To update about The Family Sex Show

[theDudesmummy]

There are active two threads on this in Feminism but I feel I just have to update here for traffic. Although protests appear to have, for now, stopped the theatre production going ahead, new and highly disturbing material has today appeared on their webpage, clearly aimed at children. It (cheerily and breezily) suggests, among other things, that children search for images of masturbating animals on the internet and then draw what they see. I am not going to Google that term, I really don't want that in my history, but first, can you imagine what children will be exposed to if they search that, and second, this is pure and simple grooming of children into being abused. Masturbating animals? What larks! Lets have an arts and crafts session about it! Next steps: Masturbating with Uncle Jim? Why not? Masturbating Uncle Jim? Of course!

I have now made a complaint to CEOP. Others may wish to as well.

As an accredited safeguarding trainer in education with years of training and working in safeguarding in and with schools, I can confirm that despite the high profile that safeguarding has (Ofsted will put a school into a 'category' if it fails the safeguarding aspect of an inspection) there are still (a minority) of schools with some staff (not always teachers) ignorant of the basics, hearing and seeing things yet failing to refer to the safeguarding lead and worse, deciding that they know better than all the guidelines and can deal with (or ignore) a child's disclosure - which are rarely made "clearly" and often rely on piecing together information .
The ability of so many groups involved with sexual politics to gain uncritical access to schools and children and their ability to redefine how safeguarding children operates for their own ends has added to the problem.

It seems then that the person who contacted me may conceivably both be a primary school teacher and "know nothing about child sexual abuse"? That is seriously worrying.

My thoughts exactly, you phrased it well apricotlane. This is the sort of comment I meant to write.

It's not clear, but this photo suggests toplessness and no knickers ?

So much of what we're discussing would just be normal tedious edginess - theatre groups of young people pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable. But we've reached the stage where there are few boundaries left to push so now it's children in their sights.
That's why they doubled down when called out on their deliberately targeting very young children. And the porn industry (promoted ironically by those wealthy white male capitalists that they love to hate) has one group left to capture - children. And people like this are facilitating it.

Apologies if it's already been posted, but I think this piece in The Critic (actually linked from the Guardian article) is an excellent explanation of the problems with this show:

thecritic.co.uk/why-are-we-allowing-the-family-sex-show/

Thank God for mumsnet. Show cancelled!

Excellent piece from The Critic, DisappearingGirl

Another thing that occurs to me, on the subject of the performers being recruited from Twatter, is that it makes it extremely difficult to find out who they are, what their background is and so on

Which some might consider all too convenient ...

That is a very good article and I wish the few people on this thread who seem to see no problem with the show (including someone who describes themselves as a primary school teacher) would read it.

The question of DBS checks for the performers never seemed to have got answered either. Not that DBS checks are a sure fire thing. But they exist for a reason.

No response at all from CEOP yet.

It's unbelievable that people come on here and say they can see nothing wrong with the show, then people who clearly know a lot about safeguarding explain in a detailed and specific way why what was proposed would be grooming and very inappropriate for children of any age, but especially very young children of 5. Then they either double down or disappear.

Who does that? No-one in good faith.

Guess what, women who are mothers, aunts, have been children themselves, they have a lot of 'lived experience' about predators. Fail to listen to us at your peril.

Anyone in favour of this show is either deluded and so soaked in queer theory that their brain has fallen out or an enabler of paedophiles.

Child safety is clearly the last thing on their minds - their lies about the NSPCC, their claiming victimhood shows that clearly.

There should be apologies from the theatres, the funders, but no, cast the parents complaining as as nasty pearl clutchers. We won't forget. And you'll only make us more determined to protect children.

@apricotlane so well phrased, exactly what I was thinking but couldn’t articulate.

Unfortunately, OP, "wishing" the enablers would read some of the better criticism is probably all you'll be able to do

IME those who'd facilitate this type of thing are often so attached to their views that absolutely nothing is allowed to get in the way. Professional guidance and experience, the concern of the majority, even normal common sense - none of it makes any difference because their self satisfied attitudes make sure it won't

@DisappearingGirl
Apologies if it's already been posted, but I think this piece in The Critic (actually linked from the Guardian article) is an excellent explanation of the problems with this show:

thecritic.co.uk/why-are-we-allowing-the-family-sex-show/

Thank you for that very good article.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10734503/Family-Sex-urges-FIVE-YEAR-OLD-children-explore-sexual-pleasures-cancelled.html

this morning’s Daily Mail

Aaaand some biased shit from the ‘I’

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/the-family-sex-show-bristol-cancelled-b2061109.html?amp

Shame the Daily Mail didn't include the bit about the website suggesting that kids google animals masturbating. 5 YEAR OLDS

Jesus. What is wrong with our society.

We've learned nothing from Savile, clearly. I mean even HE didn't go this far so blatantly and publicly.

I'm so angry about this - where's the apologies about suggesting our kids google animals masturbating? Where are the police?

It is a shame but I thought it was a good article overall.

It's just been mentioned on the Jeremy Vine show but they don't know anything about it so think it's OK (taking it on face value).

I'm rubbish at twitter but if anyone is able to send them screen shots to give them more information. They also used a different still from the play.

Not really cancelled according to the Daily Mail.

'The decision has been made by venues to cancel the tour of The Family Sex Show this Spring 2022. There will be performances for an invited audience at The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath ahead of subsequent public performances in the future,' ThisEgg tweeted.

The* *theatre company emphasises that it's going to continue developing the play ahead of future performances.

So much of what we're discussing would just be normal tedious edginess

Why are we wasting Arts Council and charity money (everybody's taxes) on this? How about encouraging this bunch to engage in some real work like lorry driving or fruit picking for a change? A lot of people are utterly fed up with all this 'edginess' FFS

@littledrummergirl Unfortunately (and necessarily) mainstream daytime media cannot engage with the frank and explicit level of conversation required to give this proper attention or journalism. Too much middle-class constraint within media is often why we can't get real things dealt with. The degenerate nature of this cultural issue requires real leadership and straight-talking and it's almost impossible for mainstream media to do this. Their fear of saying or doing something wrong and upsetting the unicorn brigade is also a huge part of the issue.

The degenerate nature of this cultural issue requires real leadership and straight-talking and it's almost impossible for mainstream media to do this

Very true - and yet they're quite happy to parrot the damaging claims of the producers, and in some appalling cases support their "victimhood"

I agree. The lines are too muddled now. People thinking they are being open and inclusive and tripping over themselves to be sympathetic and politically correct have been swept along. It's become more confusing as establishments such as NSPCC have been taken in/infiltrated. It needs straight talking leadership for sure.

I wish some in the MSM, inclduing the BBC and the guardian, would propely read the threads there have been about this on here and produce some longer thinkpieces rather that just than headline-grabbers. This is important. CSA is unbelievably damaging, and even enabling or encoraging it to the slightest degree is a big deal.