Virginity no longer exists
Posted: Fri May 05, 2023 7:01 pm
From: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex- ... -rll5gz2jp
Sex lesson provider urges children to become ‘activists’Charity in row with parent also claims that virginity doesn’t exist
A sex education provider which argues that there is no such thing as virginity is encouraging pupils to become activists of the future, documents reveal.
The School of Sexuality Education earns most of its income by providing relationship and sex education lessons to primary and secondary schools.
The London-based charity is in a legal dispute with Clare Page, a parent who became concerned over the allegedly “contentious theories being taught as fact” in a lesson the organisation gave to her teenage daughter.
The group has refused to tell Page who taught her daughter or what the lesson entailed, saying that to reveal such commercially sensitive information would harm its business.
Government guidance says that parents should be able to see all teaching materials, even when the lessons are provided by third parties.
Dolly Padalia, chief executive of the organisation, has denied that the group’s lessons on sex, gender and identity promote any partisan or political views. However, examples of SSE teaching materials seen by The Times, encourage youngsters to become “activists”.
It states: “Using what you have seen, read and thought about so far, think about what you and your communities could do to celebrate sex-positivity and sexual diversity. You could even chat about this with friends over Snapchat/FaceTime to try to make some activist plans for the future!”
Other SSE material encourages children to continue classroom conversations about sex on to private video calls and online platforms, such as TikTok, Snapchat and Facetime.
“Why not try turning all of your points so far into a quickfire asexuality explainer video for Tiktok?” suggests one activity.
“Arrange a Zoom/Facetime/Snapchat with a group of friends and discuss what you would like to be included in your sex and relationships education classes,” says another.
The charity claims that the worksheets were developed as an extra resource during lockdown and do not form part of its curriculum.
At a tribunal hearing this week, Padalia denied there was a safeguarding risk that these conversations could be recorded, leaked and circulated beyond a child’s control. She said: “Chances are, in terms of how it’s been used in our experience, by teachers and parents, this is usually done at home or online with a peer and so not recorded.”
In another worksheet it is stated that virginity does not exist. “The idea of virginity is made up by society. It is not fixed in any biological facts. The writer and activist Dr Hanne Blank asserts ‘virginity does not exist’.
“In recent years, thanks to researchers and activists, we as a society have started to correct our damaging views on virginity and sex, but we still have some way to go.”
The exercise then invites pupils to discuss whether “virginity is a damaging social construct”.
Tanya Carter, from the campaign group Safe Schools Alliance, said: “Some people quite sensibly take the view that you don’t want this big focus on virginity, with children thinking it’s something they have to lose. But discussing virginity in school can also be used to say that it is quite alright to be having sex under-age.
“What we’d like to see in schools is much more concentration on the age of consent and how it’s for their benefit. When you are dealing with children, you want to concentrate much more on the facts.”
Lucy Marsh, a spokesman for the Family Education Trust, said: “Virginity is not a social construct. It is something to be cherished. Schools should not be allowing these third-party providers to come in and promote things like this to children.”
SSE has removed biographies of the team who run the school workshops from its website after some parents objected to their links with the adult sex industry.
Workshop facilitators have included Almaz Ohene, a freelance journalist who writes erotic fiction for adults, and Nadia Deen, a sex educator who is “working on a line of sex toys, set to revolutionise your toy drawer for ever”. Deen’s previous roles include managing mail orders for a sex shop in east London.
Another facilitator, Emma Chan, is a doctor who blogs about sex toys and masturbation. Their personal websites, which contained links to pornography and other sexually explicit adult content, have been removed from the SSE website.
• Head teachers of prestigious schools held a conference to discuss trans children in schools and their legal obligations, as part of a wider discussion on diversity.
HMC, whose 250 members include Eton, Harrow and Roedean, were addressed by Bobbi Pickard, chief executive of Trans in the City. She told them about the “gifts that trans people bring to society” and told schools how they could “celebrate trans diversity without prejudice or fear” to make schools places where everyone can flourish.
She urged heads to be more supportive, denied that children were being pressured into taking puberty-blocking drugs and said that in the tiny minority of cases when children were given drugs, it gave them space and time to think. Pickard, a trans woman, said she had experienced menopause, misogyny, mansplaining and harassment.
Heads were also given advice by a leading barrister, Dan Squires KC, about the legal framework governing trans children in schools, whether schools were legally required to treat children as the gender in which they identified and the law around the exclusion and admissions of trans children from single-sex schools.
Sex lesson provider urges children to become ‘activists’Charity in row with parent also claims that virginity doesn’t exist
A sex education provider which argues that there is no such thing as virginity is encouraging pupils to become activists of the future, documents reveal.
The School of Sexuality Education earns most of its income by providing relationship and sex education lessons to primary and secondary schools.
The London-based charity is in a legal dispute with Clare Page, a parent who became concerned over the allegedly “contentious theories being taught as fact” in a lesson the organisation gave to her teenage daughter.
The group has refused to tell Page who taught her daughter or what the lesson entailed, saying that to reveal such commercially sensitive information would harm its business.
Government guidance says that parents should be able to see all teaching materials, even when the lessons are provided by third parties.
Dolly Padalia, chief executive of the organisation, has denied that the group’s lessons on sex, gender and identity promote any partisan or political views. However, examples of SSE teaching materials seen by The Times, encourage youngsters to become “activists”.
It states: “Using what you have seen, read and thought about so far, think about what you and your communities could do to celebrate sex-positivity and sexual diversity. You could even chat about this with friends over Snapchat/FaceTime to try to make some activist plans for the future!”
Other SSE material encourages children to continue classroom conversations about sex on to private video calls and online platforms, such as TikTok, Snapchat and Facetime.
“Why not try turning all of your points so far into a quickfire asexuality explainer video for Tiktok?” suggests one activity.
“Arrange a Zoom/Facetime/Snapchat with a group of friends and discuss what you would like to be included in your sex and relationships education classes,” says another.
The charity claims that the worksheets were developed as an extra resource during lockdown and do not form part of its curriculum.
At a tribunal hearing this week, Padalia denied there was a safeguarding risk that these conversations could be recorded, leaked and circulated beyond a child’s control. She said: “Chances are, in terms of how it’s been used in our experience, by teachers and parents, this is usually done at home or online with a peer and so not recorded.”
In another worksheet it is stated that virginity does not exist. “The idea of virginity is made up by society. It is not fixed in any biological facts. The writer and activist Dr Hanne Blank asserts ‘virginity does not exist’.
“In recent years, thanks to researchers and activists, we as a society have started to correct our damaging views on virginity and sex, but we still have some way to go.”
The exercise then invites pupils to discuss whether “virginity is a damaging social construct”.
Tanya Carter, from the campaign group Safe Schools Alliance, said: “Some people quite sensibly take the view that you don’t want this big focus on virginity, with children thinking it’s something they have to lose. But discussing virginity in school can also be used to say that it is quite alright to be having sex under-age.
“What we’d like to see in schools is much more concentration on the age of consent and how it’s for their benefit. When you are dealing with children, you want to concentrate much more on the facts.”
Lucy Marsh, a spokesman for the Family Education Trust, said: “Virginity is not a social construct. It is something to be cherished. Schools should not be allowing these third-party providers to come in and promote things like this to children.”
SSE has removed biographies of the team who run the school workshops from its website after some parents objected to their links with the adult sex industry.
Workshop facilitators have included Almaz Ohene, a freelance journalist who writes erotic fiction for adults, and Nadia Deen, a sex educator who is “working on a line of sex toys, set to revolutionise your toy drawer for ever”. Deen’s previous roles include managing mail orders for a sex shop in east London.
Another facilitator, Emma Chan, is a doctor who blogs about sex toys and masturbation. Their personal websites, which contained links to pornography and other sexually explicit adult content, have been removed from the SSE website.
• Head teachers of prestigious schools held a conference to discuss trans children in schools and their legal obligations, as part of a wider discussion on diversity.
HMC, whose 250 members include Eton, Harrow and Roedean, were addressed by Bobbi Pickard, chief executive of Trans in the City. She told them about the “gifts that trans people bring to society” and told schools how they could “celebrate trans diversity without prejudice or fear” to make schools places where everyone can flourish.
She urged heads to be more supportive, denied that children were being pressured into taking puberty-blocking drugs and said that in the tiny minority of cases when children were given drugs, it gave them space and time to think. Pickard, a trans woman, said she had experienced menopause, misogyny, mansplaining and harassment.
Heads were also given advice by a leading barrister, Dan Squires KC, about the legal framework governing trans children in schools, whether schools were legally required to treat children as the gender in which they identified and the law around the exclusion and admissions of trans children from single-sex schools.