Sorry I haven’t blogged in ages – I have been so busy writing a PhD proposal, working and being ill.

Today it was reported on the Today Program that Rape Crisis are worried that children do not recognise what rape is and when it is happening to them or how to report it. This was interesting and not just because it lead to Robin Thicke’s rape song being played at 10 to 8 on Radio 4.

I have already blogged about why sex ed should be allowing young people to look in depth at consent and coercion (https://edgycationalist.wordpress.com/2013/09/29/five-questions-which-should-be-answered-in-sex-ed/). Now I am going to take the opportunity to write about it in more detail.

This is a seperate issue for young children and older children, so I am going to look at both.

Younger children:

We tend to believe that children are innocent and pure and that sexuality is something that happens TO young children. Only part of that is correct. Children ARE innocent and pure, and so is the sexuality that they themselves choose to explore. Children have sexual thoughts and act in sexual ways. As an infant, I explored both hetero- and homo-sexual inclinations with other children, but we didn’t consider these inclinations as something that was naughty or wrong until we were taught it was naughty and wrong by adults, we were just curious. Its at this point that our fear of upsetting social norms and paedophilia becomes potentially dangerous. Paedophilia is clearly monstrous and we do need to protect children from this, but the secrecy we surround sexuality and anything to do with sex leaves children vulnerable to sexual abuse as they don’t feel able to tell adults about this abuse without fear of being told off. Research suggests that the association that children have with parts of their bodies as being wrong and naughty (caused by our classing of anything sexual as ‘inappropriate’) means that they believe that they will be in trouble if they talk about anything to do with that area of their bodies – this makes it especially easy for abusers to manipulate children and ensure secrecy.

Added to that we use abstract constructs to teach children to be safe. Briggs and Hawkins found that children fear ‘strangers’ but all of the childrenin the study said that they would recognise a stranger immediately but they had never seen one in their lives.

“All strangers were thought to be male, dangerous and readily identifiable by their evil leer, their ugliness, staring eyes and dark apparel. Strangers were expected to wear black masks or balaclavas and dirty black clothing. They would carry children away in their old black cars. Strangers were identified as the monsters of the night who break into houses, rob and abduct.”

Why we have confused children with a fear of strangers when most instances of abuse come from people who know the child (which makes it even more scary for them to tell an adult about it) I have no idea. But it seems very obvious to me that ignoring social norms and having an open understanding of sexual behaviour is the only sensible thing to do.

Older Children

Rape Crisis are pointing more to problems with teenagers growing up with an intense sexual culture and not knowing how the ‘blurred lines’ between consent-coercion- rape are. Most songs, music videos, TV shows and fashion casually revolve around sex – I am talking about a culture where Robin Thicke is socially normalised and snap-chat ‘tit-pics’ are a normal form of sexual courtship. At this point teenagers are transitioning into adults and their understanding of adulthood is gleaned from Rihanna videos.

I feel very passionately that sex ed needs to include a detailed analysis of the difference between consent, coercion and rape because it would start to alleviate many of the problems that teenagers have when courting. But I want to add a new category. If you are only looking for consent before sleeping with someone, you are probably too close to coercive sex to be considered a reasonable human being in my view. Someone consenting needs to be enthusiastically, passionately consenting for sex to be worthwhile. Someone who has grudgingly consented has been coerced – let’s be honest with ourselves.

So what I am getting at, as always is that education is the answer. Having an open attitude and not discouraging children from thinking or talking about their sexual body parts allows them to mature sexually with a healthy attitude to sex and it also means that they are protected from the secrecy surrounding sexual abuse.

This is the same for teenagers, being able to talk about sex lightly and non-judgementally with teenage children may help them to confide their own worries about sex later in life and any pressures they may face or it may help them to feel that they are more emotionally secure and able to deal with these issues alone.

Schools have a role to play as well. Sex Ed needs to stay on the curriculum, and to take up an important part of the curriculum. Sex Ed needs to be discussed rather than taught, sexual and relationship etiquette should be discussed in great detail. Because when I was at school I was taught how to say no to boys who I was taught would want to have sex with me (actual strategies for avoiding sex) but I was never taught what coercion was – although I did learn from TV that sometimes I would not want to have sex, but I would do it anyway if my partner wanted it. I wasn’t taught that I might be involved with a partner who might respect me and my wishes and that it doesn’t make me a ‘slut’ to want to engage in sexual activities with people of either gender (or in between). I wasn’t taught about gender politics, about trans and cis people, except as normal and abnormal. Luckily my family have always been very open and non-judgemental of people’s sexual needs (up to a point).

At the moment Sex Ed is not going anything like deep enough (excuse the pun) and teachers, curriculum and parents are failing comprehensively to protect children (physically and emotionally) from the dangers of other people’s sexual needs being forced upon them.

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