Op-Ed: Sex Ed in Public Schools? Not If FRC Can Help It!

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Adult performers come from a variety of backgrounds. Some were raised by the modern-day equivalent of hippies, learning early on that sex is no biggie, while others come from incredibly strict religious upbringings, and for them, having sex on camera is a form of rebellion—and then, of course, there's the majority who simply like sex, aren't afraid of it, and see no reason why others shouldn't enjoy such pleasures as well, even if vicariously, by watching them Do It on camera. But if the Religious Right has its way, expect the adult industry to become overrun with the rebellious ones—who very possibly may also be supporting a family because they got poor contraceptive training in their early teens. Enter Cathy Ruse, who has what passes for a distinguished CV in Religious Right circles. She's an attorney, a senior fellow at the ultra-religious conservative Family Research Council (FRC) and director of the organization’s "Human Dignity" wing, and in the waning days of the Clinton presidency, she was Chief Counsel to the Constitution Subcommittee in the (Republican majority) U.S. House of Representatives, where she had "oversight of civil rights and human rights issues" as well as "religious freedom and free speech matters." And now, Cathy has authored (or at least oversaw the creation of) a new FRC brochure, "Sex Education in Public Schools: Sexualization of Children and LGBT Indoctrination." (Download the .pdf here.) The brochure definitely starts off with a bang: "Did you know that... • "Some public schools teach children they could be born in the wrong body?• "Young teens are shown videos with techniques to pleasure their sex partners?• "Students are told how to get secret abortions without telling their parents?" Translation: • Some public school teachers are aware of the fact that not every kid feels that their gender identity corresponds with their genitalia at birth, and actually talk to them about it.• Some sex ed courses actually teach that sex can not only be enjoyable but that there are techniques to help bring that enjoyment about.• Some parents are so whacked in the head that if they found out their daughter was pregnant, they'd make sure she carries the child to term, no matter how the girl herself feels about it. (Sound familiar, some stars of my acquaintance?) But Cathy knows her audience for this crap: "Most of us remember what sex education was like when we were in school. A couple of uncomfortable hours. Line drawings showing human growth and development. Admonitions to be careful, respect others, and save sex for marriage. ... Talking to children about sexuality ... is emotionally charged, even under the best of circumstances." No, it isn't—unless you make it so by being so afraid of sex and any discussion of it that you make the kids crazy by osmosis—and to an extent, Ruse understands this: "Frankly, most parents really don’t want to have these awkward conversations with their children. Parents instinctively don’t want to disturb the natural innocence and sexual latency period before puberty." Yeah! Why discuss sex with kids until just as their hormones have begun coursing through their veins and they're noticing that the opposite sex (or even the same sex) seems attractive—and before anyone's told them what could happen if they decide to experiment with those attractive partners? But Ruse's real target is what's called "Comprehensive Sexuality Education" (CSE), which she claims has "failure rates as high as 87 percent for school-based sex ed programs." And where does that stat come from? The Utah-based Institute for Research & Evaluation, a pro-abstinence organization. "Year after year, sex ed programs push the limits on what is appropriate, both in terms of the material presented to students and the age at which it is presented," Ruse claims. "In many school districts today, lessons introduce sexual concepts to very young children and promote risky sexual behavior to vulnerable teens and pre-teens." Leaving aside the question of which teens and pre-teens are "vulnerable," probably from their having been indoctrinated by ignorant parents and clergy, Ruse clearly conflates "risky sexual behavior" with simply explaining to teens how sex actually works—something they likely aren't getting anywhere else except maybe on the proverbial playground. And sure enough, the very next paragraph states, "What was once simply imparting science-based information and skills to save sex until marriage has now become creating young radical sexual ideologues with the desire to exercise their 'sexual rights.' Preparing children to have sex with multiple partners over the course of a lifetime seems to be a basic assumption underlying much of sexual education content. Needless to say, this is not in line with Christian and other faith views on sexuality and marriage." No shit! Of course, "science-based information and skills to save sex until marriage" is just disguised terminology for abstinence education, a form of sex ed that study after study have shown is entirely useless in preventing teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases—not to mention, real sex ed hardly "prepar[es] children to have sex with multiple partners"; it just lets them know that sometimes finding the person (or persons) you'd like to share the rest of your life with may take some experimentation—you know; like science! And all that is in just the first six pages of this 56-page screed! Topics that follow include bashing sex ed programs in California, Texas, Indiana and Virginia—but the overriding target is Planned Parenthood's "Get Real" sex ed curriculum, where Ruse has a problem with what one "Get Real" trainer told teens in Massachusetts: "Building skills around consent means moving beyond the ‘how to say no’ model of teaching refusal skills to also teach young people how to ask for consent." [Emphasis courtesy of Ruse.] Yeah! "Heaven" forbid that a guy (or gal) actually ask a potential lover for consent! Better to just pick them up at a bar and get them too drunk to know what's being done to them! "Consenting to a sex act does not make that act healthy, acceptable, or safe," Ruse claims. Maybe not, but it does make it consensual! Ruse is a big fan of abstinence "education," and not only do some states make abstinence ed the only approved form of sex ed, but recent federal legislation has provided millions of dollars for it. But Ruse saves her gravest ire for what she calls "LGBTQ Indoctrination." "Lessons can be highly manipulative—carefully designed to get children to approve of the concept of sexual rights and fluid sexual 'identities,' and to reject their religious beliefs, the authority of their parents, and even physical reality itself," Ruse claims. "The LGBTQ movement demands that homosexual relationships be presented to children as good, healthy, and equal in every way to heterosexuality within man-woman marriage. Many sex ed developers and providers are all too happy to comply. ... Can you define 'consensual non-monogamy' or use 'polyamory' in a sentence? Your children might soon be able to. ... Have you heard of PrEP? Most parents haven’t. But it is being promoted to children in public schools today." YEAH! After all, it wouldn't be right to teach kids how to prevent contracting a deadly disease from their sin! But of course, the worst are transsexuals: "Many public schools are beginning to teach the radical, anti-science proposition that biological sex is meaningless, that some kids are born in the wrong body, and that some girls have penises, too. The American College of Pediatricians calls this psychological child abuse." (According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "The American College of Pediatricians is a fringe anti-LGBT hate group that masquerades as the premier U.S. association of pediatricians to push anti-LGBT junk science, primarily via far-right conservative media and filing amicus briefs in cases related to gay adoption and marriage equality.") Ruse clearly has a real hard-on (sorry) for anything transgender, devoting several pages of the pamphlet to the subject. After castigating schools for "opening girls’ bathrooms to biological male students who identify as girls," she lists what she calls "model transgender school policies," about which she has just as much enthusiasm as she does for actual sex ed. They include: • School-wide affirmation of a student’s trans-gender identity• Forced use of false pronouns• Opening of private spaces and sports teams to the opposite sex• Adding “born in the wrong body” lessons to sex ed And "god" forbid that the schools teach "LGBTQ history"! Worse, "Every October, the public schools in Evanston, Illinois go all out for LGBTQ+ Equity Week. Kindergarten children get story time with books like My Princess Boy and I Am Jazz about Jazz Jennings, breakout star of the transgender movement. First-graders are tasked with making 'pride' flags and practicing gender-fluid pronouns. Sixth graders learn about various LGBTQ+ activists and their strategies." The horror! THE HORROR!!! Ruse also has a list of some of the things she considers sex ed no-nos. She's really upset that many actual sex ed curricula include, retaining her numbering: 2) "Teach[ing] children to consent to sex" (what the hell is it with her and consent???); 3) "Normal[izing] anal and oral sex" (how sad that she's never blown her husband or allowed him to fuck her ass); 5) "Promot[ing] sexual pleasure" (YEAH! Because sex should never be "fun"!); 6) "Promot[ing] solo and/or mutual masturbation" (because kids shouldn't have alternatives to fucking and getting pregnant); 7) "Promot[ing] condom use in inappropriate ways" (she really doesn't like them on bananas—or penis models); 10) "Promot[ing] transgender ideology (otherwise known as telling kids trans people exist and they're not spawns of Satan); and of course the biggie, 13) "Undermin[ing] traditional values and beliefs" (because as we all know, whatever sex stuff happened yesterday needs to happen tomorrow as well). Truth is, Ruse is just following a long Christian tradition of misinforming people about sex and relationships—indeed, she described her work with FRC as "almost like working for the church"—and she's hardly the only one. Take, for instance, Lori Alexander, who writes a sexual advice column called "The Transformed Wife"—and boy, does she have lessons for women! "Sex was created for marriage," she wrote on May 14. "Sex was created for child bearing. Sex was created for pleasure ONLY in marriage. Sex was created to build families and nations, but the way sex is being used today, it is tearing all of these down and destroying our nation." (Must be why we have a pandemic going on right now...) Not to mention, "Once sex enters into a relationship, the emotions take over and all sense of reason is gone. It distorts the relationship and turns it far from God’s intended purpose." And then there's this bit of marital wisdom regarding how ready wives should be for their husbands to fuck them: "We live our lives by doing what’s right, by obeying God, even when we don’t feel like it. Yes, and that even includes sex. You know, how long does it take?! Got it, ladies? It’ll just take two minutes. What are you so damn upset about?!" [Emphasis courtesy of Alexander.] The point is, there's no shortage of "experts" out there who'll be only too happy to tell you how to handle every aspect of your sex life—and they start by getting the youngest among us "in line." After all, it was Aristotle who said, "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man"—so think what these assholes could do with a few more years!