Dialogue: Egocentric individualism at the core of new sexuality education

BRUCE LOGAN* says the sex education now being taught in schools focuses on health issues to the detriment of core moral concerns.

The trouble with sex education in schools is that it is no longer sex education. It is now sexuality education.

Sex education, even under the comprehensive model of the 1970s, was about information which retained elements of the traditional ethic of self-restraint and self-control. Sexuality education, however, is a very different beast and is sustained by an entirely different ethic.

Sexuality education, which is now shaping programmes in schools, has taken sexual debate out of the moral realm and turned it mainly into a health issue. Michael Foucault and his doctrine of the medicalisation of sex has entered the classroom. That is why there is so much confusion. Parents still expect a traditional moral perspective while the new self-appointed experts are shaping another.

Sexuality education and the traditional ethic of self-control and restraint have quite different aims, and very different perceptions of what it means to be a human being. And that results in widely differing concepts of morality.

Sexuality educators claim, for example, that prostitution and various sexual activities should be examined in the classroom without traditional moral restriction. Sexuality educators see sexual identity and concepts such as self-esteem as pivotal. Different kinds of sexual behaviour are approached inclusively. One form of sexual behaviour is as legitimate as any other.

Homosexual behaviour is as normal as sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. Bisexuality, too, is no less normal. And, to quote a Family Planning resource, masturbation is a form of safe sex. It is satisfying without risks.

Sexuality educators preach the doctrine of behavioural sexual equivalence. Parents need to know that.

The real problem is clear. Young people are beginning sexual activity progressively earlier, with an increasing number of partners. Disease rates are rising rapidly. In short, they have too much sex too soon.

Ironically, we preach abstinence with cigarettes but not with sex. This is a remarkable ideological blindness when we know how dangerous youthful sexual behaviour can be. Condoms now have the same wishful status that cigarette filters had 20 years ago.

The doctrine of inclusiveness, which is basic to sexuality education, does not allow for serious consideration of factors once considered fundamental in any discussion of sexual behaviour. Marriage is seldom, if ever, considered, certainly not given any kind of priority.

The argument frequently made by proponents of sexuality education in schools is that we need it to keep down teenage pregnancies, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases, or "infections" as they are now euphemistically called.

Sweden and other European countries with lower rates of disease and teenage pregnancies are frequently cited as evidence, and the claim is made that the frequency of sexuality education in schools lowers rates of teenage pregnancies and disease.

Such an argument is simplistic in the extreme. Sexual behaviour in any culture is the consequence of a complex range of cultural and moral factors. Italy has very little sexuality education in schools but a low teenage pregnancy rate. Japan is similar.

There is no evidence from anywhere to suggest that more sexuality education will improve the sexual behaviour of our teenagers. Some argue that sexuality education in fact increases the frequency of sexual activity.

The problem is not one of sexual knowledge. It is essentially one of character. What we need is not sexuality education but character education.

Character education is not a separate course for schools. It is a whole-school effort to reinforce a community of virtues. They are modelled, taught, expected and continuously practised in everyday interactions. Practice is the key.

That is because a guiding principle is the idea, going back to Aristotle, that virtues are not mere thoughts but habits of the heart which we develop by performing virtuous acts. This is the real answer to the liberal and mawkish concept of self-esteem.

In its underlying philosophy, character education rejects moral relativism and reasserts the idea of objective morality - the notion that some things are truly right and others wrong.

Character educators typically define right and wrong in terms of traditional virtues, such as respect, responsibility, honesty, truthfulness, fairness and self-control.

They argue that these core values have objective moral worth because they are good for the individual, good for schools, good for society and consistent with universal moral principles. When we do not act in accord with these basic values, we create problems for ourselves and for our children. Sex education will begin to achieve its aims only when it is taught within such an ordered and rigorous acceptance of core virtues.

Character educators point out that despite societal conflicts about how to apply these basic virtues to controversial issues such as abortion, people of all perspectives can agree on most applications of these values to everyday behaviour, especially when it comes to children.

We don't want our children to lie, cheat on tests, take what is not theirs, call each other names, hit each other, be cruel to animals or be sexually promiscuous. We do want them to tell the truth, play fair, be polite, be self-disciplined, respect their parents and teachers, do their school work, be kind to others and delay sexual activity.

When all the arguments about statistics and the claimed needs of children and adolescents have been rejected or settled, we are still left with a very significant issue.

Sexuality education has its origin in a reaction against what its proponents would call the Judaeo-Christian repressive tradition. Like all reactions, it has gathered a range of defences for its ideology as it has gone along. The history of the Family Planning Association and its advocacy of sexuality education exemplifies this gathering of defences.

Nowhere does sexuality education attend to the problems of social responsibility, family order and family responsibility. Yet it remains true that it is within the family that sexual understanding and intimacy is still reliably and intensely learned.

Sexual behaviour within the ideology of sexuality education is an individualistic phenomenon about self-realisation and personal freedom. The Family Planning Association claims that sexuality is the awareness of ourselves socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually and politically. Human identity springs from our sexuality and orientation. Such claims, at best, are vague pretension. At worst, they are a complete misunderstanding of human nature and character.

Sexuality education in schools is rooted in the efficacy of egocentric individualism. It cannot develop an ethic of responsibility. That is why sexuality educators believe it is appropriate to offer abortions to 14-year-old girls without parental permission.

It is also why Trevor Mallard, the Minister of Education, can voice concern about an educator who propagates the value of chastity in schools but also defends a school that permits homosexual advocates to give students doubtful statistics on the incidence of bisexuality.

* Bruce Logan, of Christchurch, is director of the New Zealand Education Development Foundation.