Teaching Sex in School: Education or Indoctrination?

I want to offer in this thread an opportunity for people to discuss a most divisive subject: teaching sex in schools.

I want to argue that there are two approaches to this, and that they are in conflict: one is the view that sexual education is concerned with sexual health; the other that it is -or has become- a form of indoctrination.

The first is at the root of sex education as it emerged in the 1970s, when the primary concerns were to educate children in the science of sexual reproduction, as general information, but also to warn against the dangers of unprotected sex with regard to unwanted pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. Even at this stage, parents with religious views objected if the lessons included material on contraception, but the overriding fear was simple: if you teach children sex, they will want to do it.

Thus a lobby emerged which went into panic mode as soon as sex came anywhere near the classroom, most famously with The Little Red Schoolbook, deliberately modelled after Mao Zedong's Little Red Book, and banned in many countries.
The Little Red Schoolbook - Wikipedia

A good example of what is happening in the US can be found in Florida, with this article a particular example of the Indoctrination view of the Senate Bill 818 in the Illinois legislature-

"The measure would do this,... by bringing Illinois’ “sexual health education into the 21st century by adding new personal health and safety education standards in kindergarten through 5th grade, and making comprehensive health education more inclusive in grades 6 through 12.”
The result is these new standards, which are being exposed by the popular Libs of Tik Tok Twitter account. The standards claim that children in the third grade should be able to “outline and explain the differences between gender, transgender, gender non binary, gender and gender identity” and to “explain that gender aggression and gender identity exist along a spectrum,” according to a summary released by IPS.
There is also a vulgar representation of a “gingerbread person” in the standards that is filled with reprehensible propaganda meant to groom children into the satanic LGBT agenda." --and at the end of the article
"The LGBT agenda is a moral and cultural plague. If Americans do not rise up and put an end to this predatory movement of child abusers, the country deserves to perish."
Illinois education standards call for 8-year-old children to be taught about masturbation and transgenderism – NaturalNews.com

The question must be does sexual education in schools benefit children? I don't know, is my answer, just as I am not sure at what age children should be taught about masturbation, sexual intercourse, or gender identity.

And then what role does or can the State play in this? Thus in Florida

"Public school teachers in Florida are banned from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity after Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the controversial "Parental Rights in Education" bill."
Ron DeSantis signs the so-called 'Don't Say Gay' bill : NPR

What happens when a child in the classroom asks the teacher, 'Miss, what is gay?'.

I know of at least one parent in the UK who is outraged at some of the things he says his five year old has heard in class, but I don't know how to deal with this, other than to limit the education of children to certain age groups, presumably from 12 on up.

It is a pity that indoctrination has become the favoured weapon of religious-minded people, even though there is nothing new in this.

But have educators and psychologists designed courses that led themselves to hysterical over-reaction? Can there ever be any agreement on what the content of a sex education course contains? Here are some claims from the UK, which I cannot verify but has upset some people-
Mum furious after daughter, 8, taught about masturbation in school | Metro News

Who is to determine the content of courses: education professionals and psychologists -or politicians and Parental groups, some of which will be based in a religious organization?

What is indoctrination? How does one identify it? Is it teaching and influencing a child to uncritically accept and adopt a given set of beliefs? One might urge a class to uncritically accept the conclusions of a scientific inquiry. Even if the conclusions were valid one might regard this as a form a indoctrination. It certainly wouldn’t be the same as teaching science since science is a collection of methods for carrying out critical inquiries about the workings of the world. It would be like teaching a child to uncritically memorize the multiplication tables without explaining first what multiplication is.


A worse form of indoctrination would be to mislead an pliable audience into believing claims that misstate the conclusions of scientific studies and lie about or obfuscate the reasons behind those conclusions. Fox “news” has been indoctrinating their viewers in this way for years about the science of climate change, as well as about the biology and sociology of gender and race.


Librarians, school teachers, college professors and instructors love their subjects. With few exceptions, they’re devoted to preserving, discovering and advancing truth. If your wondering about the veracity of what your children are being taught in school, ask yourself who controls their curriculum? The maga-right? Some politician with his eye on the White House? Or real teachers and parents?

Thanks for your post Trish, and I agree with a lot of what you say. However, you have not addressed the core topic of teaching sex in schools, how the curriculum, if there is one, is designed, and how it is taught. For example, I don't know what it means to be 'taught masturbation' and frankly this is unacceptable if true, at any age. How is it done? With film? Diagrams?

I was horrified and embarrassed when I was a 14-year old in school to be given a talk about 'wet dreams' by a teacher. I felt ashamed too. I just don't get it, though I assume in reality it just means the teacher saying there is nothing wrong with masturbation, but not in public -and while this might be acceptable as a reaction to a child's question, I don't think teachers should be talking about it, and on the other end of the spectrum, this I assume is where it becomes not advice but 'instruction' or 'indoctrination', as if Michael Jackson were the teacher.

The devil is in the detail, and I don't doubt teachers aim at all times to educate and improve the lives of their pupils, but sex education is fraught with challenges and I am not sure anyone has 'got it right', or decided at what age sex education should begin. So far, it is a gift to the extremists of this world, I see little response from so-called 'Liberals' (in the American sense) to defend whatever is going on in the classroom.

I read this article about sex education in the UK, and I am still not sure what precisely is being taught, or who is doing it, while some of the claims made in the House of Commons turn out to be gossip, or untrue, or made up though I don't know why Miriam Cates would do that.

She claimed in the Commons

" Conservative MP Miriam Cates, a committed Christian and former biology teacher, stood up in parliament to demand an inquiry into children being taught “graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely and 72 genders” under that guidance, in what she called a widespread “safeguarding scandal”"
How we educate children about sex is vital. Don’t let it be part of Britain’s toxic culture war | Gaby Hinsliff | The Guardian

And the lack of veracity is also part of the 'moral panic' -

"It’s fertile ground for a moral panic, amid reports of an Isle of Man school hiring a drag queen to lead a sex education session in which she allegedly announced there were 73 genders, and ordered a child who disagreed to leave the room. But the school has said there could be “inaccuracies with the information being shared” about that one."

Might be best to stop it if we don't have the trained teachers and the curriculum is not certain -but do children in schools want it? I would have hated it but that is years ago.