23 Mar Why CSE is NOT Sex Ed
While there is not one universal definition of “comprehensive sexuality education” (CSE) and what it includes, CSE is a highly controversial, “rights-based” approach to sex education that encompasses a great deal more than just teaching children and youth about sexual intercourse and human reproduction. Developed in the West, primarily in the United States, CSE is now being implemented in most countries around the world.
Sexual education or “sex ed” is education that focuses on the human reproductive system and helps youth understand the changes their bodies experience during puberty. It is not uncommon for Sex Ed programs to include contraceptive or abstinence instruction.
Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is vastly different from standard sex-ed instruction. Although CSE instruction will include most of the instruction covered by Sex Ed programs, it typically does not include abstinence education in any depth, and it will go much further using graphic materials and visuals that are sexually explicit in nature.
CSE is a “rights-based” approach to sexuality education and promotes sexual rights to children at the expense of their sexual health.
Comprehensive sexuality education programs seek to change society by changing sexual and gender norms and teaching youth to advocate for their sexual rights. Most CSE programs promote acceptance of diverse sexual identities and orientations and enlist youth in combatting “homophobia” and “heterosexism.” These CSE programs have an almost obsessive focus on sexual pleasure, instructing children and youth at the earliest ages on how to obtain sexual pleasure in a variety of ways. Some programs even encourage sexual exploration for children as young as age five.
Planned Parenthood, one of the largest purveyors of sexuality education in the United States, explains on their website that sexuality education addresses “values exploration,” “safer sex,” “sexual attitudes and values,” “sexual orientation,” and “sexual pleasure.”1
The following excerpts are from a presentation at a parallel event given during the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2010 by Dr. Miriam Grossman, one of the foremost experts in the United States on sexuality education:2
I’ve discovered that the vision of groups such as Planned Parenthood and SIECUS—the groups at the helm of sexuality education in the U.S.—is not sexual health. It is sexual freedom. These large and powerful organizations believe in sexuality that extends from cradle to grave. They tacitly endorse early sexual activity and multiple partners as well as sexual experimentation, which are the very behaviors that fuel the epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, abortion and emotional distress.
Those people who practice the lifestyles endorsed by these groups have more doctors’ appointments, not less. . . . I’ve studied the history of sex education and one of the things you need to understand is that sex education is a social movement. Its goal is to change society. That was true 50 years ago when it began, and it’s still true. The objective is to change my society, and now, yours.
Quoting UNESCO’s “International Guidelines on Sexuality Education”3 Dr. Grossman stated,
“One of the learning objectives [of sexuality education] is to “change social norms.”4 [Those who advocate for comprehensive sexuality education] envision a world without sexual taboos and restrictions—a world free of Judeo/Christian morality where each individual, regardless of age, should be free to make his or her own sexual choices . . . and no judgment [is] allowed . . . It’s an “anything goes as long as you use a condom” philosophy of sex education.”
In other words, comprehensive sexuality education is a recipe for sexual anarchy.
The false core philosophies upon which CSE programs which are harmful to children are based:
- Children are naturally sexual from birth, therefore any restrictions on their sexual expression or sexual activity violates their sexual rights.
- To have good health, children and adults alike should be having regular sexual experiences either alone (masturbation) or with persons of either gender.
- A right to sexual pleasure, even at the youngest ages is a primary human right that trumps other rights.
- Children have privacy and confidentiality rights that trump the rights of their parents to guide their education in the area of human sexuality.
- Children have a right to abortion and other sexual services and commodities, sexual information, and to sexual relations without the knowledge and consent of their parents.
- Most societal sexual and gender norms, especially those based in religious beliefs are repressive and unhealthy and should be changed.
- Children have the right to experiment with diverse sexual identities and orientations and the behaviors associated with them in order to develop a healthy sexuality.
- Youth are to be enlisted to combat “homophobia,” “transphobia” and “heterosexism” and to advocate for their sexual rights.
- Youth should be involved in the design and implementation of CSE programs.
- Children, under internationally recognized rights to health and education, have a right to all sexual information, uncensored and without parental consent.
2 Dr. Miriam Grossman is the author of You’re Teaching My Child What? and Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student. For more information see Dr. Grossman’s website.
4 International Guidelines on Sexuality Education, (Conference Ready Version), p. 26.