Florida’s got a lot of problems: skyrocketing homeowners’ insurance prices, invasive pythons eating cats and dogs, a senile old man running a golf motel with a history of employing undocumented workers. But its legislature has more pressing priorities, and that’s making sure that teenagers stay ignorant about how their bodies work, and don’t know what “consent” is.
Sex ed always allowed parents to opt out and let the religious kids wait in the hall and pray for everyone’s souls. And before 2023, Florida school boards used to be able to approve their own sex ed curriculums. But then the Florida legislature changed the law to require the state to approve school districts’ lesson plans instead, in addition to 2022’s law SB 1834, AKA “Don’t Say Gay,” which prohibits “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels.”
Last school year, the state simply didn’t respond to the schools’ proposed lesson plans, leaving them in a bind about which law they wanted to break: the one saying they’re required to teach reproductive health in high school, or the new one saying that they couldn’t without the approval that the state refused to give them. Broward, Collier and Seminole counties opted to teach their curriculums anyway, and Orange County skipped teaching sex ed altogether.
Now for the 2024-25 year, the state has reportedly told school districts:
They may not show students pictures depicting external human reproductive anatomy;
They can’t discuss topics such as sexual consent and domestic violence;
That “contraceptives are not part of any health or science standard”;
They may not discuss different types of sex (i.e., anal, oral, and vaginal);
To remove the words “abuse,” “consent,” “domestic violence,” “fluids,” “gender identity” and any LGBTQ information.
Like, holy shit.
And we say reportedly, because the little chickenshits at the state apparently refuse to put any of this into writing, and will only provide “verbal feedback” on lesson plans. Probably because they know their Project 2025-inspired plan will be as unpopular as gonorrhea.
Or their book bans, or their Moms For Liberty school board candidates, who got their asses kicked all over the state last primary.
Previously!
So now districts have been left on their own to figure out on their own how to teach about periods or sexually transmitted infections without mentioning fluids. Or how to talk about sexual abuse, when you can’t talk about sex, consent, or abuse. Pantomime? And what are they supposed to teach for a week? Just repeated chanting of the word “abstinence,” we guess? Playing videos of Mark Robinson screaming at women to keep their skirts down?
Florida already has one of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections in the country, and had the second-highest infant mortality rate (behind Texas), even before their draconian six-week abortion ban took effect in May. The state has a shortage of doctors, making a six-week ban effectively a total ban.
As Tim Walz said, “nobody’s asking for that weird crap!” Nobody except for Christian dominionist types who fantasize about Project 2025, who we guess don’t like anybody standing in the way of them grooming and baby-trapping their teenage cousins.
BLECH.
Wow. I would not have not figured that the concept of consent was even slightly controversial. This policy seems like a way to encourage a whole generation of rapists, not to put too fine a point on it or anything.
I can only think of one reason that you wouldn't want children to know about consent.