give them so much more, and make their sex lives so much more safe, fulfilling, meaningful, and really, really rich. But if you think that the religious right are freaking over the word vagina, then they would pass out or have brain bleeds over what I’d recommend be taught. But then religious people pretty much de facto have hangups about sex. Sex is one of the truly transcendent experiences we have, but I guess they fear that and want to get fuzzy feelings from an invisible friend. Alas.
[OT]
congenital cynic:
Eh? Sex is instinctively satisfying, no more — “Birds do it, Bees do it”!
(What does it supposedly transcend? Certainly not carnality!)
Not getting in a pissing contest here, and the use of “transcendent” is a bit lose, but if you take one of the meanings to be “surpassing the ordinary; exceptional” as from the Oxford American, then yeah, it is. Religious people think that they have a lock on transcendent experiences, but I think it’s bullshit and this takes me down a path of argument I don’t have time for right now. Have to work in the morning and it’s late on the east coast.
Young lady in the video does a superb job. Sex is powerful stuff (probably why it freaks out the fundies). Kids need to be taught how to avoid the bad and know when they’ve found the good. Schools and parents alike are not doing it right for the most part.
have to seek sleep now, though the topic of the thread is interesting.
Ha! My mother gave me a ‘useful’ little book, in 1959, with lots of mysterious line drawings. I think it was the one she’d been given in the 1930s for her own sex “education”. The main thing I remember from it was one remarkable sentence in the section about menstruation. They said that there were reports that the cramps of painful menstruation could feel like the contractions of childbirth. But it wasn’t true, it was “just something women say.” Even then I knew that women were the only ones who could say such things, regardless of their accuracy.
10 and 20 years later, I realised that some of the doctors I consulted had probably read the same book. It was just another justification to trivialise women’s health issues.
As for the sex education part of it. Seeing as, years later, I still had no idea about the mechanics, let alone that there was such a thing as orgasm for anyone involved, it wasn’t a great success.
mystery random html!
If I had any idea what happened there, I could design a game around it.
@chigau
There is nothing wrong with the word “enthusiastic” as such, but she used the word in a definition of rape that is impossible to enforce if it should become law.
“Rape is the absence of a clear, enthusiastic yes…”
thedude
I’m pretty sure she wasn’t talking about law enforcement.
@chigau
That may be so, but as rape is a crime, misleading definitions of it may have consequences for law enforcement and crime prevention. We saw that in Steubenville where one of the witnesses said that he didn’t think that it was rape because it wasn’t violent.
@thedude;
IMO, assuming the rule of “no sex without enthusiastic* consent” leads to a lot fewer rapes than assuming “if it’s not violent, it’s not rape.”
*I’m not exactly a fan of the term “enthusiastic consent”, for the reasons laid out far more eloquently Cliff Pervocracy in this post, but it’s much better than most of the alternatives.
thedude
She was talking about education, not crime.
“Enthusiastic yes” is used to make it clear that it does not include, say, the “yes” that is given after 3 hours of nagging, or because she knows you’ll get arsey if she says no – i.e. both partners have to actually want to have sex, not just say the word “yes”.
@nightshadequeen
If people are going to start to teach “Enthusiastic yes” it might lead to a lot of rape cases that won’t stand up in court. I can’t see how that benefits anyone (except possibly lawyers).
@chigau
Yes, I understand that she was talking about education. But everything is connected, if you start to teach that consent requires “Enthusiastic yes” you are teaching a rape definition that is very different from how the police and courts define rape. Can you really not see a problem with that?
70
thedude
Do you realize how many cases NOW can’t stand up in court because of all this rape culture shit with victim blaming and defining rape to mean violent stranger rapes?
Enthusiastic yes will help those cases once people get past the narrow definition used now in court. It would help victims with coping Plus if people follow this definition there will be less people victimized.
If people are taught they need to have an enthusiastic yes, do you have any idea how many rapes could be prevented because douchebros and their ilk don’t take a passed out woman as a yes? Or taking the tactic of “wear her down” to say yes?
How can teaching it be a bad thing?
Or, more importantly, because teaching consent will hamstring the serial rapists’ Social License To Operate.
(click through some of the links, especially if you’ve never read Meet The Predators)
thedude
The education would (hopefully) reduce the number of people who would even consider forcing another to have sex.
Immoral and illegal are not the same thing. (/stating the obvious)
I think that concentrating on the legal definition leads to people trying to find ways around the law.
@JAL
The legal definition of rape is the most important one. If you want to change that, go ahead. Changing the definition used in sex-ed to something that is different from the legal definition is just going to confuse kids. By the look of things, I would say that they are confused enough already.
@chigau
Do you think that rapist are just going to magically disappear if you start teaching “enthusiastic consent”? Frankly the whole idea seems like it came from a 13 year old that have read too many romantic stories. Not concentrating on the legal definition leads to people getting wrong ideas of how rape is defined in the real world.
The rapists are still human beings and so, no, they won’t magically disappear. But they might stop raping.
[OT]
thedude:
So you would have it that back when the law held a husband could not rape his wife, no wives were raped?
(The legal world ain’t the real world)
And this is bad how? Time the legal system adopted a better definition.
74
thedude
Oh, hell fucking no it isn’t.
Besides, law changes after the culture changes and there’s plenty of examples for that.
Mixed race couples were illegal due to society’s racism. Society changed and that law was rightfully removed.
Same thing with spousal rape, date rape, gay marriage is being rightfully allowed in some places where the culture is different and there is the effort to change the laws in other states that have it as an impossibility because it’s a violation of human rights. Openly gay people are now allowed in the military.
Changing the definition in sex ed is MORE strict on what is and isn’t acceptable meaning if more people follow it less people would rape. They are confused because consent isn’t fucking taught AT ALL so they pick up the slut shaming, victim blaming “if she doesn’t say no and I just need her to say yes once” version of consent, which is just SO FUCKING WRONG.
thedude
We want to change the attitude toward rape.
Most people don’t base their behaviour on whether or not something is illegal but rather on whether or not it’s the right thing to do.
Of course legality is important but “concentrating” on it won’t make rape go away, either.
@ The Mellow Monkey
I think that that campaign was a brilliant idea, but it was a ad campaign with posters in public places which restated the commonly accepted definitions of sexual assault, not teaching a completely new definition of rape in the classrooms of schools, so it is rather off topic.
@ John Morales
No, I don’t support any rape definition that excludes marital rape, but if that was the legal definition in my jurisdiction, I would campaign to change the legal definition first, and then teach the new definition in sex-ed classes. You might have a point that the legal world isn’t the real world, but it is the part of the world where people are found guilty or innocent. Therefore their definitions of crimes are, in my opinion, the most important. That is not saying that I agree with their definitions of crimes, or even what should constitute a crime, but if I disagree with their definition I would try to change their definition, not just circumvent it.
@ Nerd
If you think that the legal system should adopt a better definition, why don’t you start a campaign to change the legal definition? My point here is that teaching a rape definition that contradicts the legal definition is starting at the wrong end of the problem.
@TheDude
The problem here is what you mentioned above; how do you define “enthusiastic consent” precisely enough to build a law around it? You can’t. However, in everyday language we all know what enthusiastic means. She is quite clearly saying that if your partner doesn’t seem up for it then leave them alone. She is saying coercion =/= consent, and she’s quite right.
Having watched that video, and read some of the stories on here, I feel fucking lucky to have grown up in ’90s England :-/
Sorry, I disagree with you. Expecting the fuckwitted Rethugs to change anything that isn’t “violent” rape is a pipe dream. We need to start with the idea of consent. In order to make sure of consent, enthusiastic consent. Then the pressure to change the law from below will cause the law to change as it should.
Your idea won’t work. Which is why it is being ignored.
80
thedude
Funny how you replied to every comment but mine, which deals with EXACTLY this and refutes you. Fucking jackass.
JAL
Stop lying. I did not reply to chigau either. Did you not notice that all the comments I replied to were before your comment? What happened was that I sat down to reply to the comments, got as far as Nerds comment, then something happened IRL that needed my attention. By the way, your comment does not refute anything, part of it does not even make any sense:
Some words appear to be missing in that sentence. If you correct it I may be able to give a better reply.
Your comments refute nothing, and put in place no plan. Nothing but hot air. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Your words are part of the problem.
Okay, fine, if you say so.
*Sigh*
Dumbass, I was showing examples of where the culture change leads to and results in the law changing. Hence, refuting you’re whole “you’re working from the wrong end of the problem” bullshit. Changing the culture first is a valid way to address problems.
Fine. I’ll change it for you, but you’re still dismissing my examples you disingenuous fuck.
Changing the definition in sex ed [to enthusiastic consent], (which is MORE strict on what is and isn’t acceptable ) means if more people follow it, less people would rape.
You have no reply. Evidence Zero. Try here, not inane and no-sequitur legal analysis. Your unevidenced claims are *floosh* treated like they should be from liars and bullshitters.
JAL
You need to work a bit more on your Butthead impersonation, but as your level of maturity shows that you probably still are in elementary school, you should have enough time to practice.
[meta]
thedude, you seriously imagine that people won’t notice that your (seriously stupid) comment @89 is a transparent way to attempt to avoid confronting JAL’s contention that “Dumbass, I was showing examples of where the culture change leads to and results in the law changing.”?
(You got nothing meaningful with which to respond, do ya?)
How about, “Unless you hear a clear, enthusiastic, “Yes,” you may be in danger of committing rape.
Um… a quick question, even if it is defined that rape is a lack of enthusiastic consent, how would you prove that in court?
Oh, nevermind, got confused with what’s going on here.
JAL
You can pretend that the legal definition of rape isn’t important, but it only shows that you live in a fantasy world. You should ask your doctor to increase your medication, so that you can call Tellus your home at some point in the future.
JAL
No sane person thinks that that constitutes consent. It is always possible to change ones mind, and consent stops when one communicate that one have changed ones mind. Besides it is also possible to consent to some acts and not to others, just because someone says “yes” doesn’t mean that you can invite the soccer team over.
chigau
At last a sane response without any childish attempts of insults. Praise the spagetthi monster! I think that I agree with everything in your response, but I would like to add that most people aren’t rapists. I don’t think that rapists think like most people, and I think that many rapists might be more likely to be influenced by the legality of an action (and the likelyhood of being punished for it) than whether it is right or wrong. Nobody can possibly think that it is right to have sex with someone who has passed out, but if they can trick themselves into believing that it isn’t rape, they can believe that they aren’t rapists. That is one of the reasons I think it is important with campaigns like the one mentioned earlier in the thread, which states that it is sexual assault if s/he is incapacitated etc. If we are going to drill it into would-be rapists what rape is we can’t change the definition of rape after every passing fad. That would only water out the message, and the rapists could trick themselves into believing that rape is not really rape, because people keep changing the definition.
thumper
I think that it is very important that we don’t teach a completely different definition of rape in sex-ed than what is used in courts, and I think most lawyers would agree with me on that. Besides, you don’t need to teach “enthusiastic consent” to make it clear that coercion isn’t consent. First you say that consent is needed, and then you explain what consent is until everyone in the class has understood the consept. That is how teaching works (or should work, at least).
Nerd
There is no need to be sorry, I’m an adult, and I can cope with people disagreeing with me.
Nerd
The Steubenville case wasn’t violent was it? People are still calling it a rape case, and the perpetrators got convicted. What some “rethugs” think shouldn’t matter.
Nerd
You need to look up “ignore” in a dictionary.
To those that I haven’t answered: There is no need to have a hissy fit, I’ll answer you tomorrow
thedude [hush]
94
thedude
I didn’t say the legal definition isn’t important. It’s just not the most important one.
Nice with the ablism and shaming of mental illness, douchenozzle.
You are a fucking stupid and ignorant then. Open your eyes, cupcake. We’ve seen it plenty of fucking times in threads, people actually saying this, and in rape cases. It’s been used as a defense. The Steubenville case is one where she didn’t say no (because she couldn’t) so the boys took that as a green light. And no body stopped them. Even the adults afterwards were trying to cover it up and “protect their boys”.
That case had overwhelming evidence with an internet backlash attached to it. The judge in his decision was all “Well, I’m sorry but I can’t ignore all the evidence, even though I want to. You boys should learn to hide your crimes better and not broadcast it using social media. Otherwise, this is what happens”.
Seriously, if that evidence hadn’t gotten out to the wide world I bet that case would’ve gone the same standard way.
You still haven’t addressed my earlier point, you disingenuous lying fuckhead. Ignoring it doesn’t just make it go away.
94 thedude
Yeah, that isn’t sexist at all.
/sarc
Who gives a shit if you commit inanity tomorrow. Which you will. Nothing cogent in your “responses”. Typical asshole trolling.
Evidently you are too stupid or too lazy to read a post of mine on that thread. The evidence was too overwhelming to be ignored. Even though locally, they tried to sweep it under the rug. State intervention was required for a trial to occur. Even the judge admitted, even if he was inclined to ignore, the movie evidence was so explicit he couldn’t ignore or diminish it. Not making your case, but making your attitude more than evident. You have nothing cogent to say, but say it anyway. What an abject loser you are.
Look, we don’t worry too much about the definition of rape in tort law, but there is one. Since all rape is battery, it’s typically only used in damages. But you can be convicted even if someone appears to give consent.
So when you say the “legal definition” you’re kind of missing that there are multiple legal definitions – some in the criminal context, some in the tort context. Anytime you fail to get a clear consent, internally motivated and freely given, you have no way to be sure that you aren’t the perpetrator of a rape.
It may turn out that an unclear consent was interpreted correctly. It may turn out that an external motivation was internalized (“Do me, Baby!” “I don’t want to, Sweetums.” “I’ll do the dishes every night this week.” “You’re on.”) successfully. But without the clearly stated, freely given, internally motivated consent, you may in fact be doing an act that meets one or more legal tests for rape.
Enthusiastic isn’t a bad shorthand. It certainly catches the internal motivation and freely given aspects. It’s attempting to catch the “clear” aspect, though how it does so and to what extent is arguable.
Enthusiastic isn’t problematic. There might be a better phrasing, but it’s not deceptive, it is useful, and trying to give kids “the” legal definition of rape is bound to fail anyway.
Frankly, I think kids will get a better picture of rape/not rape from saying “you have to get enthusiastic consent” than they would from, “According to the Wynrib test, consent can be vitiated for public policy reasons, typically when the parties are unequal so that it is unclear if the possible victim is consenting freely and from internal motivation or merely responding to the motive of a person with a position of power and trust.”
Seriously, you want to teach legal definitions to 8th graders? F’n gods of F’n.
JAL
What point, shit-for-brains? You haven’t made a single point, you wouldn’t notice a point if it bit you on the nose.
JAL
How is it sexist to point out that you behave like a little child?
Crip
Do you really think that they are too stupid to understand “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex of another person, without the consent of the victim,”? You don’t have much trust in kids, do you?
Trying to have an argument with you people is like trying to have an argument with christians. You are unable to read or think, all you are capable of is repeating your silly religious ideas. There is however one difference, the christians I have tried discussing with were usually able to resist spewing stupid and childish attempts at insults everytime I disagreed with them.
@thedude
But that’s not the definition of rape in the criminal code, is it?
Worse, when you quote from the criminal code, some of the words appear to be everyday words, but in the legal profession are actually terms of art that indicate something else, or something more nuanced.
In your example, for instance, what does the word “consent” mean? Does it mean the same thing in Oklahoma as in Saskatchewan?
You say I don’t trust kids with the legal definition, but you don’t give the legal definition as something kids would understand. You make something up.
Why do you have so little trust in kids?
101 thedude
*sigh* You are so transparent and dull. I’m just going to repeat John Morales’s #90:
101 thedude
Hissy fit, like ‘drama queen’, ‘hysterical’, ‘don’t get your panties in a bunch’, and ‘it must be that time of the month’, are used to demean and shrug off what women are saying. And yeah, that’s exactly what you are doing, especially since you still haven’t addressed my point that you supposedly “didn’t have time for but would get to later”.
Further to Crip Dyke’s comments: Australian Law Reform Commission: Publications: Family Violence – A National Legal Response (ALRC Report 114)/25. Sexual Offences
In particular:
(Note that sexual penetrative assault is only one type of sexual assault)
And, note, John, that that isn’t even the criminal code. That’s an explanation of the code that’s meant to be readable to people like non-lawyer local legislators, who have more familiarity with the law than most people, but can’t be expected to read the code entirely unexplained.
Note that they even mention mens rea outright – mens rea is *never* used in the criminal code as a term. You only occasionally see an aspect of mens rea spelled out specifically, like when a crime requires something be done “for the purpose of” something.
Even when something is included like “for the purpose of” there is always another portion of intent that is implied.
It would be ridiculous to teach 8th graders the legal definition unless you also taught them lots & lots of background, including the difference between tortious rape and criminal rape and explicit consent, implied consent, and constructive consent. You’d also have to teach when is even explicit consent vitiated for legal purposes. All that is bound up in just the word “consent” in the criminal code. There’s no mention that to understand how legal consent functions you need to read about a dozen cases from various points of view dealing with various technical issues.
It’s all so beyond what you would have time to teach in an 8th grade health class. Oy.
JAL
Was this your so-called point? It is clear that the law is often dragging behind public opinion of what should be the law. I am not arguing against trying to change the public opinion of how rape should be defined, but that is not what you are supporting. What you are supporting is teaching children that rape is defined in a way that is not supported by the law or in public opinion. That is not changing public opinion, it is lying to children. Why do you think that lying to children can’t be a bad idea?
1: I don’t know the gender of most of the people here, you included, so using it in a “sexist way” would be pointless. 2: Do you seriously want to ban every word or phrase that someone at some time has used in a sexist way?
Crip
I never mentioned “in the criminal code”, that was added by you to move the goalposts. According to this website: title=http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/January/12-ag-018.html it is the legal definition used by the FBI. As I wrote earlier, any definition that is compatible with the legal definition would be OK for me.
Even if that were the legal definition, that just begs the question: WHICH legal definition??? There are quite a number.
WHICH IS WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING.
Moreover, what you listed was NOT the legal definition. It is the definition the FBI uses in its surveys to quantify rape and sexual assault. It is intended to be used with non-lawyers in local police departments as well as with citizens in telephone surveys used to back up the data collection from local law enforcement.
It is already written specifically so as not to be a legal definition, it was written to, and I quote:
Argh. HTML fail. Only the first line of the quote should actually be quoted. The rest is me.
Why shouldn’t the better definition be used for force a change in the legal definition. Which only requires a proper court case, so SCOTUS or the state equivalent decide there is need for a clearer definition of what constitutes consent. Why are you so hung up on the status quo? You keep giving the vibe that it is to your benefit to keep consent at a low level…
@Nerd
The thing is, even if he wants to stick with the status quo, he hasn’t come up with even *one* legal definition that, despite being a legal definition, is reasonably and practicably teachable to 8th graders.
But he not only doesn’t know even where to FIND a legal definition, he looks at non-legal definitions and can’t figure out that they aren’t legal definitions.
His own definition makes no mention of voluntary acts, of mens rea, of mistake of fact, of lots and lots of things that are inherent in a legal definition. But he knows best. He’s quite certain that the way to effectively communicate with 8th graders requires this-but-not-that, bcuz, law!!!
Yeah, once he actually picks a single definition that is actually used to determine culpability, penalty/damages, or both, then he has to prove that “enthusiastic” is objectively misleading when used to communicate about that legal definition to middle schoolers.
But no, all we get is, “Enthusiastic isn’t the legal definition, therefore, horrors!”
we respond: “Yeah, right, like you could teach a real legal definition to 8th graders”
he says, “Yeah, sure, this def right here!”
But that is so not a legal definition at all – merely common English meant to approximate many, but not all, statutes. Which, y’know, is what the star of the above video presented: a definition that approximates many legal definitions, but does not occur in law.
But no, his non-legal definitions are perfect – mostly because he can’t even tell the difference between a legal definition and a non-legal approximation.
Which all makes his original umbrage at “enthusiastic” that much more ridiculous.
I don’t know that I would use enthusiastic, but I
…a) can see a good argument for it, given the target audience
and
…b) am not dismissing it bcuz, reasons!!!! I’m considering its use against actual legal definitions.
Yowza this joker chaps my hide with his arrogant ignorance.
I smell liberturd. And perhaps somebody who is uneasy about something in their past, with a strict “enthusiastic” definition of consent.
Crip
As I wrote earlier:
I can see that there can be a problem if the states legal definitions contradict each other, but that is an issue that should be fixed anyway.
Nerd
If there is a better definition than the current legal definition(s), I wouldn’t mind changing the legal definition(s). Your definition is worse than the definition used by the FBI that I qouted before, mainly because it is vague and subjective. Determining whether someone is enthusiastic or not is not always easy. I know people who always looks enthusiastic and I know people that I have never seen looking enthusiastic. What about depressed people? Are they not allowed to have sex if they are not able to be enthusiastic? It is important to teach consent, but teaching enthusiastic consent will only increase confusion
I am not. I am just “hung up” on teaching a sensible and easy to understand definition of rape that isn’t contradicting the majority of legal definitions.
I really didn’t think that you could stoop any lower. You have proven me wrong.
thedude:
You are an unimaginative person, aren’t you?
Consider that the definition “only sexual assault that is prosecutable by law is rape” is definitionally compatible with the legal definition; and consider your response to my question “So you would have it that back when the law held a husband could not rape his wife, no wives were raped?” above.
(“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”, right?)
John
Well I am imaginative enough to imagine the problems that might arise from teaching “enthusiastic consent”, but then seeing problems is part of my job as a software tester.
What part of my response is it that you have a problem with? Are you discussing or leading a pub quiz? And why do you continue to harp on an obsolete definition of rape? As I don’t own a time machine, and can’t go back and change what definition of rape was used in sex ed (if there was any sex ed) at the time that the now obsolete definition, I obviously cannot have meant that we should teach that definition. Therefore your harping on this obsolete definition is pointless.
Yes, you are rather consistent in your foolishness.
As are you. You still haven’t made your case due to extreme sophistry.
thedude:
Maybe, but not enough to realise that basing your definition on “the” legal definition necessarily excludes any cases not currently covered by law.
You’re fractally wrong, but a salient facet is that you claim to be OK with any definition compatible with “the” legal definition, whilst simultaneously granting that legal definitions may well contradict each other.
I’m hardly harping on it, O hyperbolic one; what I did is to note you earlier claimed that if you disagreed with a particular legal definition you’d not accept it, but later claimed you were OK with any definition compatible with “the” legal definition.
I see you’re unfamiliar with that quotation.
I keep wondering why thedude keeps harping on a bad definition of consent. The only reason I see is that there is some potential guilt in his past if enthusiastic consent was required….
John
I am not, I just thought that it suited you better.
Nerd
The current definition of consent is only a bad definition in the minds of a handful of Valerie Solanas wannabes. You keep repeating your wild accusation that I might be a rapist, even you can’t find anything lower. You are really a sorry specimen.