Commentary on Shornack's Article

Abstract

The Shornack's article is a strange mixture of the positive and the negative. When it is positive it challenges a variety of stereotypes about sex education; when it is negative the logic becomes difficult to understand. The positive part tells us that we still have much to learn both about sex and sex education. They have looked at only one aspect of sex education: the group process. It has a place but there are numerous other approaches. And all must be studied, fitted to the needs of the learner, and constantly reevaluated. What the Shornacks do is to point out that sex is far from being fully integrated into the various aspects of living. I would like to suggest three aspects for further consideration. For the individual, the physical and emotional qualities need to be better understood if personal well-being is to be assured. Aspects of couple and group sexual interaction, particularly as they are involved in sex education, need careful appraisal. For the larger community, sex can and does become a political issue through the attention given the role of the schools, the development of family planning clinics, and citizen involvement in legal regulations. These three avenues should not be pursued separately, they must be related and integrated. The negative part of the Shornack's article comes in their restrictive, often negative, view of sexuality. Apparently they see sex associations as threatening, producing illegitimate pregnancies and venereal diseases. Certainly no socially minded person wants these outcomes (though, as the Shornacks point out, immature and frustrated adolescents sometimes do seek illegitimate pregnancies). But they offer no clear indication of the satisfactions arising from intimacy and body closeness associated with loving sexual unions. The Shornacks do say, and correctly, that intercourse should be associated with the family. But no futuristic view about either the family or sex is expressed; they look only at the status quo or the past. How will future families be defined? What of the future when intimacy in a depersonalized world becomes even more important than it is today, when families will be even smaller and family members more remote from one another, geographically and probably emotionally? How will intimacy and genital associations be handled when medical science has eliminated venereal infections and both male and female can be rendered either temporarily or permanently infertile at puberty? How shall citizens be educated to deal with such issues as discrimination against homosexuals, or banning sexual books or pornography? Suppose we were concerned with tempering or eliminating violence. Should we devote our attention wholly to telling people how to repel violence, or which forms of violence will counter other forms? Or should we develop programs whereby we insure people against violence by making them caring, loving persons? The most difficult of all their statements is their last. Here they retreat to medievalism when they say the schools should teach only reproductive anatomy and physiology, and reading [classical books], nothing more, nothing less.