BASEL, August 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Kindergarten children in Basel, Switzerland will be presented this year with fabric models of human genitalia in a “sex box” to teach them that “contacting body parts can be pleasurable.”

The kit for teachers to give sex-education lessons to primary school children uses models and recommends having children massage each other or to rub themselves with warm sand bags, accompanied by soft music, according to The Local, a Swiss newspaper in English.

“Children should be encouraged to develop and experience their sexuality in a pleasurable way,” Daniel Schneider, a deputy kindergarten rector for Basel who helped develop the sex ed curriculum along with experts, had said earlier this year.

He added, “It’s important that they learn to say no if they don’t want to be touched in a certain area.”

Education officials who have reportedly been flooded with over 3000 complaints from outraged parents have agreed to change the program’s name, but will do nothing to stop the materials from being distributed in schools, according to The Local.

Christoph Eymann, Basel education minister and member of the liberal democrat party (LDP), told the paper SonntagsBlick, “It was no doubt stupid to call it a ‘sex box’ – we will change that.

“But we will stick to our goal: to get across to children that sexuality is something natural. Without forcing anything upon them or taking anything away from their parents.”

Eymann said he understood that one line in the program, “touching can be enjoyed heartily,” could be misconstrued, but added, “It is not about ‘touch me, feel me.’

“We want to tell the children that there is contact that they may find pleasurable, but some that they should say ‘no’ to. Kids can unfortunately can become victims of sexual violence already at playschool age.”

Children should ideally be taught about sex at home, Eymann said, but since children lived in an “oversexualised society” in which pornography can be reached by young children through the internet, education officials need to respond to the realities of the day.

“Some primary school children,” he said, “know the TV schedule until 2am. We would like to offer these children firm support, which is often not available in the family. The box is only an aid. I trust the teachers to approach the material with care.”

Eymann has opposed requests from parents to exempt their children from the lessons, saying the government needs to use the schools to have unrestricted access to children.

“Primary school may be the only big audience that our society has,” he said. “The shared values that it teaches are very important. I would definitely like to keep this. The explanatory lesson can be portrayed in a way that doesn’t offend.”

Pro-family leaders in Europe have expressed their horror at the idea of presenting five year-old children with the program.

Daniel Trappitsch of the Citizens for Citizens association called the idea a “catastrophic development.” “Sex education, sure, but it shouldn’t been done this early and it certainly shouldn’t be obligatory,” he said. His group said they would fight the proposal.