This myth-bust was inspired by yesterday’s debate about sex and relationships education on the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live. You can watch it on iPlayer here.
On the show Lynette Burrows, ‘family rights campaigner’ claimed that sex education in schools is ‘unhealthily obsessed with destroying childhood innocence in a way that’s reminiscent of paedophilia.’ She accused sex educators of ‘talk(ing) dirty to little children’ and described SRE as ‘a stranger in a classroom showing (children) dirty pictures’.
She was backed up by Nick Seaton from the Campaign for Real Education who claimed that primary school education included ‘explicit details of male and female genitalia’ as well as, outrageously, non-judgmental teaching on heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
Although a lot of tosh was spoken on the show, it’s this disgust with telling children the names of their body parts which we want to focus on today. Presumably the ‘dirty pictures’ Burrows references are things like diagrams of male and female reproductive organs. We’re not talking pornography here but likely illustrations of labelled genitalia showing the vulva, vagina, urethra and so on (and yes, there are still plenty of young men and women who don’t realise that women have more than one ‘hole’). We would argue that in fact, telling young people what the different parts of their body are called is not about destroying children innocence. In fact it gives them the appropriate language they need to describe their own body parts. Body parts they can see every day just by looking down! Body parts they may well need to talk to a doctor (or yes, a lover) about one day. Such language is particularly important for the recognition and reporting of sexual abuse. Through sensitive and evidence-based SRE children can learn which sort of touching is appropriate in which situations.
Alice Hoyle (who also appeared on the show as an actual sex educator) has written a great blog about this with loads more detail. We suggest you check it out. Another teacher adds her thoughts here. Oh and do visit Scarleteen for more information about (and ‘dirty pictures’ of) male and female gentialia.
Monday, 17 October 2011
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If you have no objections, I'll crosspost my response to Alice's blog here as well, as I'd like as many people as possible to consider taking some action:
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem, of course, is that reasonable, *normal* people don’t get a right of reply. It’s only the loonies and bigots who get to have their shrieking vileness heard in the name of balance.
They shout loudly and so their voices are heard. So must we, so that our shall too. Complain about this to the BBC. Complain about this to your Union if you are a teacher of SRE in the NASUWT or the NUT. Complain about this to your MP – if your MP is a decent human being and not Nadine Dorries.
People like Blithering Burrows are allowed to carry the debate because the silent majority of decent human beings don’t want to make a fuss. But in this case, our young people deserve better. We all have contacts with Brooke, with Marie Stopes, with FPA, with PCTs; they all have media departments or PR contracts. The Campaign for ‘Real’ Education and Burrows may think they can shout loudly: they need to learn that being *reasonable* does not mean you can be shouted down.
Make some noise, people.