Mission creep at Jamaicans for Jookin'

Daniel Thwaites

I think there is enormous worldly wisdom contained in what most emotionally healthy Jamaicans have as their core reaction to this recent onslaught of gaydom: "'Low dem mek dem gwaan ... . Just don't bring it to me or push it inna mi face. Teach children how to protect themselves, but don't preach it to them."

I say "emotionally healthy" because you cannot convince people who have too great a desire to punish, and you can't win with people who want to use minority sexuality as a political platform or a calling card to fill up their churches. On the other side, the gaytheists would have you believe that rumpistry is no big deal so long as you memba de condom and de lube.

Ideologues will want to tell you that you have to jump on to one or the other bandwagon. I suggest that the majority of us continue to refuse to choose between gaytheism and angry Old Testament condemnation.

Before enjoining the current controversy, it's probably a good time to remember that Carolyn Gomes and JFJ have achieved some very good things for Jamaica. Right now, they're tekkin licks, and it's obvious that there is political wrangling afoot within the organisation. But I hope it survives, refocuses, and thrives.

I think JFJ has undergone what military people call 'mission creep'. When it started out, it had the profile of a local organisation responding to local problems, and the focus seemed to be on stopping police and soldiers from killing people willy-nilly. Who can really argue with that? Among many other achievements, JFJ was instrumental in lobbying for the creation of INDECOM, which, as far as I'm concerned, is an overwhelmingly positive development, even if it's scoring a duck in convictions.

I could go on. The citizenry has a much more robust sense of their rights against the State and State actors, and that's a good thing, even despite the moronic reflex of discussing everything, from potholes to 'ganjaweed', as a human-rights issue. Anyway, the problem is that right now, JFJ is looking to the public like Jamaicans for Jookin', and it has developed the gay version of Dr Nicely's JTA policy for driving parents into his publishing shop, 'Pro-seed until apprehended', this time by Minister Hanna.

Because of some recent news reports, I've completely given up jogging, so I had time to actually read this JFJ sex-education manual. Most of it is the basic nuts and bolts of reproduction, although it also has some of the fancy postmodern claptrap where, for example, 'gender' is apparently unrelated to biological facts, and whether you are a man or a woman floats freely away from the equipment you had at birth.

But the controversy happened because the manual treats normal heterosexual practice of bolt vs nut as just another variant of bolt vs bolt and nut vs nut. Plus, the content was not approved by the Child Development Agency, and there may have been 'chikini' in how the content changed from when it started out with the Jamaica Family Planning Association.

JFJ has apologised, although we still don't now yet if the offensive content was actually taught to the children. The manual was for teachers who had it within their discretion as to what they would teach out of it.

It seems to me that determining what ought to be discussed with children will vary according to context quite significantly, including that the same matters will be discussed very differently with a 12-year-old and with a 17-year-old.

EXPOSING OUR YOUTH

I feel like parents often struggle with how much exposure to give their children. How much do you tell them about the dangers lurking in the world and in the corrupt minds of men? And at what age do you tell them it?

As a matter of general principle, I lean towards full disclosure on difficult issues. For instance, I once missed a sports day, again, when my wife said, "Mi dun mek excuse fi yuh, so YOU explain to the boys why you weren't there." It sort of put me on the spot.

So I told them the truth: I was trapped above the Caucasus Mountains in a pilotless old Russian twin-prop airplane spinning out of control, but the Cambodian Bokator martial-arts technique that I had (luckily!) picked up the previous weekend from YouTube helped me defeat seven meth-crazed ninjas and successfully land the plane going uphill on a snow-covered alp. The egg-and-spoon-race, though very, very important and on my mind the whole time, was an unaffordable luxury under the circumstances.

Other fathers may have beat around the bush and made something up. But I believe in letting the children know what's going on, and a hard truth is better than a comforting lie.

Actually, I'm horrible at talking with my children about anything having to do with sex, so I'm happy to outsource the responsibility to their mother, doctors, and competent teachers. But I know that I don't want any argument reaching my children that vaginal sex and anal sex are on par, like whether you choose vanilla or chocolate when you go to the ice cream shop. That is madness.

The same goes for children who are wards of the State. If you are one of these people who are so open-minded that your brains have fallen out, please experiment on your own pickney.

Daniel Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.