Topic: Media Research Center
A Nov. 24 MRC Culture & Media Institute commentary by Matt Philbin is headlined, "Iowa Parents Lose to Sex Ed Lobby." But it would be more accurately headlined "Censorship Effort Fails."
The issue is a periodical on sex education available in the teen section of a public library in Ames, Iowa. Parents had protested it, but the library board voted to continue to make it available. Philbin claims that its availablility means that "after baseball practice, little Billy can read threads about herpes, or masturbation or what qualifies a girl to be a slut."
It seems Philbin's objection is that teens are exposed to sex education at all. He depicts sex education as being the same thing as "sexualizing children and (added bonus!) normalizing all manner of sexual proclivity" and attacks the magazine for "playing to the average self-absorbed adolescent’s fantasies of repression."
Philbin claims that "the ultimate analogy for tempting fate is '… like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.'" That is a reference to P.J. O'Rourke's famous quote about giving money and power to government. But O'Rourke didn't mention anything about sex, and Philbin doesn't explain how knowledge about sex is a bad thing.
(O'Rourke also says the following about knowledge: "Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.")
