"Should primary school kids be taught about polyamory, the fetish spectrum & how to get breast binders?" Neil O'Brien MP

[IDareSay]

"Should primary school kids be taught about polyamory, the fetish spectrum & how to get breast binders? Should we tell kids puberty blockers are “reversible” & risk free? Teach 8 year olds about masturbation? My 2-part piece looks at how sex education in schools went so wrong."

https://x.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1938124766487228576

Hard hitting thread on X and 2 part Substack.
I know I am preaching to the choir here, but do most parents really know what is being taught in their childrens' schools?

We see so many posts on here from parents trying to push back and some are getting good results, but there need to be many more parents challenging their schools.

https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/sex-education-in-schools-part-one

https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/sex-education-in-schools-part-two

Bridget Phillipson is still “thinking about” the guidance; we need that guidance NOW. Miriam Cates and Nick Fletcher were very active on this before the election; good to see another MP pick up the baton.

(And yes, I know most of this happened on the Conservatives' watch, but at least many were trying to fix it in the last couple of years of government, including Kemi Badenoch. Labour do not seem keen on making any progress.)

That's a good sunmmary. Thanks OP. Agree that parents feel powerless to challenge this. So many of them are scared that their children will be targeted by activist adults working in schools if they dare raise these issues.
Long overdue for the government to find their courage and speak out in favour of safeguarding. If Streeting can take on the unhinged activists in the NHS, then Phillipson can start challenging them in schools.

And people want to be kind, and open minded, and to believe the many 'nothing to see here' messages, and don't realise the reality.

Kids do not need to know who is doing what with who among adults in their home. Who cares how many adults are in their home, just stop making everything sexual for little kids. It is a safeguarding issue however you look at it, whoever is involved, be it two adults or ten. Little kids should not know about fucking polycules, ever. Fucking queer theory, keep it in the lecture hall. Fuck off trying to disrupt society with your fetishes.

No, absolutely not, ever.

Let children be children; keep your adult agenda away from them.

We're also being called transphobes and bigots on school WhatsApp chats, because we're asking about what is being taught, and expressing discomfort at the idea of our children being exposed to grown up sexual behaviours.

Polyamory, why not. (In the same vein as "families come in all shapes and sizes" and "a man can love a man", obviously not the details of peoples' sex lives. Different relationship shapes have existed for thousands of years.)

And what about all the fetishes, lies about puberty blockers and all the other age inappropriate issues that little children shouldn't be bothered by. You OK with that for little children?

The question isn’t “why not?” though. The question is “why?”.

Boundaries, that’s why

Well because "poly relationships exist" is a thing that's true about the world. Just like "gay relationships exist". They might be learning about cultures where its common, some kids might have family in poly relationships. Why teach kids anything?

Yep. Do people have the faintest clue how overstuffed the curriculum is without all the niche content that everybody wants to stuff into it. That's not what schools are for. To go into a curriculum something really has to earn its place. Just the statement 'families come in all shapes and sizes' pretty much covers it- we don't have to spend time on every possible one of those shapes and sizes separately.

Meant to quote....

No. Children need to know what behaviour requires consent, what can lead to pregnancy, what can lead to damage or disease, what to do and who to ask for help if they feel at risk and what a loving and fulfilling relationship looks like. They do not need to understand other fetish or worry about their sexuality or gender because children are not sexual beings, by definition the are prepubescent.

I don't have an issue with polyamory being taught, but it's a hard no to the rest.
I've got friends in poly relationship. My DC have known them all their whole lives and that they are all girl/boyfriends together.

Children learning about the relationships in their own households is different from schools teaching about fetishes. Schools should be teaching children about consent, boundaries, and how to have empathy and show respect.

No, but kids should be taught (a) signs of people being abusers, (b) normal body processes and (c) that LGBTQ people exist.

As was evident from when Conservatives weren't so extreme, this is what they object to.

Quite.

The people who are writing these resources usually have no qualifications whatsoever in education, child development or anything else beyond their queer/gender ideology specialism, and an openly discussed agenda of getting them young to influence them away from parents with 'prejudices', such as 'this is inappropriate and factually wrong'.

Some of the content described in the article linked above would be the same content in an adult 101 class in a BDSM club, where consent and responsibility would be a much, much higher priority, and it would be adults talking to adults with sexual knowledge, experience and interest.

This should absolutely not be pushed at children. In particular, heavily biased, politicised materials that come from groups with beliefs in influencing girls to not have boundaries that make men sad, to believe that they must lie and 'learn to cope' with unwanted sexual experience rather than distress a boy/man who wishes them to enable a belief, that their consent is conditional on the boy/man's identity and special privileges and feelings, and that homosexuality is a regressive, bad thing because it sees people by sex, and homosexual people should train themselves to basically accept straight sex.

That as usual takes a nice, justifiable doorway like 'we all have different families' and 'some kids live in gay families', and immediately uses it to do things that are very questionable indeed. The end result will be of this leverage to reject and suppress homosexuality and tolerance because it will be blamed as the doorway that enabled it.

They exist, but basing my opinion on people I know who are in or who have dabbled in polyamorous relationships they usually include a coerced woman. Ditto open relationships.

I’m not saying that healthy poly relationships don’t exist, but young children don’t need to learn about them. Save some things for when they’re older and more able to understand potential complications with relationships. At 8 they should know that most children have a mum and dad, or a mum, or a dad, or 2 mums or 2 dads. Adding more people is a lot for most adults to comprehend, let alone a small child!

Polyamory being promoted and normalised by the stupid liberal middle-classes just in time for society to descend to the great oncoming patriarchal religiousnuttery tradition of men owning many wives 🙃

Honestly I think they need to stop teaching all of this stuff.

It's clear they can't be trusted to have good judgement, it's fundamentally not the role of the school, and they don't currently seem to have enough time to teach them to read, do maths, to learn history or be exposed to the basics of our literary culture.

When they can teach those things to a high level maybe come back to the other stuff and see,

We don't need to teach them the intricacies of adult sex lives. Why would we? It's not the same as explaining the battle of Hastings. And I know not where you live but polyamory isn't a thing where I live.

Can anyone show an example of a polyamorus (spelling) relationship that isn't misogynistic?

Well the one I know is 2 women and a man. So not sure the patriarchy did a good job there.

Is that sort of teaching common?

Youngest DC goes to a Catholic school where the 2nd largest group is Muslim. They don't teach that stuff there so it isnt compulsory to teach it.

No, let them enjoy being kids before all of the identifications have to be addressed! Having your primary school child coming home and talking about things they don't understand is sad.