BERTRAND RUSSELL ON SEX IN EDUCATION
Marino Hidalgo

It might be that you never heard of the name, Bertrand Russell, or never dared read any of his great works when you happened to come across his name. You might even have considered his works obsolete and unimportant in your life. But what is more important than knowing and understanding the gret men's works ages ago? They can serve us in many ways even if they viewed things differently. You yourself make the decision on whatever opinions or principles you come across within your readings. You are still an individual who considers things for yourself, for your own benefits and for anything you want to be done.

Russell is worth knowing. He has written voluminously on philosophy, mathematics, science, politics, morals, religion and education. It is in the aspect of education that I'm going to present him as a person who has something to say on education and the social order, particularly on Sex in Education.

You have read books on sex in its many angles and complexities including its mysteries. You might have attended seminars on sex education or you might have been instructed somewhere else along the corners of the streets. Whatever occasion you might have been in, you were always confronted with the problems of sex. Russell does not present the solutions to all the problems of sex but in a way he brings to you something to ponder upon for your own benefits.

The opinions entertained by civilized adults on the subject of sex morals are not infrequently quite different from those which they desire to be taught to their children. There is a traditional moral code still accepted in all sincerity by a section of the population, but accepted by others only nominally and as a matter of respectability. In general, those whose opinions on sex matters are traditional have much more confidence in proclaiming and preaching their doctrines than those who view the traditional code with doubt. Those who are prepared, in their own private behavior and in their opinion of the private behavior of their friends, to be platitudinarian, are seldom quite clear as to what their ethics is, and still conventional code. Moreover, they tend to think thaat the strength of the sexual passion is sure to lead men and women into acts contrary to whatever code they may hold, and that therefore the right degree of liberty in action is most likely to be secured when theory is more stringent than a strict regard for truth would warrant. A person who thinks that in no circumstances whatever is sexual intercourse outside marriage justifiable, may come, under the stress of deep love, to feel that in this particular case the circumstances are so peculiar as to allow the relaxation of the code.