The Family Sex Show to continue, despite widespread outrage

[MatthewJTaylor]

The twitter account for the theatre group behind the Family Sex Show (@ThisEgg_) has revealed that there are performances planned of the Family Sex Show despite the cancellation of the national tour and they are looking for more venues to take them on.
It seems that the Bath performance(s) is/are running.

@DomesticatedZombie "gashtrays"...As I said IN PLAIN SIGHT. By God they really hate us don't they?

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist at least they tell us clearly who they are. The women involved in this have well and truly surrendered haven't they?

I've been thinking about this video in relation to this thread. This video is important. It's a tragic story - a very brave mother (Ruth) talks about her daughter (Sophie) who's life was destroyed by viewing awful images online. This was a much older child than suggested should be brought to the family sex show. Trigger warning: suicide, child harm.

She saw awful images online that harmed her - images that are as awful, perhaps, as those you might see if you google 'animals masturbating' as suggested by the family sex show website. In this video it doesn't specify exactly what those images were, quite rightly.

This is an NSPCC video. I can't quite square the NSPCC that put out this video with the one that has done nothing about the Family Sex Show's website, twitter and show. For 5+.

What they're suggesting WILL harm children. Children aren't ready to see violent sexual images online. ANYONE who suggests googling animals masturbating to children or for parents to do with children should be NOWHERE around educating children about sex.

I know enough not to look at things I won't be able to expunge from my memory (i know what I'll get if I google what they suggest, I'm not doing it) - but I'm an adult. I have the emotional development to be able to do that. Children don't, and it's a gift to any adults who have predatory intentions.

I know they've taken that particular bit of the website down now, but anyone who does that in the first place should be barred from sex education for children because it shows a staggering lack of judgement at best, and nefarious intent at worst.

For a generation that seems obsessed with feeling safe, saying the right things, cancelling those that offend, how vulnerable certain people are etc, they sadly seem to have fuck all interest in actual safeguarding, underage teens and children or listening to those with experience or other points of view.

That's an excellent point. Universities are adding trigger warnings to Dickens and Shakespeare yet the Family Sex show suggests googling masturbating animals.

Universities are adding trigger warnings to Dickens and Shakespeare

As do some theatres for performances. The BBC has warnings for some films aka Silver Screen classics. I've just realised however, that I'm yet to see a trigger warning for women being the object of sexist banter or slapped or general domestic violence. 🤔

(And let's not get into the Social Justice notes for artefacts in various galleries and museums where people with little knowledge of the artefacts, art medium, history, fine arts and what feels like negligible life experience are very selective about the topics that they highlight.)

Yes, 'gashtray' is just horrible. But afaik making these is part of the Candid Collective's workshops for adults (albeit some very silly adults with more money than sense if they pay to go and make an ashtray that looks like female genitals. And yes, the whole sentiment of stubbing out a cigarette on a vulva is appalling but I guess these very artistic social activists think they're being very funny and clever and subversive? Or maybe running the workshops is a part of their postgraduate gender and sexuality studies?) The same people run the Candid Collective and the School Of Sexuality Education but at least they have had just about enough sense not to include 'gashtray' making as part of their school teaching sessions. I know that's not saying much - I hate the playdough genital crafting too, and they seem very focused on spreading the good news about the pleasure of clitoral touch, supposedly motivated by some patriarchy-smashing ideals...I mean, if they want to study this stuff as part of their post-grad courses and have some craftivist workshops where they make items that look like genitals among themselves as adults then ok. But it's totally inappropriate for schools, isn't teaching the kids anything they need to know and, most concerning of all, is encouraging the idea that children can consent to conversations with adults about their genitals and what they do with them. Children need adults to protect them from inappropriate sexual content, behaviour and conversations. Shifting adult responsibilities on to children to negotiate their own safety and wellbeing is dangerous and irresponsible.

Re the baffling inclusion of the instructions to google animals masturbating -
A former team member of Sexplain, now School Of Sexuality Education, is a UCL anthropology student who is doing a PhD into masturbatory behaviour in animals. Including that appalling advice to school children may well have been a staggeringly poorly judged move to include contributions from all involved without anyone bothering to think through whether it was appropriate for children. It's almost as if they've forgotten they are teaching actual kids who aren't their child selves and have been distracted by trying to soothe themselves and (going to sound very wanky now) heal their inner child that received inadequate or harmful messages about sex, puberty and relationships when they were growing up. I'm wondering if the members of SOSE are so caught up in their academic bubble and self-interests, and are so extremely naive, that they are blind to the safeguarding red flags rather than wilfully grooming kids. Either they have been left to develop educational materials without adequate supervision, or whoever is supervising is giving the green light to a safeguarding nightmare, for whatever motivation who knows?

@YesSheCan "The same people run the Candid Collective and the School Of Sexuality Education"
Thank you, well spotted.

Saw this comment underneath the Benjamin Boyce youtube vid about this...

That comment is very chilling.

Heres a better screenshot...

''Egg in trans ideology is an 'unhatched' trans person, especially a young person. Hatching (ie grooming) is the process of transing said young person. These people knew what they were doing, grooming. They are like adult teenagers pushing their parent's boundaries. They got caught.''

I hope that's just a coincidence. According to Wikipedia the theatre opened in a converted cinema and the name is from the shape of the auditorium. It seems to have had that name since 2011. So, I hope it's just a nasty coincidence. Gawd knows though, I'm almost prepared to believe anything about that lot.

I think it's confusing - the show was due to be on at the Egg Theatre in Bath (which is shaped like an egg hence the name) but it was produced/performed by an entirely unrelated (I think) theatre company called ThisEgg from Cambridge (no idea where they got their name)

So it turns out TFSS was performed in front of test audiences including children at the Theatre Royal Bath's Incubator Ideas Festival in 2019. "It was brave that they took off all their clothes just to help us learn," commented one child. (I don't know if I'm allowed to post the link?)

Flashing kids and getting called brave for doing it?

It's a neat trick.

OMG 😳

If they’ve already run test performances why so coy about the content? They should have been able to summarise what they covered in the test run on their parental guidance page. 🤔

Sorry if this has already been posted, but I'm still sniggering so it would be mean to hoard the LOLs.

I particularly like "polyamourous disease bucket"

https://twitter.com/leokearse/status/1517863046311555073?s=21&t=W9AXCsdFauUINyItNy80Bg

Also the way the producers introduce themselves by stating the bleeding obvious is the best advertisement I've seen for abolishing pronouns.

"Hello, I'm a white man with brown hair and two eyes and half a brain"....

They're all connected these people aren't they? Gayathiri is part of all 3 organisations. Incidentally the school of sex Ed website is down and gayathiri has made her insta private.

So why no info on the website?
If you trialled it and all was fine, then why not put all the info up? Did they have 5 year olds there?
Why did no one already report this? Who let their children watch it? Have they no sense?
Jesus christ I just sometimes want to throw my hands up and say fuck it all.

“Prancing around on stage like a tit” 👌

And: “Hello, I have long brown hair which is half up and half down. And I am wearing big hooped earrings but I don’t have pierced ears.”

Is this a common way for 20-somethings to introduce themselves these days? Is this what they’ve gained from a university education?

www.outspokeneducation.com/post/staging-the-conversation-the-family-sex-show

Don't see any reason why not (I see it's also archived on various sites).

At the post-show discussions – chaired by ex-Guardian theatre critic Lyn Gardner on 19 and 20 September at the Incubator Ideas Festival in Bath – Dale-Jones explains that she wants children to see The Family Sex Show not in school but, as the name implies, with someone they trust so they can then to go off and, over time, discuss the impressions it made.

And they do talk. Parents report that seeing the show provides great common ground for ongoing conversation. What resonates for the young people is that the characters lark around, are vulnerable, don’t present themselves as authorities. “It was brave that they took off all their clothes just to help us learn,” commented one child. Another said: “I love the silliness because it’s like with me and my friends.”

…A man who’s taught biology for 20 years says that he was almost in tears – this show, he reckons, needs to be seen by thousands of children.