Whatever happened to "hygiene" films?

[Dave Starsky]

You know, those films they had in junior high that showed Bobby getting ready for his date with Mary. Watch Bobby brush his teeth. Watch Bobby pick out a nice set of clothes. Watch Bobby get a fucking haircut so he doesn't look like a goddamn Cro-Magnon. Watch Bobby call Mary and politely ask her if she would prefer a movie, roller skating, or dancing at the Elk's Club Youth Jamboree.

Do they still show these films in schools? Or is that material not covered on standardized tests?

It just seems like these "incel" losers missed a very important part of their education.

[MineralMan]

1. I remember those. I also remember a lot of guys for whom they didn't take.

Boors, creepy men, and assholes we will always have among us. There's no training film that will ever change that. It's the same people, because people are always the same.

Some learn how to get along with others, and some do not. Those who learn find partners. Those who don't, don't. It's a simple equation, but you can't teach that stuff with "hygiene" films. That's learned another way, I think. It's learned in families and taught by patient parents who understand the reality. Or, it's learned in school as children deal with other children.

Some people never get the lesson.

[Dave Starsky]

4. It seems like the boors and creepy men are increasing.

Exponentially.

I'd like to think that those movies helped me. I certainly remember them and the things they taught. But I also had the finest role models, chief among them my Dad and uncles, so maybe I don't really know.

[MineralMan]

5. I doubt if the numbers, in percentages have really changed.

However, these days, there's an Internet group for everything, so they have places where they can gather and whine about their sorry state. We also now see news from everywhere. We didn't used to. We used to get local news and big national news, and that was it. Today, we hear about everything.

I suspect the percentages of people who are just about anything are the same as always.

[Dave Starsky]

14. We hear about everything, but we focus on what pertains most to us.

We become self-selected celebrities in a self-selected social media world.

The problem is, when we venture out into the "real world", we're not the big shots that we think we are online.

One of the things that has struck me in the last year or so is the looks on the faces of the white supremacists at their various protests, when they look around and see that they are vastly outnumbered by the people who show up against them. It's like they are completely befuddled that they are not as popular as they think they are. They can't even conceive of it.

[Nay]

18. YES! And look how startled they were to find out their faces were plastered all over

social media, they were picketed in their home towns, and some were fired from their jobs. The ones who were arrested for actual assault during the protest cried about getting arrested. It was fab.

Karma, assholes. Don't think it can't come for you.

[The Polack MSgt]

2. Everything like that has been replaced with standardized test prep

My kids went to a top 5% public school in rural Illinois. I want to be clear about this - This is a good school with a stable tax base and high standards, not a struggling school on the brink of failure.

but even in that district there was an appalling lack of life skill education. The emphasis was on "measurables". Almost exclusively Math Science & Reading

By the time I graduated from a rural coal mine country school back in 80 I had 2 years of shop and a year of home economics, 3 semesters of health classes that talked about VD and pregnancy prevention. And yes, hygiene classes that talked about proper dating etiquette - Hell's bells I wish there were any type of etiquette class now.

It started IMHO with push back by the Talibaptists about things that "Should be taught at home" Sex education especially.

Then there was the wide spread panic that schools were turning their kids into gay loving liberal god hating socialists

Then there were tax cuts. Then there were school closings due to smaller child populations. Then came the mean spirited Home schooling grift to raise a new generation of white Christian idiots.

It took a couple of generations of work - but Republican voting white "Christian" nationalists finally established the perfect nation for their perfect leader. And make no mistake, gutting life skills training in schools in the name of budgets or values helped get us here.

[Dave Starsky]

9. I absolutely agree.

I think about the rich education I had, in a public school in a primarily rural state, and I weep for the generations today. All of that education in art, science, history, and critical thinking wasn't considered superficial then. It was considered absolutely crucial to maintaining the ideal American way of life.

[left-of-center2012]

3. I remember a sex ed movie from my junior high days

Late 1950's (I'm 71).

It showed a high school age boy and girl, in a parked car at night, kissing.
In the next scene, the girl is pregnant.

Had it not been for my buddies, I would have thought kissing caused pregnancy.

Our school separated the boys from the girls to show us the movie.
I don't know if the girls saw the same movie.

I don't recall any class discussion afterward.

[csziggy]

6. In the 1960s our girls gym class got special films and classes

Mostly about using pads during menstruation. Nothing about shy we had periods, just the mechanics of how to use pads. Of course, back then there were not these nice little flat glue-in pads - they were about 2 inches thick with a tail off the front & back that hooked into doodads on a belt. They were nasty and did not soak up everything.

As a horse loving kid I had already studied a British book in the public library about running a stud farm that included all the details of horse reproduction and the specifics of breeding horses. I'd also studied my sister's Visible Man and Visible Woman models so I knew the differences between men and stallions, mares and women. The differences between men and women were NOT discussed in our "health" class.

The only surprise to me was the nasty and limited ways women had to deal with the monthly effects.

[MineralMan]

8. When I was 13, my mother handed me a book on obstetrics and gynecology

she had studied in nurse's training. "Here," she said. "You should read this." So, I did.

My mother understood what a boy entering puberty wanted to learn about. That was how she handled "the talk." My father? A couple of years later, he gave me the short version of the talk. "Son, don't get get some girl pregnant." That was his way of handling it. Between the two approaches, I managed to follow my father's advice.

About menstrual products. Tampons were available in the early 60s. Few teenaged girls used them, though. One of my high school girlfriends did, though. She told me. She was very frank about things like that. I liked her.

[csziggy]

10. I've never understood the resistance to simple education on biology

After all, that is all it is - biology. I never had kids so I am not qualified to push that point for our local school system, but I know that just being aware of the facts of how female mammal get pregnant kept me out of trouble as a teenager and young adult.

My Mom sat me down once to make sure I knew those facts, but once she was satisfied I did that was it. While my parents never tried to spell out a value system for that kind of thing, it was implicit in their attitudes. Plus they raised four daughters (I was the third) and made sure we knew what was expected of us - go to college and have a career. If we got married, it was expected to stick. They got what they wanted out of us all.

[MineralMan]

11. Yes. The basic knowledge is crucial to learn.

We're weird in not teaching our children that kind of thing. It causes all sorts of problems, clearly.

[MineralMan]

7. One thing leads to another, it seems.

Kissing's just the first step in the process. Now, in the 21st Century, we have free porn, so everyone can learn the rest of the steps. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, though. However, I do remember learning the rest of the steps through experimentation, so maybe there's no real difference.

[The Polack MSgt]

12. That was not my experience

I guess I hit the sweet spot - I went to HS after the 50s & 60s prudery was mostly abandoned and before the Reagan era dumbfuckery took hold.

Wow, I never thought I'd find anything positive about being a 70s teenager

[Dave Starsky]

15. Well, somewhere in there, I hope you learned how to be a good man.

And how to be kind, courteous, courageous, and respectful to all, man and woman. To truly be strong.

That kind of education seems to be lacking these days.

[Hekate]

13. Exactly what I was saying in another thread today. Whatever happened to that kind of thing?!

[anneboleyn]

16. I was in school in the 80s/90s. We NEVER watched such films. Thank god they died in the 50s/60s

You can still find them on YouTube accompanied by hilarious comments — they are hilariously dated — not to mention filled with assumptions that would be highly problematic today (misogyny, blatant homophobia, etc).

I was in school in the 80s and 90s, and we never watched such films. I also went to a very diverse high school in a major city, and those films, which were almost entirely filled with white “students” in a 1950s middle class suburban setting, just wouldn’t have been relatable to most of the students.

Thank god actually as the messages were very outdated by that point in time. Kids today wouldn’t tolerate that garbage.

[Dave Starsky]

17. Thank you for that, anneboleyn.

I think the basic idea of those films was how to treat other people with respect. You put your best foot forward. That kind of thing. Your mileage may vary.

[anneboleyn]

20. Yeah, no. I think that is a very nostalgic view of films filled with negative assumptions. As I said

you can watch them on YouTube, and I don’t think the assumptions and stereotypes are what most progressives would support. The YouTube comments alone demonstrate that fact — even the “who should Johnny call for a date?” films from the 50s promote ideas about “bad girls” vs “good girls” and ideas about which girls should be *grateful* for Johnny’s attention. That isn’t about “everyone being nice to each other” lol. I wouldn’t even get into the films that depict gay men as evil predators.

[Dave Starsky]

22. Whatever you say.

Thanks for that!

[anneboleyn]

19. Watch them on YouTube. My take on those films is much more negative than yours

I went to school in the 80s and 90s, and we didn’t watch any of those films (we had generic sex Ed stuff but it wasn’t from watching films — we all knew what was going on before it was actually discussed in school).

Those sorts of films can be watched on YouTube, and I find them to be filled with problematic assumptions — not to mention misogyny, homophobia, etc. I don’t think the absence of films like “who should Johnny call for a date” has anything to do with today’s intel/mgtow types.

[Kaleva]

21. Whatever happened to these Navy VD films?

USS VD : Ship of Shame

[pansypoo53219]

23. they moved on to mystery science theater 3000.