Woman; 013; Sex Education

We're. Not talking about the development of the child and the development. The executive director and co-founder of that information and education Council of the United States to. China. I think the first thing is a pleasurable sensation in the body. Totally normal because it's courage exploration by the child. You know what if you're. In the dark and they're liable to get a child find Jenna to normal.

And I think this is probably the awakening in the child. What can happen. The second thing that it's. Becoming. I agree. That's. Educating.

The unconscious. No. It's.

But. Like. It's true.

Of course it's. Production. Imagine sex sex sex. With the

other and you bring up. Something. Only. Growing up discovering another person's body

and again it's not true and they lived through it and. I don't think it's true. This is because most of the books that you advise the parents to take a rather intellectual approach to it and questions and answer the questions. But advise the child to approach to the subject is just not appropriate at the moment. I don't know how much of the thing about.

Children don't stay with this. If they do stay with it that becomes then the thing is not to treat them. But to find out the child has to resort to this in such an obsessive way. What is it that's going wrong about the child's life is a young anxieties of one kind or another. Is too much to live being expected to do for us. Maybe he's been displaced by the brother of a number of reasons why. We have a little booklet called concerns of parents about sex education. This is really very helpful because discusses how parents can overcome their own hesitation over discussing sexual matters and should post with us. And learn appropriate behavior without intimidation. Many things that parents would like to know and this is put out by your organization. Yes it's very interesting. You know many people of my generation and I'm sure older

generations have. Received themselves rather a faulty education s.a.a and perhaps neglected altogether to tell them anything about it were managed to create a sort of feeling of distaste and. Embarrassment about the whole subject. Do you think it's possible to break this cycle of repression just by wanting to be responsive to your children. Yes it is and I wish that parents could understand two things One is that the will for the future will. Depend a great deal. On how the planets are willing how much the parents are willing to move into this area both the mother and father. And give themselves to learning enough about it so they get comfortable with it. The second thing is something the parents don't realize it's a it's a it's an extra benefit. That their own sexual life. Will become much better. Much

warmer much freer much more open with each other. If they can bring themselves to do a little talking and study together as husband and wife. And their children will benefit and they will then it's a reciprocal thing certainly is. It's a good investment. What do you think about nudity in the home. Should parents walk about in front of their child in the nude. Well I don't know what I think should or shouldn't. I don't think that's important I think most psychiatrists agree that parents should do what they're comfortable doing. A lot of people are very comfortable going around nude and others and I think it's all wrong to go here that somebody should go nude. You rush off all your clothes you're going to be very uncomfortable your children going to be even more on account because it just didn't feel the general consensus of opinion is on this on this matter. Generally speaking I think. People realize that children have a natural modesty and that up to the age of five and six they really enjoy going around without clothes when they notice their pants too much. But

after that there's a beginning of closing the bathroom doors and little boys tend to want to take the loan and things like that. And I think one should accede and certainly one should regard one's own privacy very differently. Children go through the sex. They certainly go through plenty of homosexuals period. Yes. What age does this usually take place you know little boys play with little boys just the way they might like to play with little girls and again this doesn't mean that the children are going to be homosexuals. Because this is not the way homosexuality develops. It's a part of an experimental thing that all children go through and they may do it later adolescence too. And this still doesn't mean that they're going to be persons who are totally homosexuals. This is Syria that we're all bisexual by nature we all have male and female hormones and genes. And when sex education focuses on reproduction it necessarily focuses on head to sexuality. Do you think this is.

I think children should understand what homosexuality is actually all of us should and we need to know that homosexuality develops in the same way and at the same time same period in the child's life. That as future homosexuality as heterosexuality you have to understand one side of the coin and then flip it over and to understand the other fully. It's if the child is in the family situation in which the father is either absent or passive or or is very punishing so that the child really doesn't have a good father figure to identify with if he's a boy or to look up to. She's a girl and the mother is very strong and very sort of controlling. This is one of the more common patterns of family life doesn't necessarily mean there will be a homosexual couple. But eventually the choice of a sex object can be there is usually probably very much determine in the early years of life.

Well how much should you say to your children about the alternatives to heterosexuality I mean should you talk about them as actual marriages and the sort of later on Certainly they're going to be interested they're going to see these things in the papers that's during adolescence but I don't think that this is necessarily a matter of discussion in the. Elementary school years. I do think that it's par for the course that the boys at one time or another will have a homosexual advance made to them that's in the public washroom and they should be enough informed so that they don't panic and immediately think oh that must mean I'm a homosexual or something like that. And certainly we should understand that people who are homosexual whether male or female are not the people who commit the violent crimes. This is a very unjust thing that's been perpetrated against homosexuals. Five percent of males are homosexual in this country about two and a half percent of females. And they're not really much of a danger. Nobody was ever seduced into homosexuality. They had to be prepared to be.

Homosexual long before in their early preschool years. And that then they came out as they say but that you can't be suddenly seduced into it if you're not if you're really a heterosexual. Nor can you suddenly decide to be a homosexual today. It's just as impossible as for a heterosexual to decide that for a homosexual to turn around and be cured and he's going to be heterosexual. It's the two sides of the same coin really do understand these things. So. What do you think of the importance of sex education in schools. As long as people are convinced that the schools have a role to play particularly in the adolescent years when it becomes a little more difficult even for parents who have been very open with their children to talk to their children about sex for the simple reason that by the time of adolescence the parents know their children are having heterosexual very strong sexual feelings

and they themselves don't want to appear to have their privacy invaded by their own sexual feelings. It's a very difficult situation so that many people feel that the schools and the churches make an effort to not to take the parent's role because nobody can take that away. Even an inadequate parent will have a role to play in the sex education of his or her child. But to supplement that role particularly in the information there you know that the schools and churches really do have a role to play. Do you do you feel somehow that the teachers. Should be more specifically prepared than they often were all being. Yes there's a consciousness raising a child is not worth more than that there's a lot of workshops going on. It's not that. I think most professionals today in the field of education medicine

the religion social work the major helping professions have become aware that they have a stake in this that it isn't just a matter of eating the child a certain amount of information and the child's going to come out with far far more than that. You're building a major building block of a child's personality. The sexuality of society has a stake in this in this process because that's what it is a long process from birth. And therefore everybody who comes in contact with a child whether it's a teacher or the doctor or the nurse or the clergyman we're all projecting images of ourselves as sexual people and providing images of what it is to be a man or a woman to the growing child in the child. And when any of us. Is a teacher or a doctor is in a position to provide good accurate information.

We have a role to play because many many parents don't have that information. I wish to goodness they did it. I think I would like to see everything in this country have a sound course and sex education themselves. They would benefit enormously and the children would and then would never have to worry about what the schools and the churches are trying to do. Churches you know built very excellent courses in sexuality education right for their church schools. Is this happening a little bit. Oh it's happening all over the place. And do you do you feel that these sex classes there have a danger of sort of standing out a curriculum like a sore thumb as you said sex is an integral part of the total personality. Do you think they should be incorporated into different classes such as biology physical education. That's one way of doing it. And some schools try this way. Another way of doing it is to have a block. Every year it's a five week block of everything.

One of that here is human sexuality of a certain time. We specially prepared teachers I think actually should be both ways at the same time. It's ridiculous to think you're going to learn all about sex in one hour in one class and then when you go to English literature and you study the scarlet letter what you're discussing is what punctuation and style and you never discussed which is. How do a man and a woman treat each other. In the light of a passion that leads them into great difficulty. The pregnancy an unwanted child who was punished. What is our attitude today about the out of wedlock pregnancy how do we treat people and so forth. This is an enormous lesson. In our attitudes about sexuality in our own culture and I compare them with what they were in on that in Salem that many women feel in the women's movement that their intellectual growth was

stunted at a certain point in childhood. Do you think it's possible to watch the emotional development of a child just by perhaps denying his sexuality the second time by faulty education and thereby diminishing his ability to love. Yes I'm afraid it is. I'm afraid that this is true and I think this is why so many marriages are in trouble today because. Especially with the people who are most vociferous in their anti sexuality I have a feeling that their own lives can be very knowledgeable fulfilled in the area of six and I think this is a terrible tragedy because. In a home in which the husband and wife accept each other as fully sexual people and mutual in their joy and fulfillment in this sexual lives together this is a very very good home for children to grow up in. How can we avoid this what are some of the common pitfalls that parents fall into.

I think one of the most common and children verbalize this very well they will say Why do our parents always makes sex seem dirty or dangerous to us and this is a terrible thing because. We're trying to prove that something is beautiful but if we brought children up to think that is dirty and dangerous they can't suddenly turn around on their wedding night and they think it's beautiful and then function and want it. Do you think the emerging sexuality of a teenage daughter or son. Affects. A parent to the extent I mean what is the so-called norm you sometimes see a father acting by the seductively with his teenage daughter and you sometimes see a mother and your feelings threatened yes you know that all the good luck to be well when you really mean seductively we know we don't mean necessarily insist of course although this happens. No we're talking about a kind of seduction that a boss can use with a secretary when he's paying a compliment so she'll stay in tight those three extra letters doesn't mean it's going to go to bed with her.

Oh I don't know I think this is part of the give and take of life I think we all do this at one time or another we use our sexuality in ways that are fun and I think a young girl likes to feel that her father finds her attractive. I think that one of the nicest things a father can do is to take his daughter out his 14 year old daughter out and take her out to dinner to make her feel like a grown up. He can show her how nice it is to be with him then and spend an evening with him and and give each other the pleasure of their company and we can do that better than anybody. And this is a great thing for his daughter and the mother can do the same thing with his son but the danger is of course if they begin to do this is an exclusive thing and to stand in the way of their children is really moving out which is the time when they should move into other heterosexual relationships and let me say this. There are a number of very very strong observers in this country who feel that one of the contributing causes all

re-enforcements homosexuality is our fear of adolescent heterosexuality. That if you lay down the groundwork for instance for the later Homo sexual development there is a possibility during adolescence of reversing that provided you encourage good strong outgoing heterosexual relationships. Now if you are trying to hold your daughter in a hold your son in the mother's binding her son to her during adolescence that homosexuals then may be fixated on the contrary heterosexuality should be encouraged. Dating should be encouraged under good wise social conditions of course. It seems to me that lots of parents have trouble in coming to terms with the emerging sexuality as they do it as they do they don't like to think of their darlings having sexual thoughts and having sexual feelings. They should know that their daughters don't like to think of their parents having sexual for sexual feelings either.

This is where the thing of privacy comes in and why so many people feel that the clergyman the teacher the doctor has a role to play particularly in the sex education of adolescence. In the discussion groups it is so important. Out of this they can learn to understand each other. Boys and Girls. There's a theory that boys are more preoccupied with their sex role in life than made it suppress it all. Whatever do you think there's any biological foundation for this you know so it is a cultural myth. Yes there is. First of all automatically boys are going to achieve capacity for orgasm if they haven't achieved it beforehand in masturbation or sometimes very early by the by when you're of age. They will certainly achieve it at puberty with a whip and by the age of 18 a hundred percent of males practically speaking have achieved capacity for orgasm and so they're constantly experiencing erection and organ. You see that's true of girls girls don't achieve this automatically they're liable to learn orgasm and

by the age of 18 only about 40 percent of Kinsey's women had achieved orgasm had learned or guess whether these figures change or not we don't know we don't have new Kinsey studies but there's no question about there is a difference and the difference is very clearly marked between the way males and females grow up feeling sexual. It is biological rather than well know when to be cultural cultural and because we do tend to discourage sexuality in girls I think mothers are more upset if their daughters masturbate than if their son's best right. You see it's not nice. Males are expected you know they're going to be sexy anyway. But you don't feel this double standard should exist. I don't know. On the contrary there are many many psychiatrists who feel strongly that girls should be encouraged to masturbate. There should be no interference no punishment. Well I know that the Roman Catholic Church their most recent positions assumed in the last three or four years is that masturbation is a normal part of adolescence.

It's going to be outgrown and that's I think most people seeking a heterosexual relationship will not face it under stress. Would you like to talk briefly because we're almost out of time on the president's commission on population control and the chapters pertaining to sex education. Well I think most of the presidential commission the one on obscenity and pornography the one on venereal disease the taskforce on homosexuality and then the one on population policy in the future have all recommended sex education not for children but all adults particularly all adults all adults professional. Right. Dr. Mary Catherine thank you very much enjoyed talking to you. Goodnight from woman. Earth.

Earth. Earth.