I knew this was happening, but it's depressing to read in black and white - an infected generation...

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

www.bbc.com/news/amp/education-41499243

This makes me so angry, and I feel sorry for the girls

And for those who don't want to click through...

Girls go along with sex acts, says teacher

Are children turning to pornography to educate themselves about sex? Are boys coercing girls to do things they later regret? A 24-year-old secondary school teacher tells the BBC she's shocked by the stories she hears from her teenage pupils

Warning: This personal account contains some frank language.

"The language boys use to discuss sex and sexual acts is degrading and shows a lack of understanding of consent and the actual mutual respect required to have meaningful sex.

"The girls, equally, are taught not to respect their own bodies and don't comprehend the notion that they may be being used.

"There was one time when one of the girls, who was 14, was really upset and said to me, 'I sucked his dick and he doesn't love me - he told me he loved me and he doesn't.'

"That was the main thing that made me think these girls are being used.

'I didn't say no, but I regret that'

"I don't think anyone can say a 14 or 16-year-old girl has performed these sex acts and enjoyed it - they just go along with it.

"They're going along with it at the time, it's almost like it's an honour that they're chosen, especially if it's a popular boy, almost like a validation of their appearance and attractiveness - or they think it is.

"I don't think these girls are aware of their vulnerability. I think these girls - 14 plus - will look back and think, 'Yeah, I was coerced into that.'

"They get themselves into a situation naively and then they're in too deeply.

Right to say 'no'

"You need to make the girls realise they are being objectified and used and make them aware they are vulnerable to this sort of thing.

"It's their right to say 'no' and that nobody should feel peer-pressured.

"If a boy doesn't want a photo of you or 'get with you' as they say, you're not attractive.

"It's a very sad state of affairs to have girls empowered by how boys think of them.

"It's as bad not to have had a boy take a sexual interest in you, in a 15-year-old's view, as it is to be constantly asked for photos.

"I think the boys are quite clever, they tend to go for the ones who can be manipulated - not all boys obviously.

Shaving pubic hair

"I was on break time duty and I heard a boy say 'I put my hand in her pants and it was like a forest and I was quick out of there.'

"It's the accepted norm amongst the girls that you shave it all off - a totally unspoken rule.

"That's a porn thing, where every single woman has got no pubic hair - I don't think you can say it's not.

"And if they're shaving improperly down there, they are putting their health at risk, for example, if they're using an old razor or a used one, they can increase their risk of infection.

"Schools do teach sex education, but it's focused on contraception, how not to get pregnant.

"It's not about loving meaningful relationships or about consent - that's not really covered.

"They know a lot about STIs [sexually transmitted infections] and condoms but not a lot about the meaningful aspect.

"I honestly think you've got to teach these kids more than about contraception.

"It needs a revolution. They need specialists coming in - teachers can see PHSE [personal, social, health and economic education] as a bit of an extra, they're certainly not specialists in it, it's an extra lesson or 20 minutes in form.

"A lot of teachers don't feel confident talking about these things.

"We're setting them up to go on to a porn website to learn about sex. I don't think they're going on there to get kicks, but to learn about sex and that obviously feeds into a whole societal thing.

An infected generation

"When I was at school there were problems with webcams and sex chats and msn messenger.

"But I can't remember boys talking about girls like this.

"I really don't know why it's spiralled.

"I think we can blame a lot of things on the porn industry, we can blame social media and the ease of access.

"But they're an infected generation that no longer sees the gravitas of sex."

Produced by Katherine Sellgren, BBC family and education reporter

More on this story

'I didn't say no, but I regret that'
05 October 2017

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I was on a bus yesterday and the boys on the bus in school uniforms were talking graphically about how their female teacher was begging to have sex (I'm not even going to use the terms they used) with them because of their behaviour. Quite a loud conversation, didn't even bother to whisper. Looked like nice enough boys, just totally oblivious that talking loudly about violent and sexual acts isn't a normal thing to do on a bus.

I think it's a lot worse than when I was younger, when there seemed to be more of a shift towards thinking about sex as a fun mutual pleasure, women could also enjoy sex and so on. Now I do think it's about performance and I've also heard about girls trying to impress through sexual acts at parties and so on- these are in 'nice' schools by the way, not the vulnerable girls in the difficult areas. I will be telling my girls very explicitly that sex is about mutual consent and mutual pleasure and if it looks like it's going to be a one-way street, then actively not to bother. Outrageous to use them as vessels in this way.

I was on a bus yesterday and the boys on the bus in school uniforms were talking graphically about how their female teacher was begging to have sex (I'm not even going to use the terms they used) with them because of their behaviour.

Unfortunately this is far from rare. Plenty of conversations like this happen, degrading sexual language used about teachers, women generally and girls they know. I've overheard some of the most horrendous comments by boys about women and girls (including rape jokes) from very privileged boys whose parents would doubtless think their sons were wonderful boys.

Maybe its because I have sons but I find it hard to look at any sexualised 12/13/14 year old and think of them as "complicit". More like victims. 

I agree Barbarian but there are people out there (some of which are parents) who go along with the whole ‘girls are maturing much faster these days, they know what they’re doing’ mentality without stopping to think about why it appears these young girls are ‘maturing faster’ and what is influencing them. You just need to look at the comments on social media following the Adam Johnson case and similar cases to see it.

What hope do teenagers have when even adults have such low expectations of them. I don’t know what the solution is

I'm 22 and recognise all of this from my own teens, I saw, experienced and heard of so so many things that I now think of as horrific, but it was so normalised when I was a teen. My male peers who I thought of as 'nice boys' were almost all rapists or coerced girls into sexual activity they didn't want. I only 'realised' that I was raped fairly recently, my 19 year old boyfriend had sex with me when I was unconscious having plied me with drugs and alcohol, I was 15- I didn't think of that as rape. But it was. The pressure to send nudes and engage in sex acts was enormous and pervasive, and parents had absolutely no clue what was going on and the school I went to never involved the police in cases where girls had these pictures sent around and published online for all to see. To have any pubic hair made you a disgusting freak and this was enforced by the girls as much as the boys. Anal sex was seen as standard. A girl in my year was gang raped at a party and a video of it happening was sent around to everyone and the school did nothing other than a vague assembly about 'how we treat others'. The general consensus was that it was her fault for getting so drunk. But girls can't win, you're a frigid bitch if you didn't, and a disgusting slag if you did.

I have teenaged BILs and I have had strong words with them about how they talk about women and girls as they were coming out with some utterly disgusting crap when they were staying with us. It makes me uncomfortable to have people with that attitude around my daughter, but I am also aware it isn't their fault as such that they think they way they do. The culture that teens are immersed in is toxic.

If my DD had some of the experiences I had as a teen I would find it very difficult to remain calm and rational in dealing with the boys involved. If I could go back now I would castrate the boys who raped and sexually assaulted my friends and I. It makes me so so angry that I was not informed enough and not empowered to make my own choices and assert myself, I will not be teaching dd to be a compliant and to be a 'nice' girl as I was. She will also not be having unmonitored access to the internet, she may not like it but it is unfettered access to hardcore pornography that has caused this problem.

Brilliant post silk. All we can do is talk to our kids.

Silk I'm sorry to hear what you have been through, it does confirm what I am hearing from other sources and what I am afraid of for my children.

I have a 3yo Ds and pregnant with a dd.
This all terrifies me.
I need to teach Ds about boundaries, consent, what is/isn't appropriate etc
I need to teach dd that her body is her own, saying no is fine and she's better than all that.
I'm hoping by the time they're in senior school, schools have better ways of dealing with things, have proper sex ed (not just don't get pregnant).

I think the main issue is with how accessible porn is these days.

I have no clue if I am parenting right, most of the time I'm just winging it but I do have a very open relationship with my daughters so I know what they see/are being shown on social media.

Their friends (including girlfriends) often send graphic and sometimes violent clips of sexual acts via message services as jokes. What we would have found shocking, they see as normal

DD shows me them, we chat about them (emphasis on the porn is not real/you don't have do that etc) and she deletes them. I feel like if I went apeshit over it and banned her from having these friends, she'd start hiding these things from me and maybe see it as normal.

She's only fourteen. I don't want my fourteen year old seeing this shit. I don't want to have to explain the difference between consensual oral sex in a loving relationship and a woman having her throat fucked for the camera but IDK what the answer is when porn and the online wide is so accessible to teens these days. I ban it at home, her friends show her it at school. It's frightening.

Glittery their sex ed is rubbish, don't rely on that, plus the bad language/sexualized images/violent talk around them isn't often covered by that education or challenged enough by it either IMO.

I did feel a bit encouraged the other day. One guy was behind me in the queue in the supermarket and said something like 'I'm feeling rapey (meaning horny I think), I'm going to see X' and his friend, clearly embarrassed, said 'dude, I'm kind of over that word'. So, not everyone is cool with misogynistic violent talk. The boys on the bus were so vile they said things that made my ears pop. I cannot understand how this is normal in their worlds.

‘I’m feeling rapey’??? Good lord

I was a teenager in the 70's. Girls were 'encouraged' to have sex then, and boys would certainly push their luck, but it didn't seem to be a mass thing.
To me the difference is that women and girls have been socialised into dropping their boundaries. As an example, I was asked to pose for nude photos a couple of times, I said no because I knew they would end up being passed around and it wouldn't end well for me. Sending nudes seems to be pretty standard nowadays.
I think liberal feminism has a lot to answer for. Being 'sex positive' is a good thing but it just seems to have lead to a situation of girls being obligated to be sexually active whether they want to or not. It really has played straight into men's hands.
I think it's up to us older women to start speaking up now. Young girls have to know that their bodies belong to them and they do not have to do anything they don't want to.

Some things are the same as ever (it was 1960 when the Shirelles asked "Will he still love me tomorrow?")

The huge shift - which I attribute mostly to porn, as facilitated by the internet - is summed up in what I heard someone say the other day: "No means yes, and yes means anal"

"No means yes" has been around for a hell of a long time. About a zillion movies taught me as a girl that "nice" women need to put up a bit of resistance before being overwhelmed by the power of his love. At no point was it expected that an adult exchange could take place with a woman knowing her mind and a man respecting that.

These days its worse though with porn / our cultural norms "teaching" girls that they're weird if they're not up for anything that a boy suggests and don't enjoy it when it happens.

Gawd it's depressing.
The sex ed in this country needs a huge overhaul.

I won't have it that this is caused by radical feminism. Feminism wants women to be seen by men as their equals.

Liberal feminism

Aside from my brother, I don't think I've ever met a male that genuinely saw females as his equal. Porn continues to push the belief that men are the ones to be gratified, and women are a hole.

silk

Frequency your post about your DD has made me so sad. Fwiw I think you are doing the right thing keeping the dialogue open.

I am SO glad I spent my teens in a nerdy bubble away from all this shit. If I'd seen what Frequency's DD and all the other girls are seeing at 14 and younger I'd never have had sex.

So, what can we do as parents of girls to counter this pressure? I'm trying to find resources that are appropriate for younger children. I feel so sad that I need to start thinking about this while DD is in primary school but I think I probably do need to start laying the groundwork now for a healthy body image and healthy boundaries, especially as she is taller than average and looks older than her actual age. So, does anyone have any suggestions?

I think we can stop thinking of it as a problem that can be solved by how we parent our girls. I don't think it will be solved until we, as a society, have a radical rethink about how we parent our boys. And I don't mean just sitting them down and lecturing them about consent as teenagers. I mean starting from day one about all the harmful and frankly toxic messages we (mums and dads alike) send them about how to be a "successful " man.

I honestly feel that modern female pop stars have a lot to answer for.... like this Little Mix music video where they are all gyrating around like porn stars for the lip licking enjoyment of the male gaze -

Little Mix

Of course female stars expressed their sexuality in the 80s/90s [when I was a teenager] but Cyndi Lauper, Kim Wilde, heck even Madonna actually seemed to be having fun with it and it's whole expression appeared to be something more about female empowerment and the ability to enjoy oneself and dress up and perhaps pull a guy at the end of the night... Not this vapid,slack jawed, lip licking, boobs hanging out hoping to gain sexual validation and approval from men.

I think the parenting and teaching boys has to start much much earlier. DD is 6 and a group of boys has been bullying her for a year. They gang up on certain girls and aren’t controlled at all by the school, their parents or society. Boys will be boys and be really mean.

They are allowed to be loud, mean and fairly violent without censure. The girls like that soon find that they are censured. Not DD any more. After trying the school repeatedly I’ve told her she can hit back now.

Sea you can bet your bottom dollar that the women in Little Mix are not the ones who get to decide whether they're gyrating or not. See picture for what they looked like originally.

It is depressing, although I hate to use the term it seems as if an entire generation has trivialised themselves. Nothing was allowed to be taken seriously, being sexually available was all that mattered. Other countries had an excuse for using the word 'decadent'.
However there is a note of hope - I am using the past tense there. I believe we're on the edge of change. I don't know what the later consequences will be of this abandoned generation in the middle, but today's youngsters are giving me a hope I haven't felt for a long time.

I think the main issue is with how accessible porn is these days.

Anyone remember about 20 years ago, when "Red hot dutch" was being talked about in Parliament? It was a porn channel which became available in the UK, and the gov were worried they couldn't prevent access to it, as it was beamed in over satellite.

I thought they were being daft at the time. But, with the internet, we've got free, unfettered access to the type of porn that didn't even exist 20 years ago. And we're seeing the results. I have 3 young boys, and I'm going to make sure they have a £9.99 phone, if at all!

Access to (hardcore) porn is the primary cause of this behaviour. With sexualisation of pop stars a definite contributor. Speaking to friends who are secondary school teachers was a real eye opener for me. They spoke of regular incidents of sexting/obscene pictures being taken on phones.

How's about this as a first step? Government legislates to prevent any phone with an LCD screen, or a camera, being taken into a school by a pupil? I can prevent my kids from getting smartphones, but what can I do if their schoolmates are showing them shit behind the sports hall?

Mobile phones are not essential, and they're not a human right. We need to stop them getting into schools.

I think the best us mums can do is keep an open dialogue about what's ok and what's not - not just in a sexual way. I think a lot of these issues are just common sense. You should not let someone make you do something you don't want to do. When it comes to sex, this becomes a whole other matter and it's important to educate our little girls to be firm, and our little boys to think less with their dicks. Keep up the good work mums!