Scott Wickstein, at Samizdata, quotes from a CBS news report about how the early episodes of Sesame Street now come with a safety warning:

What parent today would want their child to see kids running through a construction site or jumping on an old box spring? Scenes like the ones included on the new DVD would probably not make it into today’s program now.

“We wouldn’t have children on the set riding without a bicycle helmet,” Rollins Westin says.

And what’s that little girl doing with that man?

“In the very first episode, Gordon takes a little girl’s hand who he’s just met on the street, befriends her and takes her into his home to give her ice cream,” Rollins Westin said. “That’s something we wouldn’t do on the show today.”

When I grew up, the Victorians were derided for being obsessed with sex and with protecting everyone against it.  Now, the equivalent danger that the equivalent generation obsesses about is just ... danger, having sex without a condom being included in the big snake-basket of danger along with riding a bicycle without a helmet.  “Unsafe” is the new naughty.

Plus, also on Samizdata, this, about bossing young people around even after the age of eighteen.

Bishop Hill:

I’d actually read this before, but it’s still pretty startling. In Scottish schools, sex education lessons are mandated, but contraception may not be mentioned.

He’s talking about this, where Devil’s Kitchen offers a different answer to the limitations of sex education:

You want the rate of teenage pregnancies to come down? Fine: stop paying young girls to have children.

In general, teenagers behave as they do at least partly because of economic incentives, that is, in response to the circumstances of the life they know that they are about to lead.  If a teacher tells them lies about this life, or if he/she merely ignores the realities of it, they will not be impressed or persuaded, as sensible teachers surely all know.

Meanwhile, that sex education thing is apparently all to do with the Catholic Labour vote in the West of Scotland.