Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Mal Fletcher

Mal Fletcher

In the last few weeks a number of stories have hit the headlines relating to sex education in schools. A new children's character, Charlie condom has been created by health chiefs in Southampton to promote condoms to thirteen year olds, with education leaders slamming the move and others calling it ridiculous. While the week before angry Mums blasted a primary school's plan to show pupils an explicit sex education video and warned that it could cause children to experiment sexually. The video, a channel four production called Living and Growing, shows the naked cartoon couple chasing each other around a bed and then having sex while a voice over gives a detailed description of the action. To look at these issues Jonathan Bellamy spoke with respected commentator Mal Fletcher. Mal is a social commentator, global speaker and author and the chairman of the 2020plus Think Tank on social affairs and leadership.

Jonathan: Teenage pregnancy is an ever present issue and has been for many years; but do you think sex education in primary schools should be looking to use explicit videos to combat the problem?

Mal: Well I don't think that it raises the core of the issue, which is not so much just about sex, it's about relationships generally. It's a part of the problem with the whole approach that governments have been using for some time now in their attempt to cut down on sexually transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancies, and therefore abortions. You know they've taken on what really are band aid approaches. It's a bit like putting a band aid on someone to reduce the spread of cancer. Condoms, morning after pills and other forms of contraceptive are not really dealing with the core issue, which is more about promiscuity and the breakdown of the understanding of the relationship between sex and relationships. We need to start talking again about what relationships mean and how to encourage young people to develop long term relationships rather than just how to go through the mechanics of the sexual act.

Jonathan: I like what you're saying there in terms of band aid solutions. Obviously the first story mentioned Charlie condom that's been created to promote condoms to thirteen year olds; of course thirteen year olds are under age in terms of having sex. Do you think public bodies should be promoting such things to those that effectively are under the legal age?

Mal: No they shouldn't be. It's not only inconsistent; it's dangerous for those children. I mean condoms in themselves are never one hundred percent effective anyway. No contraceptive can be and so if the goal is to cut down on teen pregnancies, we should be asking are there more reliable methods. I think there is one that is more reliable, but it's less than popular these days and it's seen by some people as being sexually repressive. I'm referring of course to the old fashioned idea of abstinence. I think it's not so popular amongst teens, in part, because it isn't popular with their elders. Some parents and more important the liberal literate out there see the idea of abstinence among teenagers as either unrealistic or even oppressive. How can we expect teenagers, they say, not to indulge in something as perfectly normal and natural as sex? Sex is normal and it's wonderful, but it's also extremely powerful on an emotional level. I think the hidden sub text here is really how can we expect teenagers to demonstrate more self control than we ourselves are willing to show.

Jonathan: Why do you think that say abstinence is not a part of the sex education message?

Mal: Well it's as I said, in part because some adults have the idea that teens abstaining is difficult because it's difficult for them to exercise self discipline. I think it's a bit dishonest to say to teenagers you know, you can't possibly say no to your raising hormones; when what we really mean is, that I find self control difficult in my own life. We've all made mistakes of one kind or another in life; and you know if as adults we've at times done things we wish later we hadn't done, then wouldn't we be better to honestly address that with our kids as they get older; to talk through those issues rather than just taking the easy option of saying - well let the kid do whatever he or she wants to, and discover for themselves the hard way, like I had to do. I think it's more loving in a way to set a high standard and help kids. You have to support them in that, to achieve that goal rather than you know simply saying, well I couldn't do it, so neither can you.

Jonathan: Do you think the message that we give to young people in sex education actually encourages them to experiment? I know that earlier this year the two hundred and eighty million government plan to slash the number of teenage pregnancies was set to be a spectacular failure. I'm quoting here, it says - although the rate had dipped it has fallen woefully short of the government's stated target. Do you think that's because the message actually doesn't work?

Mal: Yeah. Well again I think the wrong questions are being asked Jon. Teen promiscuity is not a result of knowing too little about sex, especially in an age with so much information about sex in the mainstream marketplace. It's about knowing too much that's communicated in the wrong way, or out of its proper context. You know I think sex education would be better redubbed and retooled as relationship education; tweaked to teach young people more about the benefits of long term commitment as the healthy context for sex and the benefits for long term relationships. There've been many studies showing how long term commitment produces better health in the partners and longevity of life and then for the children there are generally fewer developmental problems as they grow up in a very committed family. Our approach to sex education I think ought to do more to favour parents as the primary providers, rather than governments or schools or even charities.

Jonathan: Earlier on you mentioned that the adult generation are also battling with the same issues of self control in relation to sexuality. I just want to look at that, because another story that came out recently is about Jobcentre Plus, who are facing fierce criticism after it was found to be advertising jobs for an internet based phone sex company. The company is recruiting women, men and couples to perform nude or semi nude in front of webcams. The adverts boast that applicants could earn up to one hundred pounds per day. What changes have happened in our culture that has allowed Jobcentres to offer sexually exploitative work as an acceptable career?

Mal: Well first of all - there's two things I need to say. The first one is very quickly this; instead of offering you know greater distribution of condoms and all the rest of it, I think governments can do a lot more good, by making it more difficult for groups like that to be doing what they're doing. In other words passing laws and holding those people to account. Taking a tougher line on movie makers and on TV broadcasters who often claim to be living within the letter of the watershed laws, but they're actually flouting the spirit of them. The second part is - I was listening the other day to Rachel Welsh of all people, who is now sixty years of age and of course Miss Welsh is an actress who was for many people synonymous with the sexual revolution of the sixties. She was a sex symbol at the time when all this was at its peak. She said quite openly that she thought the widespread use of the pill has wrecked marriages and made it harder for people to sustain relationships. She copped a lot of flack for that, but I think she's on to something, because freedom and this is one of the libertarian dreams; libertarians promise freedom without boundaries; but really in the end it only delivers chaos and anarchy, because true freedom always presupposes an underlying shared moral commitment or moral assumption. When you drive today Jon; when your listeners are driving home tonight, you know they're not stopping to think about which side of the road they're driving on; they fall in line with a prescribed code; it's in the background of their mind. They know that as long as they stay within that code, they'll be safe. It's the same I think in the community when it comes to morality. It requires some sense of a shared moral code; not a judgemental code but an agreed code - this is the right thing; this has proven to be the case over a long period of time. We need to get back to the idea that freedom is not about value free education. There's no such thing as value free education. C.S. Lewis once said value free education simply makes a person a very clever devil. You know it makes us smarter in terms of facts, but it doesn't help us know how to use them in a constructive way.

Jonathan: Finally Mal, looking into the future, a lot of these things we're talking about give a sense of it becoming an increasing issue for us as a society. Where do you foresee our culture going if boundaries continue to be eroded like this?

Mal: Well you know I'm an optimist really when I look at the future, which means that I tend to see a swing backwards and forwards. There's a swing to one extreme and then there's a conservatism that kicks in when people begin to realise that their society's being eaten away. Their social fabric, the thing that holds society together, which fundamentally is the family, is under attack with this kind of thinking today. I think there will be a voicing of what many people feel now but haven't said, over the next few years. We're going to hear a lot of counter arguments to this type of idea that education should be value free. Within that, there is a concern for me that in an age where most of us are bombarded with information and the pressures of economies are causing us to be at work much more than we used to be; you know we're leaving our kids to grapple with some of this stuff on their own; we're not really getting the time to sit down and reflect on where we're headed as families, as communities and as a nation. I think it would be a wonderful thing if present governments were able to sit down and say look, we're holding open debates on these issues; we'd like to talk about greater censorship on television of a healthy kind; greater control on movies and other areas; we'd like to talk about the education system and how we can communicate relationship and not just sexual behaviour. I think all of that would be most welcomed and give us a chance to reflect on these important issues in what is a very busy time.

Jonathan: Mal as ever, lots of wise thoughts there for people to take in and think about. For more information go to www.2020plus.net