To argue that this should is not a suitable topic for the Girl Guides

[MovedByFanciesThatAreCurled]

Girlguiding is for girls, aged 10-14. So why then do they feel the need to promote this on their social media?

This week is #AceWeek - a time to raise awareness and understanding of the asexual community. So here’s a shout-out to all of our asexual volunteers and members – thank you for everything you do in Girlguiding.

The reference to ‘members’ is quite clear. What on earth were they thinking in making reference to young girls’ sex lives (or lack of them according to the focus of the Tweet). How, as an organisation, have they strayed so far? I have two boys in the Scouts/Beavers and if this came up on either of their social media pages I would pull them out. Why is it seen to be an acceptable for Girlguiding?!!

@TheKeatingFive

Some people are so very fearful of difference.

That does seem to be the case. I'm very surprised at how threatened people seem to be by asexuality on this thread.

Which would be mentionworthy if that had actually been typed here.

But this the the girl guides. Their remit, training, activities do not include sex education.

The issue raised is, as at least one ex GG leader here has said, is that there is not safeguarding, no training, for leaders that covers this, that makes them appropriate people to introduce this topic, to deal with the possibly complex reactions. Let alone a guide meeting, activity or camp not being the safe space required for such discussions.

It's about appropriateness, safeguarding and not stepping outside your remit or abilities. And in taking on not just sex education but the kind of sex education that schools are currently being very, very careful over, where there is uncertainty, overstepping and some incredibly inappropriate guidance, GG is putting everyone involved in a precarious position. And that's before you even begin to consider how the girls involved would feel, react.

It's not good enough to have good intentions...

Well obviously it would be devastating if young women found out that some people dont have sexual feelings or want sex and that's ok.

@Enb76

'Someone saying "I'm asexual" is no different to someone saying "I have a husband". We don't bat an eyelid at the latter so why is everyone getting all worked up about the former?'

Asexuality as far as I can tell from the description here, is a bit of word salad and more about identity politics than sexual politics. If someone were truly asexual they wouldn't be having sex - what would be the point? Having sex with someone you're not sexually attracted to is as old as the bloody hills it certainly doesn't need a label. Boy/girl are biologically verifiable facts they are not a feeling in someone's head, having a husband or not is also either true or not true. Asexuality is an identity that someone has put onto a facet of ordinary to make it less ordinary.

Asexuality just means that you don't experience sexual attraction, that's it. Some people choose to have sex, some don't. I'm 43 and a virgin.

Also, who are you to say what truly asexual people should and shouldn't do? Asexual people aren't robots and some can enjoy sex.

You're very offensive.

@EishetChayil

Damn right, a 10-year-old should be asexual. If you think otherwise, you need your hard drive checking.

They shouldn't be engaging in any sexual activities with anyone as they are underage and it's inappropriate.

That is NOT the same as being asexual.

@DdraigGoch see my post above - Girlguiding is not just 14 year olds and younger. A huge section of guiding is Rangers and Inspire which goes up to 30 years old. Inspire has been formed from ideas from young women who’ve struggled with mental health, finding friends etc and finding guiding helps with that. It’s not just crafting with primary school age kids. It’s a lot more than that so I don’t see why this post on social media, which children should t see anyway (if your 14-under child is on Facebook that’s your own crap parenting !) is such a massive issue

this ideology is filtering into schools and all child centred organisations
Ideology? - what, the concept that not 100% of the population is heterosexual? About bloody time.

@HoardingSamphireSaurus

The issue raised is, as at least one ex GG leader here has said, is that there is not safeguarding, no training, for leaders that covers this, that makes them appropriate people to introduce this topic, to deal with the possibly complex reactions. Let alone a guide meeting, activity or camp not being the safe space required for such discussions.

They are not introducing the topic in group or discussing it in a meeting.

It's. A. Tweet.

[quote slashlover]@HoardingSamphireSaurus

The issue raised is, as at least one ex GG leader here has said, is that there is not safeguarding, no training, for leaders that covers this, that makes them appropriate people to introduce this topic, to deal with the possibly complex reactions. Let alone a guide meeting, activity or camp not being the safe space required for such discussions.

They are not introducing the topic in group or discussing it in a meeting.

It's. A. Tweet.[/quote]
Why is guiding tweeting about sexuality?

However I will say if you don’t think that predatory people will use anything to gain access to their victim of choice then you need to wake up.

I don't disagree, but that doesn't mean you can openly discriminate against asexual people. Do you feel the same way about female lesbian guide leaders?

@YetAnotherSpartacus

Well it suppose if you’re wilfully reading it it bad faith...

Yeah, an earlier comment of mine was twisted and read in bad faith too.

All I was suggesting was that girls of that age might well confuse asexuality with simply not being sexually interested yet, or somewhat afraid of the way sex is presented to them (with girls as the objects of male desire) - but this got twisted into something else. I mean how does one differentiate between a 9YO girl thinking sex is ewwwwww and an adult's realisation that sex isn't for them?

Because being asexual isn’t about whether you like or dislike sex. You can dislike or abstain from sex and not be asexual. You can enjoy the idea or act of sex and be asexual, not all asexual people thing sex is ‘eww.’

Asexuality is about sexual attraction. It is the absence of crushes, of fancying people, of feeling physically and sexually attracted to someone. Whatever that feeling is that makes you know you want to kiss or have sex with somebody, whatever that feeling is that makes you know that you are physically/ sexually attracted to one person and not the other (or a specific sex), that is the feeling that is missing for asexual people. Just as people know whether they are straight or gay or bisexual etc by who they are and aren’t attracted to (rather than who they have or haven’t had sex with) asexual people know their orientation because they aren’t attracted to anybody in that way,

Asexuality really isn’t about celibacy or abstaining from sex, realising you don’t really enjoy sex or about sex lives at all; asexuality is your sexual orientation and how you feel physical or sexual attraction towards others, or rather the absence of feeling that towards anybody.

But some people love their partners and enjoy sex with them but just aren't sexually attracted to them

I don’t think children need to be encouraged to explore sex with people they don’t fancy.

Asexuality is an identity that someone has put onto a facet of ordinary to make it less ordinary.

I said this upthread but I want to make something clear - I think that true asexuality does exist but that it is a very small amount of people and that for them their sexuality is potentially very distressing in the wider context of society. In an earlier post I said that I think that it is a reasonable term in academic context but not in general use, and I think that is still the case.

@HoardingSamphireSaurus it is in no way encouraged that leaders teach this. No where. We are not told to ‘teach’ anything, we do activities and whatever we think our units will enjoy. I can assure you there’s been no email or anything saying ‘it’s ace week, please do the ace badge with your units’. The ace badge doesn’t exist. The only thing we’ve had is a reminder of our local remembrance parade where our girls March and lay a poppy wreath. To remember the contribution guides and scouts made to the war.

The ONLY way this asexual week thing might be Incorporated in some way I can think of is if a girl asked a leader what it meant as she’d heard it somewhere, or if an older teen - maybe a Ranger (sort of sixth form age) - said to her Girlguiding friends she thought she was asexual and they discussed it. But that could happen anyway.

The resources were written by a group of Girlguiding volunteers, with expert assistance from Brook, the sexual health advisory service and Stonewall, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans charity

Says it all .

Ideology? - what, the concept that not 100% of the population is heterosexual? About bloody time.

No. Interesting how you picked out that one sentence from my whole post. More bad faith…

Dumbed down queer theory and gender ideology as being pushed by stonewall and taught in less sensible schools, which when taken to extremes is very damaging and young children cannot cope with it. No young child needs to be taught anything beyond men can love men, women can love women, some people don’t love anyone and that’s all fine.

This is boring now. The bad faith and purposeful blindness to the issues is depressing. I’m going to go and peel my veg for Sunday dinner. Probs get more sense out of them!

@Clymene why is anyone? Schools do. Colleges do. GP practices, dentist surgeries etc. the NHS March in pride parades. Banks and other big companies do. My kids drama school/club thing did a Facebook post about pride. My nieces school has an LGBTQ+ social club thing where they can eat lunch etc like a support group. This is 11+ year olds. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I don’t know why guiding and scouting (because scouts are heavily involved too) are being chosen as the hill to die on?!

Asexuality is an identity that someone has put onto a facet of ordinary to make it less ordinary.

It's very easy to say things like that when you're not asexual.

Your sexuality plays a big part in who you are. It shapes your relationships, how you experience the world, how you're judged and viewed by others and how you end up living your life.

If you're straight and live in a straight world, it's very easy to sit there and say "it's no big deal, nobody cares about your sexuality" but society celebrates heterosexuality every single day.

We celebrate so many things that are the "norm" for straight people - marrying the opposite sex, having a family, having sex and producing children etc.

But asexuality is rarely even acknowledged let along allowed to be celebrated in any way. And now an organisation has dared to say "We accept asexual people just as we accept straight people", everyone is up in arms about it.

@nolongersurprised

But some people love their partners and enjoy sex with them but just aren't sexually attracted to them

I don’t think children need to be encouraged to explore sex with people they don’t fancy.

They aren't though!

Asexuality is simply saying that if all your friends have crushes and boyfriends/girlfriends and you don't feel that then that's ok and normal.

As ADULTS they may decided to have sex or they may not BUT a PP has previously stated that she did force herself to have sex to feel "normal". If she had been told that they way she felt was ok then she may not have. I had depression in my late teens to mid 20s which I'm sure was because I didn't know it was a thing.

@nolongersurprised - how is "a shout-out to all of our asexual volunteers and members"
encouraging children to explore sex with people they don’t fancy?
(or young people over the age of 14 with twitter/FB accounts)

I said this upthread but I want to make something clear - I think that true asexuality does exist but that it is a very small amount of people and that for them their sexuality is potentially very distressing in the wider context of society. In an earlier post I said that I think that it is a reasonable term in academic context but not in general use, and I think that is still the case.

I'm not distressed, other when people dismiss my sexuality.

@Enb76

Asexuality is an identity that someone has put onto a facet of ordinary to make it less ordinary.

I said this upthread but I want to make something clear - I think that true asexuality does exist but that it is a very small amount of people and that for them their sexuality is potentially very distressing in the wider context of society. In an earlier post I said that I think that it is a reasonable term in academic context but not in general use, and I think that is still the case.

I’m not trying to be goady but could you explain what you mean by, ‘ I think that true asexuality does exist but that it is a very small amount of people and that for them their sexuality is potentially very distressing in the wider context of society.’

I am asexual and I’m not sure if you mean I should be distressed by my orientation or that society should be distressed that people like me exist?

I’m also curious as to why you think that I shouldn’t use the term ‘asexual’ in general use, how would you suggest I explain my orientation to others in that case? Or should I just pretend to be straight and go along with it when people ask who I’m attracted to etc and pretend I fancy various people (men?) just so that I don’t distress anybody with the truth that I don’t feel attraction to anybody?

No young child needs to be taught anything beyond men can love men, women can love women, some people don’t love anyone and that’s all fine

But sexuality is not about love.

Asexual people can fall in love. They can get married and be in relationships but that's not the same as having a sexual attraction towards their partners.

Asexuality is simply saying that if all your friends have crushes and boyfriends/girlfriends and you don't feel that then that's ok and normal

Or - you are a child and it’s also normal to be unclear about your sexuality and that’s ok.

And you weren’t “simply saying” that asexuality is about not having crushes, you also stated that asexual people enjoy sex but don’t desire their partners.

I don’t think specific message should EVER be taught to teenage girls.

Teenage girls do not need to be taught that it’s a spectrum of normal to have sex with people they don’t desire.

So... if you're asexual you might have a partner (who you're not sexually attracted to) and children. Therefore someone mentioning their husband or wife at a meeting cannot be said to be celebrating heterosexuality or presenting that as "normal". We've no way of knowing if the person with a partner is asexual unless they tell us.