Forget Pot. The New Gateway Drug Is Masturbation!

Parents may thank their lucky stars that their children are growing up in era in which Planned Parenthood exists. Although constantly getting attacked for providing contraceptives, fact-based sex education, and rape-counseling, the organization is still coming up with new ways to keep kids out of the dark regarding sexual health and safety. Yet, according to one anti-choice organization, Planned Parenthood is getting kids “hooked on sex” with information regarding masturbation and STD prevention.

That’s right. Planned Parenthood has now been equated with drug pushing. And masturbation is the new “gateway drug.”

The organization entitled American Life League created this video which although seems like a parody, is actually a legitimate claim that ALL is trying to put forth. ALL describes Planned Parenthood as “perverts” who are allowed “unfettered access to our children” with their “sex obsession.” The narrator states:

“Just as the goal of a drug dealer is to make drug addicts, Planned Parenthood’s goal is to make sex addicts and they follow the same business model. For instance, Planned Parenthood’s gateway drug is masturbation.”

The video goes on to state that many of the images of nudity and genitals that Planned Parenthood uses in its lessons would throw a pedophile in jail, saying:

“If a dirty old man showed these things to a 10-year-old kid in a park, he’d be arrested. But when Planned Parenthood shows them to kids in a classroom, it gets government money.”

Damn straight it would because context is everything. A “dirty old man” isn’t trying to educate kids about STD and pregnancy prevention when he whips out his kiddie porn collection on a playground. And conflating education and a fact-based understanding of sexuality with the intentions of pedophile is a perversion of logic and nothing more.

But if we’re going to be wagging fingers about who is selling kids a bundle of nonsense regarding sex, pointing out the hypersexualization of kids in pop culture is where its due. The permissive attitudes towards sexualizing girls from advertisements to TV shows to Marc Jacobs flat out ignoring age guidelines allows the consistent sexual interpretation of kids — and not just by hypothetical dirty men — but by our culture at large.

Planned Parenthood’s resources allow kids to decide sex on their own, readily-informed terms as evidenced in their “Am I Ready For Sex?” tab in their designated teen section. Vilifying one of the few online sources where kids can find sound information about sex consistently puts them at a disadvantage with regard their own sexual health.

(photo: Shutterstock)