During my youth I spent my time out and about with my closest circle of friends, playing football, wrestling in the mud and jumping in particularly dirty waters when dared to do so.
Now though, only six years down the line, British children have far more than what’s expected of them; with the increasing pressure from the sexual nature of films, self-image and social media, you’d expect a counter-initiative of some sort to be enforced by the governing bodies of this country. Instead though, we have been given another option, soon to be enforced by the deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg; here it is… To teach 13-year-olds, within the classroom, that to be engaging in both penetrative and oral sex is only ‘normal’, at their age!
Now, in my mind, that is crazy – while we know that children of that age and younger do engage in sexual activities, should we really be endorsing such behaviour? At that age, the human body is not yet fully developed and the psychological effects of sexual intimacy can be extremely damaging; the repercussions can be – and often are – awful.
Historically in British society, children of families at the lower end of the social scale were given away by their fathers, to lessen the cost of their household upkeep. Children of families at the opposing end of the scale were – effectively – sold off, into equally wealthy families to tie up business deals and increase their families’ social standing. Back then, this was acceptable and the norm – young women who had just entered puberty were positively expected to provide children for their husband, to sprout offspring and spawn their own family.
When we speak of this, we think of Victorian Britain and further back.Yet while this country has advanced over the last one-hundred years and while our government goes on about the modernisation of Britain, with the rise of multiculturalism and the acceptance of various faith groups, we appear to be going backwards on a rather fundamental part of life and the creation of it.
Do we really want this? To advance on all sectors of society, then have ourselves fall back into the dark age on sexual intercourse?
Statistically, it is known that more underage children are having sex in Britain than in any other country in Europe – that is according to the World Health Organisation figures. Girls are notoriously prepared to have sex aged 15 or younger – leading to 20 of them hosting another life each day. The level of teenage pregnancy in Britain robs young people of their childhoods but it also tends to disrupt families, normally leading to a break-up.
Of course, during Gordon Brown’s term in office, Labour pledged to halve pregnancies among the 16-17 age group by 2010; did this work? No.
England and Wales now have the highest birth rates for under sixteens in Western Europe; in some areas of the country, nearly one schoolgirl in every fifty is falling pregnant. To combat this rise, the government announced a raft of measures, including personal contraception counsellors, to stop teenage mothers from getting pregnant again – if we’re honest though, this simply halted the prior policies, which told children that ‘if (they) couldn’t be good, be careful’.
Given all of this, do you really think Nick Clegg should be employing the tactic of teaching schoolchildren earlier about sex and – almost – endorsing it during live interviews?
Backwards we go, England. Goodbye modernity, hello Orthodoxy.
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