And this is what UK scouts have come to . . .

[TheScout]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7678796.stm

[GaHillBilly]

This is bad . . . how?

 

From the article, "The guidance says leaders should "encourage young people to resist pressure to have early sex" and to talk to their parents or carers, but "should be prepared to offer appropriate information" if it is needed."

 

I wish I could do something like that! Many parents won't / don't talk to their kids effectively about sex, for all sorts of reasons, including a desire to avoid personal dishonesty AND to avoid having to acknowledge how THEY screwed up. I've watched this happen repeatedly with kids in the conservative churches we've belonged to, over the past 20 years.

 

I would LOVE to do a 'role-play' to show the Scouts their chances of getting a PERMANENT health experience, as a result of goofing around physically. I KNOW, from personal experience in counseling teen-age (18+) employees, how a "just the facts, please" approach to communicating the risk in terms of STD's, babies, and injured future relationships can have IMMEDIATE impact on behavior. (I've made crude, but fact-based, jokes about the 'ooze' from STDs that guys still remember 20 years later . . . and which caused them to change their behavior immediately!)

 

In spite of the the extreme levels of sex on TV and the internet, the quality of most kids info about sex is TERRIBLE. They don't realize that condoms don't stop all STDs *or* pregnancies; they don't know that most STDs have serious life long effects on health EVEN if they can be 'cured'; they don't know that sex is a skill that they are sure to be bad at at first, and which they are likely to never be very good at, if they don't trust their partner; they don't know that sex with multiple partners INEVITABLY creates that emotional callouses that will haunt them in their marriage years later (Boy, have I ever seen that one come true among men I know!); they don't know that married people typically have far better and far more frequent sex than single promiscuous people; and on and on and on.

 

I would LOVE for the boys I'm around to know those things, before they start getting the pressure to 'get some'!

 

Ideally, this would come from parents, but far, far too often the parents don't know how or are 'chicken'.

 

Granted, you could and should NEVER teach boys this stuff without parental permission, but I'd bet 75% of parents who don't teach would love having their boys taught this info, on a 'just the facts' basis that emphasizes the benefits, joys and preparation necessary for successful marriage, and how few benefits and joys teenage promiscuity, or even non-promiscuous sexual activity, brings.

 

It may not be traditional in Scouting to talk about sex, but to communicate Scouting values in today's environment, it is almost essential!

 

So again, I ask, this is bad . . . how?

 

GaHillBilly

[Chug]

Ok, you've read the news story, now here's the facts.

 

This is The Scout Associations factsheet http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/...s/fs950000.pdf A proper read through will show you the real story. Essentialy the advice we give to a young person contemplating having sex is not to, but that it wouldn't be a bad idea to know where to send that person to get proper infomation about contraception and STD's.

 

They're certainly not suggesting that we become some kind of Dr Ruth.

 

This topic is also being discussed at www.escouts.org.uk(This message has been edited by Chug)

[Eamonn]

While I think that the idea isn't all bad.

I do have to admit that I'd be very uncomfortable if I were to be a leader having to deal with this.

I have heard a few of our Sea Scouts talking about sex education classes that they have had in school, they (Male and female)seem to be at ease talking about the classes. Much the same way they talk about a history or an English class.

In an episode of Inspector Morse, the investigation led Morse to a high school. He entered a classroom where the teacher was having the students practice putting condoms on bananas. The look on Morse's face was indescribable but in many ways sums up how I'd feel were I faced with a similar situation.

Eamonn.

[epalmer84]

And it is certainly much better than the material the BSA had in our early Boy Scout handbooks. When B-P published Scouting for Boys, quite a bit of content related to sex education was cut by the publisher a lot of that seems quaint by today's standards.

 

Ed

[NJCubScouter]

I think Eamonn's statement sums up my reaction as well. I have no problem with the message, but I don't think I want to be the messenger. I also am not sure how useful this would be in my area, because the information they are trying to get across seems fairly consistent with what is taught in school. New Jersey has a "family life" curriculum that includes what they used to call "sex ed" in the appropriate grade levels, and my impression is that this is very similar to what they teach. In other words, "wait, but if you don't wait, here is what you need to do." The approach is value-laden but pragmatic at the same time.