"O boy, you are growing taller", a middle-aged
woman tells a boy, adding: "Now pull down your
pants, and lemme see if your member is growing
too?"
This picture with the speech bubbles from a sex
education textbook for Grade 2 pupils, was
posted by a child's mother on a social media
website on Feb 28 to show how "inappropriate"
the book was for children. And not surprisingly, it
sparked fierce online discussions with many
saying the book contains material not suitable
for young children.
This prompted the book's editors to post online
the full picture from the book which advises
children facing such a situation to immediately
leave the place, avoid such people in the future
and inform their parents of the incident. Still,
some micro-bloggers, including Li Tiegen, a
commentator, continued their tirade against the
book and the boy's school in Hangzhou, East
China's Zhejiang province.
The school argues the textbook is part of a
"book-crossing" collection put together by some
people for free exchange. The boy acquired the
book from that collection. Yet under tremendous
pressure from social media, the school
eventually had to withdraw the book from the
collection.
The critics said the book contained pictures of
and texts on sexual organs, meaning any book
that contains such pictures are "unsuitable" for
young children.
The problem is, books cannot provide even the
basic sex education for children without pictures
of and texts on sexual organs.
Children do not live in a vacuum today; they get
some type of sex-related information from the
internet, TV programs and/or movies. Enter the
word "painless" in the input box of domestic
online search giant baidu.com, and automatically
the word "abortion" is added to it and a full
screen of commercial advertisements with
pictures covers the screen.
In the real world, the walls of many public toilets
are full of ads with obscene pictures offering
cure for venereal diseases.
It is better to educate our children about sex
than to pretend ignorance about it, because the
more we try to hide reality from our children the
more interested they will be to know about it,
which could even land them in danger.
Li and several other influential micro-bloggers
have joked about the picture in the textbook,
saying it is a pornographic tale about a middle-
aged woman and a boy. Some have even implied
that the boy should "enjoy" the sex.
Are they pretending to not know that even
underage boys fall victim to sexual abuse, and
sexual abuse is a serious crime?
The sex education book that many have ridiculed
is part of a series of books published by Beijing
Normal University after strict review by experts.
It not only provides pupils with the basic
information about sex and sexual organs, but
also teaches children how to protect themselves
against sexual abuse.
Woman