[orthoxerox]

> C. We somehow need to come up with reasonable accommodation for the reality that teens have phones and budding sexualities and these two things are colliding horrifically in a legal and cultural system strongly rooted in assuming "child porn" is made solely by abusive adults and not willingly by underage teens who don't think it's a big deal at the time the photo is snapped.

It's not just the CSAM aspect, it's the whole idea that sex ed is grooming. It's like the difference between saying "you shouldn't have sex until you are a responsible adult" vs "I honestly don't recommend that you have sex at this age, but if you do, here's how to do it safely and responsibly".

Teaching kids "don't send naked pictures of yourself to other people" is one thing, but if they look around and see their peers sext with each other with no real repercussions, this warning will fall on deaf ears. They will file it next to "don't drink until you're 21".

On the other hand, if you start tailoring this message into something like, "sexting is a bad idea, don't do it, especially if you don't know the other person or don't trust them 100%; if you do sext, here's how to minimize the impact of cyberbullying or blackmail: ...", then people will loudly complain that schools are teaching their children how to sext.

[DoreenMichele]

I was thinking more about our legal system and general culture needing to keep up with the times.

I homeschooled my kids, so school-based sex education doesn't really make my radar.

[touisteur]

I think the people calling sex education "grooming" are the same preventing the legal system to evolve in the way you described. You're very lucky that you could home-school your kids and teach them all this.

It's all very alien to me how teaching safe practice of something that has a huge probability of happening can still be seen as encouraging it, "grooming". Education should be a bare minimum here: here's how your body works, here's your risk of becoming/making your partner pregnant (and what that entails for you), of catching a life-long disease, cancer, or a nasty painful thing, here's what medical science and the FDA says you can both use as contraceptive and their failure rate and side effects, no means fricking no, and all of this compounds if you drink or do drugs...

Not teaching this amounts to not preparing your kid for the actual world and reduces body autonomy and responsible behaviour... They will experiment, and they will do stupid things.

It's as if teaching civics was a gateway to anarchist bombing or teaching chemistry a gateway to Breaking Bad... American puritanism and the whole "teaching is grooming" is such a weird thing.

[bloomingeek]

<"teaching is grooming" is such a weird thing. > Since grooming has become politicized, the hypocrisy is monumental and finally exposed. So called puritanism is the wrong direction, because as you pointed out, teens will do stupid things.

What about the toxic masculinity culture taught by the right and the church? The right says, "keep these women under control." The church says,"women MUST obey their husbands no matter what." If that's not grooming, I don't know what is.

We home schooled our children. We made sure our kids knew what could happen in life because we are all flawed and sometimes make decisions that could be life altering in unintended ways. We knew that we couldn't educate them enough about the variables of life, but we tried.

[graemep]

I home educated too, and one of the big advantages is that it creates more opportunities to talk to them about things like this.

> The church says,"women MUST obey their husbands no matter what."

Which church exactly says that? Only a fringe group of American evangelicals. I have never come across even them saying "no matter what" although there are probably a few real lunatics who do.

Here is the view of the the largest Christian church, that submission in marriage is mutual: https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhor... (page 115)

[bloomingeek]

Sorry, I should have mentioned I was referring to the protestant side of evangelicals. The unwritten rule on marriage there is the man always overrules.

Many evangelical fundamentalist churches, for example, use the material from The Institute in Basic Life Principles. On marriage it says,"A husband's authority over his wife is God-given, as is his wife's non-negotiable duty to submit to him; she must respect his position regardless of his "deficiencies".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_in_Basic_Life_Princi...