What is it with “advice” experts? Are they all drinking the decades-old Kool-Aid from sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey?
A case in point: In her “Family Almanac” column in the Feb. 15 Washington Post, Marguerite Kelly advises a mother to steer her curious 11-year-old boy away from the Internet and toward the kiddie sex book, "It's Perfectly Normal."
An illustrated, over-sized hardback by Robie H. Harris, "It's Perfectly Normal" has sold more than 1 million copies. It's full of colorful drawings of nude people, sexual activities including masturbation by both sexes, and even a girl leaning over and holding a mirror between her legs, so she and the reader can examine her nether regions.
If you felt violated just reading this description, imagine how kids feel when looking at the pictures. The book title sums up the author's agenda, which is to promote all varieties of sex as “perfectly normal.”
As for Alfred Kinsey, he was a profoundly lecherous man whose “scientific” studies on sex in the '40s and '50s have been thoroughly debunked yet remain the driving force behind most sex education and a lot of what passes for advice from popular columnists and parenting experts. The Kinsey gospel is that anything goes, and that morality is passé. It's Perfectly Normal perfectly epitomizes it.
Dear Abby, the most well-read adviser, regularly offers Kinseyesque libertine sexual advice, as documented in the new Special Report from the
Abby is hardly alone. Other advice experts have promoted libertinism for years, and many have applauded It's Perfectly Normal. I don't recall seeing any prominent experts criticize the book, including Abby's late sister Ann Landers, who even gave it a cover blurb. Penelope Leach, author of "Your Baby & Child," says "It's Perfectly Normal" is “reassuring and responsible; warm and charming.” Best-selling author and columnist T. Berry Brazelton says kids coming into adolescence “will love it.”
In addition to premarital sex,
Kelly says the book, “written for 10-to14-year-olds, will explain sex to your son beautifully. You can be sure that he'll read it again and again. And again.”
Well, he'll probably look at the pictures again. And again. Before moving on to Penthouse, and then back to the Internet. The advice experts pushing this stuff on kids are either hopelessly naïve about how males think about sex or they are flat-out malicious.
Marriage is irrelevant to Harris, as it is in Kelly's column, which is entitled “Open Lines of Communication for a Sexually Curious 11-Year-Old.” The son had gotten into sex on the Internet, so the mom asks Kelly what to do. Kelly starts by recommending that the mother teach her son that “sex -- not pornography -- is the ultimate intimacy.” So far, so good. But then: “but only if it's based on friendship and respect and on a relationship that is private, honest, consensual and a pleasure to both.” That's it?
A lot of 11-year -olds (and 35-year-olds) would go along with that. Who needs marriage? Kelly also says that the kids “shouldn't have sex until they're old enough to deal with the consequences.”
So, should they wait till they're 14? How about 16? It's entirely open-ended. And what does she mean by “consequences?” Having an unplanned pregnancy? Catching one of the more than 30 sexually transmitted diseases? Disagreeing on the flavor or color of the condom that the school gave out?
In case mom and dad aren't drinking enough Kool-Aid themselves, Kelly also recommends an upcoming book by Debra W. Haffner, "What Every 21st Century Parent Needs to Know." Kelly does not bother sharing with us some of Haffner's background, which includes heading the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), which has been promoting child sex for four decades.
Founded in 1964 by Kinsey associate Wardell Pomeroy and Planned Parenthood Medical Director Mary Calderone, SIECUS has used Kinsey's “scientific” findings on “child sexuality” from the molestation of hundreds of children to create sex education guidelines for most public school programs, beginning in kindergarten. SIECUS was formed, according to Calderone, to teach human sexuality “very broadly and deeply with awareness of the vital importance of infant and childhood sexuality.” Dr. Judith Reisman and co-author Ed Eichel blew the lid off Kinsey in the 1990 book Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People, but Kinsey's cold, dead hand is still on the throttle of the sexual revolution, courtesy of his many disciples and a still credulous media.
Haffner, who is, among other things, a Unitarian minister, used her bully pulpit at SIECUS quite imaginatively. In one SIECUS Report, she exhorted Americans to embrace her idea of a “national petting project” to teach kids how to engage in “outercourse.” She actually contended that if kids learn to undress and masturbate each other, they are less likely to have intercourse. Right.
This is the expert that Washington Post columnist Marguerite Kelly is recommending to convey helpful information to parents.
And what about the other experts featured regularly in the media? Are they clueless or malicious? It's okay to answer yes to both questions.
Robert Knight is director of the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the
