I Signed Up to Study Sexual Health. What I Got Was Gender Ideology, Fetishism, and Porn





Via Quillette








I am not a conspiracy theorist. And as recently as a year and a half ago, if someone had told me the things I am reporting here, I would have accused them of culture-war paranoia. That was before I enrolled in a professional training program that I’d hoped would expand my skills as a therapist, but instead delivered an extreme form of ideological indoctrination.

The Sexual Health Certificate Program is a prestigious University of Michigan program conducted in affiliation with the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT). As someone who recently studied in the program, I can attest that, notwithstanding whatever mission AASECT once had, it now operates largely as a de facto activist group that seeks to reshape standards applied to mental health care and education, and to limit the rights of parents to make decisions about their children.

And no, I am not an extreme social conservative complaining about the failure of these organizations to support “abstinence only” sex education. Nor do I object to teaching kids that it’s okay to be gay or bisexual. The agenda of AASECT now extends far beyond those old debates, and into an overlapping set of doctrines that encompass gender, violent BDSM subcultures, polyamory, pornography, and intersectionality. My opinion is that it is no longer focused on teaching scientifically verified knowledge or responsible clinical practices, and now seeks to instead impose an orthodox set of beliefs about sexuality.

To be specific, AASECT’s program teaches:

that self-defined gender identity should dictate a person’s status in law, while biological sex is all but meaningless;

that any supposed differences between boys and girls are culturally imposed artifacts or labels applied to humans at birth;

that incorporating violence into sexual play is normal, healthy, and fun; that children questioning their gender identity should be given easy access to pubertal suppressants and cross-sex hormones—both of which, they claim, carry little to no risk—whether their parents support such steps or not;

that polyamorous sexual relationships are just as rewarding, sustainable, and healthy as monogamy;

that “sex work” is just another kind of legitimate career aspiration;

that not only is the use of pornography normal and healthy, but that the refusal to use pornography is unrealistic, and even pathological;

that discussion of the conceiving and raising of children is, at best, peripheral to the study of sexuality; and, at worst, a relic of patriarchal and heteronormative systems of oppression;

that personal religious or moral beliefs that would limit consenting sexual activity are harmful, and tantamount to “sex negativity”;

that the most important lens through which to view any situation, including those involving sex, is the lens of power and oppression—a worldview rooted, academically, in Critical Theory and, politically, in faddish doctrines connected to social justice;

and, perhaps most importantly, that all of the foregoing is to be encoded in the system of pedagogy transmitted to children, at the earliest possible age.

Many (though not all) of these ideas can be sourced to what some call “gender ideology,” a loosely defined set of beliefs that rest on the premise that all of us have an inherent, soul-like gender identity that transcends biological reality. Gender ideology also presents the idea of man and woman as a “false binary,” and replaces the reality of human sexual dimorphism with a “spectrum”-based construct. Until enrolling in this program, I had never even heard the term gender ideology, nor known that this sort of fringe belief system was taught at reputable schools. My experience shows how a process of radicalization has permitted this view to spread within rarified professional subcultures without much in the way of public notice.

When I signed up for the University of Michigan’s unique, year-long “Sexual Health Certificate Program” (SHCP), however, I truly did believe the experience would be both professionally and intellectually rewarding. I care about sexuality. I know that it is a fundamental component of the human search for joy and meaning. As a Michigan-based psychotherapist and licensed professional counselor, I wanted to deepen my understanding of sexuality, and become better equipped to provide care for the many clients who come to me with issues related to sexual health. The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists sounded like the perfect fit for me, and the idea of becoming an AASECT-certified sex therapist appealed to me. I applied and was accepted for the 2019-2020 cohort. When I showed up, my class included participants from around the world—including Iceland, Egypt, Lebanon, and China—just as you’d expect at the kind of high-value, authoritative program that we all believed we’d signed up for. ..... Full Article By Tim Courtois @ Quillette