REVIEW: Sex Ed Show vs Porn (part 4)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The final show of the series dealt with sexually transmitted infections, and also talked about what it's illegal to own or make in the UK.

The basic information about STIs was good, but the show only dealt with the "top 5": chlamydia, herpes, genital warts, ghonorrea and syphilis; there was no mention of pubic lice, for example, and no mention of any other STIs that may be out there.

The usual tactics were used: showing a worst-case-ever photo of the symptoms of each disease and then saying effectively, "THIS could happen to YOU unless you do what I tell you to!" While it's true that it could happen unless you use a condom or refrain from having any sexual contact, I am always sceptical of the effectiveness of such tactics in general. This is because the sense I get is that a lot of the time when people (adults as well as teens) are confronted with that sort of thing, the emotive reaction (after the initial "EEWWWW!!!! Gross!") is to reject the extremeness as something that can happen to you. People never believe the absolute worst could ever end up happening to them, it's a part of how we stay sane in a dangerous world! So in a way it can end up encouraging people to dismiss the warnings, because they don't take them seriously at the level that's needed. While intellectually they accept it, at the emotional level it doesn't stick. That's my armchair sociology for the day!

A caption with the claim that 16-24yr olds are the most likely to be diagnosed with an STI was displayed, but no specific figure was presented, and I didn't catch the source of the claim.

Talking about (internet) porn and the law, the lesson for the teenagers focussed entirely on possession and "making" pornography. I recalled very strongly the case of a 14 year old girl being arrested in the US for taking nude pictures of herself and sending them to her boyfriend. Such cases were discussed in this lesson, with situations of a 16yr old boy and his 14yr old girlfriend in which he takes videos or pictures of her masturbating, and of a girl encouraging her 15yr old boyfriend to strip and masturbate in front of his webcam for the amusement of her friends gathered around. In the first case, only the boy was guilty. In the second case, the legal advisor they had (a barrister turned legal journalist) said that everyone involved was guilty of child porn offences (even if they are ALL below 18). Not discussed was if in each case the performer or "victim" was above the age of consent (16) but below 18 - in each case, everyone would still be guilty who was guilty before. However, captions with the advice not to record any sexual activity on camera or video if you're under 18 were displayed, and also advising to delete any sent to you (otherwise it's the possession of child porn charge) and definitely not to send it on (because that's distribution).

Mention was also made of the new extreme porn law, which was misrepresented as being a ban on downloading, when in fact it's a ban on simple possession. The terms of the ban were also simplified, but fundamentally accurate: "bestiality", "violence", "extreme humiliation" - but no definitions were given for violence or extreme humiliation (and as readers may recall, there was quite a lot of campaigning going on about those definitions!)

The final segment of the show was promoting the idea of communication between parents and teens about sexuality.

It started with the statistic from their survey that 63% of teens say that sex is not talked about at home. Speaking as someone who was once a teenager (and who in some ways feels like I haven't grown up since!), I was stunned that the figure was so low, but of course it probably doesn't include the families where its mainly treated as a joke subject between teens and their parents (so that it isn't communication but if anything even harder to talk about seriously). Teenagers are at a time in their lives when they are becoming adults, going through all manner of hormonally-driven changes, discovering a huge amount about themselves, and just discovering sex and sexuality for themselves. In particular, sex is perhaps the biggest way in which they feel able to stamp their personality and independence on the world, almost a ready-made way for them to rebel against - well - something-or-other. And of course, a teenager's greatest targets of rebellion are nearly always going to be hir parents. Expecting teens to talk openly and honestly about sex with hir parents is just cloud-cuckoo land, really.

Nevertheless, the programme made the claim that teens who have open communication about sex with their parents are less likely to have unprotected sex and less likely to have sex too early.

So the programme makers decided it would be a good idea to have a "parents' evening" with a difference in which the teens got to interview their parents about sex, and then vice versa. This idea didn't work out too badly (it seems every teen wanted to know when hir parent lost hir virginity), and it sounded from the clips they showed, as though some useful exchanges took place. All the same, I doubt that it worked as anything other than a stunt, and I doubt that the communication could have taken place in any other way.

My feeling is that it was only because it was set up in quite a formal way, by someone seen to be in some way an authority figure, that it was possible for any frankness and openness to take place. This is because it utterly changed the power dynamics of the situation. If it is set up by a family member, or by someone who isn't seen as having the authority to make these sorts of arrangements (slight sense of concern here that a television show is seen as having that power, but never mind...), then the power remains firmly on a Parent-Child level (yes, I'm using that in the Transactional Analysis sense as well as to describe a general sense of Powerful/Subordinate roles). That means that it is impossible for the child to feel free to speak hir mind. However, when it is Commanded by Authority that you speak as equals, the powerful status of Parent is removed, and it is more likely that an Adult-Adult conversation can take place between the teen and hir parent. In addition, because sex is treated as such a hush-hush thing (even as it's being plastered all across billboards, television, magazines, etc), it takes some outside influence (like a stunt for a television show, or like an authority figure saying "this is your chance to ask about what you need to know!") to make it okay to talk about it. I intend to come back to this theme in my summing-up post tomorrow, when I'll be writing about the sex education/porn themes that the show displayed, but suffice to say I am very much in favour of demystifying and destigmatising sex, which would clearly help solve some of these issues.

Part 5 tomorrow, in which I shall wrap up all my problems with the show, and conjure instead my own manifesto for dealing with the problems it highlighted.