by Lee Bockhorn

Within the span of two weeks, a 6-year-old boy from North Carolina and a 7-year- old from Harlem were recently slapped with everything from banishment from class ice cream parties to outright suspension from school because they had "sexually harassed" (i.e. kissed) female classmates.

Now this is the sort of absurd story we hear every once in a while which causes many of us to sigh in disgust, and then promptly forget a week later. However, the message behind this latest silliness resulting from our society's obsession with political correctness should give us pause.

A spokeswoman for the North Carolina school district that suspended 6-year-old Johnathan Prevette said that "a 6-year-old kissing another 6-year-old is inappropriate behavior. Unwelcome is unwelcome at any age". Perhaps, but the reaction to such "inappropriate" behavior by a 6-year-old and say, a 30-year-old, should not be the same. Whatever happened to the concept of taking aside such a youngster and simply explaining to him that kissing little girls (even when the girl asks them to, as in Johnathan's case) is "unwelcome"? Little boys are not sexual "predators"; they haven't the slightest idea what sexual harassment is. In the case of these two young boys, they simply haven't been taught to know any better.

This line of reasoning, however, is foreign to many self-proclaimed "enlightened" individuals . Lest you think all this nonsense is a recent phenomenon, have a look at Senator Ted Kennedy's comments on the "crisis" of sexual deviancy among the nation's very young, as addressed by the "gender equity" education bill he co-sponsored in 1993:

"You have first-, second-, and third- grade harassers. You have kindergarten harassers. We're reaching out and identifying them at the earliest grades, disciplining these individuals."

To hear his version of things, you might think the nation's grammar school playgrounds have turned into Sodom and Gomorrah. Was he serious? Unfortunately, the events of the last month seem to indicate that he was. It is not just Mr. Kennedy, however - it seems that our entire country is taking itself much too seriously. In an era when our civic discourse has become a noisy din of myriad groups asserting "rights" they believe they are entitled to, we have lost our sense of humor. Doesn't anyone realize just how ridiculous all this business about grammar school "harassers" is?

And yet, this might not even be the silliest example of America's heightened "sensitivity" and "awareness". Antioch College, of Yellow Springs, Ohio, has outlined the following policy to combat the Johnathan Prevettes of the world when they grow up to be strapping, sex-crazed college men:

"All sexual contact and conduct between any two people must be consensual; consent must be obtained verbally before there is any sexual contact or conduct; if the level of sexual intimacy increases during an interaction (i.e., if two people move from kissing while fully clothed - which is one level - to undressing for direct physical contact - which is another level), the people involved need to express their clear verbal consent before moving to that new level; if one person wants to initiate moving to a higher level of sexual intimacy in an interaction, that person is responsible for getting the verbal consent of the other person(s) involved before moving to that level... Asking `Do you want to have sex with me?' is not enough. The request for consent must be specific for each act."

Imagine how much fun lawyers could have litigating over whether a request for sexual contact was "specific" enough. ("Honey, may I place my hand on your - fill the blank -now?") I won't even bother to contemplate what Antioch means by the word "person(s)"in the above quotation.

There has been much discussion of the condition of education in America during this election season. If anyone still doesn't know why America's schools are failing its children, look no further. These outrageous examples demonstrate how a trend that started in the nation's universities has slowly trickled down all the way to grammar schools - namely, the use of schools to push an agenda of "enlightening" students and attempting to remedy perceived social ills rather than simply educating and preparing children for a rapidly changing world. Surely we need to reevaluate our priorities when our schools spend more energy on tracking down 6-year-old Bob Packwoods than on trivial matters like, say, requiring students to demonstrate basic competence in core subjects in order to graduate; or making schools safe enough so students do not have to pass through metal detectors to go to class. Just a thought.

What exactly is the message we are trying to send to these youngsters, really? Surely no sane individual wants these boys to grow up thinking that kissing girls is always a bad thing. Fortunately, that may not happen in this case - within two weeks of his infamous smooch, Johnathan was sent a check for $100 with instructions to "buy all the ice cream he could eat"; a few days later he was paraded around the track before a NASCAR race as the guest of honor.

And what kind of message is being sent to the girls involved? Must we start cultivating a "victim status" mentality in their minds? As best as I can remember, girls that age can handle themselves quite nicely, thank you. (If I had tried something like this in first grade, most of the girls I knew would have responded with a swift kick in the shin.) Unfortunately, encouraging such self-sufficiency among girls would work against the interests of those - counselors, sensitivity "facilitators", and the like - whose careers depend on perpetuating an atmosphere of female victimization, where every act is deemed "harassment".

Like it or not, such things as the cases of these two boys are to be expected in a society that, while desensitized to casual sex, random violence, and other sorts of reproachable behavior that coarsen our culture, is oversensitized to any slight possibility that someone, heaven forbid, might get their feelings hurt. The women of the University of Michigan will have to forgive me and my male classmates if, when encountering one of them on the street, we duck for cover in an alley. Some of us would like to graduate without getting suspended for showing an "inappropriate" interest in them...