The Florida Department of Education is prohibiting school districts from including core topics in their sex education courses, including contraception, consent, domestic violence, abuse, and LGBTQ issues.
Do Ron DeSantis and his Republican allies really believe that horny teenagers who will now suffer unnecessary STDs and be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term will be reliable Republican voters when they turn 18? Especially when they have gone thru school since kindergarten in fear of their lives from a disaffected white male for who Republicans made it easy to get a weapon of war? Is that what they think? Or do they genuinely think that abstinence only education will make horny teenagers less horny?
The fact that they can’t mention consent is highly disturbing. So basically the state of Florida approves rape. I don’t see it any other way. That should be the headline.
De Santis supports rapists choosing the mothers of their children. Even if the mothers become infected from STDs. Apparently de santis is unaware of the effects of STDs on a fetus. Maybe that explains his shortcomings.
One of the goals of Project 2025 is to turn the US into a Christian Nationalist Nation. States like Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas are doing this with glee. They do not care about our teens, or anyone else. Goal is to set up themselves for End of Days glory, and their children's miserable lives are supposed to bring them along with the Glory of being chosen by God to join HIM when HE brings them with HIM to heaven.
They don’t use a critical thinking process; their only process is score points with conservative “christians.” Conservative “christian’s” only thought process is the narrow, exclusive, patriarchal, vengeful god they’ve been taught in their churches.
My parents graduated from UF in 1958. My mom has told me stories of girls she knew whose parents flew them (as in, multiple people) to Cuba for abortions. But just ask Sarah Palin-- abstinence works, dontchaknow?!
I, the father of six children, recently wrote an article advocating expanded sex education for kids, starting in the 6th grade. The curriculum would be general until the 9th grade when it would become specific. Why the 9th grade? Because regardless of parental bias, kids are having sex by that age. If they don't learn from us, they will learn from their peers, which is a dead end.
Even worse, and I cannot believe this isn't all over this article and the state of Florida:
Teens will learn sex from porn. Period. Ask how many teen girls are told being hit and hair pulled is normal sexual behavior. Ask how many girls who have endured painful anal sex say she thought it was normal. Ask how many girls who do not know that condoms can stop their unwanted pregnancy. Boys pull and pray, girls become pregnant teens and, in Florida, carry a baby to term, their lives are lessened because of it. And ask that child of a teen parent how many fathers they have had by the time they are in first grade.
Medical blogs have posted articles about injuries inflicted on girls and women from sexual violence so that physicians have awareness and can ask the right questions
You are so right. I knew nothing about sex till I learned it on the streets, with terrible consequences. I was fortunate that Roe v. Wade was decided. Now, what are those kids to do? No education and no safety net. We really need to vote blue up and down ballot, for the sake of our children and their families.
You cannot edit Substack posts. You have to delete and start over again. The three little dots don’t bring you to an edit button. Am I missing something?
That may be the case for posts, but apparently not for comments. In fact, I just edited the :) out of me comment to test it, and you may see "edited..." above my comment.
They might as well not teach sex ed at all, in that case. The prohibition on discussing consent is particularly troubling considering conservatives are consistently trying to tell women that their body is not theirs about which to make choices. It's legitimately sickening.
I think George Carlin really summed it up, with apologies for length:
"But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never gonna get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you, sooner or later, 'cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don't care about you at all -- at all -- at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
I regret that I didn't appreciate Carlin more years ago. This excerpt of His set is one I click and watch frequently on YouTube, because it's historic and prescient at the same time. Some comedians are actually oracles that can make you laugh, and I count George Carlin as one.
Of course, "states with abstinence-only sex education programs have higher rates of teen pregnancy, while comprehensive sex education — which is now banned in Florida — has been found to reduce instances of pregnancy, HIV, and other STDs in teens." Looking to Governor DeSantis or to the Catholic Church for wisdom about life and sexuality has proven to be unwise.
Abstinence! Good luck with that. Combine that approach with Florida’s lack of reproductive health insanity and we will be back to the 1940’ and 50’s . Millions of unwanted pregnancies and lives ruined. I think the women’s dress codes are being drawn up as I write this. If you can send $$$ to all those candidates of your choice who are opposed to this horrible backward thinking. I sure hope the women in particular are thinking about their daughters and sisters and themselves and voting accordingly. I was born in 1942 and lived through the repressive world they are trying to recreate. Not a good experience. The radical theologically motivated minority seeks to impose their version of morality on everyone. Don’t let them. Fight like hell. BTW the Florida Democrats are fighting like hell to defeat these crackpots. They , in particular , could use your donations.
First, let me commend the journalists at Popular Information for their ongoing excellent reporting!
As for Florida, each new offensive legal mechanism created in that state to insure that their citizenry kowtow to maliciously ignorant theology-based attitudes towards sex education and education in general, will insure negative outcomes for all. Humans are born as blank slates, we must be taught absolutely everything about living, walking, eating, speech, sex, everything, and Florida is among the group of Southern states that insist on dumbing their citizenry down to below sea level. An apt metaphor for the future of Floriduh.
As the Florida State Chair of the Democratic Party said in an Interview on the Dworkin Report, Florida is a poster child for Project 2025. That is exactly right. She also felt that Blue candidates including at the top have a chance. It is horrible to see the effects of implementing Project 2025, and Florida is not the only state. This is why the Netherlands have the lowest unwanted teen pregnancy rate in the countries surveyed, and also the lowest STD transmission rate.
I’m sure the next step is that the state will stop collecting data on teen pregnancies and STDs, because refusing to know about a problem is the Republican version of solving it.
One of their most beloved causes is the Great Replacement Theory so they feel the need to BOOST the number of white pregnancies at any cost. They don't care if those pregnancies are the result of incest or rape - just so long as it creates white babies.
"Florida passes new law that will increase teen pregnancy and HIV infection rates."
Let's not sugarcoat this.
But it worked so well under Reagan /s
Do Ron DeSantis and his Republican allies really believe that horny teenagers who will now suffer unnecessary STDs and be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term will be reliable Republican voters when they turn 18? Especially when they have gone thru school since kindergarten in fear of their lives from a disaffected white male for who Republicans made it easy to get a weapon of war? Is that what they think? Or do they genuinely think that abstinence only education will make horny teenagers less horny?
The fundamentalists obviously seem to think that abstinence-only is superior, as it's replicated in almost every GOP-controlled state.
The fact that they can’t mention consent is highly disturbing. So basically the state of Florida approves rape. I don’t see it any other way. That should be the headline.
De Santis supports rapists choosing the mothers of their children. Even if the mothers become infected from STDs. Apparently de santis is unaware of the effects of STDs on a fetus. Maybe that explains his shortcomings.
You are assuming he actually cares about the fetus.
Well, if you’re abstaining from sex, you don’t need to talk about it, right? /s
It seems like DeathSentence made that clear when his version of a Trump abortion ban made no exceptions for rape or incest after 15 weeks.
One of the goals of Project 2025 is to turn the US into a Christian Nationalist Nation. States like Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas are doing this with glee. They do not care about our teens, or anyone else. Goal is to set up themselves for End of Days glory, and their children's miserable lives are supposed to bring them along with the Glory of being chosen by God to join HIM when HE brings them with HIM to heaven.
What is up with the people in Florida? I find this really hard to fathom. They are some kind of stupid smh
They don’t use a critical thinking process; their only process is score points with conservative “christians.” Conservative “christian’s” only thought process is the narrow, exclusive, patriarchal, vengeful god they’ve been taught in their churches.
Essentially, Republicans come in just two flavors: evil and ignorant, with the Venn diagram showing significant overlap between the two populations
All Old Testament, all the time. Heck, that would give them permission for polygamy and slavery!
Under those draconian tactics and laws, there won't be enough young people left to vote. They will have died, or moved away.
It won't matter anyway. Their great pumpkin told them they won't need to vote anymore and no woman won't even THINK about abortion.
Speaking of horny teenagers, but I repeat myself.
My parents graduated from UF in 1958. My mom has told me stories of girls she knew whose parents flew them (as in, multiple people) to Cuba for abortions. But just ask Sarah Palin-- abstinence works, dontchaknow?!
There’s a third alternative: Maybe they just don’t think.
I, the father of six children, recently wrote an article advocating expanded sex education for kids, starting in the 6th grade. The curriculum would be general until the 9th grade when it would become specific. Why the 9th grade? Because regardless of parental bias, kids are having sex by that age. If they don't learn from us, they will learn from their peers, which is a dead end.
Even worse, and I cannot believe this isn't all over this article and the state of Florida:
Teens will learn sex from porn. Period. Ask how many teen girls are told being hit and hair pulled is normal sexual behavior. Ask how many girls who have endured painful anal sex say she thought it was normal. Ask how many girls who do not know that condoms can stop their unwanted pregnancy. Boys pull and pray, girls become pregnant teens and, in Florida, carry a baby to term, their lives are lessened because of it. And ask that child of a teen parent how many fathers they have had by the time they are in first grade.
Medical blogs have posted articles about injuries inflicted on girls and women from sexual violence so that physicians have awareness and can ask the right questions
You are so right. I knew nothing about sex till I learned it on the streets, with terrible consequences. I was fortunate that Roe v. Wade was decided. Now, what are those kids to do? No education and no safety net. We really need to vote blue up and down ballot, for the sake of our children and their families.
I learned from my babysitter.
I should not ask, but "learned what!"?
All about the act but not responsibilty, safety, etc.
"six" children - gotta love Freudian typos!
Yeah, I saw that, but didn't know how to edit it.
click on the 3 little dots at the lower right corner
thanks
You cannot edit Substack posts. You have to delete and start over again. The three little dots don’t bring you to an edit button. Am I missing something?
That may be the case for posts, but apparently not for comments. In fact, I just edited the :) out of me comment to test it, and you may see "edited..." above my comment.
The article i referenced above, "Kids Need More Sex", can be found here:
https://medium.com/@stevenrrensch/kids-need-more-sex-c0de8a5df54b
As my friend (a transplant from PA to FL) says, “Florida is a special kind of stupid.”
They might as well not teach sex ed at all, in that case. The prohibition on discussing consent is particularly troubling considering conservatives are consistently trying to tell women that their body is not theirs about which to make choices. It's legitimately sickening.
I think George Carlin really summed it up, with apologies for length:
"But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never gonna get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you, sooner or later, 'cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don't care about you at all -- at all -- at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
George Carlin
Like
I regret that I didn't appreciate Carlin more years ago. This excerpt of His set is one I click and watch frequently on YouTube, because it's historic and prescient at the same time. Some comedians are actually oracles that can make you laugh, and I count George Carlin as one.
Of course, "states with abstinence-only sex education programs have higher rates of teen pregnancy, while comprehensive sex education — which is now banned in Florida — has been found to reduce instances of pregnancy, HIV, and other STDs in teens." Looking to Governor DeSantis or to the Catholic Church for wisdom about life and sexuality has proven to be unwise.
"Looking to Governor DeSantis or to the Catholic Church for wisdom about life and sexuality has proven to be unwise."
TaDa! That was the understatement of the day!
You win breakfast on us at your local Golden Corral.
Abstinence! Good luck with that. Combine that approach with Florida’s lack of reproductive health insanity and we will be back to the 1940’ and 50’s . Millions of unwanted pregnancies and lives ruined. I think the women’s dress codes are being drawn up as I write this. If you can send $$$ to all those candidates of your choice who are opposed to this horrible backward thinking. I sure hope the women in particular are thinking about their daughters and sisters and themselves and voting accordingly. I was born in 1942 and lived through the repressive world they are trying to recreate. Not a good experience. The radical theologically motivated minority seeks to impose their version of morality on everyone. Don’t let them. Fight like hell. BTW the Florida Democrats are fighting like hell to defeat these crackpots. They , in particular , could use your donations.
Starting to think the main function of the Florida Department of Education is to list subjects which can't be taught in schools.
Don't forget those pesky books too!
First, let me commend the journalists at Popular Information for their ongoing excellent reporting!
As for Florida, each new offensive legal mechanism created in that state to insure that their citizenry kowtow to maliciously ignorant theology-based attitudes towards sex education and education in general, will insure negative outcomes for all. Humans are born as blank slates, we must be taught absolutely everything about living, walking, eating, speech, sex, everything, and Florida is among the group of Southern states that insist on dumbing their citizenry down to below sea level. An apt metaphor for the future of Floriduh.
Below sea level? Now THAT is pretty GD dumb!
As the Florida State Chair of the Democratic Party said in an Interview on the Dworkin Report, Florida is a poster child for Project 2025. That is exactly right. She also felt that Blue candidates including at the top have a chance. It is horrible to see the effects of implementing Project 2025, and Florida is not the only state. This is why the Netherlands have the lowest unwanted teen pregnancy rate in the countries surveyed, and also the lowest STD transmission rate.
Here is a video by James Houston comparing the Netherlands and the US when it comes to sex education. https://youtu.be/6TsEBgyanb0?si=6e151zNuzSiQ-n1x
I’m sure the next step is that the state will stop collecting data on teen pregnancies and STDs, because refusing to know about a problem is the Republican version of solving it.
They like that head-in-the-sand feeling. Makes em feel closer to... never mind
Representative Matt Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old prostitute in Florida.
Break that sentence down, DeSantis, et al.
Florida overtaking Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas as the most backward and ignorant state government in these dis-United States.
We will see their teen pregancy numbers rise in a short time. It has happened everywhere else. This is just anti-science and anti-education.
One of their most beloved causes is the Great Replacement Theory so they feel the need to BOOST the number of white pregnancies at any cost. They don't care if those pregnancies are the result of incest or rape - just so long as it creates white babies.
Florida—the exemplar state of the handmaids tale.