School newsletter tells girls how to bind

[ErrolTheDragon]

There's a piece in the Times today ... parents not happy at the content of a newsletter produced by the 6th formers

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nonsuch-high-school-sixth-formers-told-girls-11-how-to-bind-breasts-k7slvrbkr?shareToken=a84af706d3b638e2ea3d2d53ea04e29d

Safeguarding around the area of breast binding is changing. I am a DSL (designated safeguarding lead) of a primary school and I had to refresh my training last month. Two years ago, my training mentioned breast ironing as something to watch out for as it damages the healthy tissue of growing girls.

This year breast binding was mentioned as well. We were reminded to be sensitive to the distress that young people with gender dysphoria feel but it was also made clear that breast binding can harm developing tissue.

The school here need to be careful with their safeguarding.

(name changed for this post)

Can anyone confirm that the newsletter was not titled FoD previously? Seems like more than coincidence.

This was the first edition of the newletter and it included reference to why it was called 'Friends of Dorothy' albeit failing to recognise that the expression was specific to US gay men's history (and not LGTQI+)

This year breast binding was mentioned as well. We were reminded to be sensitive to the distress that young people with gender dysphoria feel but it was also made clear that breast binding can harm developing tissue.

Its good to know that DSL training now includes awareness of the potential harms/risks to girls from both breast ironing and binding.

I followed the link to the LGBT foundation, and read through the material.

I’m in my mid forties and no prude, and I was a very....outgoing....young person, so this is not coming from a place of pearl clutching or naivety. But the guides that I read there have made me feel anxious and afraid of the sex described there- an absolute festival of fisting, orgies, drugs and sex toys. The guides simulateously have too much information in terms of lavish descriptions of a smorgasbord of sexual practices, and too little information in terms of clearly explaining what kind of “people with a vagina” might reasonably expect to get pregnant from a sexual encounter, or which kinds of vagina might need dilation on a regular basis.

This would be terrifying for a pre teen. Had I read this at 12, I would propbably have decided never to have sex at all. I’m not even sure this information is helpful for adults.

@borntobequiet

I knew about breast binding many years ago, because I was taught by nuns and it was known that nuns practised it as a form of self-chastisement and out of horror at their own sexed body. Other forms of self chastisement they used were hair shirts and cilices (chains they tightened around their upper arms). Then there was the fasting, constant prayer (I remember one nun telling me how hard that was on the knees), sleep deprivation (goes with the prayer cycle) and so on. I realised many years later that the place was infused with a fanatically suppressed sexuality (I won’t even start on the behaviour of some of the priests).

It amazes me that it’s in any way seen as acceptable for developing children to bind their breasts.

That's a very interesting observation. I was brought up in the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian and has no truck with nuns, so I'm really only familiar with them from other people's anecdotes and from fiction, none of which has made me feel it's a healthy way of life.

Adolescence is such an extreme time, so many highs and lows, such intensity of emotion, so little insight into how life will change once one is fully adult with greater impulse control and more responsibilities, but also far more choice over how one's life will go. It's no real surprise that many very young people end up engaging in self-destructive behaviour, and I would put breast binding in that category.

Words fail me over the idea of distributing a newsletter of this type to 11yo girls. I'm sure very few of them read it when it arrived, but that's not the point. As so many others have said, the school has been far too lax in letting this go out unchecked. It only needs one curious 11yo to follow those links and not discuss what she saw with supportive loving parents for harm to be done.

@MrGHardy

15 years ago this was not a thing. Probably 10 even. So what changed? Why are there not middle aged women doing this? If all of a sudden girls and women know more about their gender and it is more safe to do this, why is it only kids? Where are all the middle aged women who can finally be themselves?

Why do we never get an answer to this question?

Decades ago lesbians, gay men and bisexual people stood to lose their jobs if their sexuality was discovered. Gay men could be prosecuted, families torn apart, lesbians might lose custody of their children. No wonder people kept their sexuality very quiet.

However, since social attitudes have changed, nowadays people of all ages who are same-sex attracted mostly feel able to be open about that, thank goodness. Elderly people are coming out.

The same isn't happening with transmen. There's been a sudden huge increase of the number of young female to male transitioners but almost no female to male transitioners over the age of 30 or so. Why not? Where are they? There's less stigma than ever before and the number of male to female transitioners in older age groups is rising fast. Where are their ftm counterparts?

an absolute festival of fisting, orgies, drugs and sex toys. The guides simulateously have too much information in terms of lavish descriptions of a smorgasbord of sexual practices, and too little information in terms of clearly explaining what kind of “people with a vagina” might reasonably expect to get pregnant from a sexual encounter, or which kinds of vagina might need dilation on a regular basis.

I agree this would be terrifying for a pre-teen Sophocles. I also don't feel like a prude when I say I'm sure this is not the sort of sex the average 16+ teenage girl would choose for herself. I know plenty of them and the only thing that would compel the ones I know to get involved in this sort of sexual activity would be peer pressure, pressure from boys and messaging from wider society that this is acceptable (rather than really bloody dangerous for girls). Wtf are the school thinking not being really clear that this isn't the sort of thing they want pupils directed towards?

You will probably have noticed that article comments section has been swarmed...with comments removed even after initial approval.

This will certainly alert some who have previously been unaware of the censorious nature of discussion that anywhere near approaches this topic. That young girls are actively being instructed o how to bind their emerging breasts is seen as good news for the committed apologists.

Young girls are being groomed in order to bolster a movement which demands the erosion of boundaries. I wonder why?

Its good to know that DSL training now includes awareness of the potential harms/risks to girls from both breast ironing and binding

This IS good to hear, because in terms of the damage to healthy bodies, these two practices are very similar.

Absolutely, hecates

It is hard to miss it once you see it hecatescatinfancyhats.

It is quite clear once you start to notice it.

I hadn’t previously clicked on the link given for the definition of “Friends of Dorothy”. An odd choice for a newsletter aimed at girls, given that the origin of the phrase is a reference to gay men.

But given that the same link (foddefinition.carrd.co/) has the definition of “lesbian” as “non-man attracted to non-men”, I don’t suppose there’s much focus on girls at all from go to whoa. Why is “man” the default? What is a “non man”? Are gay men “non women attracted to non women.”?

You’ll not be the least surprised to learn, that according to that link gay is defined as “Refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men” and if you really don’t see that that’s howlingly lesbophobic and misogynistic, then I cannot help you. This newsletter is aimed at girls! And right off the bat, they’re disappeared.

I’m not focusing on this to rain down opprobrium just on this particular school. I’m focusing on it so we can have the discussion about how things like this happen why they happen, what parents/teachers/school governors might want to do about them if they come across similar things in their children’s schools, and how we want to talk about these things as a society.

@HecatesCatsInFancyHats

Young girls are being groomed in order to bolster a movement which demands the erosion of boundaries. I wonder why?

This. My teenage dds do not need advice on damaging their bodies, or on fisting fgs. When on earth did fisting become normalised ? Is this because anal sex has become normalised so there is a push for something even more extreme ? I am appalled, and worried for my lovely daughters, who have not yet dated anyone and imagine a future with kind and sweet natured boys.

I'm sure the majority of us have experienced our boundaries being chipped away at over the years, but this, this is boundary chipping on steroids.

@PrimaryDSL

Safeguarding around the area of breast binding is changing. I am a DSL (designated safeguarding lead) of a primary school and I had to refresh my training last month. Two years ago, my training mentioned breast ironing as something to watch out for as it damages the healthy tissue of growing girls.

This year breast binding was mentioned as well. We were reminded to be sensitive to the distress that young people with gender dysphoria feel but it was also made clear that breast binding can harm developing tissue.

The school here need to be careful with their safeguarding.

(name changed for this post)

I’m really pleased to see this. My daughter obtained a binder from a friend at school (without our knowledge). The first day she wore it at school she was sent home sick with breathing difficulties/pain when breathing. We wrote to the school to explain the risks of wearing a binder and why we did not want her wearing one. We never received a response.

You’ll not be the least surprised to learn, that according to that link gay is defined as “Refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men” and if you really don’t see that that’s howlingly lesbophobic and misogynistic, then I cannot help you. This newsletter is aimed at girls! And right off the bat, they’re disappeared.

This is really clear isn't it. This is erasure.

@PrimaryDSL

Safeguarding around the area of breast binding is changing. I am a DSL (designated safeguarding lead) of a primary school and I had to refresh my training last month. Two years ago, my training mentioned breast ironing as something to watch out for as it damages the healthy tissue of growing girls.

This year breast binding was mentioned as well. We were reminded to be sensitive to the distress that young people with gender dysphoria feel but it was also made clear that breast binding can harm developing tissue.

The school here need to be careful with their safeguarding.

(name changed for this post)

That's good to hear PrimaryDSL. Do you know who the training provider was? ie, Local authority, NSPCC etc?. (But please don't mention the name if it's outing or those seeking to remove safeguarding from children will mount one of their aggressive silencing campaigns).

That's a dreadful definition of intersex on the FOD link above.

Intersex

A term used to describe a person who may have the biological attributes of both sexes or whose biological attributes do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female.

*SirVixofVixHall

HecatesCatsInFancyHats
Young girls are being groomed in order to bolster a movement which demands the erosion of boundaries. I wonder why?
This.
My teenage dds do not need advice on damaging their bodies, or on fisting fgs. When on earth did fisting become normalised ? Is this because anal sex has become normalised so there is a push for something even more extreme ?
I am appalled, and worried for my lovely daughters, who have not yet dated anyone and imagine a future with kind and sweet natured boys.

I'm almost too reticent to ask this, but what is meant to be the benefit of fisting? I certainly can't see any for the woman, quite the reverse. And not for the man either. Unless it's about the arousal of treating a woman like an object.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

That's a dreadful definition of intersex on the FOD link above.

Intersex

A term used to describe a person who may have the biological attributes of both sexes or whose biological attributes do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female.

this newsletter seems to have been written by a 16 year old girl. I hope her parents and school teachers/governors etc are aware of the serious safeguarding issues she is implicated in and take immediate steps to protect her, as well as the other & younger children this may impact on.

Fernlake, fisting can be incredibly dangerous. The 'benefit' is supposed to be sexual pleasure, but I would say the risks make it a very extreme sexual practise and far outweigh any supposed benefit.

@ArabellaScott

Fernlake, fisting can be incredibly dangerous. The 'benefit' is supposed to be sexual pleasure, but I would say the risks make it a very extreme sexual practise and far outweigh any supposed benefit.

But who for? From what I gather, it's an exercise in endurance.

Femlake

I think there are people who find it a turn on, a combination of some sensitive nerve endings, probably looser sphincter muscles from other activities, the transgressivness, and low-level discomfort can also feed into sexual arousal because some of the chemicals it releases.

There are all kinds of problems inherent there of course - the fact that over time you are likely to totally screw up those muscles being one of them, damage to the colon, and other physical risks.

But also what people seem not to think much about now, which is that sex that requires transgression as a fuel doesn't really have a ceiling - you have to keep going further with it over time. This was taken for granted at one time and then, right around 1968it seems, was forgotten.

There were some obvious benefits for women from the huge change in social attitudes towards sex that came in in the 1960s and 70s, notably less stigma for women having sex before marriage or cohabiting and/or having a child outside marriage.

I can't help feeling though that it was out of the frying pan into the fire for many women.

Pressured into having sex or be labelled frigid.

Told marriage is just a piece of paper, so not insisting on having their financial position protected before sidelining their career after having children, while he forges ahead with his.

Pressured into accepting their male partners watching porn, even when it makes them uncomfortable.

Pressured into acquiescing to sex acts their partners learned about from porn, even when they're obviously humiliating or extremely risky and will hardly ever be enjoyable for a woman.

Women's Lib didn't go far enough.