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.

So instead they’ve invited just those who are older in school year and turned 18, and told them not to tell their parents!

Who wouldn't find that completely reassuring and solid evidence of the competence and expertise of the safeguarding lead.

If the students are being invited along by teachers with a sense that this might involve their grades for their studies then I have the strange feeling that there will wholly positive reports of the show with people baffled that anyone might ever have objected to such an educational and enlightening event.

Told them not to tell their parents???!!! Now where have I heard that before, let me see...oh yes, from ALMOST EVERY ONE of the hundreds of survivors of child sexual abuse I have interviewed...

Un fucking believable

And yes, I do see that the kids are 18. So yes, it would be their own choice whether they tell their parents. But TELLING them not to?

Do they even have a safeguarding lead? I mean the school must, but there seems no evidence of one involved in the show. How on earth could the 'don't tell your parents' get past the teachers at the school? Have they not done their statutory safeguarding training? Red flags all over that. Especially if it's alongside an implied threat of bad grades if they don't attend.

I wonder how old the children were in the original test audience at the Theatre Royal's Incubator Festival in 2019. They've already seen the actors completely naked ('it was brave how they took off all their clothes just to help us learn') and heard an adult sing 'I sometimes have a fiddle with my penis and my balls' and 'oh go on then and touch it, touch it where you want to now'

It’s a sixth form college equivalent rather than a school - Level 3 qualifications in theatre I believe. Should they have a safeguarding lead?

Surely when it comes to Upper Sixth there are various rules that still apply despite most of the pupils turning 18 prior to leaving? (Such as staff aren’t allowed date 18 yr old pupil, because of the power imbalance and risk of grooming.) So why do this place think it’s a free for all to take their older pupils to this “sex positive show” behind parents’ backs?

And the head of Bath council has said it’s fine because there is “informed parental choice.”

When parents/guardians were not informed and given no choice, indeed their kids told not to tell them about it beforehand or afterwards.

Fucking hell!

I mean safeguarding 101 ain't it.

I thought it was planned for 5 years up…. So why are 18 years old young people being invited?

When you have to tell your target audience not to tell their parents in order for you to get them in the building?

Any lingering doubt that you're doing something majorly ethically wrong has just been erased, if you have even half a grip on reality.

FGS.

It's quite bizarre.

I was living on my own at 18 and went to whatever shows I wanted, and really I have no issue if 18 year olds in school go to whatever theater shows they want.

But telling them not to tell their parents is sooo dodgy and if they are doing that, clearly they tunderstand there is something that needs to be kept from parents.

A teacher putting pressure on a student to attend a theatre show not required by the course syllabus, telling the student not to tell parents and implying that attending the show would help his grades (why? As I can't imagine The Family Sex Show is on the syllabus?) sounds like behaviour that would breach a school or college's staff code of conduct. Sixth form colleges should have a designated safeguarding lead and safeguarding policy and staff code of conduct. I'm not sure that encouraging an 18 year old to attend a theatre show is a safeguarding issue, even given the content of the show (unless the 18 year old is classed as a vulnerable adult) as your son should be free to decline the invitation. The problem is with pressurising the student to attend with the implication that his grades may suffer if he does not. Presumably there is no requirement in his course syllabus to see The Family Sex Show so how would it help with his grades? - unless the teacher is going to show favouritism to the students who attend. The other issue is that if students are accompanying their teachers to the theatre in the evening without any consent form being signed, then they're basically just out socialising with their teachers rather than it being a school trip. Which again could be breaching the staff code of conduct. Even if the students are over 18, there should still be a consent form they can sign themselves. And I had a look at some sixth form college's parental consent policies - some treat over 18s the same as the rest of the students and ask for parental consent for all students. Think it depends on the college.

Anyway, hope he's not stuck there under duress right now

School Of Sexuality Education do not have a safeguarding lead. Two of them are doctors so would have to do mandatory safeguarding training and annual updates. The mandatory safeguarding training for all doctors would not qualify one to be a safeguarding lead - further advanced training would be required. No mention anywhere of either of them being designated safeguarding lead trained. It would be baffling if they were, to be honest, given some of the website and show content that SOSE has apparently approved.

But then all schools must have a designated safeguarding lead, yet some secondary schools are allowing SOSE in to deliver RSE lessons, including lessons to year 7s in which animal masturbation has been discussed - hope they didn't instruct the year 7s to google 'animals that masturbate'. Perhaps since light has been shed on School Of Sexuality Education's involvement with The Family Sex Show, schools will decide not to use them as RSE providers. I wish schools wouldn't use external providers for this at all tbh.

Completely. It's actually weird how TFSS are managing even when confronted with a fairly reasonable situation (18 year olds are adults and can choose whether or not to attend, most people would agree) they are managing somehow to claw an inappropriate response out of the bag full of 'safeguarding no-nos' ('don't tell your parents').

Is this all a VERY CLEVER set up to test how good the general populace's safeguarding awareness is? Will they continue to throw clear cut 'safeguarding no-nos' out there as part of the project? I do look forward to the Scooby-Doo style unveiling in due course, where they finally reveal it was all an elaborate exercise, and hopefully award the UK public top marks for spotting, calling out, and appropriately responding to every instance of dubiety in the writing, staging, and organisation of this 'Family Sex Show'.

'Family Sex Show', ffs. I mean, you have to be careful even googling the bloody title!

it was all an elaborate exercise, and hopefully award the UK public top marks for spotting, calling out, and appropriately responding to every instance of dubiety in the writing, staging, and organisation of this 'Family Sex Show'.

you mean mumsnet! 😀

What about the 18 year old who don't want to go but feel they can't resist significant pressure from their teachers? The power imbalance is huge. Poor kids (young adults!).

"don't tell your parents" (i.e. the adults most likely to only have your best interests at heart). Dodgy as anything.