Drag March "Coming for your children"

[SunsetBengal]

(06-30-2023, 05:36 PM)Dill Wrote: This just reminded me of when my family was living in Germany and I found a German "teen" magazine (aimed at preteens) in our living room (I think one of my 11-year-old daughter's school friends had given it to her). This was about 1992.

It had an article about "sex," which included two , full-page frontal nude color photographs of a teen girl and boy, probably about 16, with labels to their sex parts. The text below explained what intercourse involved, including that first penetration could be painful. I don't recall if it said anything about protection.

It struck me at the time how "normal" that was for Germany. OF COURSE children should know what's what. Matter of fact, like explaining the life cycle of a frog. And even in public schools, they didn't treat sex like incest, a shameful family secret you'd NEVER share with a teacher or anyone outside the family.
Germany is also chock full of religious conservatives, who nevertheless would not have viewed frank treatment of sex by teachers as a violation of parental rights any more than the teaching of botany. 

It also struck me how this would look to Americans, how intolerable it would be to expose children to such info in our society, with its much higher rate of teen pregnancy. The pictures alone would have unhinged even "liberals." 

Just got me to thinking how so many of these social boundaries and their embedment in school policy are tradition/culture specific. So as cultures change, or the change speeds up, clashes are bound to occur as boundaries shift. 

Wait, so you were actually living in Europe, and elected to move back??  For someone with your political and social views, isn't that like getting to heaven and then electively coming back to Earth?  Not to go completely off topic, but my Grandmother on my Mother's side was from France, then moved to Canada prior to migrating to the US.  When I was a child she did her best to explain the cultural differences between Europe and the US;  Areas such as children indulged in wine at the dinner table so that they learned to not become drunkards and how human sexuality was openly a part of life and not a "taboo" to unspoken about in the home or around the children.  I only got to see her on three week long visits, with the last being the year I turned 12.  It would have been nice to have gotten to know her better as an adult.