British Museum - Sex and Relationship Education

[Imnobody4]

I despair what the hell do they think they're doing
British Museum - Sex and Relationship Education
www.britishmuseum.org/learning/schools_and_teachers/sessions/sex_and_relationship_education.aspx

National Curriculum: RSE and PSHE

Session themes exploring cultures:

• Pornography and consent – Japan, ancient Egypt and ancient Greece

• Body image – ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt

• LGBT – India, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Greece and Rome

• Gender and transgender identity – Africa, India and the Aztecs

Let’s talk about sex – The British Museum Blog
blog.britishmuseum.org/lets-talk-about-sex/

Ah yes pedophilia was normal in Roman times. Got to keep chipping away at those boundaries. So was murdering your servants but you wouldn't present that information without criticism so why is it suddenly necessary to start uncritically adding pedophilia to Roman history? Once you've rumbled queer theory there is no going back.

Jfc

Is nowhere safe??

I think it sounds quite interesting actually.

They've been doing it since 2017 anyway.
They talk about the difference between biological sex, gender identity and gender expression (not quite sure of the difference between the last two, but still sounds good to me).

I doubt the take up is very high though. It's a bit niche. I'd definitely do a tour based on this myself though. We saw images of classical pedophilia on Greek vases in sixth form and didn't grow up thinking it was normal.

The find out more text is worth a read. I don't think this is really worth a fret over.

The capture red flag for me is 'transgender identity'. It is a recent philosophical belief related to queer theory. Retro-transing Aztecs in these terms is questionabe.

Reading through, the body image one might be good, but none of the others seem suitable for 12 year olds. What qualifies historians to teach sex and relationship education anyway?

Agreed its definitely more KS4/5 stuff.

The people who designed the session will have probably been the education team, who's background will include teaching qualifications (and specialisms not just in history). No doubt they will have brought in outside expertise if needed.

I get the queer theory worry, but different cultures and different times do have different approaches to this stuff and it's interesting to think about. Ishtar didn't magically change people's sex.

*although the TRAs would burn be as a heretic for saying it

They write that the birds and bees don’t cut it anymore, which is probably true, but still ludicrous that they’ve managed to put together a sex education series with no reference to reproduction whatsoever.

There are far more pregnant teenagers in London than trans people.

Having read the article, I actually think this sounds quite good. Always hard to know exactly what is being presented, but exploring pornography through art that focuses on male and female pleasure without exploitation seems valuable.
There also seems to be a clear distinction between sex and gender.
I studied classical studies and there were lots of discussions around sex in Greek and Roman times. None made me come to the conclusion that pedophilia is normal or acceptable. It actually made it clear that in those societies only certain men had a right to decide when/how/with whom to have sex. Consent did not exist.

The people who designed the session will have probably been the education team, who's background will include teaching qualifications

Ah, OK. Got it. My first reaction is one of deep, deep suspicion and a strong need to be on my guard these days.