Kids' sex talk horrifies teachers--Report

America isn’t the only country where there are concerns about kids engaging in sexual activity at ever younger ages. Teachers in Australia are reported to feel “helpless” while listening to fourth and fifth graders boast about their sexual exploits.

In an article in the Australian newspaper The Mercury Australian Education Union official Roz Madsen was reported saying that a recent union forum teachers described the discussions that the kids were having.

"The students are talking about what they have done on the weekend, sexual experiences that they are having," she was reported as saying. "Anecdotally it seems to be happening at earlier ages."

"They are talking about oral sex and saying they are doing it. Who knows if they are or are just boasting, I hope they are not," she said.

"And the language as well, it’s quite explicit, nothing is left to the imagination."

As a result, the union and other groups are planning to call for the government to add sex education to school curriculum, rather than to allow each school to provide its own programs as now occurs.

The Mercury quoted Family Planning Tasmania’s chief executive Sue Williams said teachers were "horrified" at the conversations on Monday mornings when kids compared what they had done on the weekend.

"Oral sex has become the new kissing. It’s easy and you don’t get pregnant," she was quoted as saying.

She said for some children, their first knowledge of sex was through pornography on computers or mobile phones.

Another growing problem among kids is sexting, in which kids send sexual pictures of themselves to others on cell phones.

You can read the whole Mercury article here.

-0-

Follow my blog all day, every day by bookmarking http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/

Follow all the Post’s Education news & blogs on our Facebook fan page, the "PostSchools" feed on Twitter or our Education home page at http://washingtonpost.com/education.