Educational benefits of porn

Technorati tags: Sex, Sex Education, Porn, Health, Malaysia

Related post: How did you learn about SEX?

UPDATE: Marina M. has been so kind as to provide some relevant (and important) perspective about what's actually happening as far as the Malaysian school curriculum is concerned (see the comments section). Thanks Marina!

Porn - that's how 50% of those responding to this past week's survey say they learned about sex.

Fortunately, all 60 respondents know what sex is

Not at all shocking, to tell you the truth. It's probably something we already know, but didn't want to admit. Another thing we probably don't want to admit is that the absence of proper Sex Education in schools may be a contributing factor to why kids venture to experiment with sex earlier than they should. And worse, unprepared.

The next largest group, 38% (or 23 votes) claim they learned about sex from their friends. And since at least half of them probably learned from porn, we can estimate that the actual number who learned about sex from porn (directly or indirectly) is around 69% or so. Okay, this is a bit of an extrapolated stretch, but again, not that difficult to believe.

Of course, this survey is far from scientific, but it does give us an indication of the fact that a lot of us probably are not getting accurate information about sex. This includes the risks (of infection) as well as the liabilities (particularly pregnancy).

By the way, Sex Education is a lot more than teaching kids to fuck, as many ultra-moralists would like us to believe.
(more sexy educational thoughts, in the full post)

It covers human development (from conception to birth), contraceptive methods, emotional and physical changes during the adolescent years, risky sexual behaviors, sexually transmitted diseases, dangers of sexual and child abuse, and a number of other associated areas - and yes, many curriculums worldwide include details of sex itself (source: Wikipedia).

Here in Malaysia, formal Sex Education has not yet been introduced in schools, although it has been discussed for a number of years now. Walski's guess is that there is strong resistance from the influential moralistas out there, be it in Government, the BN, as well as within the Opposition parties (particularly the PAS-types, one would imagine).

Everywhere in the world, when the subject of sex education is brought up, a moralistic position won't be far behind. The general popular argument is that introducing sex education will cause immorality among youth. Another associated argument is that instead, more religion should be thrown at the kids - in other words, Abstinence Education. Yeah, that works great with raging hormones.

But let's put the pros and cons of Sex Education aside for a moment, and look at the reality of today's society. Of late, there has been a noticeable increase in reported sex-related crimes - rape, incest, molestation. Rape aside, could the cases of incest and molestation of children possibly have been avoided if the young victims recognized early on that the perpetrators of such crimes were touching them physically in an inapropriate way?

The moralistas, when hearing about teens getting pregnant, or in extreme cases, giving birth at school (as happened recently in Perak), immediately point to moral decay, and actually have the gall to use these unfortunate incidents as proof of why Sex Education should not be introduced.

Or what about the pro-segregationists? That kids should be sexually segregated at as young an age as possible? You know, it wouldn't surprise Walski an iota, if one day, he woke up to read a news report of some nutcase suggesting that all young people, upon reaching puberty, be chemically neutered, temporarily, until they get married.

From Walski's straw-poll survey, 5% (or 3 votes) stated that they learned about sex from their religious teachers - hopefully, not the hard way. But has anyone of you actually read the marriage manuals written purely from the religious perspective? Specifically those written for the Malay/Muslim demographic? (Walski can't really comment about those written for other religions, 'cause he's never read them)

Well, Walski has. And if someone who had absolutely no idea what sex is prior to reading these "manuals" read 'em, it would be interesting to find out what their opinion about sex were after. First of, most of these books talk about the importance and function of marriage, from the "Islamic" perspective. Usually, only about one chapter is devoted to sex itself, talking about the wedding night.

It's been a long time since Walski picked one of these up, and if memory serves him correctly, the one book that Walski remembers was written circa 1970's.

What Walski remembers:
► that there are 1001 prayers (do'a) to recite before, during and after sex (okay, maybe not that many)
► the best night of the week to perform sexual union is Thursday night (eve of Friday)
► sex must be performed with as much clothing on as possible
► the only permissible position is the man-on-top (aka missionary) position
► oral sex is prohibited, as is acts of self-pleasure
► and where any of it even touches on pleasure, it's always the male's pleasure that is emphasized. Women, it seems, have one, and only one, role to play - that of being the bearer of progeny. Far be it to be proper for women to view the exercise as pleasurable

So, it would really be interesting if those who responded (the 3%) could come back and elaborate exactly what they learned from their religious teachers.

But the whole point is that except for the very few (7%, or 4 votes, per the survey) that learned about sex from their parents, it would be a safe guess to say that we learn about sex through channels that probably don't prepare us well enough to deal with the risks and consequences of sexual relations.

Where sex is even discussed, it's usually done in a morally high-handed way, typically leaning towards don't, don't and more don't, rather than discussing the pertinent issues that the young need to know (like safe sex, HIV and other STD risks, and of course, pregnancy). Some kids are gonna learn about fucking one way or another - it's a question of whether we're willing to prepare them for it or not. The general state of denial that we're in today is not helping them one bit. In fact, Walski dares say, to the contrary - we're putting them at risk.

So, until and unless Sex Education is introduced - properly, and covering everything it should - it would also appear that porn is probably going to remain the key educational resource for sex education. All this political pussyfooting, avoidance and delay tactics is not helping anyone a single bit.

And to the anti-Sex Ed moralistas that happen to read this, do us all a favor - the next time some unfortunate youth becomes the victim of sexual consequence, just hold the rhetoric, stop blaming "moral decay" and start blaming yourselves. At the very least, get out of denial mode, 'cause it's starting to sound pathetically tiresome...