Also, up is down. George Orwell saw it coming. A woman named Kelly Schenkoske gave a talk in Philadelphia and made a remarkable assertion.
During the session, Schenkoske strongly objected to the concept of “consent” being included in sex ed curriculum. She argued that teaching kids about consent is counterproductive and leaves children vulnerable to sexual exploitation. “[K]ids are often taught to be obedient.” Schenkoske said. “And to teach kids consent is a shift away from really strongly teaching, it’s okay to have those really strong boundaries and to say no, because not always do kids have that faculty to strongly say no.”
So, she opposes sex ed and the principle of consent because knowing that you have the power to refuse sex is a suggestion that you will obediently consent. It makes no sense. But then, Schenkoske is a member of Moms For Liberty, so you already know it’s garbage.
She even makes the Orwellian comparison explicit.
On August 15, Schenkoske promoted a post stating, “Diversity is segregation” and “Inclusion is exclusion.”
Her audience was just as awful.
The session concluded with the opportunity for audience members to ask Schenkoske questions. “In Michigan, we voted on Proposal 3… we literally voted our parental rights away,” one audience member said. “[W]e have lost our parental medical rights of our children… the schools have all the things that they are able to pass out, the abortion pills, they are able to start transgender, trans, you know… Your child can go to the clinic between 2nd and 3rd hours and have their abortion pill… This is in our middle school and high schools.” Later the audience member said, “[a] boy can start the process of cutting his penis off right there in his high school on his lunch.”
Now there’s an image. What is gender affirming care? That’s when you hand a schoolkid a steak knife and let him hack away at body parts. I don’t know what they were thinking to specify that it happens on lunch hour — does he saw it off and slap it on a hot dog bun? There are weird twisty things going on in these people’s brains.
Some people are just too fucking stupid to be allowed outside unsupervised.
Those Moms4Liberty talking points are as wrong as ketchup on a hot dog.
These young leties are really getting extreme. At my time, we would delay cutting off the penis to afternoon but now apparently everybody is doing it at lunch time. It’s ridiculous. Someone should stop them.
I can’t quite understand what this woman is trying to say. How is teaching about consent different from teaching that you are able to say no if you want to? How is consent different from boundaries? And if children (apparently) don’t have the faculty to say yes or no with conviction, then surely they should be provided with this faculty by teaching them about consent?
What is her argument exactly? It’s very unclear.
There is no argument. It’s just assertions that the good thing is bad by simply flipping things. Day is night, god is the devil, up is down…
They have their parental rights. They want rights over other parents. I wish I could get people like this pinned down to answer questions.
This woman is simply a pedophile or at the least, a pedophile enabler.
It is a good idea to teach children that their body belongs to them, the idea of consent, and that they have the right to say no in situations involving sex.
This isn’t all that surprising.
The fundie xian churches and their associated culture, which most moms4liberty likely belong to or at least support, have very high rates of child sexual abuse.
It is know to be the second highest correlation for child sexual abuse.
@OP, @4:
Look, you can agree or disagree with the argument, and consider it as dumb or evil as you like, but I can’t see how you can honestly not see what the actual argument is here…
Which is this: the problem with consent is that it implies you have a choice, and in having a choice you are able to say “yes” as well as “no”. And the ability to say “yes” at times when they think you should have said “no” is the problem with consent and the teaching thereof. (They may also have a problem with saying “no” at times they think you ought to have said “yes” but I suspect they’d be a little less loud about that these days.) On the other hand if all you teach is obedience then you can say “You must obey me and I tell you to say ‘no'” and in their eyes the problem is solved. (And if anything happens anyway, well obviously it’s all your fault for not saying “no” well enough.)
It’s very simple, you see–if you don’t teach them the answer is always no, they might say yes! And if they say yes when gawd or parents want you to say no, that’s obviously evil and wrong.
Consent is a liberal buzzword. That’s all she’s trying to say.
That is because her argument is incoherent and really stupid.
I’ll try to translate from SlimeyKook to English.
.1. If you teach children to say “no” to unwanted sexual advances and attention from other people especially adults, then they will learn to say “no” to other parental demands such as to do their homework or hate Democrats and nonwhites.
.2. It is actually very flawed reasoning.
There is no why here, just a demand that children obey adults.
.3. What you should do is explain to children that in some situations, they can and should say “no”, such as demands from the youth pastor that they engage in sexual activites. And explain why as well, unwanted pregnancy, violation of your personal autonomy, and not being alone with creepy adults.
And in other situations, yes, they should do their homework so they don’t become ignorant wackos like Schenkoske and moms4liberty.
And get vaccinated so they don’t get sick and die or end up permanently disabled.
The children are smart enough to differentiate between situations where obeying adults is reasonable and situations where obeying adults is not reasonable. They can understand they idea of “why” as well as the idea of “consent”.
Remember, a zygote has full rights of personhood from the moment of conception, but actually born children are the property of their parents until they turn 18.
If you want to know where Schenkoske is coming from, here it is.
In her culture, child sexual abuse is very high.
She doesn’t see it as a problem.
And those Patriarchial churches have never dealt with that problem.
That would include the fundies, the Mormons, 7th Day Adventists, and the Catholic church.
The Catholic church has dealt with it sort of, but only because they’ve ended up in decades of court cases.
xohjoh2n,
But that isn’t what she is saying. You’re introducing these additional ideas about “wanting them to say no” (or yes). The words in the original argument only mention “it’s okay to say no”, which implies that the status quo ante is that they are only able to say yes. Logically speaking, she’s making an argument that teaching about consent is vital.
I mean, there may be additional assumptions here that the words don’t convey, but the words themselves very much are contradictory and unclear.
@13 cartomancer: They are being deceptive because their actual belief, “Sex should only be for procreation” is too unpopular and obviously religious. The goal not really changing sex ed, it’s no sex ed at all. They know they can’t ban it entirely (yet), so intentionally making it bad is their short term goal.
This is a standard radical Republican tactic. They can’t kill a government program outright because it’s too popular or necessary. Instead they play a long game, making the rules increasingly dysfunctional they can eventually convince the population that it doesn’t work.
Oddly, the Take-Orwell’s-1984-as-a-How-to-Manual brigade has not yet gotten to the “Junior Anti-Sex League” part –
but they get closer every day.
This kind of rhetoric is typical for a certain kind of Christians. In the 80s Dobson of Focus on the Family was writing that you have to beat children to break their spirit and slogans like “You can’t have freedom without rules” were everywhere. There still are people who don’t see how the “Reagan Revolution” brought Christo-fascism into mainstream politics, but Dobson and Falwell were its main purveyors.
@13:
You have to read between the lines, but only a little I think. They’re not making a rigorous logical argument, they’re making a rhetorical statement of their beliefs. Within that framework I think it’s pretty clear what they mean and I honestly don’t understand why you don’t see it, unless you are deliberately avoiding or unable to analyze rhetoric as rhetoric.
This confirms that we live in a world where ignorance helps the bullies and thugs to control others with impunity. Allowing such muddled thinking to spread and be accepted facilitates the ever increasing violence throughout our failing society. We should all have shirts with “JUST SAY NO!” printed on them.
@17 Helge wrote: the “Reagan Revolution” brought Christo-fascism into mainstream politics, but Dobson and Falwell were its main purveyors.
I reply: You are so correct. These monsters made violence (physical, mental and financial) prevail.
They’ve forgotten the most Orwellian/1984ish slogan of all, one that explains the entire Moms for Liberty paradigm and, indeed, the opposition to sex education:
Ignorance Is Strength
It’s not that they’re crazy enough to believe this can literally happen, they deliberately conjure up the most lurid imagery they can think of in order to amplify the feelings of disgust and anger in themselves and their audience.
It’s always the same tactic, whether it’s needlessly explicit descriptions of gay sex or twisted lies about drag queens exposing themselves to children. Truth and accuracy are never the intent, it’s all about otherizing and demonizing enough to justify their hatred.
Things have changed since I was in school.
All we ever got was band-aids and aspirin.
So, what is the alternative here in their schools that don’t look like anything anyone else goes to?
Would they rather that their middle school and high school kids who are pregnant, give birth to children while they are still children.
There is at least one other alternative.
Their school children could just not get pregnant.
In our schools out here in Realityland, that is actually the norm, not the exception.
In many or most middle and high schools, the vast majority of children…don’t get pregnant.
In one of the local high schools that I’m most familiar with, in a recent year, out of 500 students, only one girl got pregnant that I know of. She came from a highly dysfunctional family so it wasn’t too surprising.
I have no way of knowing how many girls had abortions though. I’m guessing it was very few but I have no way of knowing that.
Many parents, and I have little doubt that Schenkoske is one of them, teach their children that nothing is more important than obedience. They despise the very concept of consent (to anything, not just sexual matters), especially in children, because consent necessarily implies choice. Authoritarians like “Moms for Liberty” don’t believe in choice for anyone except the leader- everyone else should obey their superiors without question.
In respect to sexuality and gender, consent offends them because no one is allowed to “choose” to be anything except for a heterosexual, cisgender man or woman. Women and girls are permitted no choices at all, and are required to be both monogamous and virginal. Men and boys are permitted some choice of partner within the above restrictions, and may be given a pass on some degree of non-monogamy under the aegis of “boys will be boys,” depending on their skin color, social status, and wealth.
The reason Schenkoske comes across as a babbling half-wit* is that she understands that arguing against consent will be viewed extremely poorly by most people in this country, so she’s trying to argue against consent without making it seem like she’s arguing against consent, while simultaneously doing so in such a way that her audience of quarter-wits understands that she is anti-consent. What matters is that she says the right words to identify her as being on the Right Side (TM) of the issue here- the exact order of the words isn’t all that important, because her audience already knows what they’re supposed to think.
*Besides the fact that she is, in fact, a babbling half-wit
I think I’m seeing something different in what she’s saying than everyone else, cause I’m not too bright I guess.
To me it sounds like she’s misrepresenting what is meant by teaching “consent.” Children are taught obedience, and teaching consent is teaching them to consent, which will then erase the cognitive dissonance between obedience and saying “no.”
She claims to want to strengthen their ability to say no, and maybe she does, but I think what she’s really after is demonizing liberals as wanting to teach children to consent to sex with adults, and of course good moral moms don’t want that. That’s why her blathering sounds like the doublespeak it is. Her goal isn’t children’s safety, but reinforcing the idea that liberals are all predatory pedophiles in sex educators’ clothing.
@24:
I think you’ve basically got it, I think you’ve over-interpreted it but not in a way that is especially inaccurate.
These monsyers mangle meaning.
She is using consent to mean saying yes to things, rather than the decision to consent or not.
Then adding on that that others will then take advantage instead of being taught to honour the choice.
Typical RWNJ of exploiting language ambiguity and getting the audience more and more confused.