Talk About Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the United States
"Conservatives have dominated the public conversation about sexuality education," declares sociologist Irvine (Disorders of Desire) in this closely observed analysis of the evolution of such dominance. She first focuses on SIECUS, the liberal Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, which promoted sex education in the 1960s; within a decade, the emerging Christian Right was publicly opposing sex ed. During the 1980s, however, the far-reaching Adolescent Family Life Act passed without debate liberals saw it as a tradeoff to protect social programs and enshrined a new tactic: sex education, but for abstinence and against abortion. The subsequent network of sex education providers, pregnancy crisis centers and "ex-gay" ministries has led to what Irvine calls "major institutionalization of evangelical sexual morality as public policy." She also indicates how conservatives have both distorted what actually happens in sex ed and seized on dubious studies to argue, for example, against condoms. Using more postmodern tactics, conservatives have appropriated the language of both feminists and critical race theorists, Irvine says, to argue that simply talking about sex in a sex education class can be abusive. Her dismaying conclusion: conservatives may not have won the culture wars, but they have won on this front, as few students receive the type of comprehensive sex ed that SIECUS advocated. Pointing out that the broader culture is far more sexual than acknowledged in the curriculum, Irvine analytically urges an effort to define childhood so that innocence and protection do not automatically mean sex talk is off-limits.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.