This morning I listened on and off to Call Kaye on Radio Scotland. The subject was the sexualisation of children. Only one mother mentioned she wanted to control the pace of her children's learning about sex. Others banged on about various main television channels permitted today's pop stars to 'pedal their wares'.
What I couldn't understand is why these parents were upset or were they the few who also disapproved the Section 28 of the Local Government Act, (section 122 in the rest of the UK). It's my belief that the repeal of this Act contributed greatly to young children being indoctrinated into the world of sex at far too young an age though of compulsory education system.
I agree with homosexuality being included in sex education for seniors pupils but why didn't politicians revise the proposal to include an age guide? The approval of Section 28 gave licence to anyone with enough political contacts to ensure that their specific aims were met.
We now teach sex education to 5-year-olds. Is it any wonder that today's young, by that I mean 5-12 year olds, parents think nothing of buying their children clothes which they think are 'fun'?
My favourite Scottish journalist, Iain Macwhirter protests about his young daughter singing the words to a Barbarian popstar. Has Iain sighted the material is daughter is taught in school these days. I doubt it. He's a man who is trusting. I used to be trusting too.
When I was a teenager risque lyrics conveyed little. They were part of the 'my pals understand what they mean and I must play along to be part of the crowd'. It reminds me of peer chat about the loss of virginity. It only took one pal to say she'd had sex to create a continual stream of those who made confessions over a Coke. Strangely the other sexual partner was never named but to say "I've done it too", was enough to create awe and congratulation within your peer group.
Let me say here that I'm still in contact with the friend who first announced to our group that 'she'd done it'. That was a lie she admits, but as teenagers in the 60s we felt, with the introduction of the pill, that we'd nothing to lose. The loss of our virginity to many of us in the 60s meant ' we had done IT' but usually sexual contact was a little, if not a lot, distant from intercourse. I speak from a female's view of course and I'm sure many lads of my age boasted they'd 'cracked it', although my male friends never divulged their sex life.
Why is the Guardian so laid back about Bailey's report on the sexualisation of children? I'm not smiling and I hope millions of parents aren't either. But then with some left wing believers anything goes so long as it doesn't affect their own.
God help us.
Posts
23 comments:
I'm with you on this one. Other blogs today were saying similar things.
At some point adults have allowed the state to make decisions which really they shouldn't be taking. Sex ed is one. All the other comfy, but only for the left wingers, stuff gets a platform and that affects our children. They have been indoctrinated. I well remember my daughter coming home quite innocently one afternoon after school and proceeded to lecture the rest of the family about why we shouldn't eat meat.
Sexualisation of our children is the latest lefty fad. The kids don't buy their own clothes their parents do and some probably make the wrong choices egged on by pester power and the child always being right. But then girls have always rolled their skirts up to make them shorter etc.
Sex was as you say a boast for both sexes. The actual was somewhat different. Sex ed was a video and maybe some cardboard cut outs. We managed. No no one died because of poor sex ed although quite a numbered almost died of embarrassment.
Let's get education right. Teach our children what they need to know to be successful, happy and independent at the most appropriate time which reflects their maturity and the laws of the land.
Make education a positive experience for all...
I sometimes visited a now demolished Church in a now redeveloped part of Stoke on Trent. The congregation was very small but quite often a group of children would come in, quite well-behaved but completely untaught about what was going on.
They would usually stay for a quarter of an hour or so before quietly slipping out. A slightly older girl (probably 9 or 10) was the leader. In an earlier age she would probably have been dubbed "a little mother" and she was kind to the little ones.
One time I said hello to her, I noticed that she was wearing a T shirt with the slogan SEX BITCH.
Of course, it's parental neglect that allows such a thing. You get some idea of the milieu in which such children live from the articles of Theodore Dalrymple ( who was formerly a prison psychiatrist)
I just read the MacWhirter article Subrosa. He didn't hold back in publishing the sort of lyrics being spouted these days by females in the "music" industry. He named Rihanna, Perry, Gaga and others as the peddlers of soft porn and x-rated lyrical content when it comes to their "songs".
Their vids and their lyrics are being viewed and sung by children. Rihanna's latest offering includes singing, literally, the praises of sado-masochism. Although, if we remember, she was also the girlie who toured news studios and chatshows to discuss the trauma she endured when her (then) boyfriend hit her.
Before I continue:
Many of the people I care about are homosexual and what consenting adults get up to is their own business. In my rebellious youth I did my fair share of experimenting - only then I didn't know what I was trying to rebel against. I do now...
I'd read about all this
http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/Press/press146.html
when researching Liberty and the Islington and Haringey nastiness
http://eileenfairweather.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12:islington-stories&catid=1:portfolio&Itemid=5
http://eileenfairweather.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18:baby-p&catid=1:portfolio&Itemid=5
but somehow seeing this wee scanned pamphlet really shocked me.
A bit of surface digging at the time seemed to suggest that many of these individuals are still on the go and in positions of considerable influence.
Something else I'd rather not have been reminded of:
http://www.ipce.info/host/radicase/index.htm
Rosie, "a continual stream of those who made confessions over a Coke".
That's a bit strong! Was that what you young lassies in Dundee, discussed in the bike sheds?
I was indifferent to the Section 28 debate petem until I was shown some of the material which would be taught to children. I argued then that it was too explicit for 11 year olds. Now even 5 year olds are given sex education.
What is it they say about 'give them an inch'?
We have a generation of parents who have little interest in their children Edward. They expect the state to look after them.
I remember some years ago a friend who taught Primary 1 infants telling me that when she started teaching there would be the occasional child come to school who couldn't tie the shoe laces. Twenty years later a third couldn't do the task.
The local primary here has a very well attended breakfast club. I find that extremely sad in this modern day. My father would never allow us out of the house without breakfast. Usually it was a morning roll with either egg, bacon or marmalade and if he was in a really good mood, he allowed us to eat it while walking to school. If not, we had to sit at the table, even though we were running late.
Jo, you're far more up to date with today's pop music than me. Pop singers have always pushed the boundaries. We had the rebel songs in the 60s etc but we also had responsible radio and TV DJs who took their work seriously.
Sheila, my belief is similar to yours. What consenting adults do is their own business and yes, we experimented.
That CV article is shocking but not surprising. There were plenty around during the Section 28 debate who obviously had their own agendas. These people haven't given up.
Sheila, I don't know if I could read any of these articles in that link. Seeing the one entitled 'Do children need sex?' turns my stomach.
DL, we used an Italian cafe for our discussions. The bike sheds were for the lads. :)
The media (and popular culture in general) has clearly been selected as the whipping boy, but we forget that it reflects modern culture, it doesn't create it...
There was a case in the last few weeks of a naked cyclist being arrested, and people were concerned that had he been around half an hour later then the children from the local school might have seen him (he claimed he deliberately made sure he avoided the end of school). I wonder how many of those children had already seen far more explicit images in sex ed that day?
Five is far too early for a lot of this stuff.
I blame 'Pan's People' myself. And all the pop videos that have followed. It's thrust in everyone's faces - tabloids especially so.
We never had sex education at school; North London 1952 - 62, and I never got any at home - absolutely taboo - and not because we were religious, we weren't. It was left to my first job on a farm to see the action; the Boar serving Sows, and helping with a Stallion - Bloody 'ell!
Virginity lost upon marriage. I was shy. Before that, it was a kiss and a cuddle, and rare events too.
Girls were always attractive, but untouchable, and there were always those who hitched their uniform skirts higher than modesty allowed, and tucked their blouses in tighter for greater effect. Where did that come from? No lessons for sure, but the media, peer pressure, and to some extent family - following fashion.
The thought of five year olds being 'educated' in the ways of a sexual nature is abhorent to me. This smacks of a perverted breeding ground, nothing less. It's one thing to teach caution, and our eleven year old daughter is more savvy than I was at fifteen, but to haul it up onto a blackboard or other sets of imagery - biologically swayed or otherwise - intices experimentation. A show of 'How to'.
Perhaps sex education should be replaced with personal morals and responsibilities for one's actions. That would cover a wide gamut, and done correctly - in class or at home - doubtless improve peoples attitudes toward one another. But that would not suit a corrupt governement agenda, as I am sure there is.
But the media rule, and what we get is what sells.
I disagree Julia: a quick look at the absolute trash that today passes for teenage magazines shows very clearly who is creating what.
The very people we're discussing here are the main features in almost every magazine. They're the role models. Bizarre that women worked so hard to be taken seriously only for today's lot to come along and suggest that all a woman can use to get anywhere is her body and if she doesn't have a perfect body she might as well throw herself on a landfill site. What sort of reality trash are we subjected to in the form of the revolting silicone doll Jordan and who pays her wages? The media pays her wages. How many young girls live with the ambition of getting a bank loan to get breast implants or of marrying a footballer or......bedding a footballer and then selling the story? Is this what we want our young women to consider worthwhile ambitions?
And then there's Ms Perfect, Cheryl Cole. I wonder if the real reason she hasn't changed her name back since she divorced her footballer is that if she goes back to the maiden name people who Google her will get details of that court case where she was found guilty of assaulting a low-paid toilet attendant while she was sozzled.
The media creates the atmosphere. Was it Marshal McLuhan who said "The medium is the message?"
Two examples -
The "progressive" fraternity almost fell down and worshipped Kenneth Tynan for being the first person to say "f**k" on TV.
At the time of the Toxteth race riots, I was driving through Derby and two youngsters were throwing stones at passing traffic. They were white, as it happened but I am sure they were copying what they had seen on the news. I chased them but they ran faster than I did!
If you remember, there was a daft old bat called Lady Simey, a magistrate(!),
who said "If you live in Toxteth, you'd be mad not to riot".
I remembered her very well after the stones came flying in my direction.
Julia, they bat off each other but it always has been so. Advertising companies have always pushed to the edges - it's their job. Companies wouldn't produce what we consider inappropriate clothing for children if there was no demand for it.
It's all about values.
Dave H, there's a chap who wanders round the country called the "Naked Rambler'. He's harmless but just likes to be naked. Scottish courts have spent a fortune prosecuting him.
Some things don't make sense and never will.
Fashion does influence girls Derek but it's part of growing up. I knew I wasn't allowed to wear lipstick until I left school but used to put it on once I left the house to see my pals of an evening. My parents knew of course, but they also knew I made a good effort of trying to remove the traces.
Se education shouldn't begin until senior school. Questions from wee children should be answered honestly and briefly. Providing sex education for small children is just wrong and leads, as you say, to experimentation.
We do have a irresponsible media even more so than we did when we were young don't you think Edward?
Sex sells is what the MSM continues to say.
In my day there was Debbie Harry of Blondie. She was utterly beautiful. I remember she once appeared on TOTP in a bin liner and she looked like a million dollars! But you know what the difference between her and the others...........starting with Madonna? She had class. She still does.
The selling of pointy bras for wee lassies started with Madonna. The sex-simulation on stage started with Madonna. As for goody two shoes Kylie, she is no better than any of them. Her shows were all about sex too.
I am sorry that with Rihanna and the rest they have nothing more meaningful advice to offer to their "sisters" than to behave like whores.
I remember Debbie Harry and you're right, she did have class.
To be honest I don't think I've watch more than a few minutes of Madonna or Kylie because all they were pedaling was sex. Someone mentioned on the radio this week Tina Turner was another but, although I'm no fan of TT, I believe she sang with passion. Big difference.
The latest ones have to appear half naked because it's all they have to offer. Sad really.
Post a Comment