Sex ed should be real

I strongly support R. Pickering, Ph.D’s Guest Opinion “Sex-ed curriculum reflects reality” in which he supports the sex-ed curriculum unanimously recommended for School District 81’s youth.

My children are now in their 40’s and experienced a similar program when they were in their early teens. It was “Our Whole Lives’ (OWL) presented occasionally by the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Church. The OWL program and the currently considered “Let’s Get Real” are similar in nature.

That is, these programs put skilled adult facilitators together with youth in a discussion forum of honest, frank and believable information about their sexuality - which the youths are unlikely to otherwise experience.

The best recommendation for this type of program comes from both of my children. They later revealed to my wife and me that the honest, clear and concise information they learned and shared with their contemporaries (not in the classes) likely prevented unwanted pregnancies because most of these contemporaries were woefully uninformed due to simple lack of accurate information.

Today’s youths deserve the same frank, concise information to better understand their own sexuality and that of their peers, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identification.

Thomas G. Mosher

Spokane