Originally appeared on Culture Bend.
An elite Manhattan school is under fire this week as parents respond in outrage to an “intersectional porn workshop” presented to 11th-graders.
Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School invited Justine Ang Fonte, Director of Health and Wellness at another K-12 school, to lead the class. According to her website, Fonte has “reveled in disrupting health education for 10 years.”
Fonte’s presentation at Columbia Grammar was titled “Pornography Literacy: An intersectional focus on mainstream porn.” This so-called health education was given to a class of students aged 16 to 17. The lesson considered pornography vs. art, what mainstream porn teaches about sexuality, and how different genres of porn implicate one’s identity. The slide presentation included explicit photos of nudity and women in bondage.
An elite prep school founded in 1764, Columbia Grammar boasts of alumni from Herman Melville to Ally Sheedy. Barron Trump once attended. Costing nearly fifty grand a year, some of the prep school’s parents were not aware of the pornography literacy class until their students were watching the presentation at home on Zoom. Other students watched in the school gym.
Elitist as the school may be, Columbia Grammar’s curriculum represents a broader movement to radicalize sex education in schools across the country. Fonte was just all too willing to make explicitly clear what many advocates have been pushing for years: the sexual exploitation of minors in the name of comprehensive education.
As of today, all fifty states involve some form of sex education in grades six through twelve. The standard for that curriculum is up to each state. In all states, parents are notified before the course is taught; in thirty-six states parents can opt-out of their child taking a sex ed course. Sex education in schools is not intended to be an extensive, one-time talk all American kids receive before going on their merry way. Sex education in schools should be supplemental to the conversations parents have with their children at home. This is to say that sex education in the school system does not bear the sole responsibility of providing teens the moral roadmap to sexual health.
It is, however, inestimably important to millions of American teenagers to make well-informed decisions. Teenage girls are at a much higher risk for sexually transmitted diseases because their anatomy is simply not developed enough to provide natural immunity. Cognitively, teenage brains are not wired for careful decision-making, let alone to handle the stress of broken bonding and intimacy. At the very least, health educators should be talking about the addictive neurochemicals that are released when you choose to be sexually active or view pornography. The fact is, sexual activity is far riskier for young teens than adults. In a curriculum that provides information on basic anatomy and safe sex, shouldn’t the factual risks be presented?
A well-intentioned curriculum for the mental and physical wellbeing of adolescents has been missing in sex education for years. Sex education is transforming from standard, practical information about reproductive health to an agenda that is irresponsible and damaging to minors.
In a 2010 Heritage report, Dr. Mirriam Grossman noticed a trend in her college-aged patients while treating them for STIs: severe knowledge gaps on their own biology and risks of sexual behavior. Dr. Grossman said an epidemic of ignorance was to blame for the epidemic of sexually transmitted infections. America is again at a record high for STIs today.
Our culture is sex-saturated. Young adults are well-versed in knowing where to find their preferred genre of porn but know nothing about the consequences of a click of a button or high-risk sexual behavior.
So if sex ed curriculum is not teaching basic anatomy and the factual risks of sexual behavior, the question that follows is, of course… what are they teaching?
Champions of what is known as “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” emphasize the so-called “sexual rights” of minors and educate students on how to obtain sexual pleasure in various ways. For instance, the World Health Organization (which President Biden has reinstated funding for after the Trump administration’s withdrawal) is an ardent supporter of Comprehensive Sexuality Education. In a learning objective for students aged 12-15, WHO endorses descriptions of orgasms and masturbation as a healthy way for minors to express their sexuality.
So-called educators like Justine Ang Fonte are more concerned with an ideological narrative than helping young adults be well-informed about their sexual choices. Mainstream sex ed and online health resources for teens are leaving medical and biological information in the dust.
In his 2005 book, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism is Corrupting Our Future, Ben Shapiro writes, “Today’s sex ed experience for members of the porn generation is wedded to the idea of permissiveness and ‘tolerance’ for all sorts of behaviors. As ‘inherently sexual beings’ the argument goes, our sexuality should not and cannot be contained by any system of morality. Sexuality is as much a natural characteristic as race. No form of sexual expression may be condemned, and all must be taught.”
Advocates for Comprehensive Sexuality Education say their curriculum leads to safer sex, but young adults still know shockingly little about their own anatomy. Encouraging teens and preteens to explore sexual gratification without knowing the permanent consequences it poses to them is irresponsible and repugnant. Sex education in our schools encourages mentally, physically, and emotionally undeveloped individuals to make life-altering decisions. It’s been happening for years and will continue to get worse. It’s sexual exploitation.
Standard sex education no doubt mirrors the road of our culture, a postmortem on the sexual revolution. Only now, it is infecting children. The general approach of sex ed for grades 6-12 impacts what is accepted or permitted in other parts of academia. In Texas, ninth-grade book clubs included novels that depicted child rape and explicit sexual acts. In Loudoun County, Virginia, 13 to 14 year-olds were provided books containing graphic descriptions of oral sex.
America has a phenomenon of the hyper-sexualized and the obscene in our schools. It is oversexualizing children and corroding academia. The reason is simple: sex education is inextricably tied to family life. The brazen sex ed we have today is an ideological battle to dismantle traditional family values. It has continued in an inevitable spiral towards lunacy, allowing pornographic content to pass for childhood education.
A study from Georgetown University argues for sex education to begin at the age of 10. According to the professors, children are most susceptible to exploring their sexuality and gender identity at this age. The Georgetown experts say your children are most “malleable” to society’s gender norms.
They’re right.
Children are highly susceptible to what the mainstream tells them is healthy or normal about sex. Comprehensive Sexuality Education encouraging minors to explore sexual gratification earlier and earlier goes to the heart of the greatest, most fundamental American institution: the family. The destruction of normative family tradition requires usurping the authority of parent-child relationships.
The antidote is talking to your children. (Christian psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman suggests introducing sex ed around the age of 9.) I say this with full disclosure that I am not a parent. So as my own mom always says, there is a difference between innocence and naivete. The dreaded “talk” need only be truthful. Be honest with your kids about honoring God and making healthy choices. Talk to your children about what the culture will try to tell them about sex – not because they’re “malleable,” but because they trust you.
Also, find out what your school district is approving for sex ed.
