Sex in Sixth Grade? OK in My Book.

This afternoon at my gym, someone left the TV tuned to Fox News. I couldn't help but watch. The Big Story was a sex scandal out of Warren Township, Indiana. This past November, two sixth graders had sex in a classroom while other students alternated between ogling and making sure the couple wouldn't be caught. When the story surfaced, the school tried to keep it quiet. Until now. With the story unfurled and parents outraged, the teacher involved has been fired and the school is still scrambling to figure out how to respond.

I rushed back to my computer for more information. Hasty Googling turned up a story about five students who had been caught by a janitor having an apparent orgy in the Osbourn High School auditorium in Manassas, Virginia, back in 2005. Soon after, the Washington Post reported that sex in schools was on the rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control, half of all 15- to 19-year-olds have had vaginal intercourse and more than half have had vaginal sex.

Arguably, a friend pointed out to me, the other half want to!

So you have hormone-raging kids, who are seeing adult sexuality all around them, and have no real safe and private gathering spaces outside school. What else do we expect? Of course, I'm not suggesting that kids having sex in the classroom is okay. Certainly not shop class. Learning how to build a birdhouse is essential to cultivating the critical thinking skills necessary to participate in our democracy.

But do I think that kids --- even twelve year olds --- having safe, consensual, self-discovering, playful, awkward, awakening, experimental sex is a bad thing? No.

Another friend drew the analogy to smoking pot. Do I want kids smoking lots and lots of pot, all the time, including in classrooms? No. But because marijuana is illegal, kids --- even more so than the rest of us --- have to fear getting caught when they want to smoke up. That means that a whole host of risky behaviors are more likely. I remember when I was a kid and thought about smoking and my parents told me if I ever got really stoned, they'd rather me call them to come pick me up, rather than me sneaking around --- or worse, driving around looped. Smoking pot and having sex has certain inherent risks, particularly when you add the complications of emotional maturity and judgment for kids. But aren't the risks exacerbated when the risky behavior is forced to be concealed?

Plus, we do know that making something illicit makes it more attractive, especially to rebellious youths. Anyone who's been 15 knows that.

But the bigger problem here is the message we're sending kids about sex. I really do think most 12-year-olds probably aren't ready for sex. But we shouldn't make that point by casting sex among kids --- and by extension, all sex --- as naughty, sinful, corrupt and immoral, which is what most abstinence-only programs do. We should recognize that kids are going to be curious and kids are going to experiment and we should equip them with the self-respect and knowledge to make their sexual experiences as positive and enjoyable as possible, at whatever age they occur.

Recently, Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order to vaccinate middle-school girls in Texas against the human papilloma virus (HPV) which has been shown to cause cervical cancer. On Tuesday, by a vote of 119 to 21, the Texas House of Representatives voted to overturn Perry's act. Imagine there were a vaccine against AIDS. Would we really not vaccinate young girls, out of some moral argument that they shouldn't be having sex --- even though if they were to have sex, the vaccine could save their lives?

It's hard to observe these debates about childhood sexuality without noting the inherent gender bias. Certainly, what tussled the Texans' cowboy hats wasn't just the notion of children in middle-school having sex, but the notion of girls in middle school having sex. Arguably, when it comes to thinking about sexuality and youth, all of our inherent patriarchal notions kick in and --- men and women alike --- we focus on the poor, victimized girl being coerced into sex against her will.

So for full disclosure, to try and dispel the girl-as-sex-victim myth, I had sex in school. No, it wasn't shop class. It was the art room. And no, it wasn't sixth grade. It was twelfth. But suffice it to say it was consensual --- if a bit awkward due to a few paintbrushes here and there. And suffice it to say that if it had been sixth grade, say with Elizabeth Marcon or frankly even Tim what's-his-name, that would have been completely okay with me too.

We need to start kids off on the right track to positive and healthy sexuality --- not by promoting sex at a young age, but by promoting health attitudes and healthy behaviors if they do give it a try. To the Indiana story and the Texas debacle, add the fact that in the same week, the Pope and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff condemn gay sex by their personal backwards moral code, and it becomes clear that we're not teaching kids to respect and appreciate all sexuality --- including their own, whenever it may blossom. Instead, we're relegating pleasure for consenting gay service men and women to dangerous back alleys, just as we're pushing consensual youth sexuality to shop room cubicles. Condemning sexuality isn't just self-righteous moralizing. It's also dangerous.

We should prepare kids for sexual pleasure in life --- which also means not condemning them if they discover it early.