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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Fargo79 · 16/12/2025 15:14

TempestTost · 16/12/2025 00:38

They aren't exclusive categories. Child abuse and rape can happen in all kinds of ways, pornography involving children is a particular way of that happening.

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I think the point PP is making is that the word "pornography" implies consent and legitimacy. Where the content is illegal, it's not "pornography" - it's images and video footage of a crime. Therefore "child pornography" should instead be correctly be labelled "child sex abuse images" or "child rape footage".

PollyNomial · 16/12/2025 17:10

BundleBoogie · 05/12/2025 22:37

You could just admit that you can’t find an equivalent list of female paediatricians who have sexually abused children, rather than going off to find an extremely rare and very specific type of crime that a woman has committed and trying to claim that demonstrates any sort of equivalence.

Then you make an appeal to ‘maturity’ in your dishonest attempt to obscure the fact that men commit 82% of all child sex abuse. Male nursery workers represent approximately 2-3% of the workforce yet there have been several recent convictions of male staff for sexually abusing children in their care. An infinitely higher proportion than female workers.

Why are you so determined that safeguarding should be undermined?

Inexplicably, the government are currently trying to encourage more men into childcare - paying them an additional £1000 to join. That’s a slap in the face for female nursery workers. How many kids will we sacrifice for this unevidenced idiocy?

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Safeguarding applies to individuals not groups. Applying stereotypes to whole groups of people is why racist and sexist discrimination was de facto encouraged back in the day (and clearly still is in some places). It wasn't right to do it to non whites, women as a group and it isn't right to do it to men for the same reasons. Such a narrow minded approach blinds those in positions of responsibility to the minority of women who do abuse those in their care. That more men abuse than women doesn't make my sons likely abusers. More likely, yes; likely, no.

timesublimelysilencesthewhys · 16/12/2025 17:21

Safeguarding applies to individuals not groups.

We have blanket safeguarding around age. An adult cannot join a childs sports team, its not on a case by case basis, its based on age groups.

RoamingToaster · 16/12/2025 17:34

I think it was on AIBU but I remember a woman posting a while ago that she wasn’t comfortable with having her children taken care of by a man at the nursery and she got a overall negative reaction. Lots of posts saying she was horrible and weird etc. I think there’s good intention behind lots of equality movements but sometimes they don’t factor in reality.

PollyNomial · 16/12/2025 17:51

timesublimelysilencesthewhys · 16/12/2025 17:21

Safeguarding applies to individuals not groups.

We have blanket safeguarding around age. An adult cannot join a childs sports team, its not on a case by case basis, its based on age groups.

Contact sports are increasingly aware that approach is not actually safeguarding children appropriately in that respect. If you have a Y6 pupil who has the physical attributes of an athletic Y12-Y13 pupil, grouping purely by age is then potentially dangerous for everyone else.

I had understood the discourse to be about staff/volunteers and I maintain this should be considered at an individual level unless you want to open the door to returning to widespread, unevidenced discrimination against people who are one or more of women, non-white, disabled, non-straight, divorced, certain religions, ...

timesublimelysilencesthewhys · 16/12/2025 18:12

Adults aren't allowed join children swimming groups because of the risk of sport injuries, are they?

borntobequiet · 16/12/2025 22:12

PollyNomial · 16/12/2025 17:51

Contact sports are increasingly aware that approach is not actually safeguarding children appropriately in that respect. If you have a Y6 pupil who has the physical attributes of an athletic Y12-Y13 pupil, grouping purely by age is then potentially dangerous for everyone else.

I had understood the discourse to be about staff/volunteers and I maintain this should be considered at an individual level unless you want to open the door to returning to widespread, unevidenced discrimination against people who are one or more of women, non-white, disabled, non-straight, divorced, certain religions, ...

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Neat swerve. The comparison was adults playing in children’s sport.

In cases such as you describe, it’s common for children to “play up” in a group more sorted to their physical development/ability.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 16/12/2025 22:32

Wetoldyousaurus · 04/12/2025 21:24

We don’t need to ban men from working with all children. But certainly there is a good argument for not having men work unsupervised with pre verbal children and possibly up to the age of about 6. After this age most children are able to to be taught to draw attention to ‘untoward’ behaviour and, are not likely to need help with toileting or changing clothes, so there are far fewer opportunities to abuse sexually. Trusted male friends have warned me on various occasions while we have young children not to take on male student boarders in our home and not to employ teenaged male baby sitters. I think I’ll take these men’s word for it rather than the ‘be kind’, ‘not all men’ mostly women who put their children into risky situations with men just to prove how virtuous and inclusive they are.

Replace 6 with 18. I was eight when I didn't disclose sexual assault by two older boys. One of my friends at school disclosed her step"dad"'s sexual abuse to the A&E duty psychiatrist after she failed in a suicide attempt. She was in her mid-teens. When you consider the vast power an adult man has over any child in his care, and consider that some of the children will be autistic or in some other way vulnerable, any child is at risk.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 16/12/2025 22:39

MarieDeGournay · 04/12/2025 23:05

Unfortunately, men find opportunities to abuse children in all sorts of settings, and in all age groups - family homes, schools, sports clubs, dance classes, hospitals, places of worship, summer camps, swimming pools, choirs, shopping centres, TV studios..

And it's not just grown men: rape and sexual assault by young boys - as young as 10 in some cases - is a growing feature in crime stats. There was a horrific sexually motivated murder of a 14 year old girl in Dublin in 2018 - the perpetrators who were two schoolmates of hers, were only 13 years old.

It's difficult to establish what and where is a safe space for women and children, as long as men and women are mixed together in so many contexts, sometimes by choice - most women choose to be in a relationship with men - and sometimes not, when formerly women-only spaces are encroached on by trans-identifying men.

I have no answers. There may be no answers. There are however a lot of hard questions to ask of men, and what they are doing to stop violence and abuse against women and children.

This group gives me some hope:
White Ribbon UK

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The boys who SAed me were at most 11. Boys have been perps since the Ark, as alluded to in the nursery rhyme Georgie Porgie. "Kissed the girls and made them cry" is a clear reference to sexual harassment.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 16/12/2025 22:52

TempestTost · 16/12/2025 00:38

They aren't exclusive categories. Child abuse and rape can happen in all kinds of ways, pornography involving children is a particular way of that happening.

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I use the term "child sexual abuse images" to make it clear that the images are not of consenting adult pornographic actors but are of children being abused.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 16/12/2025 22:55

TempestTost · 16/12/2025 01:02

I don't know if you ever read the detrans forum on reddit, but there was a post there recently about a young women who had detransitions and stopped testosterone mainly because she was really frightened and traumatised by the changes in her sexuality. Not in terms of the sex of her partners, she was interested in men. But the obsessive, high risk sexual behaviour, weird fetishes, and so on. all of which stopped when she stopped the hormones. It really struck me that it was an unusual window into something like what some men seem to describe experiencing.

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Is there a medically-safe way to lower men's testosterone levels?

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 16/12/2025 23:00

PollyNomial · 16/12/2025 17:10

Safeguarding applies to individuals not groups. Applying stereotypes to whole groups of people is why racist and sexist discrimination was de facto encouraged back in the day (and clearly still is in some places). It wasn't right to do it to non whites, women as a group and it isn't right to do it to men for the same reasons. Such a narrow minded approach blinds those in positions of responsibility to the minority of women who do abuse those in their care. That more men abuse than women doesn't make my sons likely abusers. More likely, yes; likely, no.

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Tell me exactly how race compares to sex when considering safeguarding?

It doesn't. That men are enormously overrepresented as sexual offenders isn't a stereotype, it's an observation of fact. Race isn't a risk factor for committing child abuse, being male is.

TempestTost · 16/12/2025 23:36

DrBlackbird · 16/12/2025 11:19

Whilst no one said it wasn’t important to protect kids, certainly the subtext by some was that posters here are being ridiculous to agree with Julie Bindel’s argument that men should not work in nurseries.

Including making an incomprehensible and utterly insensitive comparison between men sexually assaulting infants and women working in accounting. I mean, wtaf was that? Then dialling back but still making further whataboutery arguments. Seemingly without acknowledging hard data. Leaves me puzzled about the underlying reasoning for going down this line of misplaced arguments instead of the issue at hand.

In most of the cases of serial child abuse in institutions / schools there were red flags that were ignored / explained away. Boundaries were crossed, abusers set up excessive secrecy in order to abuse and these weren't challenged. Staff felt unable to challenge those in more powerful positions - and of course children thought they'd not be believed.

If I was a parent of one of those abused or raped infants, then the bottom line for me would be, no more males in nurseries. Despite that NAMALT and despite knowing some lovely young men who work well with children.

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No, they are really just disagreeing with you. Which doesn't mean they should be accused of being blase about sexual assault of children.

People can understand data and have very differernt ideas about what it's implications are, without it being in bad faith.

People can also have differernt views about principles - such as whether it is ever ok to discriminate against a whole class of people in employment due to criminal behaviour by a small number. That can come down to a number of points of differernce, but a not small one is what the larger social implications implications of allowing that would be - what other issues could the same logic be applied to, if that principle is allowed under the law.

I also think a lot of people seem to misunderstand the purpose of comparisons of different things - it isn't to say they are the same - if they were the same it would not be useful to compare. They are to test the logic of particular points in isolation from other elements. Sometimes they don't work, but they don't have to be matters of equal weight to make a useful comparison. In fact it's often more effective if they are not matters of equal weight.

This tactic of implying that others, when they disagree with you, must simply be blase about, or even condone, sexual abuse, is really inappropriate and very much comes off as a kind of bullying attempt to make people shut up. I'm pretty sure that if people said they thought this kind of segregation would not be very effective, and therefore you must have some kind of underlying motive to suggest it, you would be pretty cheesed off.

DrProfessorYaffle · 16/12/2025 23:48

MrsOvertonsWindow · 16/12/2025 12:02

If you read the details in the article it's apparent that not only were the hospital aware he was a sexual predator but they dismissed the risk in favour of "be kind" - so typical of the NHS.

The review exposed the fact that countless staff - mainly younger women - clearly saw the risk he posed to others. He insisted on catheterising women - presumably this should be done by a doctor, not an anaesthetist? This was described as being "on the outer limits of what was acceptable" for his role. In other words he sexually assaulted women in the operating theatre in plain sight.

But of course, nobody was to blame but the review amazingly uncovered that the hospital had an "unsafe sexual culture" and that women staff weren't listened to. 🙄

Worth reading those links as I suspect that the findings will be mirrored in most of the NHS given what we know about the lack of safeguarding and care for women's safety.

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There is no way that an anaesthetist should have anything to do with catheters in theatre.

They're responsible for managing the sedation and pain and monitoring vital signs of the patient. They should have nothing to do with the procedures being undertaken.

(I'm taking my line on this from watching documentaries on TV btw)

Properly weird. And it seems to have been glossed over - I wonder if those women were ever made aware.

Why would the MPTS think a voyeur was a suitable person to be given access to women who are vulnerable and undressed?

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 17/12/2025 00:43

TempestTost · 16/12/2025 23:36

No, they are really just disagreeing with you. Which doesn't mean they should be accused of being blase about sexual assault of children.

People can understand data and have very differernt ideas about what it's implications are, without it being in bad faith.

People can also have differernt views about principles - such as whether it is ever ok to discriminate against a whole class of people in employment due to criminal behaviour by a small number. That can come down to a number of points of differernce, but a not small one is what the larger social implications implications of allowing that would be - what other issues could the same logic be applied to, if that principle is allowed under the law.

I also think a lot of people seem to misunderstand the purpose of comparisons of different things - it isn't to say they are the same - if they were the same it would not be useful to compare. They are to test the logic of particular points in isolation from other elements. Sometimes they don't work, but they don't have to be matters of equal weight to make a useful comparison. In fact it's often more effective if they are not matters of equal weight.

This tactic of implying that others, when they disagree with you, must simply be blase about, or even condone, sexual abuse, is really inappropriate and very much comes off as a kind of bullying attempt to make people shut up. I'm pretty sure that if people said they thought this kind of segregation would not be very effective, and therefore you must have some kind of underlying motive to suggest it, you would be pretty cheesed off.

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whether it is ever ok to discriminate against a whole class of people in employment due to criminal behaviour by a small number.

We can already, completely legally, declare jobs to be for one sex only where it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Safeguarding kids is a legitimate aim, so the only outstanding question is whether excluding men from childcare posts is proportionate.

a not small one is what the larger social implications of allowing that would be

We also need to consider the social implications of not doing so.

Case in point: earlier this year, there was an almighty row because the Society of Radiographers opined that women don't need guaranteed-female screening mammographers. There was considerable dissent for good reasons and the suggestion seems to have been quietly kicked into the long grass after reports that patients had mistaken this opinion for a change in NHS policy and had cancelled screening appointments sooner than risk having a man handle their breasts. The SoR hadn't considered the larger social implications of making breast screening a "more inclusive" field of employment.

The social implications of men being allowed to work in early years care is children being molested in care settings at a higher rate than if men are excluded from those roles. This is not something that can be ignored.

Allow male health workers to perform breast examinations to help tackle workforce shortages, says So | SoR

A motion at the SoR's Annual Delegates Conference calls for a policy change to promote equitable access to radiography careers.

https://www.sor.org/news/mammography/allow-male-health-workers-to-perform-breast-examin

PoeticEnding · 17/12/2025 01:34

The consensus here is that to be born male is a genetic crime. They are more likely to commit violent or sexual offences. Its biology. They should be treated with suspicion, banned from jobs or situations with access to children, women or girls. Men are increasingly seen as a lesser form of humanity. I think men and boys are starting to realise this, as they listen to women discussing them and their behaviour's. Equality cannot be applied to them, as other members of society must have priority of security and feelings. A tough message for our young men to hear.

Supersimkin7 · 17/12/2025 01:45

I would rather see increased awareness, training, safeguarding measures, and indeed research into and intervention for men who have these paraphilias to catch and treat them before they harm anyone

How? Me neither.

borntobequiet · 17/12/2025 04:33

PoeticEnding · 17/12/2025 01:34

The consensus here is that to be born male is a genetic crime. They are more likely to commit violent or sexual offences. Its biology. They should be treated with suspicion, banned from jobs or situations with access to children, women or girls. Men are increasingly seen as a lesser form of humanity. I think men and boys are starting to realise this, as they listen to women discussing them and their behaviour's. Equality cannot be applied to them, as other members of society must have priority of security and feelings. A tough message for our young men to hear.

No. The consensus here is that men as a sex class are more likely to commit sexual and violent crime and that women and children are likely to be victims. This is borne out by statistics, experience and common sense.
As a result, males should be under more scrutiny in some types of employment, women and children should be properly safeguarded and some jobs should be restricted to women.
Most reasonable men are well aware of how dangerous the worst of their sex can be and fully support this in order to protect the women in their lives.

ArabellaSaurus · 17/12/2025 07:15

Bagsintheboot · 04/12/2025 12:32

I know what you're saying, but to be honest I'm not really thinking about it from the perspective of whether it's "fair" to men, although I'm sure that's a wider consideration.

My main argument is that a) it's completely unrealistic to keep children separate from half the population, many of whom will be their relatives, b) I think preventative measures and intervention at an early age for these men would keep many more children from harm than arbitrary laws about who can work in a nursery, and c) (a more minor point in this context) I don't want to see a return to the idea that childcare is women's work. We've spent quite a bit of time fighting against that, let's not give fathers an excuse to totally absolve themselves of any parenting.

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It's really not? For the first three years of their lives, my children were with their parents, their nan, or a childminder. Then nursery, all staff were female. School - all teachers were female.

Secondary school it changes, but I can't think of an instance my children were in the care of a male I didn't personally know under the age of 11.

Childcare is thoroughly and overwhelmingly staffed by females. This has nothing to do with how involved fathers are.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 17/12/2025 09:20

DrProfessorYaffle · 16/12/2025 23:48

There is no way that an anaesthetist should have anything to do with catheters in theatre.

They're responsible for managing the sedation and pain and monitoring vital signs of the patient. They should have nothing to do with the procedures being undertaken.

(I'm taking my line on this from watching documentaries on TV btw)

Properly weird. And it seems to have been glossed over - I wonder if those women were ever made aware.

Why would the MPTS think a voyeur was a suitable person to be given access to women who are vulnerable and undressed?

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Yes. He was convicted of secretly filming in a campsite showers yet the NHS welcomed him back, worried about his mental health rather than his predatory behaviour. He was allowed to access to unconscious naked women & manipulate their bodies in preparing them for operations.
But because the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital had an "unsafe sexual culture" staff concerns were ignored. The extracts from that review read as dismissive and complacent - testimony as to how safeguarding concerns are continually minimised in the NHS.

Fiftyandme · 17/12/2025 09:22

Proof that the DBS system only weeds out the ones that have been caught

MrsOvertonsWindow · 17/12/2025 09:26

Fiftyandme · 17/12/2025 09:22

Proof that the DBS system only weeds out the ones that have been caught

Except he was caught but welcomed back into the NHS workplace - as so many predators appear to be.
And then his behaviour ignored just as with the paedophile in the OP.

DrProfessorYaffle · 17/12/2025 09:33

MrsOvertonsWindow · 17/12/2025 09:20

Yes. He was convicted of secretly filming in a campsite showers yet the NHS welcomed him back, worried about his mental health rather than his predatory behaviour. He was allowed to access to unconscious naked women & manipulate their bodies in preparing them for operations.
But because the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital had an "unsafe sexual culture" staff concerns were ignored. The extracts from that review read as dismissive and complacent - testimony as to how safeguarding concerns are continually minimised in the NHS.

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Many of the news reports about the Royal Devon case stress that it was images of children and not patients etc and fail to mention the high probability that women were inappropriately accessed by this man in the course of his work.

I think all the points in this report about overwhelmingly lower status women trying to raise concerns and being ignored is SO relevant to the Peggie and Darlington cases.

And yet the NHS carries ojt these reports in individual.trusts and doesnt share the lear ing or encourage system wide changes in practice.

timesublimelysilencesthewhys · 17/12/2025 09:46

I think preventative measures and intervention at an early age for these men would keep many more children from harm than arbitrary laws about who can work in a nursery

Not having men work in nurseries is probably the best preventative meaure, and it wouldn't be arbitrary it would be based on safeguarding.

intervention at an early age for these men

Even if this was proved to work, what happens in the meantime? Can we exclude adult men who haven't had this invention from an early age?