He tries not to get the three confused.
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He tries not to get the three confused. |
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There are some people in this world whom I like in small doses. (There are probably a lot of people who think of me in the same way.) They include children. Professors with a hygiene problem. Incredibly sexy men with a low IQ. Work colleagues with an irritating laugh. Handymen. I'm not sure about Ann Widdecombe. I haven't met her, but I susprise myself by thinking I like her. She is - for the non-Brits among you - a leading light in the right-wing Conservative Party, who has become so renowned, sometimes unfairly, for her opinions and her appearance, that almost everything she does or says appears newsworthy. I disagree strongly with much of what she says, but I am fascinated by the way she says it. She comes across as strong-willed, sincere, intelligent and with the occasional sense of humour. I suspect, on no grounds other than amateur pop psychology, that there is a vulnerability to her that she does not allow herself to recognise. I wouldn't want to spend my life with her, but a relaxing dinner with wine would be interesting. (On the other hand, calling her website the Widdy Web suggests an overstimulated twee gland.) So why am I writing about her? She's annoyed me. I shouldn't be surprised, but she's behaved like a politician. More honest and sincere than many others, but still a politician - someone who believes they have to give a definitive answer to whatever question they are asked, even when they do not know the answer. It's the good old combination of arrogance and ignorance - I haven't a clue what I'm talking about, but that won't stop me pontificating. It gets worse when they think they know the answer, and they're plain wrong. Which is where AW comes in. Last week she featured in a column in the Bangkok-based Independent, where members of the public ask celebrities questions. (Imaginatively titled You Ask The Questions.) One Jasper Arthur of Lichfield (middle England) asked about extending sex education in schools. Widdecombe responded with a typical line that looks intelligent but is in fact a non sequitur: "We have never had so much sex education or so much freely available contraception and we have never had so many teenage pregnancies, so I draw the obvious conclusion that if you teach kids how to do it and give them the means to do it 'without risk', then they will." Wrong, Miss W, wrong. First of all you head off in one direction - there's plenty of contraception available - then you undertake a u-turn by claiming that we have high rates of teenage pregnancy. In other words, you argue that easy access to contraception leads to high rates of pregnancy. Which is not, I presume, what you want to say. Nor is it sex education that is leading to high rates of pregnancy. In the Netherlands and Denmark, sex education is taught more systematically and to younger students than in the UK and contraception is equally freely available - yet there are lower rates of teenage pregnancy than in this country. Put simply, the suggestion that knowledge of sex and easy access to contraception leads to early sexual intercourse is not proven by the facts, no matter how "right" the facts feel. So if high rates of teenage pregnancy in Britain are not the result of sex education or access to contraception, what is the cause? Two interlinked reasons, probably. The first is high awareness of the possibilities of sex and the second is lack of sex education. That is not a contradiction in terms. British children and teenagers are very aware of what goes where in sex, but they are remarkably ill-informed about the consequences of the act itself. They believe there won't be a pregnancy if they do it standing up, or if it's the girl's first time. They are unaware of the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Neither sex is particularly aware of why women menstruate, that the sexual organs of women under twenty are more vulnerable to infection than over that age. And so on and so on and so on. Adults, and politicians like Ann Widdecombe are almost equally ignorant, confusing the sexualisation of society with sex education. They see the drawbacks of the one and assume they apply to the other, which is about as logical as confusing traffic accidents with driving lessons. The man or woman who learns how to drive a car is less likely to be involved in an accident - as the young man or woman who fully understands sex is less likely to start it early and is far less likely to become a teenage parent. And no, this is informed reality, not prejudice or wishful thinking - as well as the Dutch and Danish examples, dozens of studies monitored by the World Health Organization confirm that decent sex education, from an early age, delays the start of sex and reduces unwanted pregnancy. And that's the sermon for today. So, please, Ann, think again. If you want to reduce teenage pregnancy, as every sane-minded person does, make it a point of principle to call for decent, early sex education. And explain to the public why. With your reputation, you could be a terrific force for good. After all, we've all seen what sex ignorance does; sex information can only be an improvement. 29 July 2002 |
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| 31 July 2002 |
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© Martin Foreman |