Meeting my MP about the Proud Trust sex ed materials

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I wrote to my Conservative female MP about the Proud Trust sex ed materials in May. I told her of my objections to the fact that they:

• promoted male-focussed sexual activities to girls as young as 13
• made no mention of any safe sex requirements around, for example, inserting objects in an anus
• made no reference to breasts, clitoris
• were designed to help girls discard their natural boundaries

And that all this was funded by the tampon tax which is supposed to be used in support of women and girls.

She did not get back to me despite multiple chasing letters. I suspect someone in her office did not like my objections. I have finally secured a meeting with her on zoom next week - I had to write to the local chair of the Conservative Party in order to get this.

Now that I have this meeting, I can't think what to say. I am so angry about the Proud Trust and about the betrayal of women and girls that I don't know what else to add.

I also don't know the current status of this material - I believe it may have been withdrawn but obviously the money, taken from the pockets of women and girls, has already been spent on a product which reduces us to mere tools for men's sexual pleasure.

Can anyone calmer and more succinct than me give me some pointers? What would you raise at this point?

@GeorgiaMcGraw interesting that you don't think vulval stimulation should be mentioned. Are you aware that most women cannot climax without clitoral stimulation? Do you know that there are an awful lot of adult women who don't believe they are able to come? I think this is extremely important for boys and girls to know about. If they don't learn in sex education where do you think they get their knowledge from?

@SonEtLumiere what are you talking about?

@perfect28 so did you learn how to pleasure yourself and have sex via school lessons? That's wild. I wonder how humans have managed for so long without overbearing adults playing sex dice games with barely pubescent kids. It's a miracle, surely.

Oh dear. Vulval stimulation isn't about orifices, that's the entire point. I think you might need to scratch up on your biology.

Well done!!! It almost makes me want to contact my MP but he's a corbynite misogynist so i'd be better off not bothering.

@GeorgiaMcGraw luckily I had a very Liberal midwife for a mum, no topics off limits. Lots of girls, if not most, are not as lucky. Many come from very Conservative or perhaps religious households. As I just said, lots of women go their whole lives not understanding their own bodies or how to make sex pleasurable. This, for me, is a feminist issue, wouldn't you agree?

Its very telling that the same posters keep cropping up to tell us how normal it is that children are taught about lubing up when shoving stuff up their arses.

When even gay men will tell you that actually its quite a Risky thing to do and don't always indulge in anal sex themselves as adults as a result.

I am all for good, factual , honest and age appropriate sex education.

I'm.kot all for normalising whats probably been done as a firm of abuse to significant numbers if children in the year and encouraging activities that require a colostomy bag if done wrong by kids who listened to trusted adults , so desperate to not appear phobic in anyway they taught materials from groups that have absolutely no back ground in education biology or safeguarding.

I'm not

Dunno where the k came from.

Also well done op !!

@Whatwouldscullydo actually anal sex is perfectly safe as long as its practiced safely, with a condom, lots of lube and good communication. Biologically we have lots of nerves around our anus and many men find prostate stimulation pleasurable. Which is precisely why we should teach how to be safe rather than shying away from things we don't personally agree with. Also I work in a secondary school, so yes I have awareness and training in safeguarding. I wonder if you've ever worked with teenagers?

Inserting objects isnt though is it

And girls have ended up in hospital as a result. Some with severe damage.

These groups providing this "education" have no back ground in education or safeguarding. Akd clearly no idea about female pleasure either as the whole thing was based on treating them as nothing more than a hole.

I’ve actually had training delivered by the Proud Trust on two occasions and it was the most inoffensive session on including inclusive gay and lesbian content in the curriculum imaginable. They made a suggestion that the schools could ask students about pronouns which everybody ignored although both schools had trans students who were happily included in they school with no problems. I don’t like this resource, my objection being that it doesn’t feature breasts clitoris etc. more than it’s an explosive safeguarding issue. Schools and teachers obviously have discretion over if and how they use it - I wouldn’t want to use it in a mixed group if at all. However I don’t think it merits the total outage - although I think this particular resource has misfired, the principle of telling teenagers that there is more to sex than functional p in v is one I agree with. I absolutely agree that it needs to be taught alongside consent, pregnancy, STIs etc. But I’ve never known it not to be. We definitely do cover that in science as well as PSHE at my current school although not sure if that’s a national thing.

As regards the curriculum in general, I have been in a lesson where a year 7 girl asked about double penetration in biology. This was of course flagged immediately but it goes to show that teachers/school staff do need to be ahead of the playground chat. I have also been in lessons where the teacher has very sensibly and appropriately talked about dildos and anal sex in year 7 when asked how gay men and lesbians have sex. It was really well done as matter of fact answer to a question.- It’s certainly possible to include a mention of eg. Anal sex without it being sleazy or encouraging. I don’t recognise the view of the Proud Trust as a predatory organisation at all which I wanted to state.

As for: “They can figure out what sex they like when they're old enough to try it themselves.” I do think this is an approach that can leave girls vulnerable and/or just lead to a very disappointing sex life! If they don’t have any idea of what sex could/ should be they could be taken advantage of. Under 16s do have sex, and I would rather they knew it’s supposed to be fun and that they are meant to enjoy it - as and when they do have sex- rather than have 14 yr old girls be told that ‘it’s like that’ if they have really horrible sexual encounters.

"If they don’t have any idea of what sex could/ should be they could be taken advantage of"

The idea they (so, girls) could be taken advantage of puts the blame with the victim of rape or sexual assault. This is wrong.

I enjoy anal and always have. It's OK if you don't, it's also OK if you do. Coming from a starting point that only men enjoy it is simply not right. What's part of a normal and loving sexual relationship is that the people in that relationship can talk openly and honestly about what they like and don't like. For many couples that won't include any element of anal, for many couples it will. Different strokes for different folks! As long as safe practice and consent is at the heart of all sex education that's what really matters isn't it, not about pushing our agendas or views on sex on them but allowing a safe space for discussion.

@beargrass that completely misconstrued what that comment meant. How many girls and women have been raped but don't even recognise it as so? Teaching what sex could and should be about arms them with knowledge, which is a powerful thing!

Rough sex and inserting objects into a hole regardless of how much it hurts has already become more mainstream thanks to porn .

Do you really not think if you start normalising this stuff in the classroom they will not move on to the next extreme practice that potentially leaves them injured or worse, in order to not appear to be a pride or frigid or whatever name gets thrown at them.

If I started talking about inserting objects up my anus to my kids akd they told their teachers I'd be getting a knock at the door.

This is being sneaked in through these groups who only want to erode girls boundries to the benefit of males

Hi @beargrass I definitely didn’t mean to suggest I thought that and I’m sorry to have upset you over it. What I mean to say is that I think a lot of under 16 girls who do have sex with other under 16s have bad sexual experiences that they might think are normal because no one has ever said - hey sex is supposed to be fun and mutually enjoyable! If it’s not then it’s not something you should feel you have to go on with.
As much as I would prefer the teen girls I work with DID NOT experiment sexually with their peers - I know that it’s going to happen for some of them.

Teaching consent and reinforcing the right to have boundaries at any age is in no way the same thing as sexualising young children and teenagers. And when I was 13, my boundaries would have excluded being forced to discuss sex acts with my peers and teachers in school. I don't gaf if that's prudish in the Brave New World of queer theory.

[quote Perfect28]@Whatwouldscullydo actually anal sex is perfectly safe as long as its practiced safely, with a condom, lots of lube and good communication. Biologically we have lots of nerves around our anus and many men find prostate stimulation pleasurable. Which is precisely why we should teach how to be safe rather than shying away from things we don't personally agree with. Also I work in a secondary school, so yes I have awareness and training in safeguarding. I wonder if you've ever worked with teenagers?[/quote]
There seems to be nothing in the proud trust materials that mentions how to be safe when indulging in sex that is not ‘vanilla’ as you rather dismissively put it.

I don’t imagine that the majority of teachers are experts in anal/objects and safe practices so how are they going to advise the children on safety? Do the boys just stick it in and hope that the girls don’t suffer life changing injuries as mentioned above? Some doctors appear to specialise in the relevant reconstructive surgery so it seems more common that you would have us believe with your cheery hand wave on safety advice.

Why is it ok to be promoting something that I think the majority of women don’t particularly enjoy (I understand that you do but I don’t think that is typical - I certainly don’t know anyone who likes it) to young girls who are impressionable and more likely to be pushed into doing something uncomfortable (and potentially painful and dangerous). They need to be given help and confidence around setting boundaries and saying no, rather than being given lessons that reinforce and attempt to normalise many things they may have seen of pornography.

The Proud Trust materials and many from similar organisations are in the main very clearly not produced by anyone with a background in education and I think I mentioned before the organisation is an example of the type that the D of E has told schools not to work with.

What if they want to say yes? Is that allowed? Or would you just say they have been brainwashed etc? This reminds me of the debate around sex work, it doesn't matter how many sex workers say they want to be doing this work and they enjoy it there will always be those who call themselves feminists telling them they're wrong. The only way to make sex safe is to talk about how to make it safe. It's the same rules essentially for vaginal sex anyway, consent communication lube time and protection. Not really that different is it. Not sure why it's so difficult for people to get their heads around, nobody is telling teens they have to do anything.

They will say "yes" when they have no boundaries. Thats what things like this do. They erode boundaries.

Most of us reached all ages without knowing or having any interest in strangling someone whilst having sex

We experimented witg trusted partners and/or other consenting adults.

Discussing all this in a classroom is removing the niindries of what's a comfortable and/or appropriate conversation to have with kids under the age of consent.

If it happened at home it would he classed as non contact child abuse.

Why. Does a child need to know about how to insert objects safely into their anus or vagina?

If children are being shown porn , that is leading to these questions and this "need" to explain , then that is a safeguarding issue that needs dealing with. It is not an invitation to explain how to do it "properly "