Word: extremadura
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...What They're Teaching in Spain: Officials in the Extremadura region are facing an outcry over taxpayer-funded sex-ed workshops for teens--including tips on masturbation--unfortunately named Pleasure Is in Your Hands. While organizers say conservative and Catholic critics have distorted the campaign's purpose, an instructor admitted, "The title might have been a mistake...
...media weren't the only ones complaining. In fact, to judge by the outraged response among Spaniards, it was as if government officials themselves were giving hands-on lessons. Luis Alfonso Hernández Carrón, spokesman for the opposition Popular Party in Extremadura, said the classes were "an attack on the intelligence of young people" and lamented that the region was becoming "the laughingstock of Spain." (See pictures of Spain's Madcap Tomato Festival...
...proponents of the program defend it as a much-needed means of promoting healthy sexuality and egalitarian relationships among teenagers. Laura Garrido, president of the Extremadura Youth Council and one of the officials behind the campaign, is surprised and disappointed by the outcry. "What we're talking about is whether we teach them to have healthy relationships or not, whether they have self-esteem or not, whether they know how to say 'yes' or 'no' at a given time," she says. (Read "The Truth About Teen Girls...
...fact, Spain is among the minority of European Union member states that do not require sexual education in schools. And in comparison to what gets taught in other Western European nations, the material in the Extremadura program hardly seems radical. In the Netherlands, for instance, teachers at public schools lead discussions in which they ask girls ages 12 to 15 what they would do if their boyfriends refused to wear a condom. In Finland, basic sex education begins in kindergarten, and the curriculum for ninth-graders includes lessons on abortion and masturbation. In Germany, where sex education is mandatory, public...
...controversy sparked by the Extremadura program is a vivid reminder of how new all this sexual openness is in Spain. Which may be why, when asked at a news conference on Nov. 12 why sex toys were included in the lesson, Garrido sounded a little shell-shocked as she replied, "I thought we were in the 21st century...