Sex educators
Sir: I must confess to being somewhat puzzled by the article by Mrs Mary Whitehouse in your issue of July 27. She has not, to my knowledge, ever been present at an FPA sex education and personal relationships course so I am at a loss to know how she can make pronouncements about what the FPA includes in such courses.
We would be delighted to welcome Mrs Whitehouse on one of our courses so that she may speak from a basis of knowledge rather than hearsay. Such education certainly does not dwell at any great length on the 'contraceptive approach.' This is but a very small part of the whole complex subject. Young people have a right to full information to enable them to make decisions based on knowledge rather than on ignorance, with all the human misery that that entails.
Mrs Whitehouse considers the FPA's sex education activities "are, increasingly, a cause for alarm" and goes on to quote a completely inaccurate statement which we are told appeared in a Catholic publication. Population Count Down-our fund raising campaign whose function is to raise funds for family planning projects throughout the world is concerned with ensuring that the facts about population are known to as wide an audience as possible. This is in line with the Government's recent population statement in which Lord Shepherd stressed the importance of the public being given information "to help them reach a better informed iudgement of the issues."
Anyone present at Professor Nathaniel Wagner's talk at the FPA to which Mrs Whitehouse referred and which was attended by many members of the national and provincial press, could not possibly have placed any serious implications on what he said about female orgasm and masturbation. In the context of what he was saying it was accepted as an amusing aside but served to highlight the sort of prudery that can exist about the whole question of human sexuality and personal relationships. Certainly no journalist present treated the matter seriously.
The FPA believes that the task of sex eduction belongs primarily to parents, the church and the schools, and that it would not be meeting its responsibilities if it did not use its knowledge and skills to provide courses for teachers and others.
Rather than introducing the young to unnatural behaviour, the purpose of sex education is to develop a responsible attitude to sex and, indeed, to marriage. It will, I suggest, bring about a significant reduction in the Registrar General's statistical returns for illegitimate births, abortions and 'shotgun' teenage marriages in the due course of time.
Freda Parker Assistant Director (Education), The Family Planning Association, Margaret Pyke House, 27-35 Mortimer Street, London WI.
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