To think that inviting primary children to witness erect penises, gang rape references and spikes up mens arses isn't artistic, it's pedophilia?

[ShouldIStayOrShouldIRun]

This art exhibition is being pushed by Gendered Intelligence, a group that works in schools:

www.transgendertrend.com/gendered-intelligence-training-teachers-kiss-my-genders/

The event is not age restricted, in fact children are being actively encouraged to go.

I have been informed by a very 'woke' friend that this is art and I am homophobic, kink shaming, and transphobic (because apparently even linking to the above website on my FB is, no matter what it says) and that maybe I should go with my own primary aged dc to 'broaden my mind'.

My mind has been broadened. That friend obviously shouldn't be let anywhere near my dc again.

AIBU?

• Opening post edited at OP's request

I am appalled. Safeguarding is obviously not a concern for the folks at the Hayward Gallery.

www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/kiss-my-genders-review-hayward-gallery-a4165286.html

These are some of the exhibits on show. Sorry but I don’t see anything I’d class as a ‘graphic sexual image’

The article you posted a link to had an agenda. When I looked at the website advertising the actual exhibition

The article had an agenda but the exhibition website is totally impartial?

The article you posted a link to had an agenda

Of course it did. Preventing children from seeing sexual imagery is a fairly worthwhile agenda no?

When I looked at the website advertising the actual exhibition, I saw no mention of this being an exhibition about porn or BDSM.

Of course they wouldn't. It's an exhibition about exploring gender. Which seems to involve exposure to every link going.

Copied and pasted from the NSPCC website, because for some reason I couldn't screenshot it. Relevant parts highlighted in bold.

Non-contact abuse involves non-touching activities, such as grooming, exploitation, persuading children to perform sexual acts over the internet and flashing. It includes:

encouraging a child to watch or hear sexual acts

not taking proper measures to prevent a child being exposed to sexual activities by others

meeting a child following sexual grooming with the intent of abusing them

online abuse including making, viewing or distributing child abuse images

allowing someone else to make, view or distribute child abuse images

showing pornography to a child

If you take a child to this exhibition, you are complicit in the sexual abuse of that child. It's plain and simple.

Here's a review. It's about transgender dear art and mentions the erect penis photo. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jun/11/kiss-my-genders-review-hayward-gallery-london

How edgy

It’s art, if you don’t like it, move on.
This is such a bullshit excuse though. You could literally put up pictures or sculptures or videos of anything (including implied gang rape apparently) and be like 'oh it's just art, you don't understand'.

I'm a tad confused. The link is to a review of a teachers' training session. The reviewer was very obviously there to be horrified and disgusted before it even started. Red flags because of Latex CURTAINS? Curtains ffs.

So what if primary teachers were there, they are adults. They are able to choose what they take away and speak to students about, if at all. They were not forced to discuss the entirety of the talk with students.

There was no age restrictions but PARENTS were given warnings if they choose to bring their children to the exhibit. Parents, not schools making the decisions. Art exhibitions have shown controversial and 'semi-pornographic' images since time began. Parents take their children to see art: Michelangelo's David is naked, penis out for all to see. Is this also a problem? It is supposed to represent the beauty and purity of the YOUNG male form. Something Michelangelo was pretty keen on! Should we ban that?

The bias of the reviewer seems to being ignored in favour of scaremongering. I, for one, am going to do further research before I jump to condemning this as fetish fanatics deliberately corrupting minors. If after research i find it inappropriate, then yes something should done about age restrictions (If we the public have a right to decide what parents allow their children to see). But I'm not taking the word of one reviewer with an obvious agenda as gospel.

Tom - they're not going to print images of the NSFW stuff in the paper of course. Because it's NSFW.

The article you posted a link to had an agenda

When I looked at the website advertising the actual exhibition, I saw no mention of this being an exhibition about porn or BDSM

They can call it what they like, those exhibitions are still there.

Or are you suggesting that I am misinterpreting an image of an erect penis, a video about gang rape and images of men with metal spikes up their arses as unsuitable for children.

Do you not think there should be an age restriction imposed...like there is on the bloody Cbeebies exhibition?

Sod that.

I've had three blokes saying I'm hysterical, abusive and homophobic/transphobic for saying that primary aged children seeing this is child abuse.

They didn't care whether children were actually going to it or not, they were just arguing (with an apparently deep conviction) that it would be totally ok if they did.

It's wrong and I'm not going to be shamed into not shouting it from the rooftops.

captainkirk of course it wants people to come see the exhibition. But the article listed mentions graphic sexual images and BDSM, whereas none of the reviews of the actual exhibition or the exhibitions website itself mentions anything of the sort.

It’s an exhibition of 600 artists, with the main focus being on gender. For all we know, there could be an over 18 section which has some more graphic images. That article is not a trusted news source, and people need to be critical of where they get their information from.

If those who think this will be fine and report back if the article is indeed lies as they claim, that would be good.

And there are laws around what can be shown to children. I have been to exhibitions that have an age rating. It is not enough to simply say parents decide.

Think I'll go down myself and take some pictures.

And here we go, the apologists are here. Some of them will be actively promoting queer theory but most of them are just going along with what they've been taught to say. They seem to think mothers being concerned about safeguarding is transphobic

So open minded their brains have fallen out - to quote the Magdalen Berns.

(No idea if it's an original quote of hers or not but she's brilliant so worth a plug whenever possible).

thingsdogetbetter Actually if my workplace had sent me to this training session and I went not knowing what it contained, I would be contacting HR afterwards.
Bloody hell I watched Killing Eve on TV last night and that comes with major warnings beforehand.

"Design a youth takeover of Hayward Gallery with other people aged 13 – 17 in a three-week project.
Be part of the team who decide what our Youth Takeover Night of current Hayward Gallery exhibition Kiss My Genders looks like by exploring and drawing inspiration from the exhibition itself."

Yuck

It’s not being an apologist to say you should be critical and sceptical of everything you read on the internet. It’s basic common sense Jfc

Gom so are you saying those things aren't in the exhibition? That the teacher is lying? I'm confused.

people need to be critical of where they get their information from

Didn't you just post something from the exhibition website as an impartial source?

captainkirk when did I say it was impartial? I was simply counteracting the original article.

Interestingly this review is a purely arts one and says it is simply a terrible exhibition.

theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/kiss-my-genders-hayward-gallery-review-%E2%80%93-shambles

So all those saying 'it's not pornography' and 'there are no sexual images', what exactly would you call a photograph of a man 'caressing his erect penis with a hand gloved in black lace'?

Because I'd call that pornography, a graphic sexual image.

I actually think the original link downplayed the erect penis photo slightly. It's not just a penis, it's somebody masturbating and if you were to show that to a child within the confines of your own home, you would be a perpetrator of sexual abuse and reported to social services.

What the actual fuck is going on?

Gotta say, I hadn't heard of this exhibition but I would like to see it from those reviews!

Would not take the kids though - as people have said there are plenty of more appropriate ways of discussing queerness with kids.

Again, I don't see anything in original article saying anyone was expecting young children to come to the exhibition; looking at the reviews I'm not sure this is as heavily BDSM/kink-oriented as writer makes out, though I get it may only take a few extreme pieces for it to be unsuitable and to ally queerness overly with kink. As a sometime kink-scene participant myself, and while some queer people do express themselves through that scene, kink should not be presented as an identity or sexuality in itself, or a form of 'queerness'.

And yes the arts review refers to pornographic material.

"An array of mediaeval weapons or “genital accessories” is shoved up willing arses; a man with a horse’s head strapped to his chest pulls a make-believe carriage; bones fall from the sky onto the stoney desert, blue and white plastic suits are worn; a cake facsimile is dismembered and its jammy entrails smeared over a victim. "

Actually if my workplace had sent me to this training session and I went not knowing what it contained, I would be contacting HR afterwards.

Exactly! Also, if the Grubian loves the show so much, including the erect penis, why do they not have a photo of that and the men with the spikes up their arses. Why have the exhibition centre no photos of the same on their site. Answer: they know that it’s wrong and the public backlash would be massive. They’re complicit in the attempt to break down children’s boundaries, by gaslighting them into believing that their feeling of discomfort are wrong. It’s the very definition of child grooming.