Welcome to another segment of nonprofits where we're going to discuss, well, maybe not our favorite state, but at least our favorite state to discuss eli, what have you got for us?
So? Back in September of twenty twenty three, schools across Florida were required to send in their sex education materials to be reviewed by the state to ensure they aligned
with new regulations that strictly enforce abstinence only education. The new policies state that visual representations of reproductive anatomy nor discussions of different types of sex should be present at any grade level, and that contraceptives are not part of any health or science standard and should only be mentioned as a health resource, banning demonstrations on how to use contraceptives.
The language also specifies that children through high school should be taught that abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage is the expected standard for all school age students. Now, I don't know if this feeling is surprise or despair, but I definitely worry for the children growing up in Florida. This story is from Popular by Rebecca Crosby on September twenty fifth, twenty twenty four.
Well, that was quite a mouthful and quite a letdown.
Now.
Yeah, now you and I have had conversations about this topic before, because you and I, both in our viewpoint of saying educate children, have both been labeled groomers. Now, so what do you think about that? Where do you come from? How do you feel about that? What's your response? Do you like?
So I had to look up at one point, I'm like, let me find the actual definition of grooming because maybe I'm wrong.
How why are these.
People like seeing a similarity between what I'm saying and grooming? And no, it's not the same. It's almost as much different as it could be from what I'm saying, which is give kids accurate information about the world so that they can be prepared. And yeah, you're going to you know, different things are going to be suitable for different age groups.
But if you're not willing to teach things to your kids about sex or related topics, there are plenty of people that don't have their best interest in mind that are more than happy to do it for you. And by keeping them naive, you're not protecting them, You're keeping
them vulnerable. And I think too, that this article is muddying the waters a little bit when or not the article, but the language of the bill is muddying the waters a little bit here when it says all school aged children, because that is, of course talking about very young children from five up to you know, ten, eleven, twelve, you know,
and thirteen some may even consider young. I think that's probably the age where kids should start learning it because most humans are sexually mature by the time they're thirteen years old, and these kids are thinking about seen by the time they finish high school, fifty seven percent of people will have already had sex. And if they're not learning it from trusted and knowledgeable adults, they're going to be learning it from ignorant friends, or untrustworthy adults, or
untrustworthy friends or ignorant adults. There's any combination of things that can go wrong. It is I think a parent's it's a parent's responsibility to accurately and be sure that they're accurately teaching their kids about sex and anything that they might want to know about it without shame and like that stigma, because it can only do more good than harm.
Absolutely, you know, one thing is, as you mentioned, someone's going to teach your kids, and that's going to be someone who is going to do the best they can, or someone who, as you said, is just ignored the fact, or even worse, someone who has ill intent. But I can guarantee you that if your kids don't know what they need to know, that is something that makes a person who has ill intent, and it makes their job easier,
not more difficult. Now switching over to you for a moment, Jonathan Up, I know that this band included bands on contraception and discussion of LGBTQ issues, but one I found particularly galling, and not that the other two aren't, was banning discussion about consent. I mean, don't you think that that is a should be a required topic, not just for boys or just for girls, because you know, well sounds they want to limit it to just one or
the other, but that everyone needs to understand what consent is. Well, what do you think that was about.
Changing sex education to exclude abuse? Consent and violence? Is just allowing young children to be abused and victimize. Maybe that is what the conservatives want, a ready stable of children who won't complain about them raping them. It sure looks like it, but I'm not going to just accuse
them of that. But I thinks they do protest too much, and so you know they're in having Knowing for a fact that several of our representatives in Congress are under investigation for that kind of nonsense, it just makes me a little bit more weary and weary and leary about it. But there's already an effect from this BS anyway. And in areas where there's comprehensive sex education not and where it's not taught, where comprehensive sex education is not taught, chlamydia, HIV, syphilis,
gunner rhea are all on the rise. Teen pregnancy is on the rise. These are areas where abstinence only is taught. All the things they're trying to prevent are happening more because these kids do not understand what's going on, and so if you don't teach them about it, they're going to experiment themselves. And when they do that, all the things you're trying to prevent are going to go up. And they have areas that have come for and sex said,
the average sexual experience was prolonged. In other words, it was later in their teen years than otherwise it's abstinence only, they tend to have sex earlier. And I think it's just that if you don't pay attention, and you know, kids aren't stupid, you treat, if you infantilize them, they're going to throw tantrums and do exactly what you told me not to, right, guess what you know that seems
to be borne out by the stats. So if you want your kid to stay celibate until marriage and everything else, then you damn well better teach them an awful lot about sex education because that seems to be the only way to get them to hold off. So and but yeah, it's it's really concerning that they're allowing their kids to be set up to be violently violated by any idiot who comes comes along, any criminal comes along, by not teaching about sex. That's there's no universe where that's okay.
You know, I agree. One thing that I have to say is that I know there's this gold standard of you know, wait until you're married, until you have sex and don't have sex and until you find that right person. Well I have a different view on that because I think and and and I know this is not going to be a popular view with some people, but I think you need to try that shit out and see
what you like before you make any decisions. So whether it comes down to not just the person that you plan on marrying, but that just seems like limiting yourself for it, especially considering that if you're going to be in a monogamous relationship with one person for a long period of time, you better at least make sure that it's the type of person you like, that they have the likes and dislikes you like. And the only way that you're going to know what you like is go
out there and find out. So whatever you do, don't wait until you're married, if you get married at all. But that's just my viewpoint now, seriously though, Yeah, well you know, and then the funny part is is that I know that when when I said that in front of my mother in law a long time ago, I thought she was about to, you know, she'd have had pearls. It's against her religion to have jewelry. But if she'd have had pearls, she'd have probably ripped them off her
own damn neck. But you know, you know, we're kind of talking about what we're discussing on both sides. Eli. You know, Florida leads a nation in HIV cases. We see what's happened with the Catholic Church preaching against even condom use or discussion of condoms, and places like Africa and what it's done to disease there, And what do you think that we're going to see here in Florida as we see this, And to me, it feels like
it's a goal. They want ignorant people because they want them to be obedient citizens who get get pregnant young and have kids and get bogged down into the routine more than anything else.
What do you think?
Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it, honestly, and alongside with what John pointed, I had both of these things that you guys said in my notes. Among the ten states with the highest rate of births among adolescent people capable of getting pregnant, those states from one to ten or Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, West Virginia, and New Mexico, and the first eight require
abstinence only education. West Virginia New Mexico have some more progressive, you know, sex education programs. I don't know what's going on there, but the first eight of the top ten highest rates of adolescent births is the states that require absence only educations are just like you said, like both of you have said, kids that are getting taught not to have sex are having it sooner. Because here's the thing,
Like you said, kids aren't stupid. They're going to school or they're going to church or here from their parents. Don't have sex, don't have sex, don't have sex. And then getting on Instagram, you know, on TikTok, you or wherever, and everybody is talking about sex. Everybody is having sex, and they're seeing this and they're like, Okay, why are like what's going on here? Why is everyone and why are the adults these losers telling us not to have sex.
And everybody that's cool on TikTok and Instagram that I want to be just like is talking about sex. What's going on here? So they're gonna start doing it with no information and we've already established it. And I think what's going to happen is you're going to have just like has been said, you're gonna have more.
Rates.
Yeah, more STDs, more adolescent birth rates, probably gonna knock West Virginia or New Mexico out of ninth or tenthity place probably take both of those. Florida could I if
anybody could, it would be Florida. And it's you know, and they're even the ability of the language in this new regulation, even talking about restricting, uh, the use of the word fluids, which, as a professor of public health named Lisa bar pointed out, that makes it extremely difficult to properly teach about things like sexual transmitted infections like HIV, which, as you mentioned, already has one of the highest rates of Florida already has one of the highest rates of
HIV infection in the country. So nothing is going to get better here and and I mean where it's it's this this loop, this circle of terrible effect after terrible effect. More kids are going to get victimized. More kids are going to make ignorant, uninformed choices and cause harm to themselves that way. And you know, who knows what it's going to take to like get anything that changed back for the better in Florida. I agree with you. It does seem like they want an ignorant population.
Yeah, capulation too. Yeah, you have as many kids as they can so they get butts in the seats in their church and get the tithes, so you know, that way they keep their money too going.
I agree, Jonathan, I think that they're looking for you a nice heteronormative, really relationship. Have a bunch of babies, have them young, and let's have them for God. And you know, so this is a hand in hand thing where you know, the Christians get themselves butts in their seat paying ties and the corporations get their compliant workforce. Because once again, as we've talked about many times here in Florida, anti it's not just anti education of sex education.
The truth is that right now, I think we're experiencing just a case of anti education when it comes down to some states, Florida in particular. For this Eli talked about words that were taken out that weren't there, no longer to be able to be used, and another one that we it may have been mentioned, but I don't recall it was the word domestic violence. Jonathan, what do
you think that's about. You know, we talked about first we're talking taking away consent, but now we're not even going to talk about domestic violence.
You know, the domestic violence is often sexual in nature. There or we can't talk about that in front of the children, of course not. I mean, you know, why would you want to do that, Well, maybe to prevent them from being victims of domestic violence and breaking the cycle of domestic violence. Or is it that, since Christians believe that the man is supposed to be sacrosanct and superior in the household, that he has a right to beat his wife, you know, and he has a right
to spank his children. It wouldn't surprise me. I haven't heard or seen that as an actual policy measure, but it seems to be they're kind of tacitly kind of sliding that in under the table here where it's going to be something that will well, you know, we're going to normalize injuring people in the home, you know, And that's kind of like that's a big red flag. So yeah, it's bad.
That's exactly how I took it, because I mean, first we say, okay, let's not talk about consent, and now let's not talk about domestic violence. And yes, you mentioned spanking children. Let's be realistic, most of these people who we're talking about who are behind this kind of thing would cheer raw raw round beating your kids too. And of course they would say, oh, it's spanking, not beating, but if you if you hit a kid, it's beating. In my book, I don't make a distinction there. So, Eli,
what do you think is Jonathan right? Or are we just heading to a point where we're just easing in another bad behavior. We've talked before about bad behaviors and words being normalized. Are we looking at just one more thing that it feels like we're just trying to slip something else in under the cracks, So we're looking at a normalization of this.
You'd have to think that there's some sort of motivation for taking out education about consent or to mess about it, because I can't, like, as a cognitively capable adult, I can't imagine looking back on any moment in my life and being like, you know, I wish I knew less about what I was doing at that time. I wish I had less information to make a worse decision or less like that. And I don't think that thought ever
should occur to any rational human. So for them to you think that they're preparing anybody for success by doing exactly that blows my mind. So, yeah, you have to think that there's some sort of it something to be gained from them by remote, like by by limiting access to this information, to this knowledge, because you like, like we've already covered, Like you're not protecting anybody by not teaching them about you know, what is and isn't okay.
And this isn't just about sex or like relationships or domestic violence. This is about anything. You can't set somebody up for success by only teaching them the good things. They have to know how to prepare for the bad things. Otherwise, like, because you're not only going to have good things, You're gonna have bad things come up, and if you're not
prepared to deal with them, it doesn't matter. How Like, it doesn't matter what you know about the good things, because you're never going to get there.
Without a doubt. And I do think that we are seeing exactly these things coming together. And it's like you
talked about earlier to eighteen children. And one of my reminders, and I mentioned it to you not long ago, was a conversation I had with my youngest and it was about P. Diddy and it was about the vials, I mean, the canisters of Loube thousand lou canvass of loubes they found, and it didn't take me very longer than that discussion to realize that she didn't understand the purpose of the loub and Okay, well it's time to have a discussion
about that and explain that because like anything else, it's either information or it's misinformation, and that information is going to be to learn from someone who's going to give real information or someone who's not. But you know, when it comes down to things like loube or what was the word that they said, we couldn't need fluids, I can understand some giggling and some fourteen year olds being
fourteen year olds in class about that. Okay, I get that there's a certain level of awkwardness to it, But when it comes down to issues like you know, consent, when it comes down to issues like domestic violence, I don't think that there's going to be awkward moments in classes with kids giggling over the fact that, you know, we're talking about these issues. I think there are issues
that would be taken very serious. And I found it really unfortunate that some places in Florida are just saying okay, because our teachers, rightfully so, are so concerned about teaching this to a class of children, because they're going to go home to parents and say things, and if I slip up, it could be my job that they're saying, you know what, we're not going to teach sex at at all, And that is so unfortunate for the children because they need that information. If nothing else, I would
like them to know what consent is. Jonathan, what do you think you think that there's Is this something that's going to last or is this something that people.
Flora is going back to being purple here. There's a lot of there's a lot of pushback on the magacrap and the slight majority of people don't like it. So it's going to be here in Florida. I think it's going to eventually go the way of all flesh. But you know, you never know. They can hang on by their fingernails like they have over the last twenty thirty years and just you know, and I don't mean just
mag I mean arch conservatives have never gone away. They've been here since the beginning of the country and they've always been working to turn us back into a monarchy. So it's just a matter of being aware they're there and having the majority of people and strengthening the middle class and other people who tend to decide a lot
of these elections and other things. But you know, it's just one of these things you cannot and you cannot not tell kids that when their grandfather is touching them inappropriately, they shouldn't say anything horseshit, you know. And you can't tell kids that, oh, gee, you know what did that what at that juck guy at school say to you? You know, well, he said he wanted to take me into the closet. You really want your kids to say, oh, okay, no, you want them to recognize what's going on and go
run and tell somebody. Right, not telling him about it is the most dangerous thing you can do for your children. So these people obviously don't care about the kids. That's not what they care about.
You know.
They care about the points. You know, they care about their talking points. That's it.
Honestly, I'm not sure what they care about because it doesn't seem to be in anybody's self interest. And Eli, I wanted to give you an opportunity to wrap up a couple of things I know you and I talked about before. The groomer thing and being called at and so you know, to those who say this at all be done at home, not in schools, well, do you what do you have to say to that?
That's actually that's exactly what I wanted to end on, because I think I mentioned that earlier. I think parents have a responsibility to do that, but to do it
accurately to a very nuanced degree. Yeah, I think that, you know, sex should be taught at homes, but I think that gets mishandled more than more than it doesn't because not every you know, parent would have a conversation with their child that is the age that that your youngest is about what lube is, and especially in the in the context of like p Didy and what's going on with him. Right, So, I think parents are notoriously bad at talking to their kids about sex. My parents
didn't teach me anything about sex. I learned it all on my own, and I just happened to, like eventually at this point, kind of have some ideas that are not horrible, right, And I think I think that I have the right ideas. I hope that I do, and I'm always trying to make sure that i'm that you know that I do. But I didn't learn it from my parents. My my the talk with my dad was like, hey,
what do you know about sex? And I lied and I was like, and he goes, oh, sex is a gift from God for parents, and I was like okay, and he didn't describe anything about it. So like I had to learn these things on my own. Just like I said before, if if you don't educate yourself so that you can properly educate your twoildren, someone else is going to do it. And you don't know if that information is going to be true. You don't know if
it's going to be safe. You don't know who if that person is going to be safe and that, and like I like the last time I invited the you know YouTube to call me a grouma, they didn't. They disappeared on me. They failed me, So I'm giving you another chance. I had a whole conversation about talking to kids about sex, let's talk about it.
Well, you know, Ray, my wife has never gotten that speech from her mom. Her mom never even gave her the sex talk, never even made an attempt, So I guess it's kind of late now. But you know, you mentioned the p Diddy moment and At first, I was like, thanks P Diddy, you know, I appreciate this. But then when I thought of it seriously, seriously, I didn't think, though, thanks P Diddy, because life gives you things and opportunities to be aware of what your children do and don't
know and what's important for them to know. So yeah, while there is the thanks P Diddy, there's also the thanks P Diddy. Now I know, no, but you know. On that note, I will say that it's been a good conversation, Jonathan. I like your perspective of it, being hopeful about Florida waking up to some of these literally nightmare situations regarding children,