Following a report detailing outraged parents of first-grade children at the exclusive New York City Dalton School discovering their children were shown a “sex ed” cartoon in which children talk about “touching themselves” for pleasure, actress and talk show host Sam Sorbo urged teachers to “stand up” and refuse to partake in corrupting our youth.
Appearing on Steve Malzberg’s weekly Sunday commentary show Eat the Press, Sorbo addressed the video that supposedly aims to teach that “bodies are private” and that children should learn the “proper words” for private body parts.
In one segment, a boy asks an adult, “Hey, how come my penis gets big sometimes and points up in the air?”
In another segment, the children talk about the pleasure of touching their own genitalia.
“Sometimes I touch my penis because it feels good,” the boy says. “Sometimes when I’m in my bath or when mom puts me to bed I like to touch my vulva too,” the girl replies.
“You have a clitoris there, Kayla, that probably feels good to touch the same way Keith’s penis feels good when he touches it,” the narrator explains.
Lamenting that “educators are no longer engaged in educating our children,” Sorbo urged them to leave their educational institutions.
“I call on teachers to stand up to this and leave the schools,” she said. “I don’t see why teachers are engaged in sacrificing our children for the almighty paycheck. I think that it’s a disgrace that they are doing this.”
She then criticized CNN for reinstating a staff member after he was seen stimulating himself before fellow colleagues during an online staff call.
“[Disgraced CNN anchor] Jeffrey Toobin can do it on a Zoom call and CNN still hires him back,” she said.
In what many considered a bizarre move, Toobin, CNN’s chief legal analyst, returned to the cable news network last week, several months after being caught masturbating during a Zoom call with his former New Yorker staff members.
She also warned teachers of the need “to be put on notice,” adding, “Don’t think that the sexual harassment lawsuits aren’t going to start coming.”
“They’re putting teachers at risk,” she continued. “Teachers don’t typically want this kind of stuff in the classroom, but it’s in the classroom and it’s not just this which is supposedly engaged in educating the child about human sexuality, at the age of first grade.”
Sorbo concluded by describing the matter as more harmful than assumed.
“This has the earmarks of pedophilia all over it,” she said. “This is human trafficking for children. This is conditioning them to be involved in that. It is a disaster and we’re doing it in our public schools.”
After parents expressed outrage over the cartoon, the “health and wellness” teacher, Justine Ang Fonte, announced her decision to leave Dalton despite defending the lesson.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.