Help - I'm about to teach teenage boys about porn and consent......

[MrsTumbletap]

Hi all secondary teacher here and I'm due to teach sexual health this term. To male and female students aged 16-18. I have all the STD, condoms and revenge porn stuff covered. But I actually want to go into depth about consent and porn and how damaging it is, for both male and female participants such as depression, MH issues, lack of empathy for rape victims etc.

I have just found the link to a TED talk on another thread and I'm going to talk about the sexual violence. But does anybody have any links/articles that I could show? As I'm finding stuff that has a lot of inappropriate images or inappropriate language.

I can't for example use the TED talk as the language would result in parental complaints.

So I need to talk about how awful it is but I can't show it in picture or with videos, if you see what I mean.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Is there anyway The IT dept could edit the ted talk vid to blank out the bad language? Or is there too much ?

Although if it's 16-18 yo students surely some bad language would be ok?
Perhaps send a letter to parents/guardians explaining the importance of the video and offering to discuss it with them first? To cover yourself?

fightthenewdrug.org has lots of resources

Good luck! You have a chance to make a big impact on your students' lives and the lives of their current and future sexual partners.

Best comment I've seen about porn was someone comparing it to WWE wrestling. Really gets the point across that it's not real (as it's a reference they'll get) while not being preachy, plus takes the pressure off them thinking they need to sexually perform at pornstar level to be 'normal'.

I mean you can't leave it at that but it's a start.

Bumping for you

Sounds like a great thing you are doing

The WWE analogy is really good - I’ll use that if I ever need to. I’m hoping mine have an excellent teacher who cares about this stuff like MrsTumbleTap so I don’t have to.

Nothing helpful to add MrsT, except to say thanks.

Open discussion, we are not talking about individuals everything is about hypothetical 'friends'.

We have an open discussion to set the scene and define terms. Decide what words you are going to use.

Then based on the issue raised I have a series of agony aunt letters. Dear Marge I spend all day wanking' Dear Marge my girlfriend says no but my friends say she means yes. Dear Marge everyone has anal but me.

In groups they discuss what advice they would give to the person writing the letter.

You aren't going to change minds you are in the business of influence and nudge. Often the do know what is right they just need the courage to be able to say it to their friends.

For consent you need the cup of tea analogy.

See Jessicca Eaton's work at Victim Focus:
twitter.com/Jessicae13Eaton

www.victimfocus.org.uk/resources-for-professionals

relevent article:
‘Beat the pussy up’ – the way we talk about sex with women'
(extract)
What can we do about this?
Parents and Carers of children and young people

If you are a parent of an older child, there is absolutely no point in trying to protect them from these lyrics – they are everywhere! Instead, focus on bringing your children up to be critical thinkers and media-savvy. Teach them that everything they see in the media, music, advertising and news outlets are trying to manipulate them or sell something to them. Teach them clear and positive ways of talking about sex. Teach them to say ‘have sex with’ or ‘make love to’ or even ‘sleep with’. ANYTHING that isn’t negative or violent. Talk to them about the language – use the songs on the radio as an opportunity, a blessing in disguise and start to comment on the language. When something sexually aggressive or degrading comes on the TV, use co-viewing to start a debate or discussion about what you are seeing. Make a comment and ask their opinion. If you don’t teach your children about sex, the internet will. If you already watch a lot of porn, think about how different porn sex is to the real sex you’re having. Do you really want your sons or daughters thinking that porn sex is real? Do you really want your son choking teen girls? Do you really want your daughter to think that being forced to have anal is normal? If you don’t watch any porn and this blog has terrified the life out of you, have a bit of a search and see how quickly you come across violent porn. I bet it takes you less than 60 seconds of scrolling.

Professionals working with children and young people

If you are a professional, you can do absolutely everything I have listed for parents and you can also make it your mission to educate other professionals about the way language is changing to encourage the normalisation of sexual violence towards women and girls – especially as you may be working with young people you can influence through your direct work, counselling, youth work or in school sessions. I deliver porn workshops to children and trust me, they know WAY more about porn than you think. I learn something new about porn every time I talk to kids about porn. Don’t think that when you deliver your porn workshops in school, you will be shocking those teens – you will be talking to a large majority that have not only watched porn but have been significantly influenced by it. Seriously, I’ve taught teenage girls who have told me that they thought that having pubic hair was disgusting and weird because none of the women in porn have any. If you can’t face workshops about porn, build some on song lyrics and music videos – you will get all the same discussions. Teach other professionals, talk about the impact of porn, consider it in your line of work and if you can, talk to young people about porn and violence.

victimfocus.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/beat-the-pussy-up-the-way-we-talk-about-sex-with-women/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3253264-Very-good-article-by-Jessica-Eaton-about-language-used-to-describe-sex

Hi op if you pm me your email address I can send you some resources I use in pshe.

I think you have to tread carefully with this. I used to teach boys that age and found most were very romantic and really loved their girlfriends. Almost without exception they treated girls well and they hated the fact that the classes like that talked so much about men abusing women. They knew it had to be covered but found it insulting that someone might think they'd do that. I think it's really important that they don't think it's personal and that you could be talking about their sister's or friend's relationships as well as their own. And there are coercive relationships which are same sex and there's violence from females to males, too.

HollowTalk your experience reflects mine.

The boys are often a real soppy bunch and have strong pro women views that the need help and confidence to articulate.

Clearly porn is ubiquitous but that doesn't mean you should make the assumption everyone has seen it.
DD 20 is a few months into her first serious relationship. Over Christmas she told me he has never watched porn as he thinks it is degrading to women. To say I am happy she has found one of the few is a massive understatement, I will congratulate his mother when we meet.
So I think somehow it's worth mentioning that if you haven't investigated yet, there's no need to.
Facebook removed the group "Don't date men who do porn" I can't remember the exact title but apparently it had about 30,000 members. The conclusion was men weren't likening that women were spreading this advice. And somehow got the group banned. If you can find more details about that it could make for an interesting discussion whilst giving the green light to those who don't want to go there - they are not alone.

While I agree consent needs talking about.. and porn, I really, really think there needs to be more conversation with young adults/teens about emotional and coercive abuse, as those are the more common, incidious and misunderstood aspects of sex and relationships.

sulking/name calling because your partner won't have sex, so much so they 'give in' to make you stop and not cause an argument.

groping/ownership of your partners body, that being in a relationship isn't carte blanche to put your hands on them/down their clothing whenever you want.

Talking about being allowed to have friends/go places/wear clothing without needing their consent or approval.

These are the things that need discussion.

I have the tea one thank you, it is great and they generally really like that one.

It's more the porn side of things, I show a poster that says how it's not real don't believe what you see it's not a reflection of real healthy relationships. But I want to go a bit deeper, I want to show how damaging it is.

Unfortunately in that great TED talk there is so much inappropriate language, and pictures of teen porn, choking etc I would definitely get complaints. Our IT dept are stretched too thin and wouldn't be able to edit it.

I will write a letter and get it sent in the future, as I will have to teach it again. But my next lesson is Monday and I really want to cover some porn sections in there. I have it all planned with STD's where to get condoms, birth control, the tea/consent video I just want to add a bit more about porn. Obviously everything was blocked at school which is great our security is pretty water tight. But I'm wading through really awful depressing stuff and I want the students to get the gist without having to see the awful stuff.

Going to watch the wrestling thing now.

I think it's really important that they don't think it's personal and that you could be talking about their sister's or friend's relationships as well as their own.
That helps those boys to call out behaviour in others even if they don't recognise it in themselves. So it's useful.

EastEnders have done a storyline with Ruby on consent.
m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtTxCSfmdm5gMgaebQJmRRnIb0ZJ93bro

MrsTumbletap
Its been made clear that there are issues with BISH schools' resources.
see thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3357713-BISH-proudly-supported-by

The Planet porn resource is good
bishtraining.com/planet-porn/

Apologies I thought there was a video comparing it WWE, but it's an analogy. It's a great one I will use that.

Interestingly in that TED talk it says the average age is 12 of boys that first watch porn. But I will definitely say 'if you haven't, please don't feel it is something you have to seek out.'

One of my problem page letters is Dear Marge when in look at porn everyone has I am worried because I don't.

Discussion - does porn reflect real life?

Most are very aware it is like watching The Avenger movies - it's not real.

The tea analogy YouTube is ideal around consent, very easy to understand and 100% PG, the repetition of “just don’t give them tea” etc makes it a really easy to open up a non embarrassing dialogue. Good luck OP

For PP saying that these sessions can be upsetting for boys

My boyfriend at 16 was romantic and sweet and soppy and he still tried to talk me into sex acts that he wanted to "try".

Things may have changed over the years but I'd be surprised if the box ticking "go on just give it a try" stuff has vanished!

Boys are 3D people as well capable of being lovelyat times and of pushing boundaries at other times. It's not violent abusive monster vs lovely sensitive lad.

I can't find much about it because Facebook has deleted and twitter has helpfully banned some the people behind it. #refusetodatemenwhouseporn

Bish is bollocks don't use them whatever you do!

Apparently there's no real difference between a penis and a clitories apart from size, with most people having an "outy" somwhere in the middle...

Please dont' signpost your students there!

They also think lesbians love cock and link out to some material I would think is iffy for teens to be pointed at by a teacher.

It also has a really grating "down with teh kids" style of writing which will put many teens off before even started.