Sex and Religion

[Alex Bragi]

There's an old saying that in polite social circles one should never discuss religion, politics, or sex. Well, I never promised to be polite here so, since this thread isn't about politics, I guess that just leaves sex and religion, still, I'll try to stay as "polite" as possible.

Sex and religion will always be interwoven with judgements, it's just a fact of life, but what about the facts of life?

Recently, here in Australia where I live, in a most odd pairing, Catholics and Muslims united to protest again explicit forms of sex education in government schools. At present (all) children in government schools get secular sex ed.

I feel sure most people would agree that sex education of children is a sensitive but important aspect of their learning. However, let's be clear we're not talking simple birds and bees stuff here, it's full on, hands on (often on quite literally) learning—everything from homosexuality to how to put on a condom correctly.

I guess the Muslims' view on sex, and more particularly sex for women is simple. A woman exists for the pleasure of her husband—that's it, that's pretty much all any good Muslim needs to know. I feel quite certain, too, that full sex education isn't going to be on any Catholic school curriculum anytime soon. Although, I actually find the thought of a nun waving a piece of phallis shaped plastic around kind of kinky. It's like an image straight from the pages of some sleazy men's' magazine, isn't it? I guess nuns in full habit are often depicted as deranged and depraved sex fiends in porn. Yes, there's something outrageously cheeky and titillating about the forbidden combination of nuns and sex, isn't there? It's like nuns are some kind of divine beings for whom sex and all things sexual just simply don't exist.

Ah, but I digress...

So what exactly is sex education anyway? Well, certainly it's about knowing the anatomy and physiology of human body; the actual act of sex; reproduction and, more relevant particularly in today's sexualised world, it's also about prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy.

Every week, in America alone, approximately 8,000 teenagers and children contract sexually transmitted diseases. Sexually active teens ages 15 to 19 have the highest STD rates of any age group, and nearly half of the 18.9 million new STD cases in 2000 were among youths ages 15 to 24. (Again in America, around 3,000 girls fall pregnant every week and the ratio is similar in Australia.) While gays and lesbians are quite simply just another (excuse this pun) fact of life. So, surely, the full scope of sex education is a good thing. It's not as if sex education is, as some people seem to think, equivalent to giving kids some kind of inferred permission to engage in sex.

On the other hand, certainly everyone is entitled to raise their children, within the common boundary of what's acceptable to the community, with the same morals and social values as themselves?

We live in a society where sex is everywhere. It's used to sell everything from cars to choc milk. It's there on everyone's TV. It's in every newspaper, magazine, and posted on every billboard. It's talked about. It's laughed about. You just can't avoid it. So, I suppose it's only fair and reasonable that some parents may want to make an effort to protect their children from, and at least have some control over, what they consider a deviation from their own good values and judgements.

Yes, politics, religion and sex... An an atheist has the right to bring their chilld/children up without a belief in a god or gods. While a left winger is entitled to raise their child/children to be accepting of so******t ways. Whether or not you agree or disagree with these things, they're still freedoms everyone is entitled to. We tend to take them very much take for granted, so why should sex education be different?

[amosse85]

I guess the Muslims' view on sex, and more particularly sex for women is simple. A woman exists for the pleasure of her husband—that's it, that's pretty much all any good Muslim needs to know.

In the Middle East, a very large percentage (if not the majority) of Muslim men see women as serving only to bear offspring, while other men are for pleasure.

I am of the opinion that sexual education is simply a health issue, and religion should have no influence in the matter. But of course, religious leaders use the restriction of such information as yet another grip on their herd, and will fight to maintain their say under the pretense of moral superiority. The Catholic church goes so far as to suppress information about birth control because, after all, more babies means more followers and more money.

[Thorne]

I am of the opinion that sexual education is simply a health issue, and religion should have no influence in the matter. But of course, religious leaders use the restriction of such information as yet another grip on their herd, and will fight to maintain their say under the pretense of moral superiority. The Catholic church goes so far as to suppress information about birth control because, after all, more babies means more followers and more money.

I tend to agree, it is a health issue. I suppose, if you really wanted to, you could make it an elective course, allowing parents to opt out for their children. It may be a stupid thing for them to do (at least in my opinion) but they could do it.

As for the Church, theoretically more babies means more followers. But how, then do you explain the marked decline in Catholics around the US, at least. And getting new priests (and, I assume, nuns) from this country is a serious problem for them.

It is my belief that better education combined with increased availability of information, through the Internet, cable TV, even cell phones, allows people to learn about other religions, or arguments against religions, and gives them more options. Unfortunately, it seems that many of those who are turning their backs on religion are placing their faith in UFO's, Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) and lake monsters, instead.

[denuseri]

Well i never had trouble finding information on sex as a child,, and i was mostly home schooled. I had a very conservative Mommy to boot.

we often didnt have a working computer most of the time and lived off base in the local communities ussually; but we did have a public library most of the places i grew up in, as well as parents that had no qualms doing what parents should do, teach thier children about the world including sex,

i didnt need anything graphic forced down my throat by the state/school system to understand what sex and std's etc were about and i sure didnt need to waste time on it when i did go to school taking a class specificaly for it.

But hey i skipped home economics for the same reasons (i had a very good teacher at home)

I know not all children have good parents that taught them anything about the basics to being alive or procreation, and personally if your an orphan or fosterchild etc and raised by the state then by all means force feed away,

I personally believe this would be a non-issue if the courses on sex ed were "parent selected" electives in all highschool cirriculims, allowing those that did not wish to be assualted with such to educate themselves and or thier own children.

Unfortunately most liberal education systems and governments believe that the "people are incapable of self responsiability and or teaching thier own children and go to great lengths to keep such activities from occuring.

Churches and protestors of such things have no business disrupting schools with demonstartions when its the governement thats responsible. Thier time would be better spent attempting to buy off the politicians responsible for backing the legeslation. After all thats how the offending courses got put into the schools to begin with, (someone convinced or paid off a politician)

I know this sounds like i am against sex education...I am not, what I am against is the "State" forcing sex education on children whose parents don't want them to recive the "States" version of it.

As for the Muslim view on sex: oh wow i am so not going to speak here in detail lest i get banned, i will surely put some people off,

all i will say, is there are a lot of one sided miss-conceptions on what islamic people believe about sex and sexual awarness, and in the middle east there exists a certian duality as to what is allright for the public and what stays behind closed doors.

Its no wonder so many people hate or misunderstand the people of middle eastern descent or beliefs

Especially in light of the medias obvious propagandized western euro-centric portrayal of the islamic world being that of a over zealous mysoginistic movement full of criminals and backwards thinking thugs crushing thier wemon under an iron fist.

I will say this: Dont buy into all the sophist hype.

[Thorne]

Unfortunately most liberal education systems and governments believe that the "people are incapable of self responsiability and or teaching thier own children and go to great lengths to keep such activities from occuring.

More unfortunately, far too many parents have shown that they are incapable of accepting responsibility, either for themselves or for their children. That doesn't make it right for the government to promote what it believes is right above what the parents believe is right.

[Thorne]

all i will say, is there are a lot of one sided miss-conceptions on what islamic people believe about sex and sexual awarness, and in the middle east there exists a certian duality as to what is allright for the public and what stays behind closed doors.

Its no wonder so many people hate or misunderstand the people of middle eastern descent or beliefs

Especially in light of the medias obvious propagandized western euro-centric portrayal of the islamic world being that of a over zealous mysoginistic movement full of criminals and backwards thinking thugs crushing thier wemon under an iron fist.

People tend to hate and fear that which they don't understand. They also tend to hate those who are markedly (and sometimes even just barely) different from themselves. They tend to forget that those others will view them with the same fear and hatred, and for the same reasons: they are different.

We in the US, and in much of western Europe as well, tend to think of ourselves as enlightened, modern, civilized people, and we tend to think of the followers of Islam as barbaric, medieval brutes. They, on the other hand, think of themselves as devout, civilized and enlightened, and think of us a despotic, hedonistic, heretics. Who's right?

Sexuality in any culture or religion which is male dominated is going to be biased against women, simply because those men will have, to one degree or another, taken the reins of power into their own hands, yet cannot help but view the sexual attraction of women as a threat to that power. As women gain more real power, like they have in the West, men tend to lose that fear of their sexuality, seeing them more and more as equals, in the boardroom and the bedroom. Admittedly, even in this country, we are not quite at that point yet, but we are much farther along than most Muslim countries. And part of the reason that Muslim and Catholic leaders protest against sex education is that it demystifies female sexuality to some degree, allowing the young to see women more as equals and less as property.

[damyanti]

As for the Muslim view on sex: oh wow i am so not going to speak here in detail lest i get banned, i will surely put some people off,

I rarely buy into the hype...which is why I would love to hear you expand on this statement and tell your view...if it puts some people off...frankly I don't care much about people who get offended by an honest discourse...its usually just a faux outrage because you have a mind of your own and don't agree with them, lol.

I really am interested in what you have to say.


but if you feel so strongly about it, and if you have the time, would you mind pm me the answer

[Kuskovian]

This de-mystification can also all to easily lead to emasculation of a society and a transvaluation away from natural bio-ethical truths.

Religious fundamentalisum is all to often close minded.

The Islamics and the Christians both suffer from overt "fundamentalist" idealisum and un-yielding dogmas that lead to direct confrontation.

The problem is not in the cultural identity of the individual. It is in the individual religious zealot's resolution to continue along a chosen path without regard to logical observation, that is the real culprit. Both east and west has to many examples to list.

It is a short sighted mistake to assume that a patriarchial society is also by defualt a mysoginist one. Well established gender roles give structure to a chaotic enviroment and is often a nessesity in economically poorer regions for survival.

Every culture in history that has lost touch with it's natural biological orientated gender identity has fallen into decadeance and decline.

Do you hear them? The barbarians, they clamor even now at our gates.[/

[fetishdj]

Catholics do do sex education, at least catholic schools in the UK do. Though we had no nuns at my school, sex ed was taught by a priest and two teachers (one an RE teacher) and there was an emphasis on marriage and so on.

The main reason the population of catholics is dropping is the controversy of Vatican II when the pope of the time refused to consider the ending of the ban on contraception.
The catholic objection to contraception is based purely on the anti abortion bias they have. Prior to the invention of the pill and reliable condoms, most contraception methods were basically early stage abortificeants (essentially a poison that killed the feotus before it could implant) and where therefore counted as abortion and therefore against catholic doctrine. While modern methods may not be abortion (depends on your definition, though I feel that something which prevents fertilisation taking place at all cannot be an abortificeant) they are contraception and the papal bull banning contraception is specific to contraception.

Most modern curricular now consider sex ed as part of citizenship/PSE - stuff about disease and contraception being considered as social concerns in the same light as drugs. The idea there is to also consider the ethical and religious concerns. The mechanics come into it during biology lessons.

I think the important point about sex ed is to make it sensitive to the concerns of parents of particular religions but not hiding any details.

The trouble is that some people (and I am not just talking religion here - certain 'moral majority' types who are not necessarily religious have this thought too) beleive that if you do not tell children about sex they will not do it therefore there is no problem. However, I beleive evidence against this can be seen in the teenage pregnancy stats following the implementation of schemes where no sex ed is done - they rise dramatically. This is because education is not as simple as 'what parents/teachers tell you'. Children learn from many many sources and they evaluate and judge those sources and often parents/teachers are not seen as the best source. They pick up information from TV, from the internet, from other children and not all of it is necessarily correct or accurate. If you listen to a playground you are likely to hear hundreds of myths about sex - none of it garnered from sex ed classes, all of it with varying degrees of accuracy. How many people here heard the rumour that you cannot get pregnant if you have sex standing up? These myths are implicit in the memplex that adds to a child's education and yet they have not been taught and you can't really work out where they come from. I suspect it is a form of constructivism - misconceptions children have before they get educated - based on the strange, skewed logic that sometimes underlies 'common sense'.

Therefore, whatever your religion, it is good common sense to make sure that they get a good quality sex education. Otherwise they will get a really bad one from each other and not know all about how disease is passed on, how pregnancy actually happens and so on.

The trouble is, many religions see any education in social or religious matters outside of thier own community as subversive. The more you corrupt the memeplex with outside influences the less potent the religious message. They already have problems with television, computer games, the internet and so on. They are trying to keep their memeplex, their religious message, pure. The main problem here is that most of the messages they are protecting are not relevant to the modern day.