Parents’ associations yesterday criticized several junior-high and high school sex education textbooks for including “inappropriate and misleading” information about sex and gender issues.
The National Alliance of Presidents of Parents’ Associations and several local parents’ associations have rated junior-high and high school sex education textbooks for the spring semester based on whether the content meets students’ age-specific needs.
The health and nursing textbook for high-school students published by Yuida received the lowest score, mainly for introducing “diversified conceptions of gender” and a section on sex videos, association standing director Yang Chun-tsu (楊郡慈) said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The section features a picture of US celebrity Paris Hilton on the cover of Elle magazine, with a caption that reads: “While a US artist has become extremely famous because of her leaked sex video, a Hong Kong artist’s leaked selfies caused great controversy among the Chinese-speaking community.”
The section also asks students to express their views on whether it is a good idea to film themselves having sex and explains the legal consequences of distributing sex videos.
Two other health and nursing textbooks for high-school students, published by Yuida and Youth, were criticized for including a link to the Web site of National Central University’s (NCU) Center for the Study of Sexualities.
The Web site contains information about necrophilia, zoophilia, sadomasochism and group sex, said Wang Li-sheng (王立昇), who heads the association’s think tank.
“Those things are not normal and many of us do not even know what they are. Why should our kids be given that information? It could be misleading,” he said.
The Web site has several databases containing research on a wide range of subjects related to sexuality, as well as sex education material designed for teenagers.
Parents also called for removing a sentence in Han Lin Publishing’s health and physical education textbook for eighth-grade students that says sexual needs should be satisfied on condition of mutual respect, mutual consent and without hurting others.
“The sentence is inappropriate because the legal age for sexual intercourse is 16,” Wang said.
NCU honorary professor and convener of the Center for the Study of Sexualities Josephine Ho (何春蕤), who founded the Web site, said the parents’ associations appeared to have merely scanned through the Web site without truly understanding the content and its context.
“What kind of examples are parents setting for their kids when they are uninterested in knowledge and choose to ignore social realities?” she asked, adding that high-school students are almost adults, and maintaining a closed and obscurantist approach to any knowledge about sex could be a huge problem.
“Are parents not worried that kids might try to force or hurt others to satisfy their own sexual needs if they never learned the importance of mutual consent and respect in sex when they were in school?” she asked.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS