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I also don't know the current status of this material - I believe it may have been withdrawn but obviously the money, taken from the pockets of women and girls, has already been spent on a product which reduces us to mere tools for men's sexual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

Removing the boundaries

Phones lost it tonight

its good to teach young people (teenagers mind, not young children) that people have consensual sex for pleasure

by giving them resources that dont mention the clitoris, breasts or pregnancy?

extraordinary, really.

This is probably a very good time to post a link to this study in the British Medical Journal about teenagers who have anal sex:

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e004996

Which found that of the teenagers they spoke to who had engaged in anal sex, all the girls found it painful, and had been either tricked, coerced, or forced into it (ie, raped). The boys had absolutely no expectation that it would be pleasurable for girls (unsurprisingly, since girls don't have a prostate to stimulate) but the boys wanted to make the girls do it anyway (usually so they could humiliate, dominate or "own" the girls).

Have you read it, Perfect28? You should do.

Doubt it. They only seem interested in ensuring they don't feel able to say no, probably would eye roll and attempt to shame them by calling them vanilla religious conservatives.

I will read it but it's nonsense to say that no women enjoy anal sex because we don't have prostates. You're literally telling me my experience isn't real or valid.

When did I say we shouldn't empower them to say no?? I have said several times about the need to teach consent. 🙄

When did anyone say no women enjoy anal sex?

@AnEleanor thanks for explaining

I came on this to post the link that PearPickingPorky has; I am going to put it again to bump it up and ask Pefect28: have you had a look at this? Very good article from BMJ, which as Pear says, concludes that 'anal sex appeared to be painful risky and coercive, particularly for women' and 'young people's narrative normalised coercive painful and unsafe anal heterosex. this study suggests an urgent need for harm reduction efforts targeting anal sex to help encourage discussion about mutuality and consent, reduce risky and painful techniques and challenge views that normalise coercion'. The article is from 2014, sadly the message does not seem to have been heeded.
bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e004996

Also the 'expectation that it (anal sex)will be painful for women'

Thanks for sending said study. I wonder if you both actually read it? It's making a really strong case for anal sex to be on the sex Ed curriculum. I've screenshot 3 sections, there are more. Perhaps you should go back and re read? 🙂

@pudmyboy you realise that encouraging discussion is precisely the point of said lessons right? They are critising that said education is ad hoc and not compulsory.

It's the same rules essentially for vaginal sex [as for anal sex] anyway, consent communication lube time and protection. Not really that different is it.

What an unusual thing to say. Most women find it very different.

For goodness sake I'm saying the rules are similar not the experience!

Could you explain where the discussion about mutuality and consent is on the dice lesson plan, please? Or the discussion about women's pleasure or the challenging of views that normalise coercion?

I would have thought that teenagers being asked by an authority figure to participate in an embarrassing game that seems more appropriate for a hen party than for a school lesson would reinforce views that normalise sexual coercion, rather than challenging them.

For goodness sake I'm saying the rules are similar not the experience!

Yes the checklists you recited are similar. But they've been chosen, by you, to be the exact same checklist! It is much more sensible not to pretend that the same rules apply in both situations, it could badly mislead young people. Thank goodness you aren't a sex educator!

I have long wondered about the possibility of 'younger assistants' (or..more woke may be a better term as its not always the young of course) not passing on correspondance they disagree with. I have had many contacts with my MP about various topics. I always get swift answers (swift for an MP) and actual personal relies. Answering each of my questions, and explaining why he could not if he cannot, and letting me know the correct person to contact, if he cannot answer because its meant to be someone else. If he disagrees with any points, he lets me know this. He has to date intervened many times during my ridiculous PIP journey, has helped me with school matters, and stuff like that. Always quite clear you are speaking to an actual person rather than a robot.

On one topic alone have I had dismissive rubbish that seems like just cut and paste stuff from some general reply list. Wishy washy nonsense, that does not even get the gist of my email, let alone answer any of the concerns. I wrote about how things would affect women. The reply was all about another group. I brought up examples. These were ignored. I asked questions. These were ignored completely. I ased if he would be able to attend a meetng, ignored. Dismissive, ignored everything I wrote in favour of a couple of paragraphs lecturing me on the rights of other people and telling me basicaly how bigoted and wrong I am and how I should pretty much start worrying about this other group, instead of women and children because they are much more oppressed and sch

No prizes for filling in the blanks!

Yeah. When I first tried speaking to him about the GRA proposed changes, I got back 3 paragraphs of 'you are so mean, transpeople are discriminated against and you should support them'. I made no indication I did not support transpeople. I was concerned about how the whole thing would affect the rights of women. You know the drill, no point in going over that as we have all been there. I tried again a few months back, same deal, cut and paste crap ignoring my actual points completely.

In th past 2 months I have spoken to him about a uniform issue with DSDs school. And usual demeanor. Answering each part, letting me know he understood what I means/was asking, and then contacted another MP as it was apparently this other persons responsibility (we live in a different area to her school), kept me informed on it all..and so on.

Because of the difference, I wondered if it was possible the replies about the GRA were not him. They were made out to be him. See once I got a reply from someone on his staff, and they made that clear. This was not like that. It was signed as actually him, like most of my correspondance with him is. I wonder if I am just getting paranid on the topic now, but something seems iffy about it to me. Unfortunately I have multiple disabilities and going to an actual meeting with him to check this would not be possible. So I guess I just keep wondering.

Sorry for random essay in this thread, but it all kind of hit me at once when someone on here mentioned MPs potentially not actually being aware of constituants contacting them on certain topics..

Apologies if typos. Took my morphine not long ago and should really be asleep now but in pain so still up.

Wow, read further on in the thread now ad this was a HUG derail seemingly. Sorry about that.

The dice game is..off IMO, for 'teaching' 13 year olds. Also find the few 'vanilla' type comments to be quite off, especially when talking about sex ed for children. Also noting the lack of focus on consent, safe practise and pleasure for female people. Awfully focussed on male pleasure, unsurprisingly.

HUGE not hug. Nice one there for the thread

OK just going through the TT link someone posted earlier ( www.transgendertrend.com/proud-trust-nothing-proud/ ) about this material now and

After four hours of Sexuality aGender training what will young people have learned about sexual health? Very little about sexual health per se, nothing useful about consent, STIs, erectile or menstrual problems, or how to be safe and confident in their most intimate and emotional relationships. They will have learned there are no specific words to describe their sexed bodies because anyone can have any “body part”; that there is no such thing as normal; that there are no risks attached to anal sex that enough lube won’t solve; that rare intersex cases and the results of FGM are examples of the diversity of human genitalia.

Is a good sum up of my opinion on it all really.

And

The ideas promulgated by Sexuality aGender are particularly harmful to girls and women. The growing pressure on them to agree to anal sex [11], its normalisation via pornography and some magazines such as Teen Vogue, and the physical harms that can result are all well documented. Without the language to talk about sexual inequality, sexism and male violence, girls will be left unable to make informed decisions about consent, harms and boundaries.

It's been mentioned two more times so I want to ask this explicitly, how does a dice game which is equally weighted male to female body parts only promote male pleasure?

@SonEtLumiere the paper literally states that a reason for the negative consequences is the patchy sex education on the issue! It is you who is cherry picking what you want to see to back up your view. I've also no idea why you mentioned what I'm teaching as we don't use aforementioned resources in my school. I understand you have strong feelings here but they are misplaced. Young people must recieve rse education that includes diversity, consent, and safety which empowers them. That's it. Simple.