I came here specifically to say just about the same. I was in first kiss territory in 8th grade. I absolutely would've had no clue how to do this assignment. All I knew was that popping a boner was incredibly embarrassing and happened when I didn't want it to.
The kids who'd "started experimenting" ended up either being liars (rich white kids trying to look cool), being redneck trailer trash and barely graduating high school, being ghetto trash and barely graduating high school, or being victims of child sex abuse we would later find out about. None of those kids ended up in a particularly great place. And yet here, we have teachers normalizing it, and treating it in such a way as to communicate the idea that the kid is abnormal for not having enough experience to have preferences to easily complete this assignment.
A few years back, I had occasion to take some work-related training on recognizing child sexual predators. A PhD-credentialed professor was giving a lecture on the topic and laid out a 10-step strategy for how predators groom children. I can't look at this PDF and think there's any other possible purpose for it. They're normalizing adult behavior far earlier than age-appropriate. They're specifically appealing to the child with the pizza metaphor. It's done in a context of the teacher's authority as an educator to take exploit the child's trust. It's done without the parent there and may be in direct violation of the parent's teachings to the kids to abstain. Furthermore, the language used isn't promoting heterosexual sex. It's promoting all manner of intercourse, specifically greenlighting "taboo" behavior like the Alphabet Mafia promote. And the use of the pizza metaphor has an additional layer that probably needs no explanation on this board.
I came here specifically to say just about the same. I was in first kiss territory in 8th grade. I absolutely would've had no clue how to do this assignment. All I knew was that popping a boner was incredibly embarrassing and happened when I didn't want it to.
The kids who'd "started experimenting" ended up either being liars (rich white kids trying to look cool), being redneck trailer trash and barely graduating high school, being ghetto trash and barely graduating high school, or being victims of child sex abuse we would later find out about. None of those kids ended up in a particularly great place. And yet here, we have teachers normalizing it, and treating it in such a way as to communicate the idea that the kid is abnormal for not having enough experience to have preferences to easily complete this assignment.
A few years back, I had occasion to take some work-related training on recognizing child sexual predators. A PhD-credentialed professor was giving a lecture on the topic and laid out a 10-step strategy for how predators groom children. I can't look at this PDF and think there's any other possible purpose for it. They're normalizing adult behavior far earlier than age-appropriate. They're specifically appealing to the child with the pizza metaphor. It's done in a context of the teacher's authority as an educator to take exploit the child's trust. It's done without the parent there and may be in direct violation of the parent's teachings to the kids to abstain. Furthermore, the language used isn't promoting heterosexual sex. It's promoting all manner of intercourse, specifically greenlighting "taboo" behavior like the Alphabet Mafia promote. And the use of the pizza metaphor has an additional layer that probably needs no explanation on this board.
Excellent comment. Should be at top!