This month saw backbench Conservative MP Nadine Dorries bring forward proposals to change existing legislation on sex education to include the benefits of abstinence, directed at girls aged 13-16. The bill would mean that these girls would have additional sex education, to “let young girls know that to say no to sex when you’re under pressure is a cool thing to do.” The bill has been polarising, provoking strong criticism that it is ill-conceived and sexist.
Dorries is no stranger to controversy. Part of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group, she has argued for 10 day cooling-off periods for girls seeking abortions for reflection and compulsory counselling. She once claimed a disability allowance claimant was giving the benefit a bad name by using twitter too much. She conceded that the blog she uses to let constituents read about her activities was “70% fiction”.
Arguably she was never going to be the best person to present a considered case for revising sex education – this has become increasingly apparent in the wake of this bill. The Sunday Times reported that she initially refused an interview because “women shouldn’t interview women” before relenting the next day. I couldn’t tell you why. After reading the final article Dorries described the interviewer as “witch-like,” so presumably she regrets breaking her rule.
The bill and the arguments underpinning it have some peculiar features, yet a knee jerk response does not do justice to the importance of sex education. The bill is flawed in several ways. Firstly it is directed purely at girls. This retrenches the notion that women are primarily responsible for sexual health, guarding against the excesses of men. We should be teaching against this – if the topic of abstinence is to be brought into schools it should be for everyone. The age band Dorries specifies is also fairly arbitrary, 13-16 years old. A better proposal would be to integrate abstinence as a topic with sex education at all levels.
She underlies the need for the bill with a general disdain for sexualised culture, claiming that “in some newsagents now, there are more sex magazines available than any other kind of magazine.” Show me that newsagents, Nadine, and I will show you a sex shop. This hyperbole only serves to trivialise an important issue. Oh, and did you know there are 4.7 sexual innuendos an hour during prime time TV schedules? No, really, the speech in parliament was pretty bad.
However, the concept underlying this bill is not as shocking as its critics would have you believe. In her Times interview Dorries refuses to call it an “abstinence-based programme.” While sex education with abstinence as the basis for its syllabus would be insufficient and inadequate to prepare teenagers for the realities of adulthood, there is no reason it should not feature as part of the discussion. In our criticism of Dorries we risk associating what is a perfectly reasonable lifestyle choice with a poorly-conceived policy document. Young people do need to know that it’s okay to say no – let’s not forget that when explaining why this bill is wrong.
Finally, if you’re not a fan of the bill, you can console yourself with the knowledge it is highly unlikely to become law. It does not currently have government backing, and is not due to be discussed again until 20 January 2012.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with a little social conservatism. We need our traditional values. But this should be taught to boys as well as girls.