Nadine Dorries' sex education bill

[DoubleDegreeStudent]

Apologies if thread has already been started (or if perhaps this should be in feminism?) but I couldn't find one.

link here

This makes me so angry. Of course it is important to teach the importance of feeling able to say no, but she has completely missed the point. Girls aren't the only people who can say no and she is totally undermining herself by splitting boys and girls up in terms of teaching something like this. I know she isn't proposing removing sex education for boys but giving girls extra classes.

I'm also concerned that she seems to think extra classes will solve the problem. I slept with someone at university not because I was being pressured into it, or because it was cool (he was a friend and we kept it secret) but because I was lonely and I needed to feel wanted by someone. That in itself might not be empowering, but it made me feel better than if I'd said no (don't flame me - I'm not trying to start a thread on my sex life but illustrate a point). Empowerment is about being able to make your own decision and not be forced into something you don't want to do, surely?

I think she risks making sex seem dirty and wrong if she is taking girls away from their shared classes and telling them that they should be saying no. Obviously the aim is to avoid children sleeping around, but I really think she's taken us back to the last century in how women are viewed and more importantly view themselves. The basic principle that "you do not have to have sex if you do not want to" is of course a good thing, but I feel very uncomfortable with how she is going about it.

I agree with her. I believe some young girls are pressurised to have sex, normally for the benefit of boys. Not having sex at a young age is a good thing. Children should be taught about love and respect in relationships. I think a relationship at university is different to a girl of 13,14, or 15 having sex with multiple partners and I think maybe this is the group she is aiming the bill at.

Fine, if you believe children should receive abstinence education (which I couldn't disagree with more) then surely boys should receive it too?

Good article from the Guardian here.

The sexualisation of society runs far deeper than sex education, it's not the root of the problem so I sincerely doubt it will be the solution. Cannot bear Dorries holding herself up as a paragon of morality given her previous behaviour.

I'm not sure why this makes people angry. Yes she's wrong to focus exclusively on girls, but I'm mystified as to whats offensive about encouraging teenagers to wait until they're more mature, so long as its part of a wider sex ed programme. Teenagers aren't completely rational autonomous beings making decisions in an influence-free enviroment. They're young people easily influenced by peer pressure and the media, still maturing emotionally and physically and still learning to deal responsibly with alcohol and relationships. They aren't equipped to cope well with the fallout when sex goes wrong. Whats so anger-inducing about encouraging them to wait until they're more mature? I don't think it has anything to do with viewing sex as 'dirty' or whatever. When I was a teenager in Ireland in the 90s everyone I knew waited until they were 18 or 19 to have full sex and that was seen as the norm amongst both boys and girls. Looking back I'm very grateful for that, as it gave us all time to mature.

PS The Guardian's not exactly going to be an impartial source on this one. The Gruan has such an axe to grind with Christians that it would lambast Nadine Dorries for saying that the sun rises in the east and bears shit in the woods.