Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-98.235.154.24-20130913002452/@comment-173.60.95.163-20131031002759

Alzrius wrote:

ImposterParrotGrass wrote: Well Alzrius, that was enlightening. I like your style, even if it's a bit overly complicated. But hey, it's always good to see somebody cite their sources. Anyway, I don't think they would forgo sex education in combat school. If anything, the points you bring up just highlight why they would stress it in the first place. Sure, a lot of people would consider it a waste of time, but I'm sure that a big burly combat school teacher could scare or conveys a good number of students into practicing safe sex, or not doing it at all.

And let's not forget, there's a lot we still don't know about social norms in Vale. Sex out of wedlock may be looked at wrong and shameful, or it may be encouraged. Whatever the case, it would certainly have a big effect on this debate.

...Wow, I never thought this thread could be this sophisticated. Thanks for the kind words, ImposterParrotGrass!

While I personally hope that the combat schools that young would-be Hunters attend would teach comprehensive sex education as part of their mandatory curriculum, as I noted above, what little speculation we can make in that regards is not encouraging.

To reiterate, the focused nature of such institutions, coupled with the high degree of physical conditioning necessary to achieve the high degrees of physical puissance seen in the series, would seem to suggest that most other forms of education are distant concerns at such schools. Again, that's speculative, but I believe it's the better fit based on the (extremely) little we know about them.

Further, while it would seem to be self-evident that comprehensive sex education is an area of mandatory learning for young people, based on the points I raised previously, we have plenty of evidence that this could very well not be the case.

Likewise, having a teacher trying to scare or otherwise convince students to not have sex, as you mentioned, doesn't work, as I mentioned above. Simply trying to stop young people from having sex doesn't drive down the rate at which they do, it only drives down the rate at which they have sex safely.

Similarly, I think that you're overestimating the degree to which cultural attitudes towards premarital sex play a role in the decision-making process teenagers use to have sex. Premarital sex has always been unpopular in the United States, for example, and yet it continues to be rampant.

The strongest role that cultural attitudes towards sex between teenagers would play (insofar at the lives of students at Beacon are concerned), would likely be with regards to how the school handled issues of sex between its students (e.g. issues with funding regarding sex education).

All of that said, I do love sophisticated discussions. They tend (in my opinion) to provoke deeper discussion and thought regarding the things we enjoy. Sophisticated discussions are lovely things to do.