Men watch porn to help them get 'ready'

or PEERING

Typo of the century

OMG...
PEEPING!!!!

That's a whole other sub-genre!

"peeing through my fingers"

Eww!

And there's Erika Lust who's famous for making feminist porn (have never seen it myself to confirm).

But still, all this instructional business on how to have good sex is also covered in erotic fiction, diagrams, animation, forums, expert literature. There is really is no ethical reason to allow the 99.99% of porn filth to exist, just so 0.01% can pass as instructional.

"I mean, "It helps you get off if you have sufficiently numbed your empathy to actually like it" is the only "pro" I can think of. "

I've actually stumbled on some instructional videos of sex positions and techniques that are quite passable (after a very, VERY long search peeing through my fingers at the 'normal' stuff). I mean, the people in them still clearly look like porn actors and there is too much emphasis on PIV, but a wee bit of legit female pleasure is shown. Stuff like that has actual instructional value (you have to hunt for it very hard of course).

Wow. Please do let us know what the outcome is.

Can Vestal and Olennas write the curriculum please?

Perhaps the teacher should just say that is a question for another day and then sought advice.

If the entire class heard she should let the parents know that the question has come up. And let the parents decide based on their attitudes.

As previous posters have said, it's a huge topic. Some parents may not want their 11-year-olds to have any knowledge of it and others will want to give them information.

Either way if you're going to throw out 'ask me any question you like' in sex lesson, at the very least you should be prepared to give a neutral answer. Or defer the discussion.

The conclusions that those children would have drawn from the answer given would range from disinterest to horror.

Vestal - in this imaginary scenario I'm stood talking to a class of 11 year olds, I'm cool with keeping it simple. I doubt any parent is going to storm into school complaining that a teacher told their DC that porn is "the depiction of people doing sexually explicit things", and it's not so factually incorrect as to lead to vast misunderstandings in later years

(I think - teachers, tell me if this is wrong?)

Anyway, my point was that it's not that hard to talk about what porn is in a way that is non-judgemental but helps children understand that there are some significant downsides to it

"pornography, or porn, is the depiction of people doing sexually explicit things".

See, that's where the problem begins.

A depiction, i.e. a drawing of people doing sexually explicit things is not automatically porn in my opinion. (Though I know the word is used for it)

... probably it would be best to preface a less detailed explanation with "What many people mean when they talk of porn ..."

Ok, Star, I could preface my answer with "pornography, or porn, is the depiction of people doing sexually explicit things". I think the rest still stands...

Olennas - but in your answer you are assuming the whole class knows what porn is to start with some won't have ever even have heard the word and would be thoroughly confused by your answer.

Also, on a separate note porn is not just women-only. There's lots of male and female porn, gay porn and so on. It's not just all exploitation and degradation of women and women's bodies. That should be factored in somewhere (not to 11yo though of course).

I had a student reminisce about a lesson when "you talked about sex for ages". I couldn't place the lesson. It turns out there was part of a literary text that referred to something rude and I explained it.

Somebody has asked a question about it (either genuine or to show off - you'd be surprised what questions we get in y7/8). In which case that would be factually true.

The thing people need to consider is that it is not the place of teachers to instruct teenagers to have a particular view on pornography.

My answer to the question would be something like this: Porn is sexually explicit material that men and women can consume, usually because it arouses them. It is adult content and there are many ethical discussions about it. If you ever see anything or feel upset by seeing something tell an adult

If I had an older class and it progressed then I would be happu to open up a discussion about the ethics of porn and facilitate a student discussion.

By pros I mean it's natural to be curious and natural for humans to get turned on watching others have sex.
It's a great learning question actually but sad to discuss it with 10/11 year olds. I would have found an erection very alarming/scary at that age

I'd play a straight bat and give pros and cons but parents would hate that

I would only give the cons.

I mean, "It helps you get off if you have sufficiently numbed your empathy to actually like it" is the only "pro" I can think of.

And that's a bit like with smoking "well, if you are already addicted to nicotine, it helps you calm down".

But yes, parents would hate that.

(I'd not last a day as teacher. Children coming home with: "Men watch porn because we live in a patriarchy and buying women's bodies is seen as acceptable" .. I'd be fired that very day. )

I'm head of pshe and this sort of thing is why I ask staff if they would feel happy teaching this subject and we think about the types of questions that might come up and think k about our answers. If a question like that was put in a box I would expect staff to not answer it at all if they were going to come out with crap like that!

To be fair olennas I think posters on this board have put more thought into the implications of porn than the average person.
Just wondering how long it will take for certain posters to pop up and tell us porn is great!

My son currently finds women in bikinis or their underwear revolting, and finds even kissing on TV terribly inappropriate and unwatchable. I'm going to be gutted when his innocence is shattered by his first exposure to MILFs That Can't Say No or whatever

"Miss, why do some people watch porn?"

"Well, there's a number of reasons, but mostly because some people find it a turn-on. This raises a number of issues, including the way that women are typically depicted in porn, the way that the porn industry treats actors and models and the fact that long-term porn use has been shown to be addictive, cause difficulties in forming meaningful real life relationships and other sexual dysfunction. Some types of porn are illegal because of the harmful things that they show. If you come across porn by mistake, such as online, or someone sends something to you that you didn't want to see and you find it upsetting, you should delete it and let an adult that you trust know what has happened."

I just made that up without the benefit of knowing that I was going to be stood in front of a class of kids talking about it...

In an ideal world yes. But they clearly weren't and so it would be hard to think of an answer that didn't either make porn sound great or make sex sound shameful.
I've recently had to talk to my kids about porn (13 and 10) and it was unexpected and I was unprepared although I really shouldn't have been. And it was hard.
(I went with people are curious and like watching it. But there's some evidence that it can damage sex drive so not a great idea and exploring with a partner is one of the best things about growing up. But I don't think that would be appropriate for a teacher to say).

Quentin - but don't you think they should have been prepared for that question with a suitable answer? (Suitable being carefully previously researched and prepared from guidelines not just off the top of the teachers head in that moment). 11yo are impressionable (thus an opportunity to make the right albeit brief impression) and for some it's probably the first time they've even heard the word. It's a really abstract notion to explain to a child who barely has the idea of sex beyond the mechanics.

Even if teacher had dodged the porn one with "that's something for a future session" or whatever that might have been preferable.

Surely there's some form of guidelines for schools to follow on these topics?

Oh dear I feel a bit sorry for the teacher now. What's she meant to give as an acceptable answer to "why do some people watch porn" to a class of kids?
I'd play a straight bat and give pros and cons but parents would hate that

I think they should have been prepared for a porn-type question and answered it factually. Quite a few children will have older siblings and may well have an idea of porn or its relation - the dick pic and sexy selfies. I'd say they should already have something to say in place already as 11 is the age a lot of kids get mobiles in preparation for high school so it would have been a good time to make some brief but salient points on the topic, if the topic came up.

On the one hand nobody wants to enlighten children too early to some things they don't need to know. On the other hand it would almost be good to get in there first before the brain rot sets in re porn etc, as it were.