MASS SEX RE-EDUCATION URGED

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32383, 24 August 1970, Page 13

MASS SEX RE-EDUCATION URGED

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, August 23. With other contro* versial proposals, . a Presidential commission on pornography is considering recommending Federally - financed sex education for all Americans—adults as well as children.

Such a “mass re-education" programme, a draft report of i the commission says, might go a long way toward dimin- : ishing interest in porno- ! graphy and the “potential undesirable effects of exposure” to it. i The commission is not due i to release its recommends- , tions until early September, I but portions of the draft i report—expected to be ■ adopted—have been leaked in recent weeks. The report’s unexpected liberality, including advocacy of

unrestricted acccess to pornography for adults who desire it, has provoked an outcry in Congress and quick disavowal by the Nixon Administration, In prepared remarks for the National District Attorney’s Association the United States Attorney-General (Mr John Mitchell) emphasised yesterday that "the commission is not connected with the Nixon Administration.” He noted that only one of its 18 members, a replacement, had been appointed by President Nixon; the remainder having received their appointments from President Johnson. The commission was established by Congress. in a general review of the pornography situation, Mr Mitchell said that the Administration would continue to press for ways to preyent exposure of children or unwilling adults to smut. The commission has tentatively concluded in its draft report that in spite of assumptions to the contrary, evidence Indicated that exposure th pornographic material did not induce criminal acts or deviant behaviour.

The commission thus is expected to call for the repeal of all Federal, state and local laws that prohibit adults from viewing or reading "sexually explicit materials”—the commission staff’s term for pornography. But the draft report proposes retention or adoption of laws to help parents keep pornography from their children and to bar the intrusion of obscene materials upon adults who do not want it, as in unsolicited mail advertising. The commission, on the basis of the draft report, appears fully aware that the results of its two-year s2m study will not' be easily swallowed by many Americans. One of the commission’s “pivotal” findings is that many Americans, especially youths, have come into contact with pornography “primarily as an effort to gain information about sex.” Says the draft report: "Our adult society has attempted a conspiracy of silence about sex. This silence has had two purposes: one, to control young people by keeping them ignorant, and two, to

suppress our own disturbing impulses. It has also served, however, to push sex underground.” The commission tentatively concluded that sex education might be a powerful tool in coping with the motivations that drove people to take an interest in pornography and recommended it should be provided to “all of our citizens." Such a programme should be tailored to .encourage a wide variety of viewpoints, should be based on facts and should be . aimed at winning acceptance of sex as a part of life, says the report. The programme should be jointly carried but by parents, church and school, the report recommends, adding (hat unfortunately none of these appear to have the information or to feel enough at ease to teach the subject. “This mass education project is of such enormous scope that the only agency that has the resources to finance it is the Federal Government,” it says. “We urge the Congress to accept this responsibility.”