I normally agree with most posters on here about too much too soon and I think the age range for this is too large to cover in one show and the glossary is more than a bit concerning.
However
- Adults that want to get kit off infront of kids must be paedophiles - no adults that want to get kit off infront of kids for sexual pleasure are paedophiles.
One of the major issues with porn is that young people never see normal naked bodies only Botox filled hairless perversions. Young people need to see more normal naked bodies so they know that they are normal. Other cultures have much more open relationships with nudity (even other reserved cultures like japan have naked hot springs) and so children get to see many many normal naked bodies.
There is nothing erotic or perverted about the human form. When teaching children about anatomy real photos and videos are of actual humans are so much better than a diagram- the actors and models aren’t all peadophiles. Using cartoons or diagrams or not showing children what normal genital anatomy looks has lead to the crisis in designer vaginas etc.
- Posters saying five year olds shouldn’t know about clitorises. HIf a five year old is female why on Earth wouldn’t you tell her the name for her clitoris? Do you not tell her the name for her toes or eyes? I’m assuming most people tell their sons they have a penis? Testicles? Why would a child knowing the name of one of their own body parts be a safeguarding risk?
I’m a HCP and the amount of adult women who do not know what is normal anatomy or the names for their own genitals is astonishing. Backed up by things on social media and here about women thinking they need to remove there tampon to pee (because they think the urethra and the vagina are the same)! People don’t come to see healthcare professionals about genital issues because they are too ashamed to discuss them. I was bought up that you didn’t discuss genitals at all, had someone abused me I don’t think I would have been able to tell my parents due to deep deep shame about discussing genitalia.
- Posters saying that children shouldn’t be told about sexual pleasure. I hate to break it to most of you but the vast majority of five year olds have found out that touching their own penis or clitoris feels nice. I DO NOT think it needs to be in a theatre show or even bought up proactively. However when you find your kid with their hand down their pants you say “yes, it can feel nice to touch yourself under your pants but that is something you only do in private” and then follow up with a discussion about not showing anyone else what’s in your pants a’la NSPCC “pantasorus”
(Have had a 3year old boy bought to see me by a mother who wanted to know what was “wrong with him” as he “keeps on playing with it”. After some detailed discussion to ensure that no one else was touching his penis or asking him to etc I was reassured no abuse, talk about normal self exploration. Mother utterly horrified as she could not accept that it was normal for it to be enjoyable to touch one’s own genitals prior to puberty. I was also bought up like this - infact taught that females could not masturbate
- Posters saying that sex Ed and diagrams of genitals shouldn’t be shown to children before y6/7. Girls start puberty at 8 boys at 9. Bloody (hah) lot of good it will do telling them about menstruation 3 years after they have started their periods.
- From the website “Use pleasure as a vehicle for consent - knowing why we might say yes so we know when to say no."
Reads to me as “we explain that sexual acts can feel nice and so you might want to say yes but you actually need to say no”
this would have been a helpful message for me as a teen. Brought up that sex was PIV only and only done in marriage for the purposes of procreation I was certain I wasn’t going to do any of that horrid sex stuff and couldn’t see why anyone would want to unless they wanted a child . Got a boyfriend and discovered that kissing felt nice - and the other stuff felt nice too (and I had no idea that there was other sex than PIV) and then I got carried away and had regrets later. Someone telling me that sexual contact was pleasurable and so I might want to do it and that there other sexual actions as well as PIV it’s easy to get carried away and so should have hard limits E.g no touching under clothes would have been very very helpful. I couldn’t conceive of why I might want to have sex so I was extremely unprepared to be able to turn it down.
In conclusion I think the show sounds like a bad idea for far to big an age range. But I reject the idea that talking about these things with children is grooming. The more children can know what is normal the easier they can express fears or concerns about something abnormal