Teaching autonomy

Re: Why The Critics Of The Ontario Sex-Ed Curriculum Are Right, Scott Masson, April 1. To teach consent to children is to teach them they have ownership over their own bodies. It does not, as Scott Masson argues, separate them from the values of those who bore them. Rather, it teaches they can object to the physical or sexual abuse of their bodies.

School is where children first step outside the closed world of the home. It is their introduction to society and where the notion they have a broader societal right to freedom from abuse is appropriate. School should be used to reinforce this concept, even if it is also taught at home. Doing so will not, as Mr. Masson seems to imply, turn school days into Huxleyan bacchanalia. What it will do is lay a groundwork of knowledge that will lead to lower rates of sexually transmitted infections, teen pregnancy and sex abuse. Children may not completely grasp the subject of consent at age six, but it is an important first step. Then again, they probably don’t understand the virgin birth, but that doesn’t stop people from taking their kids to church.

Lucas Van Meer-Mass, Toronto. Scott Masson writes: “The intent of the word, consent, is expressive, to be understood in the cultural Marxist terms of autonomous sexual freedom, and even sexual identity.” Nothing in my undergraduate university program, nor in medical school, prepared me for that sentence.

As an ophthalmologist, the only statement in his article I can understand, although it is not relevant, is: “By six, the human eye has not even fully developed.” Given that every person on the planet is here because of an act of sex (except for the rare individuals existing due to the new reproductive technologies), it is time to get over the fear of teaching our children an updated curriculum of the birds and the bees.

Dr. Robert D. Wagman, Toronto.