Have A Safe Sex Halloween

Remember when you were a kid and you went out trick-or-treating and there was always at least one house you went to where the people were just jerks and they gave you something like a penny or a pencil or the dreaded box of raisins or the unwanted and slightly ironic toothbrush? What was wrong with those people? Talk about a bunch of fun-sucks. But those sorts of people haven't gone away. No, in fact, a couple in Oregon have actually taken it up a notch. Wait. Maybe they've taken it down a notch. I'm not sure which one would be correct here. You tell me. What do you call it when people hand out condoms for Halloween? Um, what now?

Correct. According to MSNBC, a one Daniel Harris and a one Kathleen Harris, of Silverton, Oregon, handed out condoms to trick-or-treaters. They claimed that it was their "effort to promote health." It's Halloween! It's not about promoting health! And since when is giving away condoms considered to be promoting health and not making you think about having sex?

See, the way that this came to light was "The father of one 14-year-old girl who received the condoms, Daniel Cote, was offended and says it was inappropriate to give them to children without parents' consent." Oh, for cryin' out loud. Offended? Really? He wasn't just pissed off? Because I think that I'd be a little pissed off if someone was giving my kid a condom for Halloween. Screw being offended. What's wrong with just being pissed off that some people are morons?

Now, now. Before we all get all irritated, I should tell you that "Kathleen Harris says giving the condoms to the 14-year-old was a mistake." See? There you go. Yeah, um, "She says their usual practice is to ask teens if they're 16 or older and to give them a speech on safe sex." What the...? OK. Now we can be pissed off. Are you freaking kidding me?

Look, I don't live in Oregon, but what in the world is going on over there that 16 year old kids are trick-or-treating? For that matter, what's a 14-year old doing trick-or-treating? I mean, I guess you could make the argument that it's OK for the 14-year old, but that would have to be the last year. I thought that trick-or-treating was just for younger kids, like those under 13? I don't get it.

But what I also really don't get is that couple. Boy, they sound like a treat, don't they? You go to their house hoping to get candy and instead you get a lecture about safe sex. Real fun. But, I'm guessing that the 16-year olds that are out trick-or-treating really don't have to worry too much about having sex. What is wrong with some people? It's Halloween! Not Wrap That Rascal Day! Leave the condoms alone! Hand out little Butterfingers! It's a fairly simple concept. Get with it!

Survey Says? Inappropriate!

Look, I'm not sure what a "sex survey" that is given to middle school children should consist of, but I'm not really all that comfortable with the first question on such a "survey" being "What is your gender?" and having there be four choices. As I'm sure you can imagine, not all of the parents were thrilled either.

Over there at Hardy Middle School in Washington, DC, a 7th grade health/physical education class was given a "sex survey", the purpose of which is a little fuzzy to me. From what I can tell from reading the article over there at something called The Georgetown Dish, there's some sort of a non profit called Metro TeenAIDS which educates children about HIV and AIDS. It appears that in 2009, the Washington, DC Public Schools (DCPS) gave Metro TeenAIDS "...a $15,000 consulting contract and $80,000 contract...to provide programming in the schools". Supposedly, "This program has been selected by DCPS for instruction to meet [health learning standards] for the middle school grades and is used in 7th and 8th health classes (sic) throughout DCPS." Um, OK. How does this turn out to be some sort of survey given to 12-year olds and asking them about their gender while providing them with four choices?

That part isn't overly clear to me. But it does say that not only does Metro TeenAIDS (which is a ridiculous name, if you're asking me) provide some sort of an educational component, they also use their time in public schools to do research. I'm guessing that this little survey was more along the lines of the research end of things. Though, from what I can tell, a whole lot of kids learn a whole lot of new things that day. And I'm guessing that a lot of them were more than they ever wanted to know. At least, I'm hoping so.

Let's look at some of the questions and see how appropriate they are for middle school kids, shall we? Let's also see if we can figure out what in the world people were thinking when they decided that this would be a good idea, OK? Here we go...first question:

"What is your gender?"

Well, that seems pretty straight forward. Let's look at the choices.

A) Male B) Female C) Transgender (M to F) D) Transgender (F to M)

Wait. For 12-year olds? Transgender?! I'd be looking for "E) WTF". I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that choices C and D are completely unnecessary. 100% not needed. What is wrong with you people?

It only gets worse.

One series of questions read:

"How sure are you that you.......

Can name all four body fluids that can transmit HIV?

Know the difference between oral, vaginal, and anal sex?

Can correctly put a condom on yourself or your partner?

Will avoid getting yourself or your partner pregnant if you have sex?

Can convince a reluctant partner to use barrier protection (i.e. condoms, dental dams) during sex?"

For 12-year olds. First of all, dental dams? Really? You expect a 12-year old to have any sort of knowledge about that? Do you want your 12-year old to have knowledge of that? And seriously, who has ever used one of those? Honestly. Sure, they probably sound OK in theory (but not really), but I don't think that they're in high demand. Where do you get them? Other than at the dentist's office when you're having something done in your mouth. Are they next to the condoms? I have no idea and neither should 12-year olds.

By the way, when the kids didn't understand what certain things were and inquired about them, "...the facilitator...brought in on a DCPS contract...started to define "anal sex" and "oral sex." Are you kidding me?! Anal sex shouldn't even be explained to adults, let alone small children!

The questions on the survey continued along those ludicrous lines and included things like "During your life, with how many peopled have you had sex (oral, vaginal, anal)?" and "In the past 30 days on how many days did you......

Have 5 or more drinks of alcohol in a row, or within a couple of hours?

Use marijuana?

Use other non-injecting drugs (like cocaine, PCP, ecstasy)?

Inject drugs with a needle like heroin)?

Have sex?

Have sex after drinking alcohol or getting high?"

Hey, you people getting the almost $100k grant to do this sort of thing! Yeah, you. Question: Don't you think that you should tone things down a bit? Seriously. Are you trying to traumatize these kids? I'd be interested to know if EVER during the time that you've been taking this survey even ONE 12-year old answered "Yes" to having 5 or more drinks of alcohol in a row or within a couple of hours. I'm guessing you have not. And what does that have to do with HIV and AIDS?

Now, of course, parents were outraged. Not just so much at the content of the survey, but more so at the fact that they had not been notified ahead of time, given a copy of the survey or given a chance to have their kid opt out of this insanity. Huh. And they're angry, eh? In what way?

I'm sure that some sort of an apology is forthcoming. That I don't doubt. But I'm sick of apologies. Here's what I want: I want someone to explain to everyone how they came to the decision to distribute this survey to the middle schoolers. I want someone to explain the logic that they were using that allowed them to come to the conclusion that this sort of thing was appropriate. That's what I want. I want a detailed description of the thinking process that goes into something that is so obviously not OK. I also want to know if anyone, anyone even ventured to say anything along the lines of, 'Uh, are we sure this is a good idea? Because this seems awfully advanced for 12-year olds." Anything along those lines? Anything? Anyone? That's what I want to know. Keep your apologies and instead explain why you're so stupid. Inquiring minds want to know.

If you'd like to see more of this absurd survey, it can be found here. And I can be found banging my head against a wall. What is wrong with people?

Single Children Put Some Clothes On It

The video below disturbs me in more ways than one. Don't get me wrong. I'm not against showing a little skin. It's not like I'm a member of the FLDS or anything like that. Skin is good. Let me rephrase that. Adult skin is good. Why must people insist on letting their children parade around like hooker-ific pole dancers? It's not attractive. It's disgusting and disturbing. Seriously, folks. When allowing your small children to re-enact Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" (a fabulous little ditty, by the way), I think that the rule of thumb should be that they have to be wearing at least as much clothes as Beyonce was wearing. Would that be so bad?

Actually, now that I think about it, I have a couple of rules I'd like to implement. We've already gone over the first one, you must be covering the same ratio of your body as Beyonce is covering hers. Rule number two: Do not dress your children (especially those whose ages appear to still be in single digits) in something that a horny boyfriend would buy for his girlfriend after stopping by a 7-11 on his way home on Valentine's Day. What in the world are those girls wearing? I didn't know that you could get five dollar hooker outfits that small. If I can't see Beyonce's midriff, I don't want to see your seven-year old girl's midriff, either. Got it? For God's sake, I hope so.

Rule number three: If you do not have anything to shake, please don't try to shake it anyway. Clearly, these girls are not quite at the breasticle stage yet. There's nothing to shake. And that's FINE!! Yet, there they are, shaking their money makers when they don't even have change, let alone real money.

Rule number four: This one pertains mainly to this example only. The song basically talks about if some dude likes what he sees, perhaps he should "put a ring on it" if it's that important to him. Marry the chick, for cryin' out loud, is the message here. I don't know that you can have that message be spewed by little girls dressed in cheap lingerie who look as if they're all missing a brass pole or two. Seriously. Who are you people who are letting your kid do this and who are you people who are cheering these girls on?

Listen, the girls are talented. They have great dance moves. But why are they darn near naked? These are little girls! Where are their fathers? (Or their mothers, for that matter. But I'm really surprised that Dads would let their little girls prance around like that.) My Dad sure as hell would never have let me wear anything like that in public when I was eight OR when I was thirty, for that matter. I'd be a little afraid to wear anything like that now, lest he come back from beyond the grave and haunt me and my scantily clad booty for dressing like a ho. My brother (who is 3 years younger than me) is raising his step-daughter by himself (don't ask) and he's told her she's not dating until she's eighty. (He tells her that as he's cleaning his gun.) She certainly isn't walking out of his house looking like those girls do. She's kind of lucky he lets her walk out of the house at all (she's gonna be hot).

Seriously, why couldn't they have had on leotards or one piece swim suits or something? (After viewing that, I'm kind of leaning toward parkas, but they seem like they'd be rather bulky to dance in. See? I'm not unreasonable about the whole thing, nor impractical!) Why do they have to look like there is a midget hooker and pole dancer convention in town? Cover up your children when they're in public. Please. There's enough sexual exposure out there in all forms of media that they're going to be saturated with beginning at birth. Hypersexualizing the kids themselves by allowing them to parade their bodies in public when they are SEVEN years old can't lead to anything that's going to be great, I'll tell you that.

Again, I think that they're fabulous dancers. They're all very talented. However, the outfits that they are wearing are inappropriate and disturbing. And do you know what would have happened if they had wore outfits that were just a touch more modest (ie, I'm not looking at a 7-year old's belly button)? The ONLY thing that everyone would be talking about was how awesome the dance was. And that's how it should have been. Instead, the obvious talent that is there is lost and under-appreciated because all you can focus on is all of the sex that is there. It's sad, really. I can only hope that it won't be sadder for them as they get older.