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This may be a controversial perspective but we absolutely should be teaching younger kids about the basics of masturbation because kids do it without realising.
It's one of the 1st things I learned during my sex ed course - kids self pleasure & they don't even realise. 1/? https://twitter.com/BBCNewsbeat/status/1356620127563898882
It's one of the 1st things I learned during my sex ed course - kids self pleasure & they don't even realise. 1/? https://twitter.com/BBCNewsbeat/status/1356620127563898882
Parents often react to finding their child experimenting by shaming or punishing them, which reinforces shameful stigma around masturbation/genitals etc. Teaching what masturbation is ensures they are appropriate in public & understand that pleasure is natural. 2/?
Plus it's important part of consent education because it teaches them to respect other people's boundaries & space with privacy.
Obviously teaching very young children about sex toys is a big no but teaching them about pleasure as a broader topic 3/?
Obviously teaching very young children about sex toys is a big no but teaching them about pleasure as a broader topic 3/?
(ie hugs are pleasurable, eating things we like is pleasurable) is a great way of creating a foundation to build on for sex/consent education. This is especially important for young girls because they deal with an extra helping of shame simply for having a vagina/vulva.
We have to stop with the vulva erasure in sex ed and listen to educators who have been trying to introduce more expansive sex education into the curriculum for decades and have been ignored (again!) In the latest update with the complete exclusion of pleasure for all age groups!
Just so we're clear on this the word pleasure is not mentioned a single time in the entirety of the new sex education curriculum. This is disastrous. The inclusion of consent in the update is monumental but we have a long way to go before we have effective sex ed in schools.
