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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think teachers should not be teaching sex games to children?

999 replies

2fallsagain · 31/08/2020 08:17

Article In today's Times about teaching resources for RSE from the proud trust.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/government-gives-pupils-sex-advice-on-the-roll-of-a-dice-80hmsplws

In summary "The government has funded a tool kit written by the Proud Trust, an LGBT charity, which includes dice featuring words such as “anus”, “vulva”, “penis” and “hands and fingers”. Children are encouraged to throw the dice twice and talk about the sexual acts that can happen using the two body parts".

AIBU to think this is deeply inappropriate and any school using Proud Trust resources needs investigating? WTF is the government doing funding pornographic material for children?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
10
AutumnLeavesSeptember · 01/09/2020 10:40

YANBU - this is not good. The whole "dice game" thing is straight out of some teenage comedy. I want RSE to be focussed on boundaries, consent, consent, with some more about consent.

I don't think sticking objects up your anus needs to be normalised for 13 year olds FFS. If it really was about harm prevention surely they would have discussed sex toys rather than just having the idea you should put household stuff up there??!!

Just selling this stuff on the web as a teaching aid is bonkers, as it's not really possible to argue that these "tools" are used in a highly specialist way.

littlbrowndog · 01/09/2020 10:41

Yetanotherspartacus

Link below

www.transgendertrend.com/proud-trust-nothing-proud/

They look at the teaching materials at end

Reubenshat · 01/09/2020 10:46

Wouldn’t **

LolaSmiles · 01/09/2020 10:46

How many kids will put their hand up in front of their peers and actually say ‘sorry I’m uncomfortable with this - can I leave the lesson
Exactly! And how many teachers really know their classes well enough to say 'I know my class and would only use it if I felt it was appropriate'?

I know my students well and have excellent relationships. I don't know the intimate details of every child's developing sexuality, nor should I. Of course some students confide in members of staff and almost all teachers will have had students confide in them, but that certainly doesn't equal enough information to justify playing a sex act dice game because 'I know my class'.

Which leaves people saying the game is acceptable either:
A) Having unprofessional relationships with students if they can genuinely say they know the intimate details of all their students' sex and relationships experiences to establish that the game is totally appropriate
or
B) Playing the 'I'm not like other teachers... I'm a cool teacher' part that makes everyone else in the staffroom roll their eyes.
Or
C) Well-meaning but lacking in critical thinking so gets swept along with whatever movement wants to get their claws into schools

OldQueen1969 · 01/09/2020 11:19

Just checked the link to the TransgenderTrend article. Oh my.

What keeps going through my head is the rush to get children grappling with puberty already to start slapping labels on themselves and defining themselves openly by sets of terms and rules that serve them very little purpose but effectively makes them targets for specific attention.

I probably am not explaining this very well - it goes back to my previous comment about how kids are different and need different guidance at different stages. Many of these more complicated things should be delivered when a child starts asking the right questions, not dumped on them due to an arbitrary age limit. Peer pressure is a massive thing. What happens if a kid says they don't know or particularly care in their moment what gender or sexuality applies to them? Will some feel they have to grab something from the pick and mix and convince themselves they have to decide or they are not normal?

Because this isn't just about safe sex, boundaries etc any more is it? It's about the child as a sexual being announcing it to the world for approval. It's about pressurising kids into putting something that people often don't crystallise in themselves until their 20s front and centre in their lives. Bad enough it's all over the internet and what not but for schools to effectively join in is a very dangerous step.

If I'm not expressing myself well I apologise ....... it gives me a sinking feeling of an incoming tide that cannot be stopped.

Clymene · 01/09/2020 11:21

twitter.com/charlesworth102/status/1263883667694387203/photo/1

Here are the instructions that go with the game

YetAnotherSpartacus · 01/09/2020 11:24

Thanks, Little! That is the best description out there, but I'd still like to read the actual pack and figure out why it cost 75 quid.

Totally agree with TGT interpretation though!

borntobequiet · 01/09/2020 11:24

OldQueen you expressed your thoughts very well. I agree with you.

Clymene · 01/09/2020 11:43

This is what it says next to the grid:

Hold your nerve!
Not all combinations will be easy to discuss and some might seem impossible. The aim is to get people taking and to also limit assumptions about what kind of sex people have. Every combination is worthy of a conversation!

I think there's a typo there - they mean 'to also NOT limit assumptions' otherwise it doesn't make sense.

I think this bit is particularly egregious:

"Penis and penis:

It can be enjoyable to rub penises together, put a penis into another foreskin (sometimes called docking), or masturbate penises together, or have sex where two, or more, penises come into contact."

Group sex. For 13 year olds.

ItalianHat · 01/09/2020 11:48

Peer pressure is a massive thing. What happens if a kid says they don't know or particularly care in their moment what gender or sexuality applies to them?

This. So much.

Thinking back to myself throughout my entire teenage years ... I was a very shy girl. (Nowadays it'd be pathologised into social anxiety, thank god it wasn't then).

I was not pretty, was totally flat-chested until I was in my mid-20s, and just skinny and brainy. I wasn't particularly interested in boys - I didn't feel sexual attraction or lust etc until I was 20 or so.

If I'd had to have played this game - it would have been totally utterly mortifying. I really wasn't interested in sex. But that would have been made public as a kind of prudish aberration.

When I got to my late teens & my first year at university, I started to think that maybe there was something a bit wrong with me (it was the late 1970s - still the last dregs of hippies & 'free love'). And the "permissive society." I'd go to parties and have men try to kiss me etc etc etc, and I really didn't want to, but it felt rude not to - you all know the feeling, I'm sure.

But then I read a section of Our Bodies, Our Selves about women's attitudes to sex and our bodies. And how we didn't have to have sex if we didn't want to, that our bodies were not there for men. It was hugely reassuring and liberating.

(Although I gather that wonderful feminist bible Our Bodies, Our Selves has been "captured" by wokedom).

There must be hundreds of thousands of 14-17 year olds now just like I was then. And because w've been through the "permissive society" and the "sexual revolution" the pressure to be cool about sex must be almost inescapable for girls now.

I hope that every single parent who sees this "game" introduced to their school causes an unholy row about:
its lack of any indication of female pleasure (I'll say t again no clitoris* !!!)

  • its lack of any structuring around consent
  • its lack of any indication about boundaries
GilbertMarkham · 01/09/2020 11:49

All sounds very divorced from relationships and feelings; could only have been written by a man. Just look at porn made by and for at men; body parts, penetration, body parts, penetration etc etc.

bellinisurge · 01/09/2020 11:55

Exactly GilbertMarkham . Maybe teaching how to conduct loving relationships to build trust and respect with another person- is that such a bad idea?

BovaryX · 01/09/2020 12:02

Hold your nerve! Not all combinations will be easy to discuss and some might seem impossible. The aim is to get people taking and to also limit assumptions about what kind of sex people have. Every combination is worthy of a conversation!

Hold your nerve? Even if 'combinations seem impossible?' Why on earth are 13 year olds being commanded in school to overcome their natural disinclination to participate in certain sexual activities? Why is a political lobby group being given carte blanche to control how this is taught? This is an explicit attempt to bulldoze through any boundaries and it shows a total disregard for safe guarding, privacy, consent. It is absolutely shocking that this is happening in UK schools.

GilbertMarkham · 01/09/2020 12:05

Who wrote this material? Was it a representative group of men and women of different orientations, parents etc.?

Why do I have a feeling not.

And why us it therefore considered appropriate material for education?

OldQueen1969 · 01/09/2020 12:07

The "hold your nerve thing" really jars with me. It smacks of the "This will hurt me as much as it will hurt you" mentality of sadistic punishment.

GilbertMarkham · 01/09/2020 12:09

its lack of any indication of female pleasure (I'll say t again no clitoris !!!)

Are you saying this is an "educational" sex game "challenging" children (that's an issue of itself) to think about and talk about different sex acts with different combinations of body parts and they've left out the clitoris????!!!!!!

I mean ...

It's needs chucked out immediately on that basis alone.

Though the total concentration on sex acts; devoid of relationship, feelings, boundaries and consent would be a teeny little issue too.

OldQueen1969 · 01/09/2020 12:14

Just wondering if reverse psychology might apply here.

Traumatise the kids so much with too much information they'll avoid sex altogether.

Which is also bad. Because sexual pleasure discovered in the right way with trusted partners has many benefits and is a natural part of the human experience. It is being reduced to a commodity.

This has all got to have the brakes applied and be re-thought in a balanced way, with the focus on trust, relationships and boundaries.

Clymene · 01/09/2020 12:28

As I said earlier, this is about 'queering the classroom' where biology comes secondary to gender identity.

I also note (if you can see the photo on Shelley Charlesworth's twitter) it says in another box 'touching or stroking the penis and/or scrotum (if there is one)' . Teenage boys should all have scrotums. If they don't, there is a medical issue which needs investigating. What on earth could they mean?

Actually looking at Charlesworth's timeline again, I think I have my answer. As well as the 'dice game' the booklet includes a section about genital variation. Apparently genital variation includes extreme forms of FGM, very rare disorders of sexual development and genitals which have undergone gender reassignment surgery.

NotBadConsidering · 01/09/2020 12:55

To me “Hold your nerve!” translates as:

“Your inner alarm bells may start going off like crazy at how inappropriate this all is but unless you push through that you’ll get labelled as a bigot and you wouldn’t want that would you? So keep schtum.”

Paintedmaypole · 01/09/2020 13:06

Exactly NotBad

Reubenshat · 01/09/2020 13:07

Why the hell would they need to be discussing group sex with 13 year olds?

waltzingparrot · 01/09/2020 13:19

I've tried stuff that I was never taught about at school in the 70s. I found my way to it as an adult.

MrsToothyBitch · 01/09/2020 13:25

This game concerns me on so many levels.

I do think sex education needs to cover all bases in terms of safety and hygiene as well as puberty and reproduction - and safety and hygiene may now be a broader field than previous, whether we like it or not. However, children also need to know about consent, sexual connection, pleasure, the dangers of porn, sexting etc. These are fundamental and need to be covered to put sexual activity in context. I see no definite opportunity for discussion of any of these things, it's a totally warped perception. I'm sure there are people who discuss these things whilst using the dice, but not the people who designed them, most tellingly.

Despite my earlier assertion that there is a wider field to cover these days, some of the combinations in this game are also likely beyond the ken of many teens and it's just something they perhaps don't need to know. Teens are suggestible. I don't think they need a game to explore what could be covered implicitly via safety and hygiene and consent discussion- rather than suggesting that anus -to-vulva is mainstream and that they SHOULD be doing it. Similarly, whilst teens hear all sorts, the Warwickshire website puts out information that I didn't know as an experienced adult- because it's niche and NOT everyone does it. It's too much.

I also have serious concerns about who ever came up with this as a concept for schools and teens. Not only is it less nuanced, inclusive and helpful for discussion starting than the actual game it is based upon, but I agree with Pp saying that if a teen came into school saying they'd played this with an adult, there would be a safeguarding investigation. If teachers - or outsourced SRE presenters do it, it's fine. Given the presentation and the way the activity seems designed to flow, surely this sets an incredibly vague, unsolid and somewhat shady boundary for young people, as well as being an incredibly bizarre discussion to have with a teacher. I therefore have concerns about the minds that came up with this idea as acceptable. I also wonder when they last came into contact with teenagers or considered a classroom and how the average class will take this activity. In my experience, teenagers just like to be treated as adults, too and would rather just have a chat. I also can't imagine this working in mixed sex groups- uber embarrassing- or doing anything to put shyer teens at ease, either, in an already awkward situation.

Looking at the content provider, too, I have concerns about the agenda with which they will have approached this task. An LGBT organisation will have a priority audience whilst covering a topic which needs to speak to all young people equally, no matter what their orientation- safe sex is safe sex, consent is universal. Further more- and equally as worrying in itself and as part of a wider trend- within the demographic they claim to serve, the dice and activity have a male-centric skew, unacceptably prioritising men, knowledge of the male body and male pleasure over that of women. This presents a worrying, inadequate view of heterosexual sex and lesbian sex- especially with no context.
Those dice do not contain breasts, nipples or, most importantly, the clitoris as options; Pps who counted have verified that female anatomy options come up less often than male options, too. How does this educate about the female body, female pleasure, looking after the female body or provide the level of info or opportunity for young lesbians (the L in LGBT, after all) that their male counterparts receive in the same session? This is the erosion of the female, yet again.

Also, as a woman who paid for this via the tampon tax, I am truly upset. How does this ridiculous activity serve the needs of women and girls? Having gone to an all girls school and then received female only sex-ed at a mixed sixth form, a male body centric programme would have taught us very little about ourselves or given us a healthy perspective and the man-on-man combinations on the dice would have been pointless. What a let down.

MrsToothyBitch · 01/09/2020 13:28

Apologies if I'm behind the beat, been typing on a phone when I've had a sec.

HandfulofDust · 01/09/2020 13:40

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