/ 6 September 2002

Miss, what are they doing?

A Thai Senate committee will hold a hearing next week on whether a Bangkok high school should be allowed to continue using hard-core sex videos in sex education classes, reports said Friday.

Members of the Senate Committee on Women, Children and the Elderly said showing the sex tapes that are used at Bangkok’s Suan Kularp School, an all-boys school, might be a violation of anti-pornography laws.

”I realise that the school has good intentions in showing explicit depictions of sex, but I am concerned students will view them for sexual stimulation instead of educational purposes,” The Nation newspaper quoted Senator Wallop Tangkhananu-rak as saying.

But Education Ministry Permanent Secretary-Designate Kasama Varavarn said the context in which the sex scenes were shown to the students must be taken into consideration.

”Suan Kularp School has one of the best sex-education courses in the country and its teacher, Nakhon Santiyothin, is an award-winning educator who has been praised for her innovative communication skills with teenagers,” Kasama said.

Students in the class defended the use of X-rated videos as education tools, saying the class was the only place they could get answers to their sex-related questions. – Sapa-DPA