Mods, I’m sorry if that title is too explicit.
Well, should it? Should it count in the abstinence section? Should parents be able to opt their kids out of it?
That’s like teaching cows how to moo!
I really don’t see the need for it. Most kids find out on their own the cough art of self love. If not on their own, through friends.
Having a teacher stand in front of the classroom and tell a bunch of kids how to wax their carrots is unneccesary and embarressing.
You could mention in class that it’s a common and normal thing.
You don’t want another generation of the misinformed worried that they’re going to grow hair on their palms.
But there’s no need to teach technique.
It should probably be taught in sex ed in 4th grade. In 8th grade, you teach that you can do the exact same thing to other people that they do to themselves (and have them do you) which satiates sexual appetite and tends not to cause pregnancy or spread venereal disease.
Hell, I went to a Catholic high school (where Sex Ed was called “Marriage and the Family” :D) and even they managed to discuss masturbation. The verdict - masturbation was not a sin; habitual masturbation was.
Sua
AHunter3 is dead right in my opinion.
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If kids know what’s going on, they’re less likely to marry the first person that gets them hot, and then … well … cools them off.
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They will make better lovers and have better sex.
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The next step, mutual masturbation, will introduce them more gently to the emotional intimacy of sex (if they have a bit of experience of what’s going to happen).
The real question is, how does one teach about it? I’ve discussed it, but only when driving a child somewhere (no eye contact, private environment, perfect environment for discussing sex with children).
How the hell would you do it in a class-room?
Instead of embarrasing everyone with a special lesson on the subject, maybe they should just take the kids to the local zoo and let them hang out in front of the monkeys’ cage for a while and tell them that what they were doing was perfectly natural. On second thought, the kids might think we were talking about flinging shit on passers by 
Well, for heterosexuals, it isn’t the “exact same thing.”
“Um, honey, you shouldn’t try to put your fingers into my penis.”
Sua
Insert “boing” sound effect here.
Section 2352 of the Catechism staters that “masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action. The deliberate useof the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.”
However, immediately after, they do toss it in that “[t]o form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability.” What your school may have been saying is that young people, in the course of their…cough…exploration…may run into this activity, which is normal but still illicit. But to make it clear, the Church’s position is that the act is always wrong, habitual or no.
…I recognize that people are going to disagree with that…move along, move along…
I thought that, too, until I re-read the post: “the exact same thing they do to them selves…”
Or maybe something they haven’t thought of …
I decided at 12 that the [Catholic] church just had sex wrong.
You know what surprises me? NO-ONE seems to want to tell children that sex is fun. They can figure that out for themselves, you say? No, they might think it’s love. I think when we tell our children about sex, we should point out the obvious.
For real! My parents were weird about the whole thing. My mom didn’t even give me the talk - MY DAD DID! On the way home from basketball practice! When I had first gotten my period! Talk about embarassing!!!
Anyhoo, I don’t think either of my parents have ever said “masturbation” in front of anyone (other than possibly each other). I was taught from the start that sex IS fun… but you can’t have it till you’re married and 30.
I didn’t even learn about oral or manual stimulation till Jr High - gosh was I embarassed when I asked my friends what that meant!
I explained to a kid in my life B&D, S&M, and the difference between the two. Well, some-one had to do it.
And then said the sexual organs of anyone who has sex before 35 fall off or out.
I’m working up to explaining that potentially reproductive intercourse should not be performed until both persons have achieved satisfaction with preliminary activities.
As you can see, my presentation needs work.
Sigh.
SuaSponte was obviously educated by the Jesuits. They gave the best overview of birth control techniques I have ever heard. Preface, of course, with “This is a sin. So is premarital sex. If you’re going to sin, here’s the most effective way to do it…”
Another great quote: “I know you boys masturbate. Well, at least I know I do.”
Such a class is necessary… for one thing, we need to teach children to NOT use toothpaste as a lubricant.
I’ve never heard of kids using toothpaste as a lubricant? I can’t imagine anyone trying it. However, my bf read somewhere that putting a stong mint (like altoids) on a female’s lower genetalia can be quite stimulating.
Nah… kids should learn about it the old fashioned way, with the accompanying embarrassment and shame 
An elderly Franciscan brother in high school was the first to mention it at any time during my grade school days. It was during a group guidance session where we would discuss classes, religion, our futures (college prep), and life in general. I tried to listen to what he had to say but I was too freaked out by his hairy palms :eek:
I agree. What needs to be taught is that it’s natural and normal.
Oh, and to make sure the doors are locked.
Well, I think that, if anything, Catholic priests have maybe been a bit too zealous in their, ahem, instruction of sexual techniques to boys.
In re masturbation, the idea of classroom instruction is ludicrous–it’s definitely a do-it-yourself project, and yet it is also a hands-on learning topic.
Really, all that needs to be said is that it’s normal. Fear of being a freak, and the only one in the world who does that is a real problem to adolescents, so reassuring them that spanking their monkeys is OK is important.
I think it would be helpful to some students. Everyone does it a slightly different way (especially with women) and trying someone else’s method might be better than your own. I would have gotten some ideas sooner if they’d really talked about it in my school. For men, there’s not much to it. For women, there can be some real variation. Now, mind, I started on my own when I was about three, almost four (it’s one of my earliest memories, but I’m never telling my mother what I was doing under that blanket when I was three). I think some discussion of how other people have done it might be interesting when you’re in the 8th grade. But most people they have teaching sex ed. are so awkward about it…