The Family Sex Show - 'Cancel Culture' - in the Guardian

[DomesticatedZombie]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/10/cancel-culture-rightwing-activists-family-sex-show

'... the world – especially the digital world – we live in means that we don’t have control over what we or our children see.'

Article by the woman who owns ThisEgg, the company staging The Family Sex Show.

Demonstrating she has understood nothing, despite having thankfully removed one of the most egregious parts of the website - the part where children were encouraged to google masturbating animals. So presumably she understood at least on some level that there is such a thing as inappropriate content.

End of the article:

'Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at [email protected]'

No one is an expert on anything other than themselves.

I don't think she understands what the word expert means.

The 'right wing activists' in fact being social workers, educationalists, a lot of kids' mums - a hell of a lot of whom have the safeguarding training and knowledge of children and appropriacy that this person lacks.

"The outcry on social media and the subsequent petition used words and ideologies that are rooted in queerphobia, racism, fatphobia, ableism, misogyny and transphobia."

Was the aim just to list lots of isms and phobias!

This reads very 'poor me all I want to do is talk about sex with children and it's JUST one nude scene'.

"In reality, the world – especially the digital world – we live in means that we don’t have control over what we or our children see" says 29 year old Josie, who I'm pretty sure has no kids. What a weird argument - they might see dodgy stuff online anyway so why not top it up with some on-stage weirdness too? Also I'm pretty sure I had control over what my kids saw when they were 5.

The Guardian is just a joke these days, isn't it? Don't they have any sense of shame or embarrassment at publishing this nonsense? They've descended into self-parody.

Ah right, it's a 'bad stuff can happenanyway, so just let it happen to your kids, and help us do it'?

Is she still coming back for more. thisbwas so so wrong on all of the levels.

Am I right in thinking they have taken the google animals wanking and draw a picture part they website down now. God I hope so very much

Of there*

Absolutely swimming in queer theory and porn culture. At what point did we get to, 'Yes, it IS, that's why we must expose this to children '? It's bizarre, This is Egg are the extremists.

It just worries me, this theatre group has been given a certain amount of power: funding & support, a voice in the press, venue bookings.

Why do we now have this platforming from The Guardian and the BBC? I feel we haven't seen the end of this and it will find a way to rear it's ugly head.

Didn’t the bbc news website have to publish a clarification that the theatre company had lied about involving child safeguarding experts in the production from the outset / at all? Albeit in teeny tiny letters at the end of their too sympathetic wah wah suck up piece on it…

sorry too tired to try to find the reference but think there is a thread on here.

got much too cross about this earlier and angry tweeted at them to be ignored of course. By all means publish the cry baby I’ve been cancelled by the big meanies, but for god sake, do the accompanying journalism and look at whether they are justified or whacking great perverts asking kids to Google animal masturbation and singing arias about how no one can find the fucking clitoris.

I am almost more irked by that than the wanking animals to be honest - for god’s sake, little girls usually can find their clits. Not trying to be crude or play their disgusting fucking game but honestly, for fucks sake, who wrote that bit - it certainly cannot have been anyone other than an adult human male?

"We must disrupt the culture in which children and young people are taught shame and fear, in which sexual violence is normalised."

Wait, what does this mean? I do teach my children to fear people who encourage them to Google masturbating animals, to be honest. I don't take kindly to someone who wants to disrupt my teaching of that.

Who among us was encouraging sexual violence, and how exactly did this 'theatre production' plan to address that? I am very confused.

They have a platform in the Guardian because the Guardian did an initial piece on this a few months ago. Obviously that piece didn’t mention the website with a glossary that lists pegging alongside playwright, or how it instructs children to Google “animals that masturbate”. So I imagine Josie Dale-Jones went back to the Guardian and said “YOU were okay with our play, will you let me write a defence of it against the big meanies who think we are wrong to show our naked bodies to children?”

At which point the Guardian could have gone one of three ways:

1. admit to themselves and everyone they got it wrong and refuse
2. admit to themselves only they got it wrong but be too cowardly to refuse and decide to plough on regardless so as not to lose face
3. not realise at all that they got it wrong and happily support Dale-Jones in continuing the idea that adults naked in front of children and googling masturbating animals is a good idea.

I suspect it was option 3. Because the Guardian never admits it’s wrong. Like when they published Jamie Shupe, America’s first legal “non-binary” person, I don’t remember the Guardian’s follow up article on Shupe admitting he has AGP. Or the lies about Wi Spa.

It's a nonsensical argument. It's effectively saying - your children will be watching hardcore porn and snuff movies from the age of 3 so your job is to explain that nicely to them.

the Guardian's appalling silence on WiSpa since the news came out that the transwoman involved was a serial voyeur and sex offender is utterly revolting. At least two articles claiming it was 'fake news', iirc? And nothing since.

Lying fucking liars.

I have written my first Guardian letter.
The Family Sex Show is abhorrent.

She didn't really address any of the major issues people had with it! If it's not ok for a child to see a stranger in the nude on the street why does she think it's ok to see one on stage? I think it's sneaky too to say that this is about right wing extremists getting things cancelled - no, it's about people who are genuinely concerned for safeguarding reasons. I'm liberal, pro choice, anti racism, anti- homophobia etc, a feminist -not right wing in the least and I can see all sorts of issues with this show. I'm all for body positivity but there are better ways to teach children this then showing them naked strangers, FFS. It's not about cancel culture, it's about safeguarding and children not having to listen to songs about the clitoris or being asked to google wanking animals!
The show also didn't have to be cancelled, they could have just agreed that perhaps children of 5+ shouldn't watch it, and made it an adult only show instead. No one would have had an issue with it then. But then I guess they wouldn't have gotten so much publicity and media coverage so... 🤔

I am hoping that someone with a solid background in safeguarding will write the counter-letter.

Talk about only telling half a story! So screwed. Stopped buying that paper entirely it’s ridiculous

Josie doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the box. Incredibly poorly argued piece.

the world – especially the digital world – we live in means that we don’t have control over what we or our children see.'

Nonsense. I had absolute control over what my children saw online until they were much older than five. Not only did I have absolute control, I also had the responsibility to exert that control as a parent. I even went to school and my son's friends' parents when aged nine or ten they were innocently sharing their names and addresses in an online chatroom they did not know was public. It's certainly true that some of those parents had no idea, but they could have exerted their parental control had they wanted too. The school then proceeded with internet safety lessons to ensure the children could understand why this was dangerous and how to safely engage online.

Then, too, my kids only got a smartphone when they started high school. I checked their internet activities regularly and the main condition of having the privilege of a smartphone was that I would check their activities whenever I chose. Of course as they got older I did this with decreasing frequency in line with the increasing privacy needs of my teens.

But the notion that parents cannot control what their children see on the internet betrays the writers ignorance of modern parenthood. It is true that we cannot control the Internet. That's why we must control our children's access to it. I believe that parents who do not do so fail in safeguarding their children. (As always, this should of course be done in an age appropriate way.)

And the idea that adults cannot control what they see on the internet - does the writer truly understand what that statement means? I decide what I access online. Nobody forces me to watch or avoid anything.

I wonder if critical thinking is anathema to those infused with queer theories...

Tbh they could have and should have come here and cribbed the mumsnet version,

sings tiredly

the vulva is the outside,
the vagina is inside,
if people try to tell you
a girl’s parts areeeeeeee
a vaginaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (warbling like Beyoncé or fancy singer)
they are wrong (maybe some beat boxing? Leading to a rap about the vulva clitoris and the labia, Majora and minor you know where they be at?)

then there is the uterus
such a special duderus
with her bro-veries the ovaries
they got a special cycle going on
for after you hit puberty

so introducing and normalising periods instead of just fiddling with your genitals, etc. with apologies also for the plagiarising of parks and rec…

Yes the fact they'd rather cancel it than make it for an older (say 16+) age group is rather disturbing.

Almost as if talking about sex with small children was the MAIN POINT.

I've done several safeguarding courses in the past year for my job and volunteer roles and every single one said that child sexual abuse could include inappropriate discussion of sexual practices with young children (it absolutely doesn't have to be touching) - this means inappropriate adults (e.g. random stranger actors) discussing inappropriate things (like porn, which the show says it will discuss, and masturbating animals - on their website) and at inappropriate ages. In either of my roles if I came across something like this happening to a child I should make a safeguarding referral.

They've made absolutely no attempt other than word salad to explain why it's in any way appropriate for this to be aimed at primary age children.

If they knew any children, at all, they'd realise that typically children don't get phones until secondary school and do not have unsupervised internet access even then. Again, an example of something that could trigger a safeguarding referral is when young children have accessed inappropriate movies / online content (like masturbating animals) and talk about it with their teacher / other adult in position of responsibility.

Any teacher who had a child talking about the stuff in this show in their class (particularly a 5 year old - in RECEPTION FFS) should raise a safeguarding concern. It's a red flag to have a very small child talking about porn, masturbation etc.

Also, every single course says safeguarding is FOR EVERYONE. And yet, we have the Guardian, clearly a safeguarding free zone, criticising mothers who dare to try and protect their children.

Shame on you Guardian - in the interests of balance how about getting a real safeguarding expert in to analyse this show?

Remember how horrified the Guardiany middle classes were when Michael Gove declared "we have had enough of experts" a few years ago? And now they're the ones cheering on stuff like this and children demanding surgery because of something they saw on Tumblr.

🤣🤣🤣 that is hilarious