Deeply concerned about Child Safety in Bristol

[MatthewJTaylor]

From May 5th to May 8th 2022, the Tobacco Factory Theatres in Bristol is having performances of "The Family Sex Show".
This show is aimed at children 5 years old and up.
The performers involved get naked.
The discussion with the children is on sex, sexuality and sexual pleasure.

I cannot imagine brining a 5 year old child to a theatre where people will to to her/him about sex and show their naked bodies to her/him.

Am I the crazy one?

Sources:
The Family Sex Show website
Listing at The Tobacco Factory Theatres

Agree there needs to be a balance between some of the crazy boundary breaking stuff in this show and some of the reluctantance to even name body parts.

One thing that is not considered enough in these discussions is the changing age of puberty - 200 years ago girls had their first period at 16 on average, now it’s 12. These discussions are having to take place earlier because biology has changed (although emotional maturity hasn’t ). Pre pubertal childhood has shrunk by four years since the time of Jane Austen. children seemed to be children longer in the past because biologically they were. Now they are having the physical changes much younger (and are less emotionally ready)

@theDudesmummy

Responsible and child-centred adults talking to children privately at home (or in their own-age groups at school) in an age-appropriate way about bodily functions, which include menstruation, is a million miles away from what we are talking about in the context of this theatre production.

Yes and on these threads it always gets conflated. That because you are against this you must be against what you describe.

@Qazwsxefv

Agree there needs to be a balance between some of the crazy boundary breaking stuff in this show and some of the reluctantance to even name body parts.

One thing that is not considered enough in these discussions is the changing age of puberty - 200 years ago girls had their first period at 16 on average, now it’s 12. These discussions are having to take place earlier because biology has changed (although emotional maturity hasn’t ). Pre pubertal childhood has shrunk by four years since the time of Jane Austen. children seemed to be children longer in the past because biologically they were. Now they are having the physical changes much younger (and are less emotionally ready)

Your second paragraph doesn’t relate to the “show” people are discussing here. What’s your point?

Enough talking about this, what can we DO? Is there a petition to shut it down yet?

@FrancescaContini the thing is that just letting children and young people "amble" without knowledge is also dangerous. Many of the people I meet who were abused in childhood would have been spared it, or would at least been able to disclose and/or stop it, had they had appropriate education (this was mostly in the era when there was no sex ed at all). But this theatre thing is not what is meant by appropriate education. It is the polar opposite, and increases the risks, it does not decrease them.

[quote Qazwsxefv]@Abraxan

“We also don't talk about sexual development at this point. We don't really talk much about puberty at that age either.”

I think it’s a real shame that 7 year olds are not told about sexual development and puberty. Girls start puberty at 8, it’s an admittedly younger but normal variant to start periods at 8. Children need to be taught this stuff before they have their first period or it will be a big shock.

Again not saying it should or needs to be a theatre show. But pre pubertal children need to know puberty is coming before it does.[/quote]
No, girls don't start puberty at 8. Some do but they are outliers. The average age for girls to start their periods is 12.

I'm not saying that girls from 7 onwards shouldn't be taught that they're going to get periods either. I absolutely think they should.

I'm not going to quote your other very long post but I will say the following:

• Less than half of preschoolers masturbate. While there's nothing wrong with it at all (apart from doing it at appropriate times and places), it's not something most of them do. There is nothing sexual about it.

• Japan has a culture that fetishes little girls. Not something to be aspired to.

• Most children see their parents naked so know what normal naked bodies look like.

What is disturbing is the push to make children grow up quicker. To make them sexual. I'm not saying that's what you're doing but those are the same arguments that paedophiles use.

And I'm sorry that you were taught shame and fear as a teenager about sex. So was I. I still don't think we should sexualise little children.

I see this piece of art very clearly as societal grooming, sanctioned at a very high level, and enabled by a combination of malign influences and well-meaning misguided incompetence. I think my point of view is valid.

I'd don't particularly think your view @theDudesmummy is invalid. I meant more that the individuals who are putting on this performance may not as individuals may not be sexually attracted to children and grooming them so much as they are poorly educated and have little understanding of safeguarding issues.

There are wider societal issues about sexuality and children and the erosion of boundaries. PIE happened before and there seems to be another push currently.

This is absolutely societal grooming as others have said. Everyone is susceptible to grooming and in turn the groomed will unintentionally continue to groom or to ignore what is in in front of them. As a sexually abused child it is terrifying to want help and to realise that not only have the adults around you been groomed by your abuser but that society has also been groomed. The abused child may be the last to be groomed or the first to realise that her abuser grooms and manipulates people or she/he may always be aware of the manipulation but feel unable to get help because all those around her have been groomed in some significant way. Grooming is absolutely the right word for it and it takes it places it in the context of understanding that it is not just the child that is and can be groomed. We all need to start to understand this.

Sex positive sex education which focuses on feelings of comfort and pleasure as way to understand consent and boundaries absolutely does not work for children - instead it places them at risk of harm.

At age 7 (possibly younger) my abuser, who was an adult family male member, would spend a lot of time putting me at ease. He would sit and talk to me which felt good and then he would brush my hair or stroke the inside of my arm which felt pleasurable. Then things got worse and I won’t go into detail obviously but he focused on how things felt good for him and he said they felt good to me. He crossed boundaries that I did not even have properly formed and therefore I did not feel discomfort. He always talked about me and him as though we were in a relationship. He told me how he knew how much I liked it and how much I wanted it. What I needed as child was someone to tell me what people like him was doing was wrong and most importantly never, ever my fault and how to get help. I also needed people to show me that they were not groomed and that they understood it and stood firm against sexual abuse. The last thing I would have needed was someone, whoever well-meaning, telling me that lack of pleasure and comfort indicates that you do not want ‘sex’ and that feeling pleasure may well indicate that you do and will help you set boundaries. Maybe that is not the show’s exact message but how will a 5 yr old child or abused 10 year child interpret the message.

From grooming and abuse based on pleasure, comfort and preventing boundaries comes the shame that you have fallen for it, that you were too stupid not to realise what was happening or that you are deviant and not like other children. Your shame keeps you being abused and being raped and when you look for help perhaps all you see is that adults appear groomed and you can’t trust adults to help properly. Even the NSPCC nowadays teaches children that they maybe being sexually abused if they feel uncomfortable about what is happening to them - a definition which will prevent some more children from disclosing because even the NSPCC appear not to understand and seem groomed.

This Family Sex Show is dangerous, probably not deliberately so but is really is. Never think that you know the type of child that will be abused and never think that it won’t happen to your child. It can happen to any child.

@backtobusy I am completely in agreement with you, I would not imagine that any of the performers are paedophile or have any malign intent all all. They too have been groomed by larger forces. And yes, it's all been around before, PIE being an example among many worldwide and across the centuries. None of this happens by chance.

Long post deleted itself.

Loads of arguments on here about “let kids be kids etc” “all too soon nowadays”

Well unfortunately puberty is soon (too soon imo) nowadays so education needs to occur earlier.

Our grandmothers could wait until they were in senior school to learn about puberty, our children need to learn mid primary.

I’m sure I’m not going to be called a paedophile. With sexual maturity (puberty) comes sexual desire and feelings. These happen to children 8+. Emotionally they are not ready. For most of human history this was not happening and they were more emotionally and I interlecturly mature pre puberty. Now there not. But pretending that it’s not happening and that children of this age cannot feel sexual desire isn’t going to help (and I’m taking about children undergoing puberty not five year olds and in no way suggesting that sexual contact between adults and children or children and children for that matter is ok, it’s not and it’s horrid but trying to say no one under 16 or whatever should have sexual desire is just biologically bonkers)

8 is the lower end of normal for periods.

It’s the normal start of puberty (which isn’t periods)

@Perfect28

I think it's fantastic. I don't understand why there are so many prudish attitudes in this day and age. People seem to take issue with it being delivered by adults, would we prefer young people learned from each other? Would love to see this show.

Prudish - you think that grooming children is prudish?

@Perfect28

Naked adults are not performing sexual pleasure. Definition of a straw man. To others, yes I have researched the show. Yes, I have read the thread and yes, I still disagree with you. I know that such a show would have consulted several safeguarding authorities and it's still going to go ahead so I guess you will just all have to get used to living in a world where we don't shame bodies or sex and we educate young people so when they are sexually active in the future they are empowered.

Unless you are connected to that group you know exactly nothing beyond the webpage, about what they are doing.

You can only guess.

You have proven that you think safeguarding should be an argument.

And FYI you dont get to make statements about unnamed parties so ⬇️ that is your statement of your intentions:

I, Perfect28, guess you will just all have to get used to living in a world where I, Perfect28, don't shame bodies or sex and I, Perfect28, educate 5 year olds so when the 5 year olds are sexually active in the future the 5 year olds are empowered

Leaving aside the people getting naked (if they feel comfortable) and simulating pleasurable sex on stage, I'd be just as worried as who the kids in the audience might end up sitting near or sharing the loos with at intermission.

Because as this thread demonstrates, the production is likely to be a magnet for some people who have absolutely no business being around young children at all.

Feels like an absolute safeguarding nightmare.

There's definitely an Emperor's New Clothes element to this. I think those of us on the Liberal left need to say "no, hang on, this is definitely not okay" regardless of political or ideological leanings. I absolutely hate that Guardian article because it shows blind obedience to the cause and no critical thinking whatsoever.

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”

I can't get over this post. It doesn't say that, if it wanted to say that it would. Is this how people justify it to themselves, they think people don't mean what they say?

Go's it's like legs akimbo in the League of Gentlemen with pronouns.

@Qazwsxefv

8 is the lower end of normal for periods.

It’s the normal start of puberty (which isn’t periods)

The average age for girls to start puberty is 11, while for boys the average age is 12.

From the NHS website.

And puberty is not the start of sexual desire. I'm guessing you don't actually have any children @Qazwsxefv

Here is the relationships guidance, including for Primary age, which is all about relationships, not sex or naming anything at 5 years old. Nor could I find anything on the NSPCC site. Totally inappropriate.

@ChickenonaMug so sorry to hear your experience, it is absolutely 100% familar to me as I have spoken to so many adult survivors who have said almost identical things.

The issue of children being told to resist something which feels "uncomfortable" is a highly problematic one, I did not realise this is the NSPCC's official line, as it is based on a very incorrect premise and places the responsibility for reacting against the abuse on the survivor rather than those around them, including wider society, which is where the responsibility should lie.

Probably at least half of the survivors I speak to did not recognise the abuse as "abuse" at the time, certainly not at the start, and probably half of those ones would not have described themselves then, or even later, as having felt "uncomfortable" about the abuse.

It might be just part of your normal world, or dressed up as affection or love, framed as education or discipline, or religion (God wants you to do this), even actively sought by you as positive attention or being treated as a friend, confidente or partner. People may not even recognise it as abusive for many years even into late adulthood. This does not make it less abusive, or damaging.

Teaching about sex and abuse should never place the onus on the child to set the boundaries. Something does not have to be "uncomfortable" at the time to be abusive. This is why the erosion of boundaries needs to be recognised by the adults and the authorities, and why this stage show is part of a very dangerous trend. Five-year-olds are laughing at the funny naked man, or the simulated sex (or the ranbow dildo butt monkey), so how can it possible be dangerous? Just teach them to say no, or to report it, if they dont find something "plesaurable" and then we're all good, right?

This is terribly terribly wrong and I am getting very angry on behalf of all the survivors, past and (sadly) future.

Those who are apologists for this sort of thing, please read Chicken's and my posts. Then maybe rethink? Not everything is what it seems. And not all well-meaning people actually do good.

I’d bet all the money I have that when these people take their clothes off there will be a be-penised person standing there butt naked saying “I am a woman”

I'd say that's practically guaranteed; in today's climate, and with a group already committed to pushing boundaries, I very much doubt such an opportunity will pass unused

As for imagining a future without shame", IMO some things should attract shame, and one of them's grooming children
Most perceive it to mean not being ashamed of your own body, etc., but in the case of this group it may just be a way to deflect criticism

The Mail are covering this with quotes from this thread. It's a shame they haven't quoted some of the knowledgable safeguarding posts but they do quote one of the company happily trilling about this being suitable for 5 year olds

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10700795/Fury-theatre-company-stages-naked-exploring-sexuality-sexual-pleasure-queerness.html