To think that Nadine Dorries should be removed from polite society?

[HedleyLamarr]

Just saying no is the best sex education because it might stop child sex abuse. Why is this woman even allowed out unsupervised, let alone be an MP?

Get some perspective !! She isn't all bad you know!

YANBU at all.

This proposed bill was, Dorries suggested, not only a way to counter the apparently high rate of teenage pregnancy but also to stop sexual abuse. "If a stronger 'just say no' message was given to children in school," Dorries argued, "there might be an impact on sex abuse, because a lot of girls, when sex abuse takes place, don't realise until later that was a wrong thing to do ?" So if girls only knew how to say no to sex, that would somehow prevent their being sexually abused? And what about boys? Or do they not count?

Abuse , we tend to think of in the worst, violent terms. there are a lot of girls out there who allow themselves to be 'used' underage as a method of seeking love. I can only speak from a female perspective - perhaps a gentleman is lurking and can off a male perspective. But underage sex would be legally deemed 'abuse' even IF compliant.

So teaching girls that you dont have to have sex and no is route to self respect and valuing yourself and gaining self esteme is not a bad thing? is it?

Nadine is my local mp and does loads.... So don't be so quick to write her off!!

Well I thought she was pretty dreadful over the misinformation she produced over abortion. I've now found out that she reported four people - three bloggers who attacked her performance as an MP and queried her expense claims, and her Lib Dem rival at the last election - to the police for criminal harassment.
barthsnotes.wordpress.com/
One of those bloggers got a nasty visit from the police when she was in bed recovering from surgery. When she'd previously criticised Dorries the MP claimed she was faking her disability in order to claim benefits.
mshumphreycushion.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/the-strong-harm-of-the-law-dorries/
Nasty piece of work!

Troisgarcons, here's your male perspective. Having a sex education policy that advocates teaching females to say no will not work. It will not stop men raping girls and women. It will not lower teenage pregnancy. To stop sexual abuse of children we need to educate that it is wrong, not that saying no might stop it. To stop rape there must be education, not just of the young, but the general populace and the police, the judicial system etc.
Her proposed policy will not work. It will fail the people she claims she wants to protect, but her ignorance won't let her see that. Which makes me sad. Why do these numpties get elected?

I would have a little bit more time for her if she made more noise about teaching boys that it's OK to say no and that it's vital to hear 'No'. And it is not sensible or reasonable to tell people that they have a right to say no unless you also tell them that they have a right to say yes and a right to choose based on what they want and how they feel.

Nadine Dorries detests women. Everything she says and does betrays that fact.

YANBU in the least, OP - but then you knew that, didn't you? Dorries may well do good things for her constituents, as someone suggests up the thread, but her campaign iof misinformation on abortion and this refusal to learn from the complete failure of teenage abstinence campaigns in the US - and the alarming fact that a suppsedly abstinent teenager breaking out is far more likely to have unprotected sex - suggests her potential for causing massage damage in the field of reproductive rights and sex education.

Perhaps it's some form of internalised oppression, but she certainly seems to have little regard for women as human beings.

It sounds so simple to say that if girls were "taught" to "just say no" then boys and men would back off and they wouldn't end up being abused. Uh huh.

I take it she hasn't read this report from NSPCC and Bristol University 'Standing on my own two feet?: disadvantaged teenagers, intimate partner violence and coercive control or this earlier study of the same subject amongst school children, Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships.

Both are extremely depressing, showing the increasing prevalence of violence and control within young people's relationships - the more recent one strongly emphasising that the abuse is gendered with girls and young women coming off far worse. They don't actually have control over their own sexuality, so saying "no" would be pretty pointless, or even result in a beating.

The 2011 report goes so far as to recommend a complete shift in attitudes and practice related to pregnant teens, who are often stigmatised, ostracised and seen as responsible for umpteen ills in society. One third of pregnant teens in the study were victims of abuse - and often conceived as a result of rape. But Dorries and her ilk no doubt think they should have done something more to prevent that. Yeah, right.

Sara - how about enlightening us to some of the good stuff she does.

Oh she's probably great about litter bins and/or planning permission or something. Very few people are complete raging arseholes all the time; the average BNP knobber is probably kind to at least one elderly neighbour, or does a lot of work for the cats' home or something.

Boys and girls need to be told, in a mixed class, so that there is never going to be any uncertainty, that no means no, so that if/when the boy starts to pressurise the girl, she can turn to him and say "remember that lesson, when we were all told we can say no, well I am saying no now".. it would give the girls much more confidence under peer pressure.

It isnt only boys that are doing the pressurising though. Girls are just as guilty of putting the pressure on too. Even on other girls, by implying that not being a virgin is somehow a great step up the hierarchy and to be a virgin makes you somehow inferior to your peers.

Many girls do not even realise that they have been abused on a low scale level until much later in life.

What use is it teaching children to say 'No' when they don't realise that what's going on is anything to do with sex? I know someone whose father liked to touch her in 'places' and she didn't realise what he was'doing'. It was just her father being close. She did not know that there was anything to say 'No' about.

This is a much wider issue - you can't have a socviety where sex is splashed around everywhere and then expect teenage girls to "just say no" and be OK.

Dorries, that delightful woman who also has a go at people with disabilities using twitter of going to the pub.
Nuff said.

Her bill lost backing and was defeated though I think? Or has she started it up again?

Of course her ideas are wrong for about eleventy billion reasons - sexist, victim blaming, stupid and nasty.

I might be missing something, but isn't she an elected MP? How would you remove her from society without undermining democracy as a whole?

I don't think it's a serious suggestion lulabear!

You don't think that the desire to remove someone from society because you happen to disagree with them is a little bit...creepy? What do you want to do, put everyone who isn't channelling the Guardian ever second of every day into some kind of camp? The test of a civilised society is how it treats people whose opinions are outside the mainstream. Judging by this thread the UK isn't overly civilised right now.

I don't think the OP was seriously suggesting that Nadine Dorries be killed, or incarcerated somewhere

I think he was painting a picture of just how repulsive he finds this womans views. Quite understandably, IMO.

Angel, my understanding of this is that it is targetted at teenagers who are not mature enough to realise that pressure to give in to underage sex is abuse, which it is. Not aimed at young children.

Also she's not just a person with ideas outside the mainstream. She is a person with power and clout, who is espousing these opinions on television and in the papers, causing enormous upset to many victims of child sex abuse, bringing victorian ideas about females being the custodians of sex back to the mainstream, and tabling various amendments which if they succeeded would make her ideas the law.

I don't think there is anything wrong with teenage girls being made aware that they CAN say no. I think girls are bad at putting pressure on themselves, before a boy gets anywhere near them. Obviously, young people need all the facts about all contraception methods, and access to them. But there is no harm in reiterating the fact that you don't have to have sex unless you want to.

Why should boys not be told they can say no?
Do boys not get sexually abused?
If we are going with the (incorrect) assumption that it is only males who pressure others into sex, why should young gay men not get the lesson about saying no?

Where is the value in only telling girls about this - what is wrong with telling boys this too?