Should sex education classes include discussions on pornography? According to new advice launched last week to supplement the government’s own sex and relationships education guidance, they most certainly should.
What is more, the advice, jointly published by Brook, the Sex Education Forum and the PSHE Association, claims that lessons addressing issues surrounding pornography have the support of over four-fifths of parents.
But parents who say they think pornography should be taught in sex education lessons generally assume that their children will be taught that it is wrong and discouraged from viewing it. They don’t for one moment think that it will be presented as a topic for discussion, devoid of any moral framework or direction.
Yet such is the approach advocated by some of the nation’s most influential sex educators, in advice which professes to have the support of government ministers and luminaries from the worlds of education, health and child protection.
Top of the list of ‘useful resources’ comes the Sex Education Forum’s e-magazine on pornography. The Sex Educational Supplement includes a ‘Teachers’ wishlist’ which states: “We want teachers to know… That pornography is hugely diverse – it’s not necessarily ‘all bad’.
The e-magazine also recommends a page on TheSite website entitled ‘Porn vs Reality’. After briefly addressing six ‘porn myths’, none of which could be printed in a family newspaper, the article advises young people: “Sex is great. And porn can be great. It’s the idea that porn sex is like real sex which is the problem. But if you can separate the fantasy from the reality you’re much more likely to enjoy both.”
Do parents really want their teachers to help their children enjoy ‘real sex’ and ‘porn sex’? Is this what they have in mind when they say they are in favour of pornography being addressed in school? Do schools that provide such education merit being regarded ‘safe spaces’?
But there is more. Much more.
Both the Sex Education Forum’s e-magazine and the supplementary advice recommend a pack of resources called ‘Planet Porn’, which is produced by Bish Training.
The pack includes a game made up of 36 cards, each bearing a different statement. Pupils take it in turns to decide whether the statement belongs on ‘Planet Earth’ (real life sex) or ‘Planet Porn’ (porn sex). Each statement has an accompanying card which provides additional information and further points for discussion.
Other activities in the pack include ‘Porn Challenge’, which is designed to help young people “to think of ways to present sexy scenes and images which are safe, promote equality and diversity and don’t make assumptions about who may be watching porn”.
Then there is ‘Dear Doctor Love’, described as “a problem page activity which explores relationship issues like trust, intimacy, boundaries, safety, jealousy, independence, self-esteem and communication through the medium of problems that a partner of a pornstar or sexy model might face”.
Fully consistent with the relativistic approach that permeates everything that the Sex Education Forum produces and endorses, the ‘Planet Porn’ resource pack includes a ‘Porn Debate’ resource which, the publishers state, “tries to be even handed and doesn’t attempt to tell people whether porn is good or bad”.
Justin Hancock, the creator of Bish Training, makes pornography education sound almost respectable. In an article recommended by the Sex Education Forum, he suggests that it “gives an opportunity to talk about: self esteem, body image, sexual decision making, boundaries, pleasure, consent, orgasm, communication, safer sex, sexual safety, the law, feminism, equality, list (sic) and love, emotions, relationships, masculine norms, sex scripts, sexuality and oppression”.
Yet, in the very next paragraph, he reveals that, for all his sophisticated language, in practice the kind of pornography education he has in mind is much more graphic and explicit:
“Many people’s sex education from parents is simply ‘don’t get anyone pregnant’ or ‘don’t have sex till you’re older’. Talking about porn is a great way to introduce big topics that young people want to talk about.
“Asking questions like ‘why does the camera always seem to focus on the woman in straight porn’ or ‘why does sex end when the guy orgasms’ or ‘what do you think about the language used to describe people and sexual activity in porn’ brings up areas that might not otherwise be discussed.”
Once the glossy packaging is removed, it becomes crystal clear that following the advice of Brook, the Sex Education Forum and the PSHE Association would merely compound the problems associated with the sexualisation of children.
For some pupils it would run the very real danger of arousing a curiosity to search out more pornography for themselves, and for others it might put ideas into their heads for the very first time.
There is widespread agreement that the prevalence of pornography in society in general, and on the internet in particular, presents enormous challenges.
However, before we determine that the solution lies in adding pornography education to the school curriculum, we need to ask searching questions about precisely what such lessons would consist of and about the moral framework within which the subject would be addressed.
Norman Wells is director of the Family Education Trust