Foreword

There are few areas in the current education debate that arouse stronger emotions than the teaching of sex education. The past five decades have seen the emergence of an industry devoted to providing 'good quality sex and relationships education' as 'an entitlement for all children and young people' -to use the words of the Sex Education Forum, which claims to be 'the national authority' on the subject. Introduced into the school curriculum ostensibly to address the problem of high teenage pregnancy rates, it has been far from an unqualified success. Yet although sex education and easy access to contraceptive advice and supplies have failed to deliver. the present Government's teenage pregnancy strategy is doggedly prescribing more of the same-except now the message is being promoted more vigorously, beginning with children in primary schools.
While the initial fears of some concerned parents have been eased by reassuring sounding terms such as 'positive values' and 'moral framework', those who have delved beneath the surface have invariably discovered an approach that is neither positive nor moral. As Dr Ted Williams demonstrates in this book, sex education in our schools is largely based on the premise of moral relativism. Children are no longer taught what is right and wrong, but are rather encouraged to decide for themselves what is right and wrong for them. Sexual activity is presented as a normal part of growing up: every effort is made to overcome natural inhibitions: responsibility is reduced to contraceptive usage: sexual intimacy is divorced from love and marriage: tolerance is upheld as the cardinal virtue: and any attempt to introduce a moral dimension is portrayed as 'unhelpful' and dismissed as 'preaching'.
Dr Williams has investigated the historical roots which have given rise to the current situation in which the boundaries of acceptable behaviour for young people have been pushed further and further back under the guise of sex education. He has done so more thoroughly and comprehensively than I was able to achieve in my own research which was published in 1985 under the title Sex & Social Engineering. We are all placed in his debt.
He identifies the chief architects of the sexual revolution and shows how their commitment to removing moral constraints has been advanced by sex education. Marriage has Ion- been recognised as the main obstacle to a sexually free society, and parents the chief conveyors of traditional morality to their children. This was clearly expressed by a teacher at a sex education symposium as Ion- ago as 1972 when he said to the assembly: 'We must get into schools otherwise children will simply follow the mores of their parents.' It is therefore no surprise that the heirs of the original sexual revolutionaries find little room for marriage in their sex education programmes and have laboured to undermine parents by promoting the `rights' of children to obtain contraceptive advice and supplies without either their parents' knowledge or consent.
Although some may not share Dr Williams' religious perspective, it is refreshing to read an author who is prepared to speak clearly in the moral arena. Nobody reading Lessons in Depravity can be in any doubt about the moral message of the book. He makes a powerful case for abandoning the all-too-predictable approach of the Government's teenage pregnancy strategy. The need to embrace a far more radical policy is overwhelming. This must be based on resurrecting the virtues of modesty, chastity, fidelity, responsibility, self-restraint and a renewed commitment to marriage and the family. I wholeheartedly commend this hook in the hope that it will enlighten parents, embolden teachers, encourage church leaders and challenge politicians and policy makers to find the courage to face up to the real consequences of the received wisdom on sex education in schools.