In elementary school, we first learned about what menstruation was literally a few *months* before I got my period. And the description was so abstract and sanitized that I did not actually recognize what was going on for several *days*. I thought I’d injured myself, or something… (We had, of course, vaguely learned about *caring for babies* at this point; strategies for actually *preventing* babies had to wait until high school. >.<)

Also, wouldn’t a man who strongly believed we should not sexualize children too soon do a little more campaigning against child prostitution and sexual abuse of minors? ‘Cause teaching someone what their internal organs are called seems slightly less damaging than raping them, somehow… But I’m sure O’Reilly totally campaigns against rape constantly in his free time, and is careful to condemn *only* the rapists and not the victims. He really seems like the kind of conscientious feminist-type that seeks to protect women and children from sexual predators. Really.

So his misogyny is pretty blatant to me.

However: The Rev. Haffner said something that I really *don’t* like:

“…you want to talk about family roles…”

I’m not really certain I want any state institution telling children, in the context of ‘how boys and girls are different’, anything about family roles. That just gives me the creeps.

But yes, Bill O’Reilly is, well, despicable. The sort of thinking that says ‘children don’t need to know the names of their sexual body parts’ is the very reason why I don’t know to this day what (specifically) constitutes my vulva. (I own Our Bodies Ourselves, so I can go look it up, but it’s not knowledge that’s automatically there, like what my knee is, where it stops and what it does).

Public school sex education needs serious improvements. Following O’Reilly’s line of thought is following the status quo (at least in the southern U.S. where I grew up in relative ignorance).

When we use sanitized words, the only person we’re helping is the moron who is too uncomfortable with his/her own body to talk about it like a reasonable adult. The meaning is the same. If you use “wee-wee” or “penis” the kid is going to eventually understand what you’re talking about. The difference is that, by using code like “wee-wee” you infantilize and obfuscate things- you make it more difficult to give accurate information to the child.

What a bunch of nonsense.

Sex ed in this country is a mess, and not just because of abstinence-only. It starts too late, ends too early, and covers too little.