當我們還在討論8歲中國小孩的性教育課本是否“尺度太大”時，F(xiàn)T作者在英國發(fā)文聲援性教育成為4歲兒童必修課

信息時代，網(wǎng)絡上各式各樣的sext（情色信息）通過電腦、手機持續(xù)影響著青少年的健康成長。在這樣的背景下，放開并升級性教育愈發(fā)重要。

最近一組“《小學生性健康教育讀本》圖片”在微博上流傳開來，一些家長反映其中部分內容“尺度太大”，無法接受。

來源：Weibo.com

這一事件引發(fā)了中國網(wǎng)友的熱烈討論。從微博評論和投票來看，多數(shù)人對該讀本內容表示可以接受，并支持它的推廣。

調查顯示，多數(shù)成年人支持《讀本》的使用推廣。 來源：Weibo.com

可是最終該事件以《小學生性健康教育讀本》暫停使用收場。

在英國，一項有關兒童性教育的政策也引起了該國人民的討論。這一政策規(guī)定，全部學校都應當將性教育課納入必修課范疇，即便是只有4、5歲的兒童也要接受現(xiàn)代兩性關系（modern relationships）教育。

針對這一現(xiàn)象，英國《金融時報》記者Miranda Green撰寫文章支持了這一政策。

她用歷史數(shù)據(jù)證明了更開放的性教育政策確實有利于保護兒童健康；在兒童時期接受良好的性教育、建立正確的性觀念對于青春期、乃至整個人生都有所裨益；在信息通過手機、網(wǎng)絡迅速傳播的時代，與時俱進的性教育更是必不可少。

Sex education gets an upgrade for the smartphone generation

智能手機一代：性教育也需要一同“升級”

Teenage self-consciousness about the horrific, daily possibility of being asked to speak in lessons probably peaked for many of us with the paralysing embarrassment of sex education classes.I can still feel the livid flush and thumping heart that accompanied my silent prayer to the biology teacher：Please, oh please, do not ask me to come up and label that diagram.

對于我們大多數(shù)而言，在性教育課上可能被點名發(fā)言的那種無力的尷尬感，或許是青少年時期最恐怖的感覺了。我至今仍然能夠記得我向生物老師默默祈禱“別，別點我的名去上臺標注那些圖”時，面色一陣鐵青、心跳劇烈的感覺。

Another cringe-making moment of my youth was watching Peter Lilley's adaptation of a Gilbert and Sullivan ditty at a Conservative party conference in 1992.Against a backdrop of moral panic about sky-high teenage pregnancy rates, the then social security secretary serenaded the Tory faithful with a version of the executioner's song from The Mikado.Included on his “l(fā)ittle list / of benefit offenders” were “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue”.

另一次我年少時感到尷尬的時刻，是1992年保守黨會議上，觀看Peter Lilley改編自Gilbert和Sullivan的歌劇作品。當時少女懷孕率居高不下，引發(fā)了道德恐慌。這位當時的社會保障大臣惘然不顧，為保守黨員吟唱了一曲改編自歌劇《日本天皇》中的劊子手唱的歌曲。在這首他的“l(fā)ittle list / of benefit offenders”歌中，他唱道：“那些懷孕的年輕女性不過是組建家庭時插了隊”。

At the time teenage mothers were a familiar feature of British life—as deplorable, unhealthy and yet inevitable as the national addiction to starchy snacks.Neither the accident-prone crusading ministers of the “back to basics” era, nor an under-the-radar National Health Service action plan managed to make a dent in the figures.

那個時候，年輕媽媽在英國生活中已司空見慣——就像這個國度沉迷于那些裹著淀粉的油炸食品一樣可悲、不健康，卻又無從避免。無論是“回復本原”時代麻煩頻出的改革運動大臣，還是一個低調神秘的國民醫(yī)療保健服務行動計劃，都無法降低早孕媽媽的數(shù)字。

After a week in which a subsequent Tory minister, education secretary Justine Greening, has announced compulsory sex and relationship education for state schools, it is worth revisiting Mr Lilley's shame—along with that he sought to inflict on those girls whose experience of sex had already gone way beyond textbook studies.

在隨后的保守黨大臣——教育大臣Justine Greening宣布性和兩性關系教育成為全部公立學校必修課程一周后，我們有必要回顧一下Peter Lilley的羞恥了：那時候他為那些經(jīng)歷了教科書以外性經(jīng)歷的女孩們，施加了更大負擔。

Because seeing teenage pregnancy through a different prism led to a stunning success story.New Labour swept into office in 1997 with an activist attitude to seemingly intractable problems.The new government launched a strategy to cut the rates of under-age motherhood, based on seeing its causes as a mixture of ignorance about sex, confused messages to the young from an adult world obsessed but also embarrassed by the subject, and low expectations.

因為換一個角度對待青少年早孕問題曾經(jīng)帶來成功的故事。新工黨在1997年重新執(zhí)政。面對這個看似棘手的問題，他們采取了積極的態(tài)度。新政府出臺了一項政策來降低未達婚齡母親的比率，因為他們看到了，導致這一現(xiàn)象的原因是一系列因素的混合——對性方面的忽視；成人世界傳遞給年輕人的信息含糊不清，令他們感到好奇卻又窘迫，以及較低的期望值。

In trying to sell an interventionist policy to a sceptical audience of “family values” defenders, the bright-eyed Blairites also fell foul of liberal columnists who disapproved of anything that smacked of anti-sex, anti-youth prejudices.

在試圖將一條干涉主義政策推廣給持懷疑態(tài)度的“家庭價值觀”捍衛(wèi)者聽眾時，熱情的布萊爾派也陷入與自由主義專欄作家的紛爭中。后者不贊同任何有反性、反年輕人意味的事情。

Yet, derided from both sides, it worked.Last year, the Office for National Statistics said the rate of pregnancy among 15-18 year olds was down to 23 per 1,000—compared with the high 40s in the early 1990s.Labour's target to halve the rate by 2010 had （belatedly） been met.

不過，即便兩邊不討好，這項政策依然發(fā)揮了作用。去年，英國國家統(tǒng)計辦公室表示，15到18歲少女的懷孕率降到了每千人23例——相比而言，1990年代這一數(shù)字高達40多人。工黨定下的“在2010年前將這一比率降至一半”的目標已經(jīng)（延期）達成。

Of course, concerns about the sexual menaces facing today's generation of schoolchildren have changed.The unplanned pregnancy threat has given way to online harassment, sexting by smartphone and a sketchy grasp of the principle of consent—plus limited understanding of why readily-available online pornography is a poor guide to human intimacy.

當然，對于當今一代學齡兒童所面臨性威脅的擔心已然發(fā)生了改變。意外懷孕的威脅已經(jīng)轉向了網(wǎng)上騷擾、智能手機收發(fā)的情色信息和粗略理解的同意原則——還有，對“為什么容易獲得的網(wǎng)上色情內容對親密關系是一種粗劣的引導”這一問題有限的理解。

But the two challenges are comparable, not least in their diagnosis of the factors that compound the likelihood of young people making bad choices.Ignorance still needs to be tackled （one teacher wrote this week that his class had believed crisp packets were an effective contraceptive）; society is as obsessed and possibly just as confusing in the messages it sends about sex; and young people with low expectations or a hazy sense of their future still find it difficult to resist donating a sexted image to the world via a mistakenly trusted friend.

但是以上兩個挑戰(zhàn)也具有可比較性，尤其是引起它們的因素，正加重了年輕人做出錯誤決定的傾向性。孩子對于性方面的無知仍然需要加以修正（一名教師本周寫道，他的學生曾經(jīng)相信薯片是一種有效的避孕藥）；全社會都被那些流傳的有關性的信息所吸引和迷惑；在交往不慎的損友誤導下，沒有遠見或者對未來只有模糊概念的年輕人發(fā)現(xiàn)難以拒絕發(fā)送色情信息圖片。

Some are still more vulnerable to sexual self-sabotage than others.The psychologist Philip Zimbardo explains the different health choices made by children from different social backgrounds in terms of their sense of time.Do they have the ability to envisage how life might pan out? Less so in deprived communities.The teenage pregnancy statistics are still higher in areas of the country, such as the north-east, where overall educational attainment is low.

和其他人相比，一些青少年在性方面更容易自我墮落。心理學家Philip Zimbardo解釋說，來自不同社會背景的孩子，在健康方面做出的不同選擇是源于他們時間觀念的不同。他們是否設想過如何才能實現(xiàn)人生的成功？在缺乏教育的社群里，“是”的答案往往更少。青少年懷孕統(tǒng)計數(shù)在鄉(xiāng)村地區(qū)依然較高，譬如英國東北地區(qū)——在那里，整體教育水平都不高。

Ms Greening's decision is welcome.She has ceded to a campaign for mandatory classes in all state schools.They will go beyond the biology, so pupils can better cope with the real-world challenges of sex, as well as with the increasingly odd ways in which the virtual world impinges on relationships.Unlike her immediate predecessors, but very like the political optimists of the late 1990s, Ms Greening believes intervention is necessary where young people are damaging their own prospects.

Greening的決策值得歡迎。她致力于推進全部英國國立學校實施強制性（性教育）課程。這些課程不局限在生物課里，因此小學生可以更好地應付現(xiàn)實世界里的各種有關性的挑戰(zhàn)，以及越來越多的虛擬世界對兩性關系各式各樣的沖擊。和她的前任不同，反而更像1990年代末期那些政策積極派，Greening相信當年輕人正在耽誤前程走入歧途時，成人世界的介入必不可少。

Sex ed classes may continue to serve up some embarrassing moments.But Ms Greening has thrown off the shame culture of the early 1990s in favour of a little bit of benign nanny statism.We just have to hope she will refrain from singing about it at the party conference—that really would be excruciating.

性教育課程可能會繼續(xù)遭遇更多尷尬。但是Greening已經(jīng)擺脫了1990年代早期的恥感文化，有一點點類似于良性的保姆國家主義。我們只需要希望她可以克制住在黨派會議上歌頌它的沖動——那才是真正讓人苦惱的。

詞匯總結

flush[fl??]

n.激動，洋溢；面紅；萌芽；旺盛；奔流

I can still feel the livid flush and thumping heart that accompanied my silent prayer to the biology teacher：Please, oh please, do not ask me to come up and label that diagram.

我至今仍然能夠記得我向生物老師默默祈禱“別，別點我的名去上臺標注那些圖”時，面色一陣鐵青、心跳劇烈的感覺。

cringe-making

adj.使非常難堪或厭惡的[英國英語][非正式]

Another cringe-making moment of my youth was watching Peter Lilley's adaptation of a Gilbert and Sullivan ditty at a Conservative party conference in 1992.

另一次我年少時感到尷尬的時刻，是1992年保守黨會議上，觀看Peter Lilley改編自Gilbert和Sullivan的歌劇作品。

intractable[?n'tr?kt?b（?）l]

adj.棘手的；難治的；倔強的；不聽話的

New Labour swept into office in 1997 with an activist attitude to seemingly intractable problems.

新工黨在1997年重新執(zhí)政。面對這個看似棘手的問題，他們采取了積極的態(tài)度。

harassment[h?'r?sm?nt]

n.騷擾；煩惱

sketchy['sket??]

adj.寫生風格的；概略的

The unplanned pregnancy threat has given way to online harassment, sexting by smartphone and a sketchy grasp of the principle of consent—plus limited understanding of why readily-available online pornography is a poor guide to human intimacy.

意外懷孕的威脅已經(jīng)轉向了網(wǎng)上騷擾、智能手機收發(fā)的情色信息和粗略理解的同意原則——還有，對“為什么容易獲得的網(wǎng)上色情內容對親密關系是一種粗劣的引導”這一問題有限的理解。