If age has given me any trait worth noticing, it's skepticism. I take nothing at face value, and honestly, why would I? What separates fact and opinion in this day and age is beliefs. For example, it has been "proven" that male circumcision can prevent the spread of AIDS, albeit marginally. One would figure that there would be a multitude of alternatives that could be taken instead of lobbing off the male equivalent (even if it's lesser) to the female clitoris. The male foreskin is home to a plethora of nerve endings, protects the head of the penis, and prevents desensitization. People can argue based on cleanliness (since when have guys had a hard time washing their naughty bits?). People can argue based on "moral" reasons (one of the original arguments towards circumcision was to prevent boys from masturbating). People can even argue based on religious reasons (those are just too weird and vast to comment about). But now an Edmonton group is trying to pressure parents of boys to circumcise their kids as to prevent the spread of AIDS, claiming that Canadians today are too uptight to discuss safer sex and that this is the best alternative.
These same Canadians who should circumcise their male children because we're too uptight to discuss safer sex are being told to not vaccinate our girls against HPV because that may teach promiscuity...
My belief? I ain't chopping anything off my son's wiener to provide a slightly lesser chance at him contracting from someone or infecting someone with AIDS. Why? Well, first off, if I find that he ever has unprotected sex outside of a long time monogamous relationship with someone he trusts very much, his foreskin is not all I'll chop off. I am not an uptight parent, if that hasn't been proven in this post alone. Gunther Jr. will be well aware of safer sex options. I will not sit there and blush and tell him that when he's older he'll want to stick his peepee into a girl's woohoo through fits of giggles. But at the same time I will not tell him that just because he knows all about the birds and the bees that he should go out and practice.
And if the bun turns out to be a girl? By all means I will have her vaccinated against HPV. I'm sure this is TMI, but I come from a long line of women who have had "abnormal" cervical cells. I've gone through the bullshit that's involved with having nasty pap smears and skin biopsies and all that painful and embarrassing crap. I may not be able to prevent her from inheriting these "abnormal" cells (I quote them cause they can't find them in advanced tests for me, but for some reason show up on routine pap smears), but if I can prevent her from going through any sort of cervical cancer scare, then by all means, I'll even pay for it out of pocket. She will get the same education as Gunther Jr. will about safer sex. I won't skip her because I don't want to teach her to be permicious. I'll teach her BECAUSE I don't want her to be permicious.
Are we still stuck in a society that believes its fine for males to be aware of their sexuality but shun females from even giving a proper name to their parts? Maybe I'm living outside of this realm. Perhaps because I'm working in a male dominated field, I've become too "male" in that regard. Nah... It's because I hate not being provided information when I want it. I was well aware of the fact that grade school "sex ed" was essentially biology without censorship. There was no education on sex per se. It was all biological. Sperm fertilized eggs, made babies. Sperm came from boys, eggs from girls. But if one were to go based on the education that your average school kid got, they would have no clue how sperm met egg until high school. And still, that would be stuff learned from others in gym class. Penetration was never discussed. The purpose of specific parts were never touched upon. And this is something I argued about in school. Oddly enough, so did a male friend of mine. And he was answered, where as I was labeled a slut.
I would have thought all these years would have changed this... But apparently not. And considering I live in the Canadian equivalent of the Bible Belt (so I guess that makes this the Bible Armpit), I'm not too sure that the education that will be provided to my children will be any more forward thinking than that it was back in the 80's. Guess it's up to me.
At least my kids have a Mom that isn't one of those "typical" Canadians depicted by media who wish to prevent the spread of AIDS via skin removal than education. Or who would prefer my daughter to stay "pure" by not putting the idea in her head that she has free reign to sleep with whoever because she's protected from an STD that affects millions of women, permicious or not.
Here's hoping that my kids don't have the same trouble with their children and society in the future.
3 comments:
GREAT post. If Maya had been a boy, there would have been no hacking off bits of the parts here either.
The way I see it? Teens are going to have sex, whether we want them to or not. So the least we can do is to educate them as to the dangers that are out there. That isn't 'giving them permission', it is arming them to be safe, because it WILL happen.
I believe there is the odd kid out there who will wait, but lets face it; in todays highly sexualized society that is just not very likely.
As for the HPV vaccine, the problem I have with it all is that it is one more area that the goverment is pushing in on. Don't tell me what to do with my kid. Yah know?
Of course I WILL have her vaccinated. I think it is silly NOT to. I just don't like it that some fat ass government schlep is telling me that I HAVE to.
They proved that Africans who practice dry sex cause little rips in their and her prepuce allowing access to HIV. They claim that Langerhans cells let HIV in. What they don't say is then langerin protiens kill HIV as part of our skin's natural defence against virus'.
The hidden truth is that they figured out how to cause sexual disfunction in men after puberty by cutting the neonatal prepucial frenular delta nerves that trigger erections when stroked or pulled. The mohel gets to choose whose frenulums will be cut, and whose will be left intacked durring circumcision. It's a form of eugenics and the parents don't even know what they have allowed to happen to their sons.
As often happens, I agree with you completely. I don't even know what else to say, you covered it all.
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