By now I'm sure that most people in Ottawa are aware of the exhibit at the Science and Technology Museum, SEX: A TELL-all Exhibition. The reason you are likely aware of this is because there has been some "controversy" over the exhibit's content.
I'm not going to go into what is in this exhibit; check out the museum's website if you haven't already - and I mean that. If you are going based on what you have heard without seeing the exhibit or at least going to the source of the information, you run the risk of not having accurate information and worse, spreading this inaccurate information. [Anecdotal evidence] Mob mentality seems to take hold when people make Facebook posts based on limited data and all of their friends scramble to add their own pointless comments of "You said it!" and "I agree completely!" [/Anecdotal evidence].
Some people seem to have taken issue with what's in the exhibit. The museum received dozens of complaints about the content being "inappropriate" for children (although it was designed for the 12-and-up age bracket), causing museum officials to require children under 16 to be accompanied by an adult. I want to address this very succinctly: sex education is important. The public school system requires it, has required it for many years, and to argue that it is not appropriate for children is foolish and regressive. There are scholarly articles which support the claim that sex education reduces STI transmission, and that "abstinence only" education does not have a significant impact on teen sexual behaviour.
A spokesman for the Heritage Minister made another rather silly claim: that the Sex exhibit does not fit the museum's mandate to foster scientific and technological literacy. At this point, I'm going to make a statement that may be in conflict with things I have said in jest in the past: biology is a scientific field. Sex is a biological function. The fact that we associate a particular value set to sex and the issues that surround it does not diminish this in any way. Adding a sociological aspect to a topic does not remove that topic from its original basis. Indeed, it only adds to the appropriateness of the location - after all, what is technology if not the human application of science?
Some have suggested that this exhibit would be better located at another museum, and have even provided suggestions - all of which I disagree with. The Museum of Nature, while perhaps somewhat appropriate at first glance, is not the best fit: it concerns itself with "the natural world" and the history therein. It tends to focus on the world sans-humans, and to place the Sex exhibit there would be to remove the human aspect of it. The Museum of Civilization would have been appropriate if this were an exhibit exploring how different societies view sex and presented their values and beliefs - but that's not what this is about. (My absolute favourite was the suggestion I heard that it could be sent to the National Art Gallery - obviously based in rhetoric since it is so very silly.)
Then we hit the fall-back position of "this isn't about appropriateness, this is about tax dollars". That is just an obfuscating tactic; saying that an issue is about taxes is the same as saying one doesn't want to pay for it. Why would you not want to pay for something? Because you don't approve of it. Full circle, nothing new has been said and my time has been wasted.
So now I come to the part that actually really bothers me. There is no cohesive argument against this exhibit, so why is it that this issue has seen so much attention? Who has the power to make the museum change its admittance rules? Turns out that when enough people raise their voices through effective means, they get listened to. In this case, that's the dozens of people who complained directly to the museum, and the obnoxious idiots who manage to stir people up through sensationalism and misinformation. It bothers me because rather than respond to carefully reasoned arguments, the museum was forced to listen to a raving mob of people who have more interest in making their presence felt than in actually thinking about something.
And this just snowballs for me. Most of the people I know don't agree with this, so why isn't there a counter-campaign? Because it seems that most of my friends are more interested in complaining on Facebook about how stupid and unfair it is rather than actually doing something about it. If you want to be heard, you have options.
Stop bitching an exercise them.
