The Family Sex Show - 'Cancel Culture' - in the Guardian

Year 7 is first year of secondary school in England. So 11 year olds. They are approved for primary education, I think I've seen somewhere. And have done year 5 classes according to a tweet I saw (can't remember where)

Or only the ‘right’ people to but it

Does The Guardian just not want anyone to buy their paper any longer?

Well they're trying to hide from uncomfortable facts about safeguarding and having made a serious mistake behind a shield of someone else's appropriated issue. In the hope that it deflects criticism.

If they'd listened, engaged, been responsible, I'd have had some respect for them but they've handled the raised concerns very, very badly which proves their problems around judgement and even being able to understand the problem.

The issue for me is that they are mixing up cancel culture and child safeguarding.

I'm not generally in favour of cancel culture. If this show was for adults I'd have no problem with it existing (even if I wouldn't personally choose to watch it).

Child safeguarding is a separate issue. This is clearly marketed for children and it's not appropriate for children.

I was about to start a thread on this. I thought it was so lazy and inevitable to 'blame' cancelling this show on far right Christian activists. I didn't know MN was a hot bed of Christian activism!

@YesSheCan thank you for the link.
'Brilliantly, someone rotates a sign'. I must remember the standing ovation next time I'm at roadworks. Bravo! Should be on the stage! Now, get your hi-vis off, but only so far as you are comfortable.

According to Josie, 'a show no one had watched'. Not true.

www.outspokeneducation.com/post/staging-the-conversation-the-family-sex-show

You've got to wonder whether that child was coached to say that or whether it was a freely given opinion. I find it an odd thing for a child to say that an adult taking their kit off was 'brave' and 'for them' unless they'd been told that.

Has anyone seen anything from anyone at the invited audience performance? Did they all sign a(n) NDI, I've seen nothing about it. Did it definitely happen?

Glad to hear Sage Schools Alliance are on this they thoughtful, objective and 100% care about and know about safeguarding.

I thought so. Hopefully all will be explained, in as big an opinion piece as that one!

Yes @SamphirethePogoingStickerist there was the recent performance in Bath for the invited audience. And a work in progress performance at The Egg theatre in Bath in 2019 as part of the Incubator festival. With test audiences which included children, one quoted as saying 'it was brave how they took off all their clothes just to help us learn'

Thanks. I was about to start looking for you, to give you a heads up

Whether you agree with the show’s aims or not, it has not yet been seen, publicly. Still, an online group thought it should not even be seen so it could be judged fairly.

They lie! It was performed live in Bath, to a specially invited audience, wasn't it? There is a thread here, or was until it was pulled becaue of the silliness it attracted.

School of Sexuality Education describe their RSE material as age-appropriate though. And they're the advisors for TFSS. They go into schools and talk to year 7s about masturbating camels and dolphins.

It's high time The Guardian changed its name. 'The Whatever'?

blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2019/08/21/10-years-on-why-we-still-need-better-sex-education-for-the-digital-world/

These are the 'safeguarding experts' who advised Josie on The Family Sex Show. Sexplain is now School Of Sexuality Education. They are involved in NSPCC-backed research on sexting in schools with Prof Jessica Ringrose. The research highlighted the prevalence of sexting and exposure to online porn among schoolchildren, how boys gain approval from their friends for receiving nudes from girls and call the girls slags for sending them, how girls get coerced into sending nudes in return for unsolicited dick pics, how kids end up seeing porn online without even looking for it, how Snapchat and Instagram are the worst culprits for kids receiving pornographic messages from online strangers and bots but the reporting procedures are inadequate and kids don't bother reporting anyway. And yet the researchers' solution is not to ban smartphones in schools, advise parents on supervising their kids when using the internet so they can be safe online and to prevent children's access to unsafe social media apps. It's to throw their hands up and say 'oh well all the kids see porn and send each other nudes now. We have to teach them how to do it ethically'. Hence the 'digital defence lessons'. Assuming that children have an adult capacity to consent and adult levels of reasoning and judgement. Which they obviously don't. Even if TFSS is cancelled, this crap has been and is continuing to get pushed into schools, using the credibility afforded by their NSPCC-backed research and self-appointed 'expert' academics spouting a lot of post-humanist woo-woo that might sound clever and progressive to some teachers wondering how to provide RSE in their school but is actually dangerous nonsense.

Sorry, I'm a bit cross about it all at the moment.

Agree.

Personally I want an actual expert - someone who's studied aeronautical engineering for years - to design the planes I travel on.

I'm guessing Josie doesn't employ this 'we're all only experts in ourselves' approach that she employs to safeguarding kids to things where she could die if an actual expert (with years of training and experience) hasn't been involved. E.g. flying, or driving a car, or any medical procedures.

If not we're in Darwin award territory.

No one is an expert on anything other than themselves

This alone is such an utterly fatuous, bone-headed statement. Every author of meticulously-researched academic studies; every leading authority in their field; every historian; every scientist and doctor at the cutting edge of new developments……just give up now, why don’t you? Josie Dale-Jones from ThisEgg says you aren’t all that.

FFS. It’s just painful.

I don't think they should be able to just sling mud at concerned parents without any consequence.

Shit like that makes it difficult to raise safeguarding concerns and makes children less safe. In itself it's a red flag to demonise those raising reasonable concerns.

Thank you 2falls. If SSA write a letter and the Guardian don't publish it, then we'll all know what the Guardian stands for.

I can't believe the original article got past the editors. So many lies, so many things that could be fact checked and weren't.

I simply don't believe they were subject to violent threats. There has been no evidence at all that this is true. None. If it's true and not a massive lie (like the massive lie they'd had expert safeguarding input to the show) then prove it.

'I believe that honesty builds trust' - well yes and the Family Sex Show have lied multiple times.

I'm rather fed up of being accused of violence when I mildly raise safeguarding concerns.

Words matter and they do not mean whatever people want them to. It's not 'violence' or 'abuse' to raise safeguarding concerns. You could argue it's abusive (to children) NOT to raise safeguarding concerns.