"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.)

And you think that isn't every man's wet dream?

I don't want my kids taught that polyamourous relationships are healthy or that they should be normalised. Which is how the school would have to treat it, because being "neutral" is effectively the same as saying it's ok to kids.

So traditional polygyny.

But it is ok. If everyone is happy and consenting.
I don't necessarily think they should have to teach about them. But if it comes up then they need to be able to say that it's valid. That's all I was saying.

Yes. Sorry. I'm sick and my brain isnt working. The 2 women definitely have the "power" so to speak though. They own the house they live in, he pays rent. They are married to each other. He is an "extra" as it were.
It wouldn't work for me, but they've lived this way for 20 years now and are happy.

Many people do not think it is ok. That is very much your opinion.

And it's not the role of schools to go around telling kids that it's ok, or for that matter, that it isn't. And contradicting what their parents are telling them. It's over-stepping.

A bloke going with two women is hardly smashing the patriarchy.

Of course it's my opinion. My DC were at school with people who didnt think same sex relationships were OK. Schools still teach about them. Because they aren't illegal even if some people disagree with them.

But do primary children need to know about it?

It isn’t okay though, just because it’s not illegal. We’re quite entitled to make collective decisions about what social arrangements we do and do not want.

One of those arrangements is ‘let people basically arrange their own lives as they see fit’. Another is ‘we should aspire to faithful monogamy’. Just because we have the first, it doesn’t mean the second one has gone away.

It’s weird, in 2025, to find people still acting as that basic tolerance, or ideas like ‘as long as everyone consents’, somehow means that so long as you can do something then it should be celebrated. I think we’ve moved on from that.

It not being ok is your opinion. I think it is ok. Its not for me, but that doesn't mean it isn't ok.
And I don't think children need to learn about it. But if it comes up somehow then teachers need to be able to say something.

Whilst this isn't perhaps the perfect thread for this, the delayed KCSIE (keeping children safe in education) statutory guidance has been confirmed to be released this month, almost 2 months later than normal.

'The Department for Education this morning revealed the document – which gets updated each year – will include links to latest relationships, sex and health education guidance and “revised guidance on gender-questioning children”.

KCSIE sets out the legal duties schools “must follow to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18”."

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-promises-delayed-kcsie-guidance-this-month/

Thank you. This will be interesting. The draft guidance from the last government wasn't perfect but in the light of Cass, the SC judgment and the continual revelations about the harm being done to children from social transitioning I hope that the basic principles of safeguarding, anti bullying, parental involvement will be confirmed.

Hopefully it'll arrive before the school summer break starts, and will be joined up with the SC's judgment.

I feel unbelievably naive saying that.

I can start a new thread, if you think it is appropriate?

Good idea. I'd given up hope of this government tackling this and am now fretting about what extent the extreme transactivists in the civil service and labour may have had?
But if Phillipson's been speaking with Streeting then maybe there's hope?

So polygamy then? The man getting his own way and convincing the women they like it that way!